First: avoid acting arbitrarily and independently.
Second: assist one another and increase the success rate of missions.
Third: supervise one another to prevent spies from leaking the organization's secrets.
…
These three points were the three unified principles of conduct established by Akatsuki. In reality, it was not just them. These three principles would be correct guiding ideas in any village.
But no matter how nice they sounded, they were useless if they were not implemented. With a little thought, one could discover that Akatsuki had failed to accomplish them.
Especially the third point. It was simply heartbreaking.
The failure of their closed intelligence system was the root cause behind Akatsuki losing half its strength in an instant. But strictly speaking, although this loss was heavy, it was not a fatal blow.
There were many ways to replenish strength. If Nagato was gone, there would always be some "Short-gato" to replace him.
But no matter what, irreplaceable one-of-a-kind items did exist. The loss of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path was Akatsuki's most fundamental problem.
"If we use the Seven-Tails' condition as a reference, then regarding the other tailed beasts that the White Yaksha has come into contact with, we should consider the worst-case possibility and likewise treat them as unable to revive…"
After arriving at Akatsuki's hidden base, the members scattered separately to digest what had just happened and think about what to do next.
And so, Zetsu's "self-dialogue" began again.
"This is truly the worst situation," White Zetsu replied.
"The tailed beasts are dead, and the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path has also been destroyed. What exactly are we supposed to do with our plan?"
"No. Strictly speaking, the situation with the tailed beasts and the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path is different… Judging from the current situation and the characteristics of the tailed beasts, the most likely answer is that the White Yaksha used certain special conditions to prevent the tailed beasts from reviving. That is all."
"'Unable to revive' and 'completely dead' are entirely different situations."
Black Zetsu truly deserved to be called the combat rooster among villains, Akatsuki's intellectual pillar. From the current situation, he had actually managed to analyze part of the truth. Of course, one should not think he was especially brilliant. He simply did not believe that the tailed beasts could be killed that easily.
More importantly, even if it was self-deception, he had to believe that tailed beasts like the Seven-Tails had not completely died. Otherwise, his thousand years of waiting would produce no result at all, and he would go insane.
Only by imagining conditions favorable to himself could Black Zetsu continue maintaining his sanity and search for a new method.
Furthermore, it was not as if Hagoromo had never failed against a tailed beast before. The first Three-Tails he killed had now revived. That meant that at the time, he had not fulfilled those special conditions.
This supporting evidence let Zetsu grasp a thin thread of hope.
"In other words, as long as those conditions are broken, there is still a possibility the tailed beasts can come back to life?" White Zetsu hurriedly asked.
"There is a possibility… In that case, the matter we discovered earlier may, under certain special circumstances, become a usable condition."
"So… as expected, the problem is still with the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path?"
"The situation was too unexpected. I never thought Nagato would fail so easily. Judging by the battle situation at the time, it seems he had no chance to transfer the statue."
White Zetsu fell silent. Without the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, how were the tailed beasts supposed to be gathered together? Then what were they even enthusiastically discussing? Hotpot skewers? What damn meaning did it have?
The problem remained unsolved, and the situation still left Zetsu in despair.
Looking at them, one side of the face black and the other white, yet both expressions equally worried, they looked ridiculous and somewhat laughable.
But one had to sigh in admiration at this spirit. Truly, if one had a child, he should be like Black and White Zetsu. Such a twenty-four-filial-piety son could not be found even with a lantern. A thousand years for Mom alone—if not him, then who?
"I have a new plan, but I do not know whether it will work. However, we need to give Obito some new explanations…" After a long silence, Black Zetsu spoke.
"As for Madara—Uchiha Madara…"
Was that dead man still useful? Or perhaps there was still a chance to use him as a disposable pawn.
In short, everything depended on Brother Zetsu. Now, he was once again preparing a new round of swindling, trickery, and deception for that model villain, Uchiha Obito.
Hagoromo did not know that Black Zetsu's intelligence had come back online at the critical moment. Correspondingly, Big Sister Tsunade felt that her own intelligence had just been violated.
"So, after dealing with two Akatsuki members, you learned new information afterward… and then conveniently captured Amegakure?" Tsunade found the words unbelievable even as she spoke them. She only felt both sides of her forehead throbbing nonstop.
Throbbing so badly that she wanted to directly riddle Hagoromo with holes.
After returning to Konoha, Hagoromo sent the injured three-person group straight to Konoha Hospital.
Kimimaro and Haku had suffered some superficial wounds, which were not complicated to treat. As for Mirai, it would be best to trouble the Fifth Hokage herself.
Although Lady Tsunade had been impossibly busy during this period, this was something she could not ignore.
After learning of the situation, she immediately came to the hospital. While examining and treating Mirai, she was also shocked as to why Hagoromo had still let the three of them suffer such injuries. Therefore, she asked what exactly had happened.
In reality, she already had a certain understanding beforehand. The reason was that the Konoha Anbu shinobi whom Hagoromo had assumed had faceplanted in the Land of Rice Fields were actually perfectly fine. This could only be said to be because the shinobi leading the team had been rather alert. Considering that every time Hagoromo fought, it was a "battle between gods," and since he would not let the Anbu help, then the group of shinobi responsible for "monitoring" him naturally had to run as far away as possible.
After all, when scouting Hagoromo, it was best to be careful. It was far too easy to scout one's own life away. This was definitely the voice of experience.
Later events proved that the Anbu's actions had been quite wise.
A massive explosion occurred.
However, although the Anbu were not blown to death, they were still caught in the blast because of the distance and were thrown around until they were dizzy and disoriented.
Only after Hagoromo and the others left did they wake up and resume action. After scouting the explosion site, they returned to Konoha.
Unfortunately, the Anbu shinobi made a serious mistake. In the probabilistic judgment written in their report, they believed that the explosion had been caused by Hagoromo.
The Anbu shinobi thought so, and Tsunade thought so too. In short, Hagoromo was very helpless. He was clearly the one who had been bombed, all right?
It was precisely because of this ambiguous intelligence that Tsunade was surprised Mirai had been injured.
Only after her treatment ended did Hagoromo tell her the true situation.
And so… Tsunade was furious.
Seeing that this old lady seemed a little unable to control herself, Hagoromo hurriedly helped her outside so as not to disturb the sleeping Mirai.
If there was something to discuss, they could discuss it outside.
"This was an unexpected situation and a temporary decision. After all, opportunities where the enemy's main base is empty of combat power are not common."
In reality, if not for Nagato's new technique absorbing too much of his chakra, Hagoromo would not have planned to return to Konoha after leaving Amegakure at all.
He had wanted even more to directly intercept Akatsuki's Land of Water operation team.
But the current situation was different after all. Besides, Mirai's condition required him to return to Konoha first no matter what.
"Do you know that right now is the critical period when I am calling for a Five Kage Summit to jointly respond to the crisis in the shinobi world? Konoha is waiting for responses from every side. And then you tell me you just invaded Amegakure? Does my action still have any meaning now?"
Tsunade was preparing to hold a peaceful and friendly five-party meeting. Yet because of Hagoromo's actions, Konoha had instantly gone from a representative of the peace faction to a complete and utter aggressor.
The other villages would look at this and think: fine, after Konoha changed to an old woman as Hokage, it actually became like this.
Or perhaps they should say, "as expected," it became like this? After all, menopause made people unpredictable.
In short, Hagoromo's actions had caused everything Tsunade did to lose credibility and persuasiveness.
"Do not worry, Lady Tsunade. It may not necessarily fail." Hagoromo awkwardly rubbed his nose. This sentence was purely consolation, because even he himself did not believe its contents.
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