Another wave of explosive revelations.
For every diary holder, the amount of information packed into this entry was overwhelming.
They could not directly feel just how terrifying Akatsuki truly was, but simply looking at its members told them more than enough. One of the Legendary Sannin, the infamous Orochimaru, was nothing more than an ordinary member.
Uchiha Itachi, the man who slaughtered his entire clan, was one of them. So was Kirigakure's S-rank missing-nin, Hoshigaki Kisame. Even the founding ancestor of Konoha himself, Uchiha Madara, was counted among their ranks.
And yet, in Kaede Kitahara's words, Akatsuki was still not as frightening as Kara.
Just how terrifying did that make Kara?
"Akatsuki's leader is Nagato? But the one with the Rinnegan is Yahiko, isn't it?" Jiraiya stared at the diary, unable to make sense of it.
In his memories, Yahiko had always been the leader of the trio. Nagato was the quiet kid who followed along behind him, and Konan had always stood on Yahiko's side as well.
By all logic, Yahiko was the core of the group. If an organization like Akatsuki had formed from that trio, its leader should never have been Nagato.
Not to mention that the Rinnegan, which originally belonged to Nagato, had been transplanted into Yahiko. That alone made the whole situation feel even more impossible.
So what on earth had happened in between?
And then there was this so-called Super Kage Level.
Jiraiya could not quite grasp Kaede's system for categorizing kage-level strength.
Below kage level, the divisions were clear. Genin, elite genin, chunin, elite chunin, tokubetsu jonin, elite jonin.
But once it came to kage level, it was a blank space. Most people did not even have a concrete concept of kage level. They simply referred to such figures as the kage of each village.
Even the terms Kage Level and Strong Kage Level were concepts proposed by Kaede himself. As for Super Kage Level, it was even more vague.
The benchmark for that tier was Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama, the two men said to have pacified the warring era. They were placed squarely in the Super Kage Level category.
And now Nagato had already touched that threshold.
In simple terms, that meant Nagato now possessed the power to pacify an era as well.
Yet judging from the limited footage of Uchiha Madara actually fighting, it did not seem that incredible. He even lost an arm dealing with Shimura Danzo's bodyguards. Sure, calmly tearing off a white arm was unsettling and impressive, but was that really so overwhelming?
Most of them did not believe it.
His combat performance looked underwhelming. The only truly frightening thing was that mysterious ability to freely enter another space.
Clearly, as the age of chaos faded into the past, aside from old-timers like the Third Tsuchikage Onoki, who had truly witnessed Uchiha Madara in action and seen how he suppressed the major villages and forced them to accept Senju Hashirama's ideals of peace, no one else had really seen the God of Shinobi or the Ninja World Asura fight.
Even Sarutobi Hiruzen had not.
After all, Uchiha Madara left Konoha in its second year, and that same year, Sarutobi Hiruzen was only seven years old.
Everyone knew Senju Hashirama was strong. Everyone believed Uchiha Madara was strong too. But how strong, exactly, was hard to say.
That was why Hanzo could claim the title of Demigod without anyone objecting. Sarutobi Hiruzen was even hailed as the strongest Hokage in history. While there was certainly some self-praise involved, it also stemmed from the lack of a clear understanding of Hashirama's true strength.
So for Jiraiya, what did Super Kage Level actually represent?
Had Hanzo, the so-called Demigod, reached that realm back then?
If Hanzo were used as the reference point, then a Nagato who had stepped into that same domain truly was terrifying.
"No, that comparison is wrong," Jiraiya realized immediately.
It was simple.
If Hanzo truly belonged to the Super Kage Level, that meant Nagato was, at best, roughly equal to him.
Then could Yahiko, who ranked below Nagato, really flatten Konoha with a single attack?
Obviously not.
If Hanzo had possessed that kind of power, the Land of Rain would have become the sixth great nation long ago. He would not have merely granted the three of them the title of the Legendary Sannin after defeating them.
For Jiraiya and the others, that title was a lifelong humiliation. But for Hanzo himself, was it not also humiliating?
The battlefield had been pushed to his doorstep. He defeated a few young geniuses, yet dared not kill them. Instead, he bestowed a title that helped make them famous.
The reason was simple.
He feared Konoha.
He feared the man who still sat in Konoha without ever taking the field, Sarutobi Hiruzen.
But if Uchiha Madara was taken as the standard, then Super Kage Level did not seem so unattainable after all.
Was it that Madara had never gone all out? Or was the current Madara simply no longer at his peak?
That old monster had clearly twisted his body into something neither human nor ghost just to survive until now. That had to have affected his strength.
Compared to Jiraiya, who was more concerned about Nagato, Uchiha Itachi's focus lay elsewhere.
Kara.
Because he was inside Akatsuki, he knew better than anyone just how terrifying it was. Any one of its members, if released without Konoha being prepared, could devastate the village with ease.
And yet, in Kaede's words, Akatsuki still fell short of Kara.
Otsutsuki.
That name again.
Kaede had mentioned this clan over and over.
At first, Itachi had assumed it was some Kekkei Genkai clan he had never heard of. But now Kaede had made it perfectly clear. This was a race that roamed the stars, invincible across the cosmos.
Piloting giant mechs, fighting aliens?
Itachi suddenly recalled something Kaede had mentioned earlier in the diary. In that instant, it clicked.
He still did not know what piloting giant mechs meant, but fighting aliens was obvious enough.
The Otsutsuki Clan, capable of traversing interstellar space, were the aliens.
Which meant that, in Kaede's mind, the greatest threat had never been the shinobi world itself, but these beings from beyond the sky.
If Kara already existed, then the Otsutsuki Clan had long since infiltrated the shinobi world, lying in wait.
An external race hiding within the shinobi world could not possibly have benign intentions toward humanity.
Just thinking about it from his own perspective, even among members of the same race, the motives behind sending spies were obvious to everyone.
And then there was the point Kaede had made earlier. Naruto and Sasuke were future saviors. At their peak, they were supposed to be unimaginably strong, strong enough to save the world.
Yet even that peak combination was beaten senseless, their defenses shattered.
Not mentally.
Physically.
Kaede had even described Otsutsuki Isshiki as being utterly invincible.
Utterly invincible.
Among all the conclusions Kaede had drawn so far, this was by far the most horrifying.
"Otsutsuki Isshiki was taken down by Otsutsuki Kaguya. That means, for some unknown reason, the Otsutsuki Clan turned on itself. Even a clan this powerful can fall into internal conflict?"
Itachi pondered this quietly.
From this angle, it was good news for the shinobi world.
And it seemed the Otsutsuki Clan was not invading the shinobi world for the first time. They had been repelled before. In other words, their schemes had already been thwarted once by someone in this world.
So the question was, when had the Otsutsuki arrived?
And who had defeated them?
The God of Shinobi, Senju Hashirama?
The Ninja World Asura, Uchiha Madara?
Or someone even further back, the Sage of Six Paths from ancient legend?
Come to think of it, did the legends of the Sage of Six Paths not speak of a great battle against a powerful god that lasted for months?
Could that god have been an Otsutsuki?
Itachi's thoughts spiraled.
He was finally beginning to understand what Kaede was truly worried about.
The more you knew, the more terrifying it became.
And Kaede, without question, knew the most. Which meant his fear was probably the most justified of all.
"So the future shinobi world will still face a threat from Kara's leader. A threat so powerful that even Naruto and Sasuke at their peak could not handle it?
Is that what Kaede calls Super Kage Level?
If that is the enemy they must face, is relying on Sasuke alone really enough?"
Itachi murmured to himself.
He realized that he had underestimated the complexity of the entire shinobi world. From the very beginning, he had not even considered things like this.
In his original plan, everything was simple. He would let Uchiha Sasuke kill him, then Sasuke would return to Konoha as a hero, rebuild his life, and revive the Uchiha Clan.
Now he saw how naive that had been.
Not only had Sasuke completely deviated from his plan, but the enemies waiting in the future might be far more terrifying than he had ever imagined.
He quickly began flipping back through the diary, focusing on the repeated mentions of the Otsutsuki.
The earliest appearance was Otsutsuki Ichiraku, the owner of Ichiraku Ramen.
It was hard to imagine that a ramen vendor could be an Otsutsuki.
But Kaede had clearly been joking there, so that claim was questionable at best.
The next thing Kaede had mentioned about the Otsutsuki Clan was one ability that defied all reason.
Karma.
The Cursed Seal developed by Orochimaru, which allowed for repeated reincarnation, had been described by Kaede as nothing more than a bargain-bin version of Karma.