Pfft—!!!
He sprayed out a mouthful of blood, mixed with fragments of internal organs! Tearing pain shot through his Rinnegan, and his vision instantly turned blood-red! The horrific backlash from forcibly absorbing the Nine-Tails' Chakra, combined with the immense drain of using that heaven-defying eye technique, instantly pushed him to the brink of collapse! The phantom of the Wood Release Buddha Statue behind him could no longer be maintained. It let out an unwilling wail before exploding into countless motes of light!
Freed from the Buddha Statue's suppression, the utterly crazed Nine-Tails unleashed an even more savage roar! Although it had lost a portion of its Chakra—absorbed by Duanmu Ci to save Kushina—its ferocity only grew! It shifted its target, its crimson beast eyes locking onto Duanmu Ci as he fell from the sky, barely clinging to life! Its giant claw of destruction came crashing down with boundless hatred, determined to crush the human who had gravely wounded it and stolen its power!
"Duanmu—!!!" Tsunade let out a scream of despair! She tried to rush over without a care for anything else!
Minato's eyes were bloodshot as well, but he was too far away, and his Chakra had run dry!
At that critical moment!
"Summoning Technique: Frog Mouth Binding!"
Jiraiya's furious roar rang out! An enormous purplish-red toad stomach wall, covered in warts, appeared out of thin air like a massive flesh sack. It instantly wrapped around and bound the Nine-Tails' giant claw as it struck toward Duanmu Ci! Though it was torn apart by the Nine-Tails' immense strength after blocking it for only an instant, that precious instant was enough for a golden figure to flash past!
"Flying Thunder God!"
Using the last trace of his Chakra, Minato activated the Flying Thunder God and appeared beside the falling Duanmu Ci. He grabbed him, teleported once more, narrowly avoiding the Nine-Tails' follow-up attack, and landed on the rooftop where Tsunade and Kushina were.
"Duanmu!" Tsunade immediately lunged forward. Her hands erupted with the densest green Medical Chakra as she pressed them against Duanmu Ci's nearly shattered chest. Tears fell like beads from a broken string. "Hold on! Please, hold on!"
Duanmu Ci lay in Tsunade's arms, covered in blood. His Rinnegan was shut tight, his breath so faint that the flame of his life resembled a dying candle in the wind. The Nine-Tails' Chakra had ravaged his body from within, snapping his meridians and damaging his internal organs. Worse still were the excessive depletion of his Eye Power and the Soul Damage caused by the mental impact of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. To save Kushina, he had paid an unimaginably terrible price!
With Duanmu Ci, its greatest threat, removed from the fight, the Nine-Tails wreaked havoc with even greater abandon! Jiraiya, the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had just arrived after dealing with disasters elsewhere, and countless Konoha Ninja could only fight desperately to hold it back. They used their lives to delay the Nine-Tails' march of destruction, but the casualties were horrendous! Konoha was being reduced to scorched earth inch by inch!
Amid the ruins, the Masked Man, Obito, struggled to his feet. He looked toward Duanmu Ci on the distant rooftop, his fate unknown; toward Kushina, guarded by Tsunade and Minato, alive but incredibly weak and stripped of the Nine-Tails; and toward the Nine-Tails, which continued its mad rampage. Beneath his mask, his expression twisted with complexity.
"Duanmu Ci... once again... you changed fate..." His voice was filled with venom, but also with a trace of indescribable confusion. "You saved Kushina... but Konoha... will still be destroyed! This is... punishment for people like you, who are immersed in false peace! Repent... in the Purgatory of hatred!"
He knew his injuries were far from light, and the Nine-Tails had completely lost control. Staying any longer was too dangerous. After taking one deep look in Duanmu Ci's direction, especially at those tightly shut Rinnegan, Obito's figure slowly vanished into a twisting Spatial Vortex.
"The Moon Eye Plan... needs to be adjusted... Those eyes... must be obtained..."
With Obito's disappearance, the Nine-Tails became a masterless Disaster Beast, and its destruction continued. But without Obito's secret guidance, its actions became purely chaotic.
Just as Konoha was on the verge of total collapse!
"Fourth Hokage!" Hiruzen Sarutobi was drenched in blood, his beard and hair bristling as he roared at Minato, who held Duanmu Ci while guarding Kushina. "Seal it! Use that technique! It's the only way!"
Minato looked at his unconscious wife Kushina, whose breath was barely there, then at the Nine-Tails raging through the ruins in the distance and causing countless casualties. Finally, his gaze fell upon Duanmu Ci in Tsunade's arms, who had paid such a terrible price to save his wife and whose fate was unknown... Immense pain and resolve intertwined in his eyes.
He gently laid Kushina down and pressed one final kiss to her pale forehead. Then he stood. Nothing remained in his azure eyes but the absolute will to protect the village and those he loved! His hands began to form seals, and an ancient, forbidden technique brimming with the aura of death emerged around him!
"Reaper Death Seal... Please, Third Hokage... take care of Naruto... and... Kushina... and Lord Duanmu..."
A golden flash charged toward the world-annihilating Nine-Tails Fox with unwavering resolve! The final seal was about to begin! And the price would be the young life of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze!
Beneath the Blood Moon, Konoha wept as heroes fell. Duanmu Ci had gambled his Rinnegan and his life to forcibly rewrite Kushina's fated death, yet he had also dragged himself and all of Konoha into an even more brutal, unknown vortex of the future. Taoyuan Village's guardian had fallen into a pool of blood, while his legend and his tribulations had only just begun...
Konoha's dawn had yet to fully disperse the thin mist when an unusual undercurrent quietly began to stir through its streets and alleys. Taoyuan Village's tranquility was shattered—not by the blades of foreign enemies, but by suspicion and malice lurking deep within people's hearts.
"Have you heard? Those orphans in Taoyuan Village aren't living in luxury at all! Lord Duanmu... Duanmu Ci is using them for terrifying experiments!"
"Yeah, I heard that too! They say he needs the life force of living people to study that strange Wood Release of his!"
"No wonder those children rarely show their faces after going in. So they've been locked up!"
"And those miraculous medicines, they work so well... Could they be made from some kind of... forbidden material?"
"I knew it. How could one person possibly possess such powerful Medical Ninjutsu and that kind of terrifying strength at the same time? There has to be something wrong!"
The rumors spread, fermented, and twisted through Konoha like a plague. Fear and suspicion replaced the reverence people once held for the Konoha Azure Dragon and their longing for Taoyuan Village as a paradise. Civilians who had planned to send their children to the Taoyuan Village Orphanage or seek treatment there began to hesitate, some even turning away entirely. At Taoyuan Village's entrance, the gazes directed toward it were no longer all gratitude and curiosity; scrutiny and fear had joined them.
The news reached Taoyuan Village's central district immediately.
"Bastard!" Tsunade smashed her fist into the brand-new Wooden Desk. Cracks like a spiderweb instantly spread across the sturdy wood. Her golden hair stirred without wind, and blazing fury burned in her eyes. "Danzo! It has to be that sewer rat! Since he can't win head-on, he resorts to this kind of filthy slander!"
Shizune looked worriedly at the enraged Tsunade, then at Duanmu Ci, who stood by the window in silence, gazing out beyond the village. "Lord Duanmu, the rumors outside are awful. Some villagers have even gathered at the entrance, pointing and gossiping... Should we explain ourselves?"
Duanmu Ci turned around. There was little anger on his face, only a deep calm, like the sea surface before a storm. The Rinnegan's passive perception allowed him to clearly "hear" those malicious speculations and fearful whispers, but deep in his eyes was an icy cold glint.
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