When they saw Ryosuke roll up his sleeves, Minato and the others froze.
'Huh?'
'He's already making a move?'
'Not even going to gather some intel first?'
Ryosuke glanced at Minato and said, "Testing, analyzing, countering… that's a ninja's fighting style."
Sara asked in a daze, "Then what's your style?"
Ryosuke lightly swept his right hand across the wall. Wherever his fingertips passed, a crack appeared.
A huge, straight broadsword leaped out from the crack.
Ryosuke caught the Ruin Greatsword with one hand,
"This is my style."
His eyes focused on the core of the armor's chest. Just as he took a step forward, suddenly, a gentle voice came from the side, "Please wait a moment, Mr. Ryosuke."
A woman in her early thirties, beautiful and dignified, dressed in splendid clothing, walked out of the darkness.
"Mom?!"
Sara exclaimed.
Ryosuke stared at the Queen of Roran as she gracefully approached, "You can call out my name… looks like Itachi told you quite a lot."
"Yes, Mr. Crow and I are husband and wife. He promised me he would never hide anything from me."
Ryosuke pointed at the giant armor. "Including the fact that this thing was made by absorbing the life force of Roran's citizens?"
"Yes."
As soon as she said that, Princess Sara's face turned deathly pale. Even the expressions of Minato's group gradually turned cold.
Before the Fourth Hokage's death, before the Third retired and came back, before Danzo secretly seized power, the ninjas of Konoha… more or less carried a bit of romanticism.
Having a strong village to rely on gave Konoha ninjas more room to maintain their inner warmth than those from Kirigakure or Sunagakure.
To Minato's group, the Land of Roran was just a mission.
But creating weapons at the cost of their own citizens' lives…
That crossed their bottom line.
Ryosuke said, "Looks like that bastard Itachi whispered plenty of pillow talk to you."
The Queen of Roran gently shook her head. "It was Crow. Coming to this timeline means he discarded his past self."
"Itachi is already a thing of the past. The one here now… is 'Crow.'"
"Mr. Ryosuke, before you swing your blade, I need to explain something..."
She extended her hand, the back facing upward.
Her skin wriggled slightly, and snow-white worms as thin as strands of hair crawled out from her pores.
"The Power of the Moon looks disgusting and frightening, but in truth, they have no consciousness. They're like weeds on the roadside, you can control them with the right technique."
"Once the Power of the Moon is infused, the corresponding lifespan increases."
"What Mr. Crow takes away… is only that added portion of lifespan. One gained, one taken. To the citizens of Roran, there is no loss."
"Mr. Ryosuke, I am a queen. After Crow told me the truth of Roran's destruction, I didn't have many choices left."
"The Power of the Moon and this armor… will become weapons that protect Roran."
"Besides..."
The Queen of Roran took a few steps forward. Her light-purple eyes, identical to Sara's, reflected Ryosuke's face, "At this point in time, has Crow done anything to hurt anyone?"
No.
"Has he ever harmed any of you?"
Also no.
"Crow returned to this point in time because he wants to rewrite mistakes, to create a world where everyone can be happy."
She walked right up to Ryosuke.
"Why can't you just let him go?"
"Why…"
Ryosuke scratched his head and gave the most brutally straightforward answer, "Because he's an idiot."
Bad people aren't scary.
Even if Obito is bad, he still has a standpoint.
As long as you stand on the same side, say you think life is too bitter and want to live in an Infinite Tsukuyomi world, you can benefit from Obito's plan.
Idiots are different.
Idiots have no standpoint.
Even if Itachi has Fugaku's eyes and can predict the future, he's still a long-sighted idiot.
He can't bring happiness to anyone.
"I thought he was just scamming the childless, but I didn't expect he's running a pig-butchering scam targeting middle-aged women… Itachi, you'll really do anything to achieve your plan."
Ryosuke's gaze swept past the Queen and returned to the armor's chest.
"You really turned into a 'duck,' hiding behind a woman and not daring to come out?"
The moment his words fell, the demon-mask on the armor suddenly lit up with a pair of scarlet eyes. With a splash, an arm rose out of the Dragon Vein's pool, clenched into a fist, and smashed straight toward Ryosuke.
Judging by its posture, it was planning to crush Ryosuke and the Queen together.
Ryosuke swept his arm around the Queen, pulled her close, and leapt into the air, dodging the blow.
On the other side, Minato's group also escorted Sara out of the attack range.
"Your little boyfriend doesn't seem to care about you at all," Ryosuke said.
He originally thought the Queen would snap awake, but unexpectedly, she said, "Crow can predict the future. He must have known you would save me, so he acted."
Ryosuke, "…"
Hopeless.
He tossed the Queen backward. Akimichi Choza caught her, slung her onto his shoulder, pinched his nose, and muttered, "Idiocy shouldn't be contagious, right…?"
Ryosuke floated in midair, facing the armored giant rising from the Dragon Vein's liquid.
Inside the massive armor was Uchiha Itachi's Susanoo.
Itachi stood at the center of the Susanoo, staring at Ryosuke through scarlet eyes.
After crossing timelines, returning to the past, and completing the sealing of the "Black Box," Amaterasu's fate-calculation, especially when it involved anything related to Ryosuke, was severely affected.
He couldn't determine whether Ryosuke would chase him across time.
But just as Ryosuke understood Itachi, Itachi understood Ryosuke, "Ryosuke will definitely come, becoming the final obstacle to saving the world."
So Itachi poured everything he had into creating this armor, just to one day fight Ryosuke, who would rewind time to chase him down.
With Itachi's understanding of Konoha's defense system and his current power, he could have already infiltrated the village, killed Danzo, eliminated the Third Hokage, joined forces with the Uchiha, carried out a coup, and become Konoha's head.
If he did, whether Ryosuke came or not… wouldn't matter anymore.
But he couldn't.
Because Itachi predicted that if he acted too early, it would cause temporal distortions so severe that Sasuke might not even be born.
Itachi could only wait.
Once Sasuke was born, he would act.
To prepare for Ryosuke's sudden appearance, ever since the armor was completed, Itachi had been living inside it. The one managing the country outside was only a clone.
Uchiha Itachi closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said quietly, "Just as I expected… you still came…"
"Ryosuke!"
He suddenly opened his eyes. Two completely different Mangekyo patterns spun rapidly.
Susanoo took a step forward and stomped heavily, causing the ground to tremble.
With its right hand, it drew the Totsuka Blade from its waist. Its left hand gripped the Yata Mirror. Behind it, with a metallic clang, a pair of crafted metal wings unfolded.
Zetsu cells for body modification.
An armor forged with Dragon Vein power and the life force of Roran's citizens.
And his father's eyes.
Uchiha Itachi's Susanoo was now a true complete form.
He raised the Totsuka Blade high. Three years of repressed emotion exploded at this moment, "Ryosuke!"
"Only those who survive have the chance to rewrite history!"
"My Susanoo is already complete!"
"Come fight me, and let's decide who will shape histo, hmm?!"
Itachi's vision was blocked.
A blade edge hung before his eyes.
He didn't even know when the Ruin Greatsword had pierced through the armor and the Susanoo. The tip rested less than five centimeters from Uchiha Itachi's eye.
Zzz… zzz…
The blade withdrew, scraping against the armor and making an unbearably screeching noise.
Ryosuke's icy gaze shone through the gap made by the Ruin Greatsword.
Itachi instinctively closed his mouth.
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