Although there were no such restrictions when using his eyes, Hagoromo had rarely treated the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception as a mobility skill in the past. Compared with activating the Mystic Eyes while cutting people down, he preferred to beat the enemy flat first, then finish them off from the perspective of death, ensuring they would "faceplant" so completely that resurrection would be impossible.
But this combat style was not chosen because it was the optimal strategy. It was simply a matter of Hagoromo's personal habits. No matter how powerful the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception were, Hagoromo still felt that his Lightning Release ability was more convenient.
To put it simply, Lightning Release was like the left hand of a left-handed person, while the Mystic Eyes were like the right hand. When a problem could be solved with one hand, the first hand used would always be the left. That was what people called "habit."
Hagoromo had been playing with electricity far longer than he had been using the Mystic Eyes. First come, first served, and habit became second nature. That had determined his way of fighting: Lightning Release and ninjutsu for combat, and the "Mystic Eyes" for cleaning up the battlefield.
Moreover, because the Mystic Eyes existed on the highest level of power, the burden they brought was far heavier as well.
Thus, he would only open his eyes when he needed to kill something with immortal attributes.
But this time seemed different. Because the enemy's identity was special, and the technique he used was even more unusual, Hagoromo directly deployed the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception in battle.
What would happen when the destructive power that could kill anything was combined with the speed and agility of a shinobi's body?
It would become unstoppable.
"Why?"
Why had his technique failed to take effect? Nagato could not understand it.
Given the current state of his body, it was hard to say whether he still possessed the pain response a normal person should have. At the very least, after losing an arm, his expression had not changed in the slightest. It was as though the arm that had been cut off did not belong to him at all. That alone was enough to show how abnormal his body had become after being modified by the black rods.
The only thing Nagato could not understand was why the sealing-erasure technique swirling around him had stopped working on Hagoromo. That should have been impossible. Yet Hagoromo had indeed broken into close range just now and emerged completely unharmed.
The unknown was unsolvable. In this world, the secret surrounding the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception was even greater than that of the nine-tomoe Rinnegan. Aside from Hagoromo himself, the person who understood his eyes best was probably Orochimaru. But even Orochimaru's understanding had only been superficial, obtained after Hagoromo had deliberately "performed" for him. As for Nagato, although this was the second time he had seen those eyes, he knew just as little about their function as he had the first time.
The simpler something was, the more complicated it became. Whether it was the Sharingan or the Rinnegan, their dōjutsu could be called "magnificent." Thus, by habitual thinking, one would naturally assume that Hagoromo's dōjutsu also worked in that direction. But who could have imagined that its function was merely the single word "kill"?
The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception had simply taken the act of "killing" to its absolute extreme.
"Because I'm killing your technique. That's all."
After that arm-severing strike, the tentacle-like chakra cloak Nagato controlled began tangling around Hagoromo once more.
But after opening his eyes, Hagoromo no longer needed to dodge so carefully. He counterattacked directly. After one slash after another, that sealing-erasure technique, which should have been formless and intangible, was cut to pieces as effortlessly as though it were a physical object.
Hagoromo's attacks continued. And Nagato's resistance?
Entangling, dodging, blocking. From time to time, the clash of weapons rang out like metal striking metal. Scattered sparks adorned the fragmented rhythm of battle. This was an ambush from all sides that belonged to Nagato alone.
With every slash Hagoromo swung, Nagato's chakra cloak was shaved away a little more.
This was what it meant to "kill."
"So this is your dōjutsu? Erasing ninjutsu… abilities, even life itself?" At this moment, Nagato finally understood what he was truly facing. But was it already too late?
It was already too late.
"Correct," Hagoromo said.
Nagato's understanding was not wrong. It could just barely be counted as the correct answer. Hagoromo would not explain it in detail. He was not that friendly. Why would he explain the issue of a causality weapon to someone making a final deathbed struggle?
"At this point, forgiveness no longer exists."
"Forgiveness? I don't need it!" Nagato's tone still did not change much. "This is what shinobi are. Either they change the world in their own way, or they leave the world by another's hand… repeating the cycle until the day everything is completely destroyed."
He still did not think he had done anything wrong. He would not turn back, nor could he turn back.
But to Hagoromo, that could not have been better. Killing a Nagato who stayed stubbornly unrepentant to the very end was far easier for him to accept than killing a Nagato who suddenly repented. Hagoromo would not accept any self-analysis or so-called "redemption."
It was still the same sentence: in the end, people had to take responsibility for what they had done. Wrong was wrong. It would not change because of someone's attitude afterward.
In any case, Hagoromo's choice would always be not to forgive. Therefore, Nagato had better not make any gestures in front of him that attempted to seek forgiveness. A villain should remain a villain to the end. What meaning was there in making oneself seem half-righteous and half-evil, half-good and half-wicked right before death?
Nagato's actions undoubtedly matched Hagoromo's expectations. Even if he was wrong, he would stay wrong all the way to the end and never turn back. Since he had done things that made others hate him, he had to possess the resolve to be spat on even after death.
Under Hagoromo's attacks, Nagato's chakra rapidly weakened. The burden of maintaining this state was far heavier than anyone imagined.
"So the legendary eyes of the Sage of Six Paths… this level was already their limit."
The one who said that was not Hagoromo, but Nagato himself.
"The person who transformed the world did indeed possess an identical pair of eyes. But having such eyes does not mean one possesses the ability to transform the world. Forcibly changing things through self-will only brings about the evil consequence of death." Every word Hagoromo spoke at this moment was exceptionally clear, even drowning out the sounds of battle near and far.
Obtaining a special pair of eyes and then proclaiming oneself a "god"—was that pitiful, or laughable? Perhaps that was difficult to judge. But even now, Nagato still believed those eyes were his own. In that case, it could only be laughable.
His final battle in this life was not grand or earthshaking. There was only the simplest, most primitive battle between shinobi, one slash after another, and the helplessness and despair brought about as that battle continued.
In the end, the one who fell to the ground was Nagato.
Hagoromo stood beside him. The long blade in his hand flipped around, its tip pointing downward. One more inch lower, and it would pierce the still weakly beating heart of this "god."
"The price of maintaining this technique could hardly be called light. So… do you have any last words?" Hagoromo asked.
Without replenishing it with tailed-beast chakra, forcibly using the power of the Ten-Tails' husk, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, would bring disastrous consequences. The statue would continuously drain Nagato's chakra. This could be seen from his outward appearance alone.
At this moment, the red was gone. Nagato's hair had already turned completely white.
"I never thought I would truly fail…" His initial confidence had vanished without a trace. Yet Nagato's words at this moment sounded as if he had anticipated his own defeat from the beginning.
"The victor lives and the loser dies. Regret? Last words? Heh. Shinobi…"
"…"
Had he calmly accepted his failure? Hagoromo fell silent.
The thrill of revenge no longer existed in Hagoromo, because from beginning to end, this had been a sorrowful matter to him. Now, all he could say was that he had fulfilled a long-held wish.
No matter how powerful a shinobi was, when they died, it could only be described with one word: death.
"At the very end, with these eyes as witness, there is one final thing I have to say…"
"When people are killed, they really do die."
Hagoromo did not know whether he had stolen a famous line or a piece of nonsense. But after those words ended, the chakra blade in his hand steadily pierced Nagato's heart.
Blood burst forth. Breathing stopped. Life faded away. This battle had reached its conclusion…
Had it?
At the same moment Nagato died, a violent chakra fluctuation erupted from his body.
Hagoromo immediately flashed backward. However, the instant-death attack he expected did not appear. The fluctuation came quickly and disappeared just as quickly. When Hagoromo walked over again, he discovered that the only change to Nagato's body was that his eye sockets had sunken in.
"This is…"
The Rinnegan had vanished at the moment of Nagato's death.
"Kamui?"
Hagoromo murmured to himself.
This was unexpected, yet also reasonable. It seemed that, at some unknown point, the space-time ninjutsu Kamui had been transcribed and sealed into Nagato's borrowed Eyes of the Sage of Six Paths. Its activation condition was probably Nagato's death.
The seal should have been placed with Nagato's knowledge. That would explain why he had remained so calm before he died.
Had he calmly accepted his own failure? No. He had not failed yet. Nagato knew that even if his physical body died here, his ideology and plan would continue onward.
Someone would step out from behind the scenes, move onto the stage, and take his place.
Did Hagoromo feel regret over failing to destroy the Rinnegan? Somewhat. This made his battle this time feel incomplete.
But those eyes were ultimately only the key to controlling something. Earlier, because Nagato had maintained the sealing-erasure technique for a long time, and because that technique was connected to the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, Hagoromo, while still maintaining Sage Mode, had already sensed its location very clearly.
Even if the Rinnegan had been stolen, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path was still there. Without those eyes, the statue could not be controlled at all. For Akatsuki's plan, both the tailed beasts and the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path were indispensable, correct? Could Akatsuki still gather all the tailed beasts now?
If two indispensable things were both destroyed, would someone fall into despair?
Thus, Hagoromo no longer looked at those sunken eye sockets. He raised his leg and stepped over Nagato's corpse, then walked step by step toward a certain underground space.
There, another large ornament was waiting.
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