"Not enough."
Tsunade shook her head gently, her gaze growing increasingly grave as she voiced the most chilling question at the heart of it all.
"If it were nothing more than the brothers' obsession and a cycle of fate, that would be one thing."
"But what if the Sage of Six Paths deliberately arranged everything from the very beginning?"
"He watched his two sons fight each other generation after generation, forever opposed. He watched the Shinobi World suffer a thousand years of war, devastation, and countless deaths. Throughout it all, he stood by coldly and never intervened."
"What exactly did he gain from a thousand years of chaos in the Shinobi World?"
The instant those words fell!
The temperature in the Hokage Office seemed to plummet, and the atmosphere grew unbearably oppressive.
Utter terror appeared on all three faces. A chill ran down their backs, and their scalps prickled.
Exactly!
If it were merely a feud between brothers, the Sage of Six Paths could have ended it long ago.
Yet he had allowed a thousand years of reincarnation, a thousand years of war, and a thousand years of slaughter.
Behind it all, there had to be an enormous conspiracy beyond their imagination or reach, one capable of overturning everything in the Shinobi World!
"No... that can't be..." Tsunade murmured, her heart in complete turmoil. She dared not follow that thought to its deepest implications.
"Stop thinking about it!"
Jiraiya immediately cut her thoughts short with a sharp command, his gaze utterly solemn.
"This question ends here. No one is to investigate it, pry into it, or even think about it any further!"
"Prying too deeply into secrets like these will only bring disaster upon us!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi wore an immensely conflicted expression. Looking out the window at the peaceful sky