"Father, you… go back!
This matter was caused by me alone. I'll bear it myself. It has nothing to do with you, or with the other Kumo shinobi.
You don't need to care about this hopeless son anymore!"
A lowered his head, his eyes tightly shut, bloodshot with regret.
"Bear it… can you bear it?
Shut up! This isn't your place to speak!"
The Third Raikage swept his gaze over Killer B and C's corpse, rage surging in his heart.
But when he noticed A's ashen face, filled with remorse, he forcibly suppressed the towering fury within him. He kicked A aside and strode quickly toward Garp.
"Lord Garp, there's nothing more I can say about this matter. It was A's fault.
I came today for only one reason, to beg you for one thing.
Spare his life. No matter the price, as long as I can pay it, I will refuse nothing."
Perhaps because he had never bowed his head to anyone in his entire life, let alone spoken words of supplication like these, the Third Raikage's plea to Garp sounded stiff and awkward.
"Even if that's my life, there's no problem with that."
After saying this, the Third Raikage seemed to realize that his words didn't quite sound like a plea, and hurriedly added the sentence.
"Father!"
Before Garp could speak, A, who had been kicked aside, heard the Third Raikage offering his own life in exchange. His tightly shut eyes flew open.
When he saw the Third Raikage, who had always stood like the towering mountains of the Land of Lightning, unyielding and indomitable, kneeling once again for his sake, his heart felt as if it were being sliced by knives.
"Please…"
The Third Raikage ignored A, murmured a single word to himself, then slammed his forehead hard against the ground in front of Garp.
"..."
Tsunade, Orochimaru, Kushina, and the frontline ninja of the Ino–Shika–Cho trio had already seen similar scenes before, so they were relatively calm.
But for those who had just arrived after hearing the news, Hiruzen, Minato, Koharu, and the others, seeing two generations of Raikage from the Cloud Village kneeling before the same person on the same day, one after the other, left them completely dumbfounded.
This kind of thing wasn't something they were ignorant of.
But knowing it from intelligence reports and witnessing it with their own eyes were two entirely different experiences.
Especially the Third Raikage!
Hiruzen, Koharu, and even Minato all knew that before Garp emerged, this man faintly carried the title of the strongest of the shinobi era.
But now?
After barely retrieving his life from Garp's hands, he was actually kneeling and begging in full view of everyone.
"What exactly did he experience in that battle against Garp, to be driven to this extent?"
Hiruzen looked at the kneeling Third Raikage, then turned his gaze toward Garp. His eyes were now filled with shock and fear.
He found it hard to imagine that a man as proud and domineering as the Third Raikage, someone who would rather die than bend, could do something like this.
For a Raikage, to whom death was easy but kneeling was unbearable, he must have gone through a war so brutal that Hiruzen could not even begin to imagine it, one that completely shattered the spirit, pride, and will of a Kage.
"Your life is worth less than nothing to me.
If I truly wanted it, do you think you would've had a chance to return alive to the Cloud Village after that battle?"
Garp slowly turned around, glanced at the Third Raikage kneeling before him, his expression utterly unmoved.
"Is even my life not enough to quench your anger?"
The Third Raikage's expression darkened, yet he did not dare to lift his head.
"When the Cloud Village was first established, your First Raikage already knelt before me once.
In the end, he personally recorded that incident, what you regard as the shame of the Cloud, in writing, to serve as a warning to future Raikage.
As the Third Raikage of the Hidden Cloud, you should have seen that manuscript left behind by the First Raikage."
Garp spoke unhurriedly.
"I've seen it!"
Hearing this, the Third Raikage recalled the humiliation suffered by the First Raikage back then, and his fists clenched tightly.
Beside him, A's face also turned extremely ugly, as though someone had touched his deepest wound.
"Since you've seen it, there's no need for me to teach you.
You should already know what to do yourself."
Garp's tone remained calm and indifferent.
"The shame of the Hidden Cloud?"
Hearing Garp mention the shame of the Hidden Cloud, aside from a very small number of people, Hiruzen, Tsunade, Orochimaru, the Ino–Shika–Cho trio most of the Konoha ninja present wore confused expressions.
"Jiraiya-sensei, what is the 'shame of the Hidden Cloud' that Lord Garp mentioned?"
Minato noticed that both the Third Raikage and A looked as though they might explode into violence at any moment upon hearing Garp bring up the First Raikage.
Unable to hold back, he asked Jiraiya.
"Well… Minato, you'd better ask Orochimaru about that.
His ability to explain things is better, let him tell you."
Jiraiya passed the question to Orochimaru without missing a beat.
"Orochimaru-sama…"
Although Minato could tell that Jiraiya clearly didn't know either, he didn't expose him and instead looked expectantly at Orochimaru.
"What do you think of the location where Konoha was built?"
Orochimaru shot Jiraiya a sideways glance, but answered with a question of his own.
"It should be considered extremely good, right?
At the very least, calling it the center of the Land of Fire wouldn't be an exaggeration."
Minato replied without hesitation.
"Your wording is really quite cautious.
The fertility and quality of the land in this region are already among the rarest in the entire shinobi world.
After decades of continuous improvement and optimization by the First Hokage using Wood Release, whether in terms of habitation, farming, or natural energy, it's absolutely unparalleled.
If you really want to call it a center, then it's the center of the entire shinobi world."
Orochimaru curled his lips slightly, then casually revealed something that many Konoha ninja had never even considered.
...
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