Tsunade finally understood!!!
Why Sasuke had appeared so unexpectedly in the Uzumaki Clan's Mask Hall in Konoha just after defecting from the village!
Why he and Orochimaru had appeared in Konoha's Cemetery, trying to stop Obito from stealing Kakashi's eye!
And why he had attacked the Five Kage Summit in a mask, inflicting the pain of defeat on the Five Kage and declaring war on them!
More than any of those things, it answered her greatest question!!!
—Why, why had Sasuke become so powerful at just fourteen years old!!!
So all of it... had been an effort to keep the Shinobi World from being destroyed by the tyrant God Shi Mei again!
Sage Katsuyu had only just learned the truth as well, but with a thousand years of experience behind her, her expression was far calmer and more solemn than Tsunade's.
"So the threat of that clan still hasn't been eliminated?"
"That clan...?" Tsunade raised her eyes.
Sage Katsuyu said, "The clan Orochimaru spoke of. The Ō-tsu-tsu-ki Clan."
Tsunade asked, "You know?? About that clan??"
Orochimaru smiled. "After all, you lived through that era too. A thousand years ago, when Kaguya descended upon this land, you had only just made your home on this planet, like the two sages of Mount Myōboku and Ryūchi Cave, hadn't you?"
Hearing this, Sage Katsuyu, in her young human maiden form, fixed her emerald eyes on Orochimaru. "You even know that? Did Gamamaru and Medusa tell you?"
Gamamaru was the true name of Mount Myōboku's Great Toad Sage.
Medusa was the true name of Ryūchi Cave's White Snake Sage.
Orochimaru gently shook his head. "No... neither of those elders told me. I merely inferred it from clues in my previous life."
"Lady Katsuyu, you..."
Tsunade stared at Katsuyu in shock. Only now did she