Habara now understood what the Fourth Hokage intended to do. If he could reseal the Nine-Tails back into Kushina Uzumaki, then she could indeed survive. However, before doing so, the Fourth Hokage had to weaken the Nine-Tails' power to half its original strength, meaning he would have to pay an unimaginably heavy price.
Originally, the outcome of the Nine-Tails incident was the death of both the Fourth Hokage and his wife, with Naruto becoming the Nine-Tails jinchuriki. This time, the likely result was that Kushina and Naruto would both become jinchuriki. The difference between these two outcomes might seem small, but the second outcome could be summarized in another way entirely – the Fourth Hokage had protected everything he wanted to protect.
Was this an answer to Habara's previous question? Even so, such an answer still couldn't be called an answer.
The Third Hokage and the ANBU fell completely silent. A short while later, the Nine-Tails' colossal form suddenly vanished.
Simultaneously, the barrier the Fourth Hokage had erected began to crumble.
"Stay here. Wait for my orders before approaching," the Third Hokage said, then dashed into the dissolving barrier.
"But…"
One ANBU ninja was concerned about the Third Hokage's safety acting alone, but before he could finish speaking, another ninja beside him stopped him, shaking his head slowly to indicate that everyone should follow the Third Hokage's orders.
Five minutes later, the Third Hokage's order arrived, and the ANBU ninjas began to move towards his location. Reaching the site of the recent battle, the ANBU ninjas first saw the Third Hokage holding a crying baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then, they saw the Fourth Hokage and his wife lying side-by-side on the ground.
One of them looked like he was asleep; the other one probably was actually asleep.
At this moment, all of Minato Namikaze's chakra was concentrated on Naruto.
A wordless silence quickly spread, unbroken even by the baby's cries.
......
East of Konoha, on the road leading from the Land of Fire to the Eastern Sea.
A lone figure staggered along in the darkness.
"Obito, you need treatment, though it's self-inflicted," Black Zetsu said, temporarily attached to Obito Uchiha.
"I didn't expect the Fourth Hokage to have mastered such a ninjutsu. I was indeed careless," Obito Uchiha admitted.
"This entire incident was entirely due to your own recklessness, impulsiveness, and unilateral decision-making. It did nothing to benefit our plan. You, in your current state, have no way of conquering Konoha," Black Zetsu, as the embodiment of "Madara Uchiha's" will, criticized Obito's actions without reservation.
The severe setback left Obito with no room for rebuttal, so he fell silent.
Seeing an opportunity, the White Zetsu, Tobi, chimed in with an excited, high-pitched voice, "Don't say that, Black Zetsu! Obito just wanted to test his strength. Shouldn't I be the one who's most seriously injured? I'll have to return to the Demonic Statue for 're-cultivation' to recover… I wonder if I can have my missing organs restored this time, like… hehe, can I finally experience what it's like to take a crap?"
"Tobi, shut up," Black Zetsu snapped, silencing the brainless Tobi.
Obito naturally ignored the lunatic attached to him. After a while, he spoke, "Konoha, as expected of the former number one ninja village, still has some depth. Besides the Hokage, some of the ANBU ninjas are also very troublesome."
As he said this, the image of a certain ANBU ninja wearing traditional heavy armor, with a mind sharp enough to instantly see through his space-time ninjutsu, naturally surfaced in Obito's mind… Being a ninja and wearing such thick armor, that person must be extremely insecure.
"You're still too weak. We need to continue lying low," Black Zetsu repeated.
Obito fell silent again. Finally, before disappearing into the dense shadows of the forest, he said, "Regardless, this operation proved one thing once again… That the Fourth Hokage couldn't protect anything."
Honestly, for Obito Uchiha to completely blame the Fourth Hokage for Rin Nohara's death due to a delayed rescue…it was hard to fathom how his mind worked.
......
When Habara woke up again, he was in a bed in the Konoha Hospital.
Overall, because the Nine-Tails had been met with strong resistance the moment it appeared, the damage it caused this time wasn't too severe. Even so, many ninjas were still sent to the hospital.
Habara had several external wounds and a severely fractured arm. More importantly, due to the side effects of going "out of control," his entire body ached. It would probably take a week for these symptoms to subside.
Next time, when he restored the Six Directions Seal on himself, he'd definitely remember to set a proper capacity threshold for the seal… Natural energy was great, but one shouldn't be greedy.
For Habara personally, he could be said to have gained a lot from last night's events. From today onward, he probably wouldn't be considered an unknown ninja. But for Konoha as a whole, the losses of last night were significant, because the village had lost one of its most prized ninjas.
Because of this overall atmosphere, Habara's mood wasn't great. After staying in the stuffy hospital room for a while, he decided to go out for some air. He sat up in bed, put on his slippers, reached for a wooden crutch placed beside the bed, and slowly walked out of the room.
As Habara entered the hallway, he overheard a conversation that made him stop dead in his tracks.
"Did you hear? Yesterday's incident was caused by Kumogakure. They took advantage of this special situation to sneak in and cause all this…"
"Kumogakure? How did they manage that?"
"Don't you know? I heard Kumogakure has always had a secret technique to perfectly control Tailed Beasts…"
This claim stunned Habara. He knew perfectly well who was behind last night's events, so why was the blame being shifted to Kumogakure?
Why was this rumor, so clearly contrary to the facts, spreading? Habara didn't know, but the speed of its propagation was unnatural. It was clear, at the very least, that someone was deliberately spreading this information… Who was spreading this information?
The Nine-Tails incident was caused by the Uchiha, or the Nine-Tails incident was caused by Kumogakure – what was the difference in the impact of these two statements? It was simply a matter of whether Konoha's spearhead would be directed internally or externally.
Clearly, someone wanted to maintain Konoha's internal stability and shift the negative impact of the Nine-Tails incident outwards as an external conflict.
Who?
The Third Hokage? Danzo Shimura?
That was a bit ridiculous. Those two basically wouldn't have the guts to do something like this. The Third Hokage wouldn't think that far ahead; his style of handling problems was always "let it be." And Danzo Shimura was all bark and no bite, only good at bullying those within the village. How could he possibly dare to provoke Kumogakure?
After eliminating those two options, the remaining possibility wasn't difficult to guess…
It was Kushina Uzumaki.
The victim's own identification of the culprit was the most convincing.