"The Third Raikage? That old brute?"
Tsunade's tone was full of surprise.
The Third Raikage, the man who once held off an army of ten thousand Iwagakure shinobi all by himself—how could someone like that end up here instead of passing on to the Pure Land?
"It's hard to say whether he's still the Third Raikage now," Kagetsu replied.
"In terms of soul composition, he's currently a fusion of many broken and incomplete souls. So strictly speaking, he's no longer the original Third Raikage."
"But when it comes to dominant consciousness, it's guided by the Third Raikage's memories. He firmly believes he is A, the Third Raikage."
"So from a cognitive perspective, we can still say he is the Third Raikage."
"How did he end up in a place like this?" Tsunade was so shaken by the news that she momentarily ignored Kagetsu's precise definition of the Raikage's identity.
"He once used Hollow power while he was alive, and he was heavily tainted by it. So when he died, his soul was immediately detected by Cleaner and pulled into this realm."
Kagetsu shrugged. Back when he threw out that mask, he never expected to hook such a big fish. A Kage-level soul—one so powerful even the Pure Land would covet it.
Such incredible potential!
"This was your and Orochimaru's doing?" Tsunade's gaze toward Kagetsu turned strange.
Her thoughts drifted back to a long-forgotten memory—when Orochimaru brought Kagetsu to her home and asked her to teach the boy medical ninjutsu.
Back then, after spending some time with them, she had a vague feeling that these two were bound to stir up something big eventually.
After all the events she'd experienced since returning to the village, all tied to those two, that old thought—buried deep in a dusty corner of her mind—suddenly resurfaced.
"We didn't intentionally design this for the Third Raikage," Kagetsu said honestly, raising his hand after reading the complex emotions in Tsunade's eyes.
"You and Orochimaru's experiments are too dangerous!" Tsunade believed that Kagetsu and Orochimaru hadn't deliberately targeted the Third Raikage, but without a doubt, their original plan had been made with the intention of dragging the Cloud Shinobi into trouble.
"Are you conflicted because you think souls should return to the peace of the Pure Land, rather than come here to fight endlessly and fall into ruin?" Kagetsu guessed what was on Tsunade's mind.
Tsunade nodded slightly upon hearing this.
"Hueco Mundo is a newly formed space. You could say it's the flip side of the Pure Land. The Pure Land is a place for souls to rest, but those who come here are mostly souls with intense obsessions—ones that have been in contact with or pursued the power of hollows.
The Third Raikage is the first, but he definitely won't be the last. In the future, perhaps this place will form five new noble classes, made up of powerful shinobi from the Five Great Nations and villages.
As Orochimaru-sensei put it, this is rebirth after death! It greatly reduces one's fear of dying."
Kagetsu offered a brief explanation, though he didn't expect to change Tsunade's thinking with just a few words.
Someone like her—who had been through so much—wouldn't change her views easily, even if you hit her where she was most vulnerable.
She would only change if she figured it out herself.
It's just like her fear of blood. Once she overcame that mental barrier, the phobia vanished on its own.
Whether she accepts it or not, by taking in the power of the Hōgyoku, her future is inevitably tied to Hueco Mundo. Clearly, Tsunade understood that now.
Tsunade didn't want to think about what would happen to her after death—not yet. There was only one question that she wanted answered right now.
"Where's the Third Raikage? Is he here too?" she looked at Kagetsu and asked.
"He's not in the Forest of Menos," Kagetsu shook her head, denying Tsunade's assumption.
"This place... isn't the entirety of Hueco Mundo?" Tsunade was surprised. She had thought this place made up the whole realm—its entire ecosystem and territory.
After all, she and Kagetsu had been navigating and battling through this area with Hollows for what felt like several days.
To her, the distance they had covered seemed larger than the entire Land of Fire—so vast it felt endless.
There was no night or day here.
The scenery was even duller than the Shikkotsu Forest. Time felt almost impossible to measure.
Tsunade had always believed this place was the whole of Hueco Mundo—that its environment was just like this: bleak and unchanging.
"Of course not," Kagetsu replied softly. "Unlike the living world, the boundaries between the Pure Land and Hueco Mundo are vague. There are no clear limits or exact measurements.
When I saw the Third Raikage, he had already devoured and fused with several Hollows. His soul had grown so strong it was affecting the ecosystem of the Forest of Menos.
So I made a deal with him. He left the forest to explore the world beyond it."
"A deal?" Tsunade frowned. "But he's already dead!"
"Do you really think a soul with such active spiritual awareness can be considered 'dead'? What is the true definition of death? Is it just the death of the body—or the complete end of both body and consciousness?
The Third Raikage doesn't share your view that death is the absolute end, Tsunade-san."
"Then what does he want? What kind of deal did you make with him?" Tsunade didn't argue with Kagetsu about the definition of life and death. She just felt like Kagetsu and Orochimaru were hiding something big from her again.
Although the two of them had never deliberately hidden anything from her, if she hadn't come this time, she might have had to wait much longer to learn these secrets.
"He always has something he can't let go of, doesn't he?"
Kagetsu simply closed his eyes.
After silently complaining to himself about how Orochimaru dumped the responsibility of confessing everything onto him, he said bluntly, "I told him he could return to the Shinobi World — return to the Hidden Cloud Village in a form that's nearly resurrected."
"Resurrection from death?"
Tsunade frowned slightly. She wasn't pleased by the idea, but then again, she also had loved ones she wished could come back from the Pure Land. So, in the end, she couldn't bring herself to argue against it.
After all, research on jutsu and souls was the domain of Orochimaru and Kagetsu. Her responsibility was only over the physical body in the real world.
But as she looked at Kagetsu, Tsunade couldn't shake the feeling that he was still hiding something.
"What else? Just say it all at once. If I'm supposed to cooperate, and you two can convince me, then I'll go along with it."
Tsunade crossed her arms, her tone a little helpless.
"I also told him that in the future, this world might become another version of the Shinobi World. Even if he can't become someone like the Sage of Six Paths who founded ninshū, he could still become a 'God of Shinobi' like the First Hokage."
Kagetsu picked up the conversation smoothly.
"He believed you? Why would he even want to work with you? Are you sure he's going to follow the plan you and Orochimaru laid out?"
Tsunade frowned slightly. She had always held the deepest wariness and suspicion toward the Kage of other villages — especially the Third Raikage.
Though he acted like a brute, that was only because, given his strength and personality, charging straight in was the most direct and effective way to handle problems.
"Because I hold the key to him taking another step forward."
Kagetsu answered calmly.
****
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