"We really saw something we shouldn't be able to see… something we aren't qualified to see at our current level."
Kushina, jolted awake by Kurama's voice, blinked as her surroundings came into focus.
Everywhere she looked, Konoha shinobi lay unconscious across the ground. She forced a stiff, awkward smile.
"You people really didn't even blink, huh? Humans, how do you dare, to see a scenery like that… without enough strength and an iron will, you're not even qualified to lay eyes on it."
After taking in all the collapsed Konoha shinobi, Isobu the Three-Tails wore a mocking look, but beneath his voice, everyone could hear the trembling unease.
"..."
Perhaps because that deep, bottomless rift in the sky had yet to fully fade, neither the cold, aloof Orochimaru nor the prideful, arrogant Uchiha said a word.
Faced with Isobu's ridicule, they acted as if they hadn't heard a thing.
Or rather, their minds were still trapped in the shock of witnessing the sky split open, unable to escape the lingering fear.
Tch... Tch….
The deathly silence stretched on for a long time, until a series of approaching footsteps gradually grew from faint to clear, finally breaking it.
"Lord Garp, was that your doing?"
Shikaku, normally the one with the highest IQ, asked a question entirely unbefitting of his intellect.
Yet not a single Konoha shinobi thought his question was strange.
The instant his words fell, all eyes locked onto Garp.
"Among the current generation of Five Kage… only this kid is worth sparing an extra glance."
Garp's reply sounded unrelated, but it was exactly the answer Shikaku, and even Orochimaru, were hoping for.
Some shinobi still didn't quite understand his meaning, but soon, as a faint hiss reached their ears, something dissolving by force, the realization slowly dawned across their faces.
By the time Garp stepped out of the battlefield and approached Isobu, the ground around the Third Mizukage, hundreds of meters in radius, was visibly melting: stone, earth, grass, everything dissolving at a speed the naked eye could follow.
Within moments, a terrifying crater yawned where the Land of Water's shoreline once stood.
Everyone understood, it was the Third Mizukage's Boil Release.
Seeing this scene, they also understood why Garp allowed a Third-generation Kage to enjoy the dignity of a First-generation Kage as he walked the final steps of his life as a Kage.
This treatment, utterly unique among the modern Five Kage, was something the Third Mizukage earned himself… yet it was entirely due to Garp's mercy.
"Lord Garp, that Third Mizukage…"
Orochimaru glanced at the unmoving figure standing atop the giant clam. Even in death, upright and unyielding.
Even dead, he still stood tall.
Was this truly the so-called "filler" Mizukage among the Third-generation Five Kage?
"Leave him there. Once those brats from Kirigakure calm down, they'll come back and collect his body."
Garp finished speaking, then turned his gaze onto Isobu.
"Little Turtle. What about you?
Will you come back with this old man…
Or will you stick to what you claimed back then, that a tailed beast born of heaven and earth should never remain caged under my roof?"
He did not mention the Third Mizukage again, and no one else dared to speak further.
Because everyone understood, for the Third Mizukage to die with such dignity, to walk the last stretch of his path as Mizukage in such grandeur, was already the absolute limit.
This was the sorrow of the era of the Five Kage.
If you weren't on the level of the First-generation Kage, not one of the Warring States Legends then in this man's eyes… you were ultimately insignificant.
Orochimaru and Tsunade even suspected that in two or three days, Garp would completely forget what the Third Mizukage's face looked like.
"Me?"
Isobu thought back to the years he had spent drifting across the shinobi world, and a rare desire for stillness stirred within him.
But the moment that tiny thought appeared, he crushed it instantly.
Back then, with the other eight tailed beasts sharing the burden of Garp's "care," his captive days had already been a near-death experience every single time.
Now he'd be the only one returning?
Receiving Garp's full attention…?
He wasn't sure he'd survive that.
"Following you isn't bad… but I think I'll stay in these waters."
Thinking of their long-awaited reunion, Isobu didn't hesitate in the slightest, his voice firm and unwavering.
"Not afraid someone will summon you? Seal you?"
Garp looked at Isobu with a half-smile, seeing straight through his thoughts.
"Byakuren and the Third are both dead by your fists.
With Kirigakure left with only two or three little stronger shinobis, if I, the great three-tails, don't go looking for trouble with them, those brats should be thanking their lucky stars.
You think they will still dare to come after me?"
Isobu lifted his chin proudly, every scale radiating confidence.
"That's not guaranteed."
Garp chuckled.
Of course he knew exactly what Isobu was thinking.
With Byakuren and the Third Mizukage gone, Kirigakure had no one left who could subdue him.
The entire Land of Water had become a playground for a single beast.
"You're not thinking of going back on your word, right? Dragging me back by force?
You said it yourself back then, if we wanted to leave and live our own lives, you wouldn't interfere. You wouldn't stop us."
Seeing Garp's smile deepen, Isobu felt his heart tighten.
'…Don't tell me I miscalculated?'
'Is there really someone left in Kirigakure who can handle me?'
But compared to the risk of being "cared for" by Garp again… being sealed didn't sound so bad.
At worst, once Garp leaves, he could always sneak into Kirigakure one night and fire off a Tailed Beast Bomb out of spite anyway.
...
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