"Kushina-sensei… you look pretty rough."
Hagoromo smiled as he spoke.
If anything, he looked worse.
Even as he talked, he casually reached up and pulled pieces of metal out of his body one by one.
That reckless charge earlier had drawn an overwhelming amount of long-range fire. He'd dodged some of it—but plenty had still hit.
Blood soaked into his white hair. His mask had shattered, leaving part of his forehead protector and one eye exposed.
Blood continued to seep from his wounds.
Compared to him, Kushina—though battered—was actually in much better shape.
Letting out a breath of relief, Hagoromo stripped off the cloak he wore on the outside and tossed it aside, revealing the uniform beneath.
The outer cloak had become heavy and sodden, soaked with both his own blood and that of his enemies.
Kushina was wearing standard Konoha mission gear. In the darkness, her vivid crimson hair was impossibly conspicuous.
An orange chakra cloak had already manifested around her body. Behind her, five chakra tails swayed faintly in the air—clear proof that she had begun drawing on the Nine-Tails' power.
Her face was smeared with blood.
The three ANBU squads assigned to protect her had all been wiped out.
When Kushina saw Hagoromo, her expression became… complicated. Not pleasant, at the very least.
From his condition alone, she could tell—he had rushed back straight from the front lines.
"Hagoromo… you shouldn't have come back here."
"Maybe," he replied calmly. "But I'm already here."
His smile didn't fade. Strangely enough, he seemed to be in a good mood.
Then the lightning flickering around his body sputtered twice—and went out completely.
His chakra had reached its limit.
Normally, when a shinobi ran out of chakra, it meant they had also exhausted their physical stamina. Hagoromo was different.
He had imposed a limiter on himself.
Under normal circumstances, he would only ever use eighty percent of his chakra reserves, always keeping a margin so that he would never completely lose mobility.
If he truly forced himself past that limit, he could still squeeze out a little more.
That margin was his last line of survival.
A tailed beast stood right beside them.
Kushina was already pushing herself to the brink just restraining Shukaku.
Countless shinobi were desperately defending her position.
Hagoromo, meanwhile, could no longer use ninjutsu.
In terms of raw numbers, the situation was grim—two thousand enemies against five hundred defenders. Konoha was at a decisive disadvantage. Worse still, the command post housed numerous non-combat personnel.
Collapse was only a matter of time.
"Hagoromo," Kushina said, "if you're out of chakra, stay close to me."
Right now, keeping him nearby was the safest option. If he tried to retreat alone with no chakra left, his chances of surviving this battlefield were nearly zero.
Hagoromo shook his head.
"I'm about to enter Chidori Current—Second Stage."
Kushina froze.
"Second Stage?"
"What's that supposed to be?"
She had never heard of such a thing.
"Chidori Current has stages?" she asked, incredulous. Even with the battlefield in chaos and Konoha on the brink, she still asked.
"Yes," Hagoromo replied seriously. "There's a big difference."
"…And what difference would that be?"
"The sound."
"…Huh?"
"Chidori Current sounds like birds chirping. Second Stage sounds like crackling electricity."
Kushina stared at him.
What kind of difference was that supposed to make?!
But Hagoromo's next actions answered her question.
"From this moment on," he muttered under his breath, "the shinobi Kamishiro Hagoromo is… temporarily off duty."
This was the truth.
His most dangerous trump card was not a ninjutsu at all.
Hagoromo possessed a unique, original ability—one that allowed him to directly manipulate and harmonize with electrical phenomena.
That was why he adapted to Lightning Release so naturally:
his body had long since become accustomed to electricity.
That was why he resisted ordinary genjutsu:
his nervous system was constantly stabilized by subtle electromagnetic interference.
That was why his shuriken throwing bordered on the absurd:
he could correct trajectories mid-flight and calculate paths instantly.
That was why he possessed limited sensory ability:
he could perceive biological electrical signals.
And that was why his comprehension, memory, and learning speed were so terrifying:
his brain had been pushed through extreme development.
Truth be told, compared to this ability, he would have preferred something ridiculous like a Death Note—
But reality didn't work that way.
Hagoromo was, first and foremost, a shinobi.
Fighting like one had always been his best option.
But now—
There was no room left for restraint.
Kushina felt no chakra emanating from him at all.
Yet in the darkness, blue-white lightning far thicker than any Lightning Release erupted from Hagoromo's body. The crackling was sharper, harsher, and more violent than even Chidori.
An electric field surged upward from the ground beneath his feet.
The hair tied behind his head suddenly snapped free. His white hair stood straight up, defying gravity.
If one had to describe his appearance—
It was somewhere between a shinobi using Body Flicker at full output and a being that had shed all restraints.
One of his hands pressed firmly against the ground.
If one listened closely, a faint scraping sound could be heard through the night.
From beneath the earth—
A blade of iron sand was drawn out.
A high-frequency hum followed, vibrating directly against the eardrums.
At this point, the Sand shinobi's attacks had become indiscriminate. In their bid to annihilate Konoha's command post, they no longer cared about friendly casualties.
More importantly—
They had stumbled upon a second target of immense strategic value.
The Nine-Tails' jinchūriki.
No matter how tightly Konoha guarded the secret, fragments of information always leaked.
For example—
That the current Nine-Tails' jinchūriki was a member of the Uzumaki clan.
If Kushina had simply stood before the Kazekage, doing nothing, they might never have identified her.
But once the distinctive Uzumaki chakra manifested—
Once her power to suppress tailed beasts was revealed—
Her identity was exposed beyond doubt.
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