The noisy chaos died in an instant, and the entire area fell into a suffocating silence.
Ryūjin sat calmly on the back of the Three-Tails as if he were riding a pet instead of a Tailed Beast. His posture was relaxed, almost bored, as though nothing here could threaten him.
Yagura, Mei Terumī, and the others stared at him with shock, anger, and a trace of fear.
None of them understood what Ryūjin was planning. Worse, none of them had the strength to stop him, and even trying to slip away to call for help felt impossible under the pressure he gave off.
To prevent any interference, Ryūjin simply waved a hand and swept everyone into the Kamui Dimension.
Yahiko and Konan were not spared either.
Their sense of justice was running too high. If they saw him dealing with the Three-Tails, they would definitely try to stop him, and Ryūjin had no interest in arguing with idealists right now.
Only Kisame Hoshigaki remained beside him.
Out of everyone present, Kisame was the only one who truly did not care what Ryūjin planned to do with the Three-Tails.
"First time I've seen the Three-Tails this close," Kisame muttered as he walked over slowly and looked the beast up and down. "Ugly thing."
"Insolent human! You dare mock me?" the Three-Tails roared, its eyes blazing with fury.
Kisame snorted. "You sound like a stray dog trying to act important."
After watching Obito enslave a jinchūriki and now seeing Ryūjin treat a Tailed Beast like nothing more than an animal, whatever reverence Kisame once had for the tailed beasts had completely disappeared.
"Still, my lord, why leave it here instead of taking it with you?" Kisame asked, curiosity finally getting the better of him.
"You wouldn't understand even if I explained it," Ryūjin replied with a casual shrug.
Kisame did not press the matter. He simply rested Samehada on his shoulder and waited quietly.
Half an hour passed in silence.
Then a voice echoed inside Ryūjin's mind.
[Ding! Isobu location marker created]
Ryūjin stood up lazily and brushed the dust from his clothes as if nothing important had just happened.
With a single thought, he released everyone from the Kamui Dimension.
Yagura, Mei Terumī, and the others appeared instantly, tense and wary, watching him as if he might attack at any second.
"Release, Sacred Gates."
Ryūjin clapped his hands lightly.
In the next moment, the red torii gates that had been pinning the Three-Tails in place vanished one after another.
The enormous beast was free again.
"Three-Tails is yours again, Yagura. No need for me to seal it, right?" Ryūjin said, glancing over casually.
Yagura froze in place.
He could not understand what was happening. After going through all that trouble to subdue the Three-Tails, Ryūjin was simply giving it back?
What kind of logic was that?
Was this some kind of trap?
Mei Terumī and Hōzuki Mangetsu also watched carefully, their expressions filled with suspicion.
Ryūjin simply shook his head, completely uninterested in what they were thinking. Every village had its own sealing methods. What they did with the Three-Tails had nothing to do with him.
"Kisame, let's go."
He did not bother to say anything else to Yagura. He turned and walked away with the lazy confidence of someone who knew nobody here could stop him.
Kisame laughed softly, lifted Samehada onto his back, and followed behind him without hesitation.
Yagura, Mei Terumī, and the others exchanged glances, but no one dared to move. They could only watch the two figures leave.
The stranger's strength was far beyond anything they could handle. Trying to stop him would only end in humiliation or death.
And just like that, Ryūjin and Kisame left the Land of Water without facing any resistance.
---
Far out on the endless sea, a small wooden boat drifted quietly with the waves.
Ryūjin lay lazily at the front of the boat, no longer using the disguise from the Hidden Mist. His real face was now completely visible.
Kisame sat at the back and rowed slowly, but his eyes kept drifting toward Ryūjin again and again.
He still found it hard to believe.
"I never imagined Lord Ryūjin would be this young," Kisame finally said. "You're barely older than that fake Uchiha Madara."
Ryūjin opened one eye lazily.
"Say whatever you want to ask. I can tell you're dying to."
Kisame did not even try to deny it.
"Then I'll ask directly. Who exactly was that fake Madara?"
"Uchiha Obito," Ryūjin replied calmly. "Just another Uchiha who got played like a fool."
Kisame's eyes widened slightly.
"Someone that strong was only a pawn?"
"Not just Obito. The one controlling him is also just someone else's pawn," Ryūjin said in a flat voice.
Kisame fell completely silent.
The more he heard, the more absurd the entire Ninja World sounded.
A pawn being controlled by another pawn, who was being controlled by someone else again.
Did people like him even have the right to talk about loyalty or truth anymore?
"Then what exactly is the real face of this world?" Kisame asked quietly.
Ryūjin looked at the endless ocean for a moment before answering.
"Obito told you about the Eye of the Moon Plan, didn't he?"
Kisame stiffened slightly. He did not expect Ryūjin to know about that secret.
That alone proved that Ryūjin's reach was far greater than Obito's.
"A world where everyone lives inside a dream and gets whatever they want. Sounds good, doesn't it? Everyone happy, nobody suffering. You can judge it however you like."
Ryūjin paused briefly, then gave a cold laugh.
"The only problem is that the entire plan is a lie."
Kisame's grip on the oar tightened slightly.
"Once the plan succeeds, the result isn't happiness. It's death. Everyone gets drained of chakra and turned into half-plant monsters."
He glanced at Kisame.
"Like the white thing Obito wore on his body. Or that strange partner that looks like a flytrap."
Kisame felt a chill run down his spine.
The plan he had once believed in was not salvation at all.
It was a slow, quiet extermination of the entire world.
===
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