The Armor of the Land of Iron

"The Uzumaki Clan's masks..."

Looking at the rows upon rows of masks on the surrounding walls, each with a different style—ancient, strange, and even somewhat eerie in design—

Guy murmured to himself, his expression complicated.

Ordinary people might have taken these masks for nothing more than decorations.

Or perhaps distinctive souvenirs from the Land of Whirlpools.

But Guy's gaze was fixed firmly on one particular mask.

[Reaper Mask]

It was a mask identical to the face of the Reaper summoned by the Reaper Death Seal.

Exactly identical!

Thinking of how Orochimaru later used this mask to "trick" the Reaper and undo the seal on his hands, a thought suddenly arose in Guy's mind.

Could it be that every one of these masks represented a powerful sealing technique of the Uzumaki Clan?

"Surely... not?"

Guy was secretly alarmed.

The Reaper Death Seal was an S-rank sealing technique!

If every mask represented a sealing technique of the same level, then the Uzumaki Clan's foundation and strength

were simply too terrifying!

But... perhaps that was precisely one of the reasons other nations feared the Uzumaki Clan, and eventually joined forces to wipe them out.

Guy sighed inwardly.

Even as he speculated, he felt that the Uzumaki Clan's fate was deeply unjust.

Whether the sealing techniques behind the masks were real or not, the destruction of the Uzumaki Clan was an undeniable fact.

And when the Uzumaki Clan fell, apart from taking in Kushina Uzumaki, Konoha seemed to have taken no other substantive action.

Nor did they bring back the clan members scattered abroad.

Nagato, Karin...

Their early lives had all been exceedingly miserable.

Kushina, the only one they took in, ultimately became the Nine-Tails' jinchuriki.

The more one thought about these facts, the more thought-provoking they became.

"Guy, what's wrong?"

Kakashi looked over