The temperature around Saiki dropped to sub-zero. The heavy air seemed to solidify into a physical weight. He slowly lifted his head, his eyes turning into twin abysses of freezing darkness as he locked onto Hiruzen.
"Are you... threatening me?" Saiki's voice was a low, vibrating growl, each word sounding like it was being ground out of a stone mill.
Hiruzen had survived wars and faced gods, yet he felt a primal shiver dance down his spine. The sheer volume of killing intent rolling off Saiki was suffocating. For a heartbeat, a flicker of profound regret for his "impulse" entered his mind.
But he suppressed it instantly. The shame of being afraid of a child was too much for his ego. To prove his "courage," Hiruzen hardened his gaze and repeated the threat. "Saiki Shiroya! Abandon this futile resistance! You cannot escape tonight. If you don't want Nono'u and every child in that orphanage to pay for your crimes, drop your weapon and surrender. I give you my word they will not be harmed."
Because Saiki had been holding back for the sake of the women, the battle had looked competitive, giving Hiruzen the delusion that he was actually winning.
"Your 'word'? What is your word worth? Am I supposed to thank you for your 'mercy'?" Saiki let out a sharp, jagged laugh.
His contemptuous tone triggered Koharu Utatane. She stepped forward, screaming like a banshee, "You arrogant brat! Surrender now or you and that whore both die!"
Saiki was a "salted fish." Aside from collecting beautiful women, he didn't care about money, power, or fame. He just wanted to live his life in peace.
Power, to him, was an obligation he didn't want to carry. But sometimes, being exceptional meant that even if you didn't look for trouble, trouble would kick your door down.
Saiki couldn't force everyone to be as "Zen" as he was.
Human nature is a cesspool of greed.
If you are weak, they ignore you. But once you have value, they will covet you, hate you, and try to strip everything from you just to feel superior.
Saiki realized that he had been too soft. He had been raised with a modern moral compass and had subconsciously assumed that even in this hellish world, people still had a shred of decency.
But looking at the twisted, ugly faces of Hiruzen and the Elders, his final "bottom line" shattered. The killing intent he had been suppressing exploded like a supernova.
"You ugly old hag... do you want to die that badly?" Saiki's gaze returned to Koharu. His voice was flat again, but it was the look of a predator staring at a piece of meat.
A woman—no matter how old or powerful—always cares about her appearance.
Being called an "ugly old hag" by a handsome boy struck Koharu in her most vulnerable spot. She was the matriarch of an elite clan and a Village Elder; no one had dared speak to her like that in forty years. She absolutely lost her mind.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?! You little piece of shit! MEN! GRAB THAT WOMAN AND BRING HER TO ME!" Koharu shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at Nono'u.
The operatives moving toward Nono'u weren't just Anbu; they were members of Koharu's personal clan guard. Not everyone had the Hokage's authority, so the Elders relied on their own families for "private" matters.
They say a dragon has a reverse scale—touch it, and you die. Because Danzo threatened Nono'u, Saiki had erased Root. Now, these fossils were trying to put hands on her. Saiki officially cut the brakes.
Hiruzen Sarutobi was a legendary warrior. Combined with the Adamantine Staff and Saiki's refusal to use Senjutsu slashes, the Hokage had been a formidable wall.
But diplomacy was over. Saiki didn't care what happened to the world anymore. He was going to kill them all.
For the first time in his life, Saiki launched a full-scale offensive. He reached into his core and drew upon the "True Sage" chakra he had been hoarding for over a year. His entire physiology began to undergo a divine transmutation.
Saiki was entering his True Sage Mode.
This wasn't a standard transformation. Saiki's Senjutsu chakra was of a higher dimensional tier than even Six Paths chakra. Entering this state granted Saiki a "Six Paths Experience Card" that was entirely off the charts.
He lacked the raw chakra mass of a Ten-Tails Jinchuriki like Madara, but in terms of pure quality and potency, he was now on the same level as Tenseigan-Chakra-Mode Toneri.
As the Senjutsu chakra flooded his meridians, Saiki's hair turned a brilliant, absolute white. His clothes, pants, and boots were bleached by the aura, and his pale skin began to emit a soft, ethereal radiance.
The chakra condensed around his body, forming a flowing white raiment of pure energy—lacking only the magatama symbols of a true Sage of Six Paths.
"What... what is this power?"
Staring at the transformation, Hiruzen, Homura, and the others were paralyzed by a sense of existential dread. They had never witnessed a chakra signature this foreign, this ancient, and this overwhelmingly pure.
Every hair on Saiki's body, down to his eyebrows and lashes, was now a pristine white.
Fortunately, his eyes didn't develop the "ugly" cross-shaped pupils of standard Sage Mode, nor did he gain the hideous orange eye-shadow.
His bright eyes began to glow with a faint, internal white light, giving him an aura of celestial detachment and absolute authority.
Saiki had finally manifested his true self—a being that did not belong to this world. He was the picture of a true Immortal.
His empty, glowing eyes swept over the clearing, seemingly peering through the very fabric of reality to see the rot beneath.
He took a single step forward. The sheer weight of his presence caused the spatial coordinates of the forest to ripple and groan.
"You chose this path yourselves," Saiki said. His voice was melodic and calm, yet it carried a bone-chilling cold that seemed to freeze the blood in their veins.
Saiki's aura had always been perfectly restrained, unlike the Tailed Beasts who leaked energy like a sieve.
But in his Sage form, even his "restraint" was a heavy, physical pressure. Anyone with a shred of sensory ability for miles around felt the world tilt on its axis.
"What is happening?! What is that power?!"
In the Hyuga, Uchiha, Nara, and Akimichi compounds, the heads of the great clans all snapped their heads toward the forest, their faces pale with shock.
The moment Saiki's power exploded, the seal he had placed on Tsunade finally buckled. Saiki's Senjutsu chakra was potent, but Tsunade was a Sannin in her prime. Feeling the familiar, overwhelming surge of energy, she realized something had gone horribly wrong.
She didn't care about being hunted by the Hokage anymore. She blurred into motion, racing out of the ruins toward the forest.
In the clearing, even Hiruzen was pinned by the sheer weight of Saiki's aura. When Saiki finally moved, no one's eyes were fast enough to track him.
In a blur that looked like literal teleportation, Saiki appeared directly in front of Koharu Utatane. He swung 'Thunderstorm' in a single, effortless arc, passed through her, and continued his charge toward Homura Mitokado.
Saiki's blade was so fast that Koharu didn't even realize she was dead. She stood there for a heartbeat, her mouth open to scream, before a hair-thin crimson line appeared around her throat. Her head slid from her neck, and her body collapsed like a sack of wet flour.
Saiki had a rule about not killing women, but exceptions had to be made for "trash."
He had initially intended to just cripple Hiruzen and the others, but he had reconsidered.
Was their martial power the true threat?
No. Saiki didn't fear their fists; he feared their authority.
Political power was a product of violence and psychological conditioning. Even if he broke their bodies, they would use their positions to harass him, threaten his loved ones, and make his life a living hell.
Slighting them only made them more vengeful. Saiki hated "trouble," and the only way to permanently solve a political problem was to remove the source of the authority.
When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. No matter how much political leverage they had, it meant nothing once they were corpses.
If the surviving clans of the Elders—the Sarutobi, the Shimura, the Mitokado, and the Utatane—tried to seek revenge, Saiki made a silent vow to commit a total genocide of their lineages.
He was a "salted fish" at heart, but if you interrupted his nap, he would become a nightmare.