Allocating the Eyes

Tsunade, standing to the side, immediately looked toward Hinata and shouted, "Don't be afraid, Hinata! I am the Fifth Hokage, and I am right here!"

She acted as if she were powerful enough to protect Hinata. Nagato curled his lip, very tempted to remind her that she was a captive herself.

However, after hearing Tsunade's voice, Hinata seemed to feel a bit better. She hugged the Katsuyu that was healing her and asked, "Lord Hokage, what happened to my eyes? Can they be cured?"

Because she had been hit by an Almighty Push just before her eyes were gouged out, Hinata's memories were currently in a state of confusion, and she hadn't yet grasped what had happened to her.

Tsunade looked at the two hollow pits on her face and remained silent, not knowing how to respond.

Nagato suddenly spoke up: "You can. With Lord Hokage here, anything is possible."

He suddenly gave a wicked smile: "Doesn't Lord Hokage have two eyes? Wouldn't it be fine to give one to Hinata? Protecting the villagers is the duty of the Hokage, isn't it?"

As he said this, Nagato walked toward Tsunade and extended two fingers.

"You..." Watching Nagato's fingers move closer and closer to her left eye, Tsunade was driven to the brink of madness.

Although her mind was racing, she still couldn't think of a way to refute Nagato's moral kidnapping.

Tsunade certainly didn't agree with Nagato's twisted logic, but she also felt that she couldn't say she was unwilling to transplant her eye to Hinata in front of the girl. Most importantly, she lacked the strength to stop Nagato.

The only one who might have been able to stop Nagato at this moment, Katsuyu, remained unexpectedly silent.

And so, Tsunade's left eye was gouged out by Nagato. Blood dripped everywhere.

He held the eyeball and walked toward Hinata.

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

Tsunade hadn't made a sound when her eye was gouged out, but Nagato's words seemed to make Hinata understand her situation. She realized what the sensation of having nothing in her eye sockets meant. As if regaining her courage, Hinata firmly refused.

However, Nagato had no intention of paying any attention to her attitude.

"It's fine. Lord Hokage has two eyes; sharing one with you is perfectly acceptable." Nagato nonchalantly forced Tsunade's eyeball into Hinata's eye socket. He was just about to channel his Chakra when he remembered he wasn't a medical ninja and lacked a medical license, so it would be better not to mess around blindly.

Nagato was a man who knew his limits; he knew that while he was incredibly skilled at transplanting eyes into himself—where the Rinnegan could just be shoved back in and that was that—installing an eye into someone else was a different matter entirely. Hinata's body likely wasn't as durable as his own Sage Body.

"Tsunade, I'll leave the rest to you." Thus, Nagato made another heartless decision: after forcibly gouging out Tsunade's eye, he demanded that Tsunade perform the transplant on Hinata herself.

"What are you staring at? You don't want your own eye to go to waste, do you?" Seeing Tsunade glaring at him with her remaining eye full of rage, Nagato added this remark.

His words were so logical that Tsunade found herself speechless.

Since the left eye had already been gouged out, it was better for her, a master of medical ninjutsu, to handle the procedure than to leave it to Nagato, who clearly wasn't a medical ninja.

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

Tsunade glared fiercely at Nagato, conveying the message that he should just wait, before taking the eyeball from his hand and using the Mystical Palm Technique to transplant the eye into Hinata.

When it came to this kind of operation, Nagato was truly far inferior to Tsunade.

Soon, two one-eyed individuals were freshly minted, and Nagato nodded in satisfaction.

"Nagato, are you perhaps a pervert?" The silent Katsuyu finally couldn't help but speak up. "Although I had my suspicions before, I think it's confirmed now: you are a pervert!"

What this slug said was truly excessive. Nagato widened his eyes, feeling that he was a fine, upstanding youth whose soul came from a new society; how could Katsuyu slander his innocence out of thin air?

However, he soon realized he had misunderstood. What Katsuyu clearly meant was something else: "Why is it that when you do these things, there isn't a shred of malice in your heart?"

Katsuyu's voice was full of confusion, which left Nagato equally baffled by the slug's thought process; he didn't know what this squishy creature was thinking. He scratched his head and said, "Why would I have malice?" As he said this, as if he had already organized a set of arguments in his mind, he continued righteously, "In this world, do you not understand the principle that one should worry not about scarcity, but about inequality? Tsunade has two eyes, while Hinata has none. So, isn't it a righteous act to share one of Tsunade's eyes with Hinata?"

He sounded absolutely upright when he said this, completely ignoring the fact that he had several eyes of his own.

Katsuyu was silent for a moment before saying with certainty, "You really are a pervert. But, I finally understand why the Wraith in the Black Pool has no effect on you."

Katsuyu had always been surprised at how Nagato could practice sage arts without being affected by resentment. Therefore, it had been using its main body to perceive Nagato's psychological state, even allowing Nagato to gouge out Tsunade's eye for the sake of this observation.

Yet, it discovered that no matter what Nagato said or what cruel acts he committed, it could not sense any malice in his heart. His mind remained in a state of absolute purity, as if he were completely immune to the negative emotions of this world. If such a soul were seen in a high monk, it would be considered enlightened, but Nagato was clearly a villain and had nothing to do with Buddhism. Aside from "pervert," Katsuyu couldn't think of any other word to describe the feeling Nagato gave it.

Nagato, scolded as a pervert once again, gasped. He couldn't exactly tell this stinking slug that he was a transmigrator, could he? He hadn't had any prior dealings with Tsunade, and everything he did was purely out of interest, so of course, he couldn't harbor any malice. But he couldn't say that, so he could only sulk.

"What are you looking at? You're a one-eyed wonder now; don't you know how ugly you look?" Nagato, holding back his frustration, took his anger out on Tsunade.

"Heh, I'm looking at a pervert." Unfortunately, when it came to bickering, women had an innate talent; a single sentence from Tsunade made Nagato burn with rage.

Hinata even followed suit and looked toward Nagato, the meaning in her eyes clear: "Looking at a pervert."

Hah, am I being targeted? Nagato raised an eyebrow, then his expression suddenly changed. Together with the Katsuyu on his shoulder, he looked toward the east.

"They're here." He couldn't have sensed it wrong; Obito Uchiha and the others were approaching.

"Who is coming? Do you recognize them, Nagato?"

Katsuyu's voice echoed in his mind, and Nagato could sense clear hostility in its tone.

There was no helping it; the combination of Obito and Zetsu gave off such an uncomfortable vibe, the kind that made one want to kill them as soon as possible. It was a temperament that radiated from their very nature; it couldn't be changed.