Hagoromo had essentially dumped all his skill points into critical damage, so even an existence as absurdly powerful as a tailed beast could be beaten half to death by him in a very short time.
Without a jinchūriki to control them, tailed beasts relying solely on their own intelligence were, frankly, not very bright in combat.
They knew only one trick—
Tailed Beast Ball.
The unconscious Three-Tails now floated on the lake's surface, its entire body soaked in blood. It had thoroughly transformed into a red turtle.
There was no helping it—
after all, its body had been punched full of holes.
Some tasks simply weren't suitable to perform on the lake itself. After thinking it over, Hagoromo decided it would be more appropriate to move the Three-Tails onto land.
Besides, it would let Mirai and the others observe this Class-A protected creature of the shinobi world up close, so they wouldn't panic if they encountered something similar in the future.
Now, Hagoromo could move it himself—
But that would be too much trouble.
So he bit his finger, ran through seals in one smooth motion, and summoned the Ninja Dogs.
Although massive, the hound still looked slightly disproportionate compared to the Three-Tails. But for towing work, it was more than sufficient—especially since this was all happening on water. The whole process was absurdly smooth.
The Ninja Dogs's three heads each clamped onto one of the Three-Tails' tails and dragged the enormous body ashore by retreating backward.
As for the tail that had already been cut off, Hagoromo didn't bother with it.
Let the fish have it.
Consider it ecological compensation for a region long abused by tailed beasts.
"Hagoromo, what are we doing next?" Mirai asked once her curiosity was satisfied.
"Next," Hagoromo said,
"Mirai, you need to carefully sense the Three-Tails' chakra. Understood?"
"Understood!"
When Hagoromo spoke in that tone, it meant a serious mission for Mirai.
Originally, Hagoromo had planned to slice the Three-Tails into sections and conduct a step-by-step study—but after reconsidering, he abandoned the idea.
That visual was far too beautiful in a very wrong way.
Kimimaro might have been fine with it, given his colder temperament—but Mirai and Haku?
They were already pushing their limits just looking at a blood-soaked kaiju. Watching someone butcher it like a chef would be far too psychologically impactful.
This wasn't exactly doting—
But Hagoromo did have concerns about early childhood education. He lacked experience in that area, and he knew that excess could be as harmful as deficiency.
Moderation mattered.
"From this point on," Hagoromo said sternly,
"none of you are to come near me. You are not to stand directly in front of me. And touching me is absolutely forbidden."
It wasn't that he didn't want them to see his eyes.
In fact, seeing or not seeing made little difference.
The problem was that anything that entered his field of vision carried the possibility of death. Even a small, careless movement could lead to irreversible consequences.
If danger could be prevented, it should be prevented.
If caution was possible, it should be taken.
Understanding the seriousness of his words, the three children retreated a long distance. They still watched with curiosity, but obeyed his instructions completely.
Then—
For nearly five minutes, Hagoromo stood there, completely motionless.
Like he was holding something in.
"Holding it in" was an accurate description.
He really was holding it in.
From the front, his face gradually turned pale—until he finally opened his eyes again.
The highest-grade weapon he possessed, in theory, was activating once more—
Lines of Death.
Not fully.
He needed more focus than usual.
His pupils didn't merely contract and expand—
They pulsed rhythmically, following a precise pattern.
"I see it," Hagoromo murmured.
With great mental strain, he had found the point of death.
Under these eyes, objects lost concepts such as density or hardness. There was no "hard to cut" or "easy to cut."
Once he saw it—
Once he touched it—
The cut was complete.
The target was erased.
Holding the Iron Sand Sword, Hagoromo lightly poked a specific point on the Three-Tails' neck.
There was already a wound there from the Lightning Release technique, but causality weapons were fundamentally different from physical damage.
No matter how severe physical damage was, it never transcended normality.
The instant the sword's tip touched that point—
The Three-Tails' body collapsed like paper fed into a shredder, breaking apart silently into chunks that fell to the ground.
The sight made all three children shiver.
This was a tailed beast.
And it just… collapsed?
Then, the chakra-constructed flesh melted rapidly—
like ice under a blowtorch.
Even the bloodstains on the ground vanished.
It was as though the Three-Tails had never existed at all.
After finishing, Hagoromo closed his eyes once more.
When he opened them again, he looked normal.
The color slowly returned to his face.
Only then did he turn around and beckon Mirai over.
"Mirai," he asked,
"can you still sense the Three-Tails' chakra?"
Had this attempt truly erased it?
Hagoromo wasn't certain.
The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception could achieve this—but only if he correctly understood what death meant for a tailed beast.
Completely erasing the Three-Tails wouldn't just mean its disappearance—
It would mean that no one in the world would even remember what the Three-Tails was.
That level of erasure was far beyond Hagoromo at present.
"The chakra… is still there," Mirai said.
That alone wouldn't have mattered. Even if the Three-Tails were fully erased, residual chakra from the battle would linger briefly before dispersing.
But Mirai's next words crushed that hope.
"The amount of chakra is still enormous," she continued.
"And although it's very slow, I can feel it… flowing toward the same direction."
That wasn't flow.
That was convergence.
Or perhaps—
Rebirth.
"So it really isn't that simple," Hagoromo sighed.
He felt a bit disappointed, but not deeply so. Failure wasn't unexpected—this only meant his understanding of tailed beast death was flawed.
Tailed beasts were indeed chakra constructs—
But they also shared a unified existence.
To kill a tailed beast, one first had to understand that properly.
At present, Hagoromo had still been treating each tailed beast as an independent individual.
That was clearly incorrect.
In short—
He had killed a tailed beast once,
earned a full set of worshipful stares—
But in terms of objective and experiment, he had failed.
A complete waste of effort.
Unfortunately, test subjects were limited. The remaining ones were far too difficult to obtain.
Hagoromo would have loved for the Three-Tails to revive immediately so he could try killing it again using a different approach—
But that clearly wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
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