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A pair of eyes with white lines, containing a purple radiance within. The very first glance was enough to feel the extraordinary aura emanating from them.
But unlike the Mangekyo—which, when activated, would flash with a relatively obvious crimson light, as if heralding the arrival of misfortune—these purple eyes also emitted a purple glow, but it wasn't intense. It was as if it had been restrained and drawn inward.
If one looked closely at that purple radiance, one might feel that it seemed to harbor an immense, awe-inspiring power, as if it were the very center of the world. But if one didn't pay attention, they would simply find these eyes uniquely shaped and unremarkable.
The Mangekyo was like an arrogant, domineering tyrant, while these eyes were like a mature, steady old man.
Moreover, because the pupil shrank toward the center, surrounded by ring after ring of white circles, outsiders could read absolutely nothing from these eyes. It was as if they were a pair of eyes that would forever remain tranquil and serene.
"So... so beautiful, Kagaya-nii."
Yuki spoke in a daze. It was her first time seeing the Rinnegan, and she was indeed mesmerized by the purple radiance it emitted.
Kagaya ruffled Yuki's hair.
"Half the credit for these eyes goes to you."
That was the truth. If Yuki hadn't used Izanagi to extend his life at the very end, Kagaya could never have held on long enough to awaken the Rinnegan.
The Power of the World was still surging in. Having obtained the Rinnegan, Kagaya's strength had increased dramatically. He could once again slow the arrival of death. But that was all. Even with the Rinnegan, he couldn't resist the Power of the World's execution.
The system had said that this world's Power of the World was at least at the Six Paths level or higher. And even with the Rinnegan, Kagaya could only be considered half a Six Paths-level figure—not even a true Six Paths-level. How could he possibly resist the Power of the World?
He sat down before Yuki and beckoned for her to sit as well. He was about to settle his final affairs.
Yuki obediently sat down in front of Kagaya.
Kagaya spoke.
"Do you know what Tailed Beasts are?"
Yuki shook her head.
"Tailed Beasts? What are those? I don't know."
Kagaya thought to himself, "As expected." The shinobi of this era were still in a stage of focusing on developing their clans and researching ninjutsu. They hadn't even started wars yet. At this point, they probably hadn't had the time to search for things like Tailed Beasts. Besides, the Tailed Beasts also avoided humans. If shinobi didn't go looking, it was very hard for people to encounter them.
"Tailed Beasts are... well, if I explain in detail, it'll probably take quite a while. I don't think I have that much time. Just think of a Tailed Beast simply as a massive monster with a massive amount of chakra. That understanding isn't entirely correct, but it isn't wrong either. Let's leave it at that for now."
Yuki listened attentively and nodded.
Kagaya continued.
"Inside my body, there's a sealed Tailed Beast. Mm... calling it 'sealed' isn't quite right either. More like—a Tailed Beast lives inside me. After I die, it will emerge from my body. At that time, if you run into any trouble, you can go to it for help. But remember—don't bring it to fight against shinobi with the Mangekyo. There's a reason for that too. If you're interested, let that Tailed Beast explain it to you later. I won't waste time on it now. Let's move on to the next matter. You should already know that the Impure World Reincarnation requires a living person as a sacrifice, right? After all, I've taught you everything about it. After I die, once you've fully mastered the Impure World Reincarnation, find a sacrifice and prepare to resurrect me. If you're too soft-hearted, you can find some wicked, evil person to use as a sacrifice. If you can't beat them, you can ask the Tailed Beast I just mentioned for help. It's very strong. Barring special circumstances, there should be practically no human in this era who can defeat it."
If Kagaya wanted to be resurrected through the Impure World Reincarnation, a sacrifice was definitely necessary. As for using another person's life to exchange for his own... how should he put it? All Kagaya could do was offer a guilt-ridden apology. As for stopping—that was impossible. In this shinobi era, the death of a single person was far too normal. One more or one less made no difference.
If one day, someone managed to take Kagaya's life through their own skill to save their own... Kagaya wouldn't complain. That was simply how this shinobi world was. As a shinobi, if you couldn't kill others, you would be killed.
Next, Kagaya emphasized some key points about the Impure World Reincarnation to Yuki.
Finally, after saying everything, Kagaya smiled once more and spoke.
"Once again, thank you, Yuki."
The debt of a single Mangekyo was no small matter.
Kagaya didn't say how he would repay it. He kept it all in his heart. He wouldn't forget. Setting everything else aside, once Kagaya was resurrected through the Impure World Reincarnation, protecting Yuki for the rest of her life would be no problem at all.
The Power of the World continued its frenzied assault. It wanted to strangle the anomaly within its body—Kagaya.
Very quickly, it succeeded. Kagaya's vital signs grew weaker and weaker, until they vanished entirely.
Yuki didn't feel sorrow. Instead, she smiled. This time, she didn't call out for Kagaya to stand up again. Because she saw it clearly—on Kagaya's face, there was a satisfied smile.
"Good night, Kagaya-nii! I'll wake you very soon. Sleep well."
Her voice was very soft, as if she truly believed Kagaya was only sleeping and was afraid of waking him.
So gentle...
Darkness. Darkness.
All consciousness vanished. In the world after death, there was no concept of time.
After an unknown length of time—or perhaps time had never flowed at all—light once again filled his vision. Kagaya opened his eyes and saw two familiar figures.
"Mother... Father?"
His words were full of uncertainty. But very quickly, a smile appeared on Kagaya's face.
Right. This must be the Pure Land from Naruto—the place where the souls of the dead went. He was no exception.
"Mother! Father!"
Kagaya rushed toward them. At least, before his resurrection, he wanted to properly bask in this long-missed warmth.
In the real world.
In the middle of a desert, a great gust of wind blew past, revealing a sharp corner. Very quickly, the sand and wind blew once more, burying that corner again.
In truth, that corner was a part of a coffin exposed by the wind. It lay buried beneath the sand, protected by a faint layer of chakra that kept it from rotting. Yet even so, the rot on this coffin was still very severe—and this was with chakra protection.
No one knew how long this coffin had endured. No one had ever discovered it. Although it carried a faint chakra, the thick sand burying it made it utterly impossible to detect through sensory perception.
And inside the coffin—within this unknown, forgotten coffin—a body full of cracks lay quietly.
This person looked exactly like Kagaya! No—it WAS Kagaya! The Kagaya resurrected through the Impure World Reincarnation!
Everything seemed to be prepared and complete. Only one final step remained—guiding Kagaya's soul into this body. That way, Kagaya would be resurrected.
But for some unknown reason, no one ever came to perform this final step. Kagaya's Impure World Reincarnation body, along with its coffin, lay buried in this desert for hundreds of years.
Yes—hundreds of years! From the time of Kagaya's death until now, hundreds of years had passed. This vast stretch of time had even crossed the Warring States era and the Third Great Ninja War!
At the time of Kagaya's death, the Uchiha were still in their era of Mangekyo strife. But now, the Five Great Villages had already been established, and three Great Ninja Wars had already been fought.
What an impossibly long stretch of time!
But Kagaya was completely unaware of any of this. The world after death had no concept of time. There was no way for Kagaya to know how long had passed in the real world. Perhaps, in the world after death where Kagaya currently was, only a few seconds had passed.
Yuki and the others must have encountered some unforeseen accident that left Kagaya's coffin buried beneath this desert. However, hundreds of years later, Yuki and the others had probably long since passed away. There was no one left to explain what had happened.
Time continued to flow.
This was a parallel world of Naruto. Unaffected by Kagaya, initially, everything had developed just as in the original story.
The Third Great Ninja War ended. Minato was elected Hokage. Orochimaru defected from the Leaf. Kushina became pregnant. The Nine-Tails rampaged. A whole series of events began to unfold.
All the way until the period between Leaf Year 60 and Leaf Year 61.
During this period, Naruto and Sasuke were twelve years old and participated in the Chunin Exams. At the same time, Orochimaru launched the Leaf Destruction Plan just as in the original story.
But regarding Kagaya's matters, the timeline needed to be pulled back a little.
Half a year before the Leaf Destruction Plan was launched.
With a pale face and purple eyeshadow, Orochimaru, dressed in white robes with a thick rope tied around his waist, arrived in the middle of a desert.
Gazing at the endless desert, Orochimaru sighed helplessly.
"My, my... searching for someone in a desert is no easy task. But no matter. I just hope that legend is true. After all, it's a legend that has been passed down along with the very origin of the Impure World Reincarnation."
This time, Orochimaru wanted to invade the Leaf Village and planned to use the forbidden technique—the Impure World Reincarnation. So he had been researching this ninjutsu constantly. In fact, he had been researching it long before now.
The Impure World Reincarnation had been invented by an Uchiha ancestor in the extremely distant past and passed down.
Yes—in this parallel universe, up until now, everything was the same as the original story. There was only one difference: the inventor of the Impure World Reincarnation wasn't Tobirama of the Warring States era, but an even earlier Uchiha ancestor. Then, during the Warring States era, after the founding of the Leaf Village, it had been further refined by Tobirama and brought to completion.
Orochimaru had stolen this technique from the Leaf's forbidden jutsu. Originally, he had planned to resurrect the legendary First and Second Hokage. But while researching the Impure World Reincarnation, Orochimaru discovered something interesting—a legend that had circulated among the Uchiha's upper echelons. If the Uchiha hadn't been annihilated, Orochimaru would never have been able to learn of this legend.
It was precisely because of the Uchiha's annihilation that Orochimaru had been able to collect materials that would have been utterly impossible to obtain before.
According to the legend, the Uchiha ancestor who had invented the Impure World Reincarnation was the first person ever to be resurrected by it. However, for certain reasons, the resurrection had not been completed. And the coffin of that Uchiha ancestor who had invented the Impure World Reincarnation was still buried somewhere underground to this day. That Uchiha ancestor was said to have been extraordinarily powerful. In some less-than-reliable versions of the legend, it even described him single-handedly defeating over a dozen Mangekyo wielders.
Having witnessed the power of Itachi's Mangekyo, Orochimaru didn't believe a single word of those unreliable legends. But he did believe that the Uchiha ancestor couldn't be weak.
If it were just some widely circulated legend, Orochimaru couldn't be bothered to verify each one. But this legend—one that had only circulated among the Uchiha's upper echelons and had been kept under strict secrecy—naturally carried a higher degree of authenticity. Orochimaru was extremely interested. He also wanted to meet the inventor of the Impure World Reincarnation.
However, the legend only said that the Uchiha ancestor had been buried underground. It didn't specify exactly where. The world was so vast—you couldn't possibly search every single place, could you?
That was also why the Uchiha upper echelons had kept this secret but never acted on it.
But Orochimaru was unwilling to give up. He displayed an extremely high thirst for knowledge. Starting a year ago, Orochimaru had been collecting materials related to the Uchiha. He mobilized all his connections, even doing some dirty work for Danzo that he didn't want to do. Finally, he found a crucial piece of information—based on several vague records, Orochimaru deduced the location of the ancient Uchiha clan grounds. And that location... was at the edge of the desert where Orochimaru now stood.
Hundreds of years ago, this place seemed to have been a dense forest. But after hundreds of years, it had been assimilated by the desert and become the desert's edge.
On the map, this location was roughly west of the Leaf Village and east of the Hidden Sand. Geographically, it was closer to the Leaf—which also matched the future history of the Uchiha and Senju founding the Leaf Village.
After repeated confirmations, Orochimaru finally determined—if that legend was true, then the possibility that the Uchiha ancestor was buried beneath this desert was very high!
Only someone like Orochimaru—a researcher of immense talent, willing to spend enormous amounts of time, possessing vast connections, and with the Uchiha having been annihilated—could have found this legend and deduced a general location.
It was a miracle. No one else could have accomplished what Orochimaru had.
Countless small snakes began surging out of Orochimaru's body, burrowing into every corner of the desert, searching for the legendary coffin of the Uchiha ancestor.
Orochimaru did not use chakra sensory perception. He knew very well that it would be impossible. If it could be detected with chakra sensing, then over the past few hundred years, even if no one had searched deliberately, someone would surely have passed by unintentionally and sensed it.
Since that had never happened, it meant that chakra sensing alone could not detect the Uchiha ancestor's coffin.
So Orochimaru adopted another method—sending snakes directly into the desert to search.
It was the crudest method, but also the one least likely to fail.
"Heh heh heh. I do hope this isn't a false legend. Ancestor of the Uchiha... I'm very much looking forward to meeting you."
Orochimaru found a shaded spot and sat down, quietly waiting for his snakes to discover something unusual and report back to him.
Beneath a certain part of the desert, a coffin lay quietly. Kagaya's Impure World Reincarnation body lay inside. Beside him were two small bottles, each containing a Rinnegan soaked in green liquid.
From Kagaya's abdomen, chakra continuously radiated outward, flowing into the two green bottles, nurturing the two Rinnegan.
Suddenly, the chakra from his abdomen paused for a moment. No one could see it, but within this body, a slumbering giant beast suddenly opened its eyes.
"Who's there?"
It had sensed an anomaly.