Hearing Tobirama's doubts, Mū decided to press further, by raising him high, only to chain him tighter.
"Tobirama," he said, "does the sun ever stop shining simply because some people fear the cold? Does the earth shrink simply because people find it too vast?
"And does a true man abandon his purpose simply because petty men chatter and sneer from the sidelines?"
The words struck Tobirama like thunder in his ears. His eyes sharpened, lit with a fierce gleam.
'He's right… I am no petty man. I am a guardian of the village. Why should I falter just because of the Uchiha's noise?'
Resolve began to harden within him.
The Uchiha were a destabilizing element, an instability even a foreigner like Mū could perceive.
If an outsider could see it, how much worse was it that his own brother, the First Hokage, stubbornly refused to?
Mū pressed on with a smile.
"Although I haven't lived in Konoha long, I can see this much clearly: what holds the village together today is not only the immense strength of Lord Hashirama and Madara, but also your genius."
"They bring power, but you bring order. As the saying goes: it's easy to win a land by force, but far harder to govern it. You complete what they cannot."
Tobirama lowered his gaze slightly, but a faint, rare smile touched his lips. 'He isn't wrong…'
Since the founding of the village, it had indeed been him managing the intricacies, the laws, the systems. His brother inspired, Madara fought, but he had built the scaffolding to keep the village upright.
At the side of the banquet, Gengetsu eyed Mū strangely.
Something about his old rival felt… off.
Mū was usually terse, a man of silence, not flattery. Yet here he was, deliberately building Tobirama up.
'This guy… he's definitely scheming something.'
But Gengetsu didn't pursue the thought further.
The banquet wound down, and soon it was time to see off the visiting delegations.
Konoha's party departed early.
At the village gate, Gengetsu gave a crooked grin. "Mū, when will we meet again, I wonder?"
Mū chuckled low, his voice edged with irony.
"Heh… so long as you manage not to die, there will always be a next time."
"Ha! Then rest assured. I'll outlive you yet."
Gengetsu clapped him on the shoulder with his usual careless bravado.
Once both delegations were gone, Mū rubbed his temples. He left for his hidden cavern laboratory in the mountains.
Within the dim chamber, he stared at the samples of Hashirama's wood, remnants infused with the First Hokage's chakra.
'Perhaps it's time to nurture scientific minds here in Iwa… people who can study this properly. I may understand ninjutsu, but science? I'm no scholar. I can't even begin to explain cellular principles, let alone replicate them.'
The only reason he had claimed Hashirama's wood was for this very hope, that with enough resources and bright minds, Iwagakure might one day rival Konoha's hidden geniuses, even Orochimaru in a future not yet written.
But such things took years, perhaps decades.
"Who knows how old I'll be when that day comes…" he muttered bitterly.
His personal strength had already hit a ceiling. He was proud of creating Dust Release, once believing it placed him near the pinnacle of the shinobi world.
Yet after absorbing the memories of what lay ahead, he realized how small he truly was.
In the long arc of history, he was but a stepping stone.
Shaking off the thought, Mū returned to his training, testing whether even his clones could wield Dust Release.
But then, his senses stirred sharply.
Someone was approaching.
A sudden surge of chakra rippled through the night.
'Someone's here.'
Without hesitation, he sent out a clone to investigate while his true body slipped quietly into the earth.
It wasn't fear that drove him, but caution. In this world, even the slightest carelessness could mean death, no matter how strong one believed themselves to be.
Following the faint trail of chakra, he soon located the source.
"Kraaak…! Kraaak!"
A piercing, grating cry split the silence.
Perched atop the twisted branches of a dead tree was a crow unlike any other. It was larger than any ordinary bird, its feathers jet-black and glossy, catching the moonlight like liquid ink. Twin scarlet eyes burned with eerie light, and around its neck glimmered the faint outline of a magatama.
But what made Mū's gaze narrow was the sight of its three legs.
"A mutation?" he muttered under his breath, though his senses told him it was something far more unnatural.
The chakra it radiated was alien, unlike anything he had ever felt before. The crow tilted its head sharply, those crimson eyes locking onto him.
"Kraaak…!"
Mū's brow furrowed. "So you want me to test you?"
His hands blurred through signs.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
A roaring gust surged forward, ripping through the clearing toward the crow.
But just before the blast struck, a crimson shield shimmered into existence, dissolving the technique effortlessly.
Mū's expression tightened. 'That's no ordinary beast.'
The crow shrieked again and launched into the air, wings slicing through the night.
Mū's body blurred upward in pursuit. 'It's only a clone I'm using. If this thing is dangerous, better to risk this body than my true one.'
The chase carried them deep into a forest of skeletal, rotting trees.
But the moment Mū crossed the threshold, the world twisted. Space itself bent, and in a heartbeat he was elsewhere.
"…A different dimension?"
Ahead, the crow descended gracefully onto the peak of a weathered stone monument. Strange markings were etched across its face, ancient and faintly glowing.
"Yatagarasu… Sacred Ground?" Mū murmured, recognizing the characters.
His eyes shifted to the crow. "So this is what you wanted me to see?"
Before he could take another step, a force surged outward. A flood of foreign energy slammed into him, pouring through his skin like a bursting dam.
"What...?!"
His chakra flared instinctively to resist, but the alien power forced its way deeper, weaving into his very core.
Feathers sprouted across the left side of his body, black and gleaming, before retracting as quickly as they appeared. Then more burst from another spot, and another, his flesh straining and shifting.
For a moment, he swore a third leg was beginning to grow.
Mū staggered, breath sharp, mind racing.
"This… this isn't ordinary chakra. Could this be… Sage Arts?"