Chapter 314 - 314: Gamamaru Regrets Answering the Call

Gamamaru's first coherent thought was bitter.

'So Konoha… no, the strongest focal point of destiny in this era… really lost in the end.'

The truth hit him at once.

The final clash between Hagoromo and Ryusei had shaken the world so violently that Mount Myōboku itself went blind.

The torrents of natural energy, the spiritual tearing, the clash of two truths, after a certain point, Gamamaru couldn't observe a thing.

That blindness was the only reason he had responded to Hagoromo's sudden summons.

He had hoped there was still some path to salvage the situation for 'their' cause, perhaps.

But now, standing here, he clearly saw that Hagoromo had thrown him into the fire at the last possible moment… and then slipped away.

Not surprising. He had known the Sage for a thousand years; he understood his greed and stubborn pride too well.

'Why didn't he summon me sooner?'

Gamamaru already knew the answer.

Hagoromo had burned so much spiritual essence holding that barrier, puppeteering his backhands, and descending into a physical body that he didn't want to spend the additional cost of dragging a Great Toad Elder across the world.

And yes, he had been overconfident.

Only when death was certain did he call Gamamaru, out of spite, or maybe to avoid dying alone, or simply to drag someone else down with him, like 'old friends' sometimes did.

Gamamaru exhaled once, long and weary.

He couldn't even fault him; Hagoromo would have ignored every warning anyway.

That was who he was to an extent. Still… even if he had been summoned earlier, Gamamaru doubted the outcome would have changed.

Intervening openly would have provoked Shikkotsu Forest and Ryūchi Cave into acting as well, and that would have spiraled immediately.

Besides, even if he had never been summoned at all, Gamamaru already understood the truth that had been creeping toward him for months.

Ryusei Nishida would have come to Myōboku regardless.

With his rate of growth, his ambition, and his terrifying insight, it was inevitable.

Sooner or later, he would have come to erase all possible future threats, including the Sage Regions themselves.

There was no escaping that fate.

Katsuyu had already taken Ryusei's side.

The White Snake Sage had, for the first time in centuries, offered the second evolution to a human vessel.

With those two standing behind their champions, Gamamaru had been trapped.He could no longer strike first.

He could only watch the boy grow, the knife that would eventually come for his old giant frog neck, sharpening itself day by day.

In retrospect, the moment they allowed him to grow this far, the outcome had been sealed.

And Gamamaru finally accepted that truth.

Meanwhile, Ryusei studied the ancient toad for only a moment before everything clicked.

He immediately understood what he was facing.

This wasn't a chakra-type entity like a shinobi.

Just like Katsuyu, and even more extremely, Gamamaru's existence leaned on natural energy first, chakra second. A creature born from the world's own veins, blessed in the ways only the oldest Sage Beasts were.

Ryusei felt the difference instantly.

'So that's the kind of body you have… nature first, chakra layered on top.'

He measured the aura again.

Even depleted, even dragged here unwillingly, even wounded by the journey, Gamamaru's natural-energy density pushed against him like a mountain.

Ryusei's jaw tightened slightly.

He could tell with one glance.

Even now, after killing Hagoromo, after every layer of evolution he stacked, after reaching the limit of what a human body could express…

This toad still sat one tier above him.

However, thankfully, didn't that oversized otaku promise to protect him from this exact disgusting old mutated frog in the future?

Ryusei relaxed a little at the thought. If even Katsuyu said she'd step in, then Gamamaru wasn't something to lose sleep over.

He exhaled once.

"So this is the 'great elder'," he muttered, eyeing the massive, wrinkled amphibian. "The moldy fossil obsessed with prophecies."

Gamamaru's eyelids twitched.

"You insolent child… I am Gamamaru, seer of a thousand—"

"Yeah, yeah," Ryusei cut in. "I know. You're the one who keeps peeking at fate like you're binge-watching some long-running show."

Gamamaru hissed through his nose.

"Mockery will not shield you. My sight spans centuries."

Ryusei shrugged.

"Good news then. I already have someone who said she'd shield me from you. You know, the one you frogs keep pretending isn't above you on the food chain."

Gamamaru visibly recoiled.

He still remembered the 'warning' she had given him the last time.

"That slug… that massive, indolent, moisture-drenched monstrosity…"

"She called you annoying, actually."

Gamamaru's croak cracked, halfway between offense and disbelief.

"That gelatinous parasite dares—"

Ryusei lifted a hand.

"Whatever. Let's finish this, old frog. I'm not your prophecy, and I'm not playing your story."

"This is the war you chose the moment you cooperated with his call," Ryusei said, somewhat seriously, his voice flat. "You lowered your power enough to be dragged into this 'mortal world', as she likes to call it, in front of me. So, you can sort it out with her right away."

He flicked two fingers.

Space warped.

A massive slug fragment erupted into existence behind him, easily the largest he had ever summoned.

Ryusei didn't have the chakra for the full Katsuyu, not after an entire day of fighting, even with the trickle of chakra he was still getting from dissolving Hagoromo's remaining fragments.

But he had enough for something enormous, and the fragment that materialized towered over the shattered landscape.

Katsuyu's antennae lifted, calm and unimpressed.

"Ryusei, I would appreciate a warning next time before summoning me directly into conflict with a senior sage," she said in that tired, half-bored tone.

Ryusei shrugged. "Sorry. Old frog showed up uninvited."

Gamamaru's giant eye twitched.

"Katsuyu… You dare appear before me after shielding that boy from fate?"

Katsuyu sighed, like this was a chore someone dumped on her five minutes before bedtime.

"Gamamaru, please. Must you croak so dramatically? I told you already, I have chosen him. Watching him is easier than watching you wrestle with prophecies for a thousand years."

Gamamaru sputtered. "You lazy, moisture-ridden blob—"

Katsuyu tilted slightly. "Insults? Again? You're really reducing the dignity of an elder sage."

Ryusei glanced at her. "He's upset you called him irrelevant last time."

"I stand by it," Katsuyu said simply.

Gamamaru's aura flared, veins bulging on his massive temples. "Irrelevant? I am the great seer of this world—"

Katsuyu cut in gently, "And yet you didn't see me stepping in today."

Ryusei snorted. "Your foresight's kinda spotty, old frog."

Gamamaru glared. "Boy… you keep testing me."

Ryusei pointed at Katsuyu. "Hey, blame her. I'm just the mortal stuck between two prehistoric monsters arguing over ego and humidity levels."

Katsuyu nodded serenely. "Indeed. Now, Gamamaru… if you insist on harming my contractor, I will act."

Gamamaru's jaw tightened.

"You… would really fight me for him?" he croaked, disbelief and irritation mixing.

Katsuyu's massive antennae dipped, her voice calm as ever.

"He is under my care. And I do not abandon what I choose."

Ryusei folded his arms.

"So, are you two going to talk it out, or should I start stretching?"

Before either could answer, footsteps cracked across the ruined stone.

A faint, amused hiss followed.

"Well now… what an interesting moment to walk into."

Orochimaru approached with a lazy stride, but his silhouette warped as he moved.

Skin rippled, scales slid over muscle, and a serpentine sheen crawled up his neck.

His jaw lengthened slightly, pupils thinning, and a faint white shimmer coiled behind his back like phantom tails.

Not full power, but enough that both Katsuyu and Gamamaru narrowed their enormous eyes in unison.

Ryusei blinked slowly.

"Orochimaru… the hell is this? Did you shed again?"

Orochimaru's smile widened, voice stretching into something half-human, half-whispered hiss.

"Growth requires shedding, Ryusei. You should know that better than anyone."

Ryusei stared.

"That didn't answer anything."

Orochimaru tilted his head, the movement almost too smooth.

"If I explained every step, it would ruin the surprise. Let's just say… Ryūchi Cave sees fit to nurture its chosen."

"Just a small adjustment. Nothing you need to—"

His voice cut.

His pupils thinned until the slit became a razor line.

His neck elongated slightly.

A pale sheen crawled over his skin like moonlit scales.

Katsuyu's antennae stiffened.

"…Oh," she murmured. "So you finally woke up."

Gamamaru's eyes widened.

"You— you're not Orochimaru right now."

Orochimaru's mouth opened… but the voice that emerged was older. Colder. Smooth as venom poured over ice.

"No," it said. "You stand before me."

The White Snake Sage.

Her presence flooded the air, oppressive and ancient, coiling through the vessel like a serpent wearing human skin.

Ryusei blinked once.

"…You hijacked his body mid-sentence."

The Sage smiled through Orochimaru's lips.

"He offered it freely when the time came. Such is the pact of evolution."

She turned her gaze to Katsuyu, then Gamamaru, towering calm over all three.

"I smelled the stench of old prophecy in the wind. I smelled fear. I came to see the source."

Gamamaru stiffened.

"You dare intrude on this world directly?"

The Sage tilted her head.

"You were summoned first. Do not pretend moral high ground, frog."

Katsuyu's tone remained level.

"You should not be here. This is Ryusei's battlefield."

"And that," the Sage hissed, "is exactly why I am here."

Ryusei raised a brow.

"You know, if you wanted to say hello, there were easier ways than puppeting my friend."

The Sage looked at him, eyes gleaming like twin moons.

"Orochimaru's body belongs to him, but his evolution belongs to me. He carries my fragment. My will. My venom. And when this vessel reaches its peak… he will return to me for the final shedding."

Gamamaru spat.

"Your disgusting customs—"

The Sage's voice deepened, vibrating with layered resonance.

"Our customs forge strength. Yours forge weakness."

Ryusei crossed his arms.

"So let me guess, basically: he's going to fight you someday, swallow you or get swallowed, then both of you squish together into one monster?"

A slow smile.

"That is the nature of serpents. Dominance. Consumption. Ascension."

Ryusei shook his head.

"I always knew he was bold, but damn… becoming one with a giant snake grandma? That's a new level."

The Sage laughed softly, the sound rustling like a forest of scales.

"He does not seek companionship. He seeks power. And he will reach heights even you may envy, boy."

Ryusei snorted.

"Please. He's still losing the first round if I punch him."

However, behind the jokes, Ryusei understood the truth. Orochimaru would never enter a deal like this unless he was somewhat confident he could dominate the Sage eventually.

He likely assumed that a long time of experiments, stolen bloodlines, and his own warped brilliance continuing, perhaps even as the Hokage, would give him the edge when the final shedding happened. Ryūchi Cave's creed suited him perfectly because the White Snake Sage's raw might was something even Ryusei had trouble quantifying after witnessing her presence. And Orochimaru, at his core, only ever desired power on that absurd scale.

In a way, Ryusei felt that Orochimaru only became the true chosen vessel of Ryūchi Cave in this timeline because of him.

In the original story, Orochimaru had probably been close, chosen, and groomed by the serpents since childhood, but never close enough.

He never managed to change his mortal essence in time to accept even the basic Snake Sage Mode, let alone the advanced form he displayed today.

The White Snake Sage, Ryusei suspected, had been too passive back then, too unaware of how deeply Gamamaru and Hagoromo's influence shaped the world.

Ryūchi Cave relied on fate delivering them a perfect evolutionary successor, the ideal vessel for their power and philosophy.

A vessel she could merge with completely, transforming through him and then becoming the ultimate dominant existence she had always sought.

After all, unlike the slug lord Katsuyu, she wasn't truly passive. Katsuyu endured, observed, and waited for centuries, content to adapt but never to interfere.

The White Snake Sage, however, had always carried a different instinct beneath her stillness.

She didn't just want to survive; she wanted to evolve.

She wanted a successor worthy of being remade through her, someone who could carry her will into the world rather than simply coexist with it.

That instinct made her patient, but not inert.

She watched, tested, and searched for a vessel strong enough to match her ambition of devouring all others.

But she never understood how thoroughly the world had been arranged to prevent such a vessel from ever appearing.

The path had been diverted again and again, often by the thinnest margin, subtle threads pulled aside by Gamamaru's endless calculations.

He had surely understood the serpent's intent and quietly closed the road long before she ever sensed it, long before she realized just how rigged the world had been against her, too.

It wasn't that she had been too selective, like it might seem; the truth was even simpler.

It was just that she should have been far more proactive with those 'imperfect' candidates instead of waiting for a flawless one that the world itself would never allow to reach her.

Ryusei, however, shattered that entire predetermined sequence himself.

He pushed Orochimaru off the rails of fate and turned him into a true variable, someone who finally escaped the path that had been written for him.

Someone he might have always been meant to become.

And perhaps it was because of Ryusei that the White Snake Sage also finally recognized certain truths and stirred at the last moment, becoming active now, as well, when the future of the world would at last be decided, instead of waiting endlessly for something that was never going to arrive.

The Sage's tail-like aura, meanwhile, rippled with amusement at Ryusei's last jab.

"We shall see, Ryusei Nishida. For now… I only came to watch Gamamaru die."

Gamamaru stiffened.

"You— what—!"

The Sage turned fully toward the old toad, eyes narrowing with predatory calm.

"You interfered with fate for a thousand years. You smothered potential. You clipped destiny. And now you stand before the child who shattered every prophecy you ever whispered."

Ryusei raised a hand lightly.

"…Hey, that part I agree with."

The White Snake Sage's smile grew thin and sharp.

"Good. Then let us finish this farce."

And with that, the vessel coiled, the Sage fully in command, facing the Great Toad Elder.

Ryusei stepped back with an easy, almost playful hop, putting a comfortable distance between himself and the three titans.

Katsuyu shifted forward, the ground trembling under her weight.

Gamamaru lowered his massive body, tired eyes sharpening.

Orochimaru's young body arched once, then split upward with a soft, wet crack.

Not shedding.

Growing.

The true White Snake Sage rose from within, unfurling like a ghostly serpent made of scales, mist, and pale chakra, but her hands still held Orochimaru's small body in her core like a perfect anchor, a living heart inside her expanding mass.

Ryusei exhaled.

"So this is happening, huh?"

He then looked at that towering serpentine form wrapped around the boy, protecting and empowering him at once.

Ryusei whistled softly.

"So you really are sharing one body now. Cute."

The air thickened.

Three Sage Regions.

One battlefield.

The outskirts of a ruined Konoha that already looked like it had survived ten apocalypses before breakfast.

He eyed the cratered landscape with mild amusement.

Previously, both Ryusei and Hagoromo had consciously held back from leveling Konoha during their brawl because Hagoromo discarded the barrier protecting it, but only because he needed the sacrifice to revive, not because he intended to destroy the village itself.

Ryusei didn't want Konoha wiped out anyway. Where else would he enjoy his 'retirement' and sit at the top as one of the village's shot-callers?

And, honestly, he had a very personal fondness for standing above the same people who once ignored him, underestimated him, or tried to erase him.

Dominance tasted better when the defeated remained alive to see it.

So Ryusei wondered, just for a moment, whether these three would restrain themselves too.

But the more he thought about it, the clearer it became.

Katsuyu would hold back out of nature, not mercy, pacifist by instinct, even if she acted indifferent.

Gamamaru likely still clung to his rotten prophecies, and Konoha was practically sacred territory to him.

And the White Snake Sage… she possibly understood exactly what Orochimaru intended to do with this place.

A perfect garden for him to grow stronger, so that when their destined duel came later, she could devour an even more perfected vessel.

In her arrogant, dominating way, she probably wanted him at his strongest. The stronger he was, the stronger she would become after consuming him.

With that dynamic, even these three monsters had reasons not to erase the already half-ruined village.

So Konoha, or what was left of it after Madara, would probably stay standing. Probably.