Chapter 438: Even in Death, He Never Stops Preaching

Now that he was witnessing history repeat itself, he naturally felt that his "foresight" had been validated. Even his appetite seemed to have improved.

Beside him, Orochimaru's golden, serpentine eyes had never left the Heavenly Curtain, taking in everything—the manipulation of Black Zetsu, Indra's transformation, the clash of ideals, and the cycle of history.

Hearing Karin's shouting, he let out a low chuckle. The sound carried a faint chill through the cavernous underground base.

Rather than responding to Karin's remarks about her "prophecy" coming true, he abruptly changed the subject and asked in a seemingly casual tone:

"Karin, after eating crab for so many days... aren't you getting tired of it?"

Karin, who had been immersed in the dual satisfaction of good food and being a "prophet," froze.

She instinctively lowered her head and looked at the crab in her hands. Though it had been picked nearly clean, it was still wonderfully fragrant. A fleeting, almost imperceptible trace of... disgust and weariness flashed through her crimson eyes.

Come to think of it, she had been eating crab for quite a few days now...

Perhaps even she had not fully noticed that subtle shift in emotion, but Orochimaru, who had been observing her from the corner of his eye, caught it precisely.

Orochimaru's expression remained unchanged, still wearing that inscrutable, slightly androgynous smile.

Yet deep within his eyes, a flash of satisfaction at a plan succeeding—and calculation—passed by.

This secret base was buried deep underground and far from the coast. Regularly obtaining crabs that were this fresh, plump, and suited to Karin's picky tastes was no easy task, and it had cost him no small amount of effort and resources.

If this child weren't so difficult to handle, he wouldn't have bothered playing mind games with a little girl.

Seeing that Karin's attention had briefly shifted, Orochimaru stopped dwelling on the matter of the crabs.

He raised his eyes once more, his gaze seeming almost tangible as it settled upon the Heavenly Curtain.

Orochimaru lowered his voice. It carried the calm detachment of someone analyzing events from a broader perspective, along with a faint edge of biting mockery.

"A conflict of ideals... has never been a knot that can easily be untied."

It was as though Orochimaru were summarizing the central conflict of the Seventh Scene.

"That's right." Kabuto nodded. "Ideals themselves aren't necessarily a bad thing. The problem is when people with immense power hold opposing ideals."

"Just like Kaguya and the Sage of Six Paths. Or the Sage of Six Paths and Indra."

"And that's where things become deadly. Whether everyone else supports them or not, they're the ones who end up paying the price."

Kabuto's words made a great deal of sense.

So, in the end, power was everything!

"Which means..." Orochimaru's gaze seemed to pierce through the Heavenly Curtain and see the higher power hidden behind the course of history—the one pulling the strings.

"Indra and Asura. Two brothers whose ideals were fundamentally opposed. After their deaths, they continued to reincarnate, again and again, fighting and becoming entangled throughout the centuries..."

Orochimaru paused, his golden pupils narrowing slightly.

"Was it you, Sage of Six Paths...?"

"Did you control that realm of the dead—the Pure Land—and insist..."

"...that the souls of those two brothers must meet, clash, and kill one another over and over again through each reincarnation..."

"Until, in the end, you forced them to 'understand one another' and achieve the 'reconciliation' you desired?"

There was a coldness in Orochimaru's voice, as though he had seen through the heart of the matter.

"After all, 'mutual understanding between people' was the very core of the ideal you believed in throughout your life—an ideal you never abandoned, even in death."

"Even when it came to souls after death, you still refused to give up on... 'educating' them."

Then his words suddenly became razor-sharp, like a poisoned blade stabbing directly at the most vulnerable part of the heart of that "father," who might be silently watching everything from within the Pure Land.

"But..."

"Even your own eldest son—Indra—never understood you."

"On the contrary, because he could not understand you, because your ideals were incompatible, he ultimately turned toward resentment and opposition, perhaps even... a repetition of history."

"For you..."

Orochimaru's voice grew softer, yet every word cut like a blade.

"That must be... the greatest irony—and the most devastating thing of all."

Orochimaru seemed to have grasped the central absurdity behind the tragedy that had endured for a thousand years.

The Sage of Six Paths, Kaguya's eldest son, had been unable to "understand" his mother's way of ruling. Believing it to be wrong, he had joined forces with his younger brother and personally overthrown her.

And now, as the father of an eldest son himself, his own eldest son, Indra, was moving toward a complete break with him because he could not "understand" his ideals.

Perhaps even toward repeating the same story of "overthrowing" his father.

"How... ironic."

Orochimaru softly uttered those words, a cold curve appearing on his lips.

A man who had created an ideal and been its most devoted believer had, within his own closest bloodline, encountered the most fundamental rejection and betrayal of that very ideal.

Finally, he raised his head, as though addressing both a possible unseen observer and the absurd cycle of history itself. His question was filled with contempt and philosophical scorn.

"If even you, Sage of Six Paths... couldn't make your own family achieve 'mutual understanding' among blood relatives..."

"If even after exhausting yourself, laying plans across a thousand years, and perhaps even manipulating the reincarnation of souls, you still couldn't bridge the divide between your sons..."

"Then..."

"What makes you think... that your ideals can truly bring understanding to this entire shinobi world—a world filled with tangled interests and overflowing desires?"

Kabuto nodded repeatedly as he listened, and even a mocking smile appeared on his lips.

The Sage of Six Paths was fortunate that he was powerful. Otherwise, someone acting like that would have been beaten to death long ago.

And besides, he opposed dictatorship, didn't he? Then weren't his actions simply another form of dictatorship?

Karin, meanwhile, seemed utterly uninterested in all this talk about "ideals" and "irony." She had already begun absentmindedly fiddling with the leftover crab shells.

Konohagakure!

Naruto and Sasuke exchanged glances, both wearing strange expressions.

Not long ago, their teammate Sakura had raised a viewpoint remarkably similar to Orochimaru's.

"Could it be that the Sage of Six Paths allowed Indra and Asura's Chakra to reincarnate again and again because he wanted the two of them to reconcile?"

"In the end, one was reborn within Naruto—Asura—and the other within Sasuke—Indra."

Sakura's calm analysis had made the two nine-year-old boys' scalps tingle and sent a chill down their spines.

They knew that some kind of fated connection existed between them, one that had even given rise to an inexplicable sense of closeness and rivalry.

But they had never—and lacked the ability to—seriously consider whether, behind this reincarnation, there was a stubborn thousand-year-long experiment in "reconciliation" by a father, or the silent imposition of an ideology.

Now, the Heavenly Curtain had laid everything bare while bringing Sakura's pointed doubts into the open, making this so-called "destiny" seem even more helpless—and perhaps even somewhat repulsive.