Distributing the Eyes

Tsunade immediately turned toward Hinata and called out, "Don't be afraid, Hinata. I'm the Fifth Hokage. I'm right here!"

She made it sound as if she were powerful enough to protect Hinata. Nagato curled his lip, wanting to remind her that she was a prisoner herself.

But hearing Tsunade's voice seemed to comfort Hinata a little. Holding the Katsuyu that was treating her, she asked, "Lord Hokage, what happened to my eyes? Can they be healed?"

Since she'd been hit by a Shinra Tensei before her eyes were taken, Hinata's memories were muddled. She still hadn't figured out what had happened to her.

Tsunade stared at the two empty sockets on Hinata's face, unable to speak. She didn't know how to answer.

Nagato suddenly spoke up. "Of course they can. With the Hokage here, anything is possible."

He broke into a malicious grin. "The Hokage has two eyes, doesn't she? Why not give one to Hinata? Protecting the villagers is the Hokage's duty, right?"

As he spoke, Nagato walked toward Tsunade and held up two fingers.

"You..." Watching Nagato's fingers draw closer and closer to her left eye, Tsunade felt she was about to lose her mind.

Her thoughts raced, but she still couldn't come up with a way to counter Nagato's moral blackmail.

Tsunade obviously disagreed with his twisted logic, but she also felt she couldn't tell Hinata to her face that she didn't want to give her an eye. Most importantly, she wasn't strong enough to stop Nagato.

Katsuyu was the only one who might have been able to stop Nagato in a moment like this, but it unexpectedly remained silent.

And so, Nagato gouged out Tsunade's left eye. Blood streamed down her face.

Holding the eyeball, he walked over to Hinata.

"I... I don't want Lord Hokage's eye!"

Tsunade hadn't made a sound when her eye was taken, but Nagato's words seemed to help Hinata understand her situation. She realized why her eye socket felt so empty. As if she'd regained her courage, Hinata firmly refused.

Nagato had no intention of paying any attention to her objections.

"It's fine. The Hokage has two eyes, so she can spare one for you." Without a care, Nagato forced Tsunade's eyeball into Hinata's socket. He was about to apply Chakra, then remembered that he wasn't a medical ninja and didn't have a medical license. It was probably best not to mess around.

Nagato knew his limits. He'd been pretty deft when transplanting eyeballs into himself—he'd just popped the Rinnegan back in and that was that. But putting an eyeball into someone else was another matter. Hinata's body probably couldn't take as much punishment as his Sage Body.

"Tsunade, I'll leave the rest to you." And so, after forcibly gouging out Tsunade's eyeball, Nagato made another inhuman decision and ordered her to transplant it into Hinata herself.

"What are you waiting for? You don't want your eye to get ruined, do you?" When Tsunade glared at him with her remaining eye, full of anger, Nagato added that, too.

His argument made so much sense that Tsunade found herself unable to answer.

Her left eye had already been gouged out. Better to handle it herself than leave it to Nagato, who clearly wasn't a medical ninja. She was a master healer, after all.

Hinata opened her mouth to say something, but Nagato tapped her forehead with a finger, silencing her.

Tsunade glared furiously at Nagato, as if to say, "Just you wait." Then she took the eyeball from him and used the Mystical Palm Technique to transplant it into Hinata.

When it came to this kind of work, Nagato was nowhere near Tsunade's level.

Soon, two fresh one-eyed people stood before him. Nagato nodded with satisfaction.

"Are you some kind of pervert, Nagato?" Katsuyu, who'd been silent until now, couldn't help speaking up. "I suspected as much before, but now it's confirmed. You're a pervert!"

That slug was going too far. Nagato widened his eyes. He was a fine young man whose soul came from a new society. How could Katsuyu just accuse him of such a thing?

But soon, he realized he'd misunderstood. Katsuyu meant something else entirely. "Why is there no malice in your heart when you do things like this?"

Katsuyu's voice was full of confusion. Nagato was equally puzzled by the slug's way of thinking. He had no idea what the soft, squishy creature was thinking. Scratching his head, he asked, "Why should I feel malice?" As he spoke, Nagato seemed to have already worked out a whole line of reasoning in his head. He continued, righteous as could be, "Don't you understand that people worry not about scarcity, but about inequality? Tsunade has two eyes, while Hinata doesn't have a single one. So isn't it only just to give one of Tsunade's eyes to Hinata?"

He sounded utterly righteous, without giving a thought to how many eyes he himself had.

Katsuyu fell silent for a moment, then said with certainty, "You really are a pervert. But now I finally understand why the Wraiths in the Black Pool have no effect on you."

Katsuyu had always been baffled by how Nagato could practice Senjutsu without being affected by resentment. That was why it had been sensing Nagato's state of mind with its main body all along—even allowing him to gouge out Tsunade's eye for that very reason.

But it had found that no matter what Nagato said or what cruel things he did, it couldn't sense any malice in his heart. His mind remained pure and untainted, as if he were incapable of being touched by the negative emotions of this world. If Katsuyu had seen a soul like that in a revered monk, it would have called him a Buddha. But Nagato was obviously a villain, with nothing in common with a Buddha. Besides "pervert," Katsuyu couldn't think of any other word to describe the feeling he gave it.

Insulted as a pervert again, Nagato drew in a sharp breath. He couldn't exactly tell the slug that he was a transmigrator, could he? He'd never had any dealings with Tsunade, and he'd done everything simply because he felt like it. Of course he wouldn't feel any malice. But he couldn't say that, so he could only stew in silence.

"What are you looking at? You're a one-eyed freak. Don't you know how awful you look?" Nagato, seething with frustration, took it out on Tsunade.

"Heh. I'm looking at a pervert." Unfortunately, women had an innate talent for arguing. One casual remark from Tsunade was enough to make Nagato see red.

Even Hinata turned to look at Nagato, her expression making it clear: Looking at a pervert.

So I'm the one they're ganging up on now? Nagato raised an eyebrow. Then his expression changed, and he turned to look east, Katsuyu on his shoulder doing the same.

"They're here." He couldn't be mistaken. Obito Uchiha and the others were on their way.

"Who's coming? Do you know them, Nagato?"

Katsuyu's voice rang in his mind. He could sense the obvious hostility in it.

He couldn't help it. The pair of Obito and Zetsu made people feel so uncomfortable, so eager to kill them as soon as possible. That aura came from their very nature. There was no changing it.