The moment Miki Yūya said those words, the tragic solemnity over the clearing was torn to shreds!
One second, everyone had been in tears, solemnly mourning the Third Hokage's great, selfless sacrifice.
The next, every villager and every ninja left behind had turned livid, their eyes vicious!
The dead silence lasted only a second before a tidal wave of furious curses erupted across the clearing!
"What the fuck are you talking about?!"
"Have you lost your mind, you little bastard?! How dare you slander Lord Third Hokage?!"
"Killing himself out of guilt? Have you got no fucking conscience?!"
The nearest villagers exploded, glaring at Miki Yūya in the corner, spittle flying from their mouths and rage written across their faces.
"He's giving his life to protect us, and you dare insult him like that?!"
"Where did this bastard come from? Get out! Don't sully this place!"
After that brief silence came fury like an erupting volcano.
Countless stunned, furious, disbelieving gazes locked onto the slender boy in the corner.
Insults, accusations, contempt, hostility...
Malice surged at him from every direction, crashing down on him like a tide!
Several hotheaded young men even clenched their fists and marched toward Miki Yūya, clearly intending to teach him a lesson with their fists!
"Brat! Apologize to Lord Third Hokage!"
"Apologize or we'll beat you to death today! You ungrateful little shit!"
"How dare you spout nonsense here and shake everyone's resolve!"
In an instant, everyone present had turned against Miki Yūya.
Any ordinary person surrounded, cursed at, threatened, and hated by over a hundred people would have been trembling, their legs giving out. They would have either knelt and begged forgiveness or broken down sobbing.
But Miki Yūya wasn't remotely afraid. In fact, he was enjoying the hell out of it!
Because the system notifications in his head were pouring in nonstop!
[Ding! Subjected to verbal bullying! Observation Haki +1!] [Ding! Targeted by hostility! Observation Haki +1!] [Ding! Subjected to hostile condemnation by a crowd! Observation Haki +1!] [Ding! Subjected to threats of violence! Observation Haki +1! +1! +1!]
Dense streams of +1 notifications flashed past as though someone were spamming a button!
Faint but unmistakable power flowed continuously into every part of Miki Yūya's body!
He could clearly feel his perception transforming at incredible speed!
His surroundings, once indistinct, had become astonishingly clear.
The faint scrape of loose stones behind him, the crackle of distant flames, everyone's rapid breathing, the anger and impulsiveness hidden in their eyes, even the shifting tension in the approaching villagers' clenched fists...
He picked up every detail with perfect precision!
His awareness had improved in every direction, unmistakably and tangibly!
This feels amazing! Fucking amazing!
Miki Yūya hid his wild delight behind his eyes, inwardly rejoicing.
This was his Rabble System!
For anyone else, being cursed at and targeted by everyone meant public humiliation, danger, a dead end!
For him, being cursed at and bullied by everyone was nothing but free experience and free power!
The harsher their curses, the stronger he became!
The more people hated him, the faster he improved!
Everyone bullying him meant everyone handing him cheats! Bullying others meant activating his own cheats, too!!
With the max-level passive effect of the Will of Domination, all hostility, intimidation, and pressure from public opinion were completely ineffective. His expression unchanged, he stood amid the crowd and calmly watched the raging villagers and ninja.
Curse all you want. I'll stand right here and wait for my strength to skyrocket!
Those young men had already reached him, their fists raised, and the crowd's curses had reached a fever pitch.
At last, Miki Yūya reacted. A mocking sneer curled his lips as he spoke unhurriedly, his clear voice carrying across the clearing!
"You're cursing me? What gives you the right?"
That single question abruptly silenced the curses.
Everyone glared at him and shouted angrily:
"You slandered Lord Third Hokage! You're ungrateful!"
"Grateful? What do I have to be grateful for?"
Miki Yūya scoffed. Every word rang clear and struck a nerve, sparing the Third Hokage none of his dignity.
"You're all standing here crying, praising the Will of Fire and the Third's sacrifice. Have you gotten so caught up in your emotions that your brains stopped working?"
"Konoha's a wreck, ruins everywhere, people driven from their homes. Who caused this?!"
Everyone around him froze before answering instinctively:
"Orochimaru! The invaders from the Sound Ninja and Sunagakure!"
"Orochimaru?"
Miki Yūya's voice abruptly rose, shutting the whole crowd up!
"Whose student was Orochimaru?!"
"Orochimaru was the personal student the Third taught himself!"
"He personally trained that top-level rogue ninja!"
"He raised a student who became the monster attacking our village!"
"Hiruzen Sarutobi failed in his responsibility as a teacher! He made Orochimaru what he is! As Hokage, all three of his students left the village. Isn't that his fault?"
"Orochimaru attacked because of the Hokage's mistakes! Why should we ordinary people pay for what he did?!"
Miki Yūya swept his gaze over the confused, wavering faces. His voice grew sharper as he brought out the most devastating comparison-the Fourth Hokage-cutting straight through their sentimental self-indulgence!
"Don't you all love praising sacrifices and Hokage?"
"Then let's make a proper comparison!"
"The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze!"
At the mention of the Fourth Hokage, everyone's heart gave an involuntary jolt.
There wasn't a soul in Konoha who didn't miss and respect the Yellow Flash, who had died so young for the village.
Miki Yūya's voice was cold and clear, every word fair, overwhelming the entire crowd!
"Why did the Fourth sacrifice himself?"
"Because the Nine-Tails went berserk! To protect the innocent people of the village! But the Nine-Tails had nothing to do with the Fourth."
"Yet he still stood on the front line, subdued the Tailed Beast, fought off the disaster, and protected the village with his life!"
"He died protecting the village! He was a real hero!"
"But what about the Third today?!"
Miki Yūya jabbed a finger toward the violet barrier, his voice dripping with scorn!
"He fought for his life today, only to be forced into killing himself with the Reaper Death Seal!"
"He wasn't fighting a foreign enemy! Or a Tailed Beast!"
"He was fighting the student he raised himself!"
"The Fourth shielded Konoha from disaster!"
"The Third was cleaning up his own mess! His own mess! He drove a Konoha genius to this point, but we're the ones paying the price."
"Every source of trouble in Konoha today, this disaster the village has suffered!!"
"It all stems from the Third's decades of incompetent rule and failure as a teacher!"
"Does he deserve to be Hokage? Does he deserve our undying gratitude?"
That comparison hit like a devastating blow!
Blunt, cruel, and real!
It instantly shattered the last traces of everyone's rose-tinted view!
The villagers who had still harbored doubts and a little sympathy for the Third completely snapped!
That was right!
The Third Hokage.
The enemy he was fighting to the death was a menace he had trained himself!
This wasn't protecting the village!
This was cleaning up his own shit!
He was making up for decades of negligence! And he had let the village be destroyed in the process.
In an instant, public opinion spiraled completely out of control!
That was right!
That old bastard, the Third!
The battle he was risking his life to fight was a mess he had brought upon himself!
This wasn't some hero defending the village!
He was just cleaning up his own shit! He deserved it!
The fear, anger, and bitterness over ruined homes and shattered families that had built up inside them exploded all at once!
The villagers who had just been viciously berating Miki Yūya all whipped around!
Faces covered in dust, tear tracks, and rage stared fixedly at the violet barrier overhead!
A thunderous storm of curses erupted, devoid of reason-nothing but blatant personal attacks and savage venting!
"Hiruzen Sarutobi, you useless old bastard!!"
"Decades as Hokage, and you only got more pathetic! Look at the student you raised!"
"You destroyed our homes and families! And you've got the nerve to put on that tragic act in there?!"
"Quit pretending you're some self-sacrificing hero! You deserve this! Every bit of it!"
"The Fourth fought to protect the village from a disaster out of nowhere! And you? You screwed yourself over! And the whole village along with you!"
A burly man whose house had been completely destroyed and whose family had been injured beneath the rubble screamed curses, his eyes red.
"You useless old fossil!
Do you even know how to teach?! Do you even know how to be Hokage?!"
"You're the most useless Hokage Konoha's ever had!"
"Your student attacked the village, and you've got the nerve to fight for your life in there and fish for sympathy! Have you no shame?!"
The younger villagers completely lost their tempers, swearing without restraint:
"Quit pretending you're dying for some noble cause!
You just couldn't clean up the mess you made, so now that you're cornered, you want to die and clear your name!"
"'Killing himself out of guilt' was exactly right! Shameless old bastard!"
"You spend your days putting on airs as the high-and-mighty Hokage, but when trouble comes, all you can do is die! You can't solve a damn thing!!"
"You couldn't keep a single one of the Sannin! They all either defected or ran off! And you call yourself the strongest Hokage in the Shinobi World? What a joke!"
"You've coasted for decades! Hogging the position without doing a damn thing! Useless!"
"Konoha's been wrecked like this because you're stupid! Because you're useless!"
"Why should we pay for your stupidity, you useless old bastard?!"
"Just hurry up and die already! All you do alive is hurt people!"
Curses filled the air-vulgar, blunt, nothing but vented rage!
There was no reasoning, no analysis, no appraisal of his leadership!
These were ordinary people struck by disaster who had abandoned all restraint, pointing straight at the Third and hurling personal attacks! Humiliating him mercilessly!
The few Chunin left nearby listened with prickling scalps and ashen faces!
They wanted to intervene, rebuke them, defend the Hokage's dignity, but faced with over a hundred people screaming curses, with villagers who had completely lost control, they didn't dare utter a word!
Listening to the crowd's savage curses and watching the Third being vilified inside the barrier, Miki Yūya was absolutely thrilled! Holy shit, this is Konoha's rabble. If you dare start the fight, they'll dare join in.
They didn't care who you were. These people weren't afraid.
System rewards flooded his mind, piling up at a frantic pace!
[Ding! Verbally bullied the Third Hokage!] [Conqueror's Haki +10!] [Conqueror's Haki +10!] [Conqueror's Haki +10!]
Immense power surged through his body!
Miki Yūya's lips curled into an unrestrained grin.
This was Konoha. All that existed here was pure domination.
Inside the Four Violet Flames Formation.
By then, the battle's outcome had largely been decided.
Hiruzen Sarutobi was drenched in blood, his aged body covered in savage wounds and his chakra nearly exhausted.
Moments earlier, he had staked what remained of his life on fully activating the Reaper Death Seal, wresting power from the Death God to successfully seal the reincarnated First Hokage and Second Hokage.
The two legendary figures summoned through Impure World Reincarnation had completely vanished. Orochimaru was the only enemy left inside the barrier.
The Death God's dark spectral form loomed behind Hiruzen Sarutobi, cold shackles of death clamped around his soul. The price was already set-once this battle ended, he would die.
But he had no regrets.
Yet at that very moment-
Outside the barrier!
A tidal wave of vulgar, grating, utterly unrestrained curses poured into the barrier!
Every word was blunt, grating, and utterly humiliating.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had fought to his absolute limit and steeled himself to die, suddenly went rigid!
A moment earlier, he had been prepared to die for the village, believing that even if he perished, he would at least have protected it and fulfilled his duty as Hokage.
A moment later, his lifetime of sacrifice, his unwavering dedication, and the countless times he had shed blood to defend the village were torn apart by its people, trampled underfoot amid a frenzy of curses!
More than forty years as Hokage!
Everyone had always respectfully addressed him as Lord Third, the Third Hokage!
In everyone's eyes, he had been the strongest Hokage in the Shinobi World, Konoha's pillar, the elder who protected the village!
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined this.
He had staked his life on this final battle, only to receive neither respect nor regret, but humiliation from the entire village.
It felt as though a sledgehammer had smashed the Third's heart to pieces!
His body was already on the verge of breaking, his mind strained to its absolute limit. At that moment, both suffered a fatal collapse!
His chakra instantly spiraled out of control!
The spectral Death God behind him swayed slightly, and even the sealing power began to grow dangerously unstable.
The Will of Fire he had upheld his entire life, the conviction he had always taken pride in, crumbled inch by inch beneath the villagers' furious curses, cracking and shattering!
"Heh... how utterly ridiculous, old man."
"You risked your life to seal the First and Second, gambled your soul on a forbidden jutsu, and thought only of saving the village."
"And what did that get you?"
"Everyone can see it perfectly clearly-you brought this entire disaster upon them yourself, from beginning to end."
Orochimaru narrowed his serpentine eyes, his voice dripping with cruelty and mockery.
Every word was a sharp knife driven deep into Hiruzen Sarutobi's shattered heart!
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at Orochimaru and mustered the last of his strength.
"Haaah!!"
With a roar, Hiruzen Sarutobi unleashed his final strike!
The Death God's pitch-black power swept past with a howl!
In the end...
It only managed to sever one of Orochimaru's soul's arms!
Crack!
An intangible sound rang out as the soul shattered.
The soul essence of Orochimaru's entire left arm was brutally ripped apart and sealed within the Death God's belly.
But...
That was all.
"Bleurgh!!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi's body convulsed violently. Scalding blood gushed from his mouth, and he crumpled to his knees.
He raised his head and stared blankly at Orochimaru, whose face wore a sinister, mocking expression and who had lost only one arm. The relentless curses from outside still echoed in his ears.
His eyes were vacant, utterly dazed.
A lifetime of dedication, a lifetime of glory, a lifetime of the Will of Fire.
Today.
Under a few words from a civilian boy, the entire village's furious curses, and his own student's mockery.
It had utterly...
Shattered beyond all repair.
Before you continue