Simultaneous Time Travel: What Villain? I'm the Protagonist!

Orochimaru strolled over from the edge of the battlefield, his pace neither fast nor slow, as if he were taking a walk in his own backyard. He stopped three zhang away from Morihito.

Sheng Ren looked at him.

Why?

Orochimaru licked his lips. "I thought you'd ask something else first," he said, "like when I got together with Isshiki."

He paused for a moment and then said:

"And all you ever asked was 'why'."

Sheng Ren did not respond.

Orochimaru waited a few seconds, and seeing that he didn't seem inclined to speak, he slowly said:

"Because I would rather die than become your puppet. Do you know what I've been researching the most all these years?" Orochimaru said, his golden snake eyes fixed on Sheng Ren. "Not forbidden techniques, not immortality, not the Sharingan."

He paused.

"It is a visualization method."

He smiled.

"What an exquisite technique. It requires no contract, no cursed seal, and no coercive means. Just visualize your image every day, feel your chakra, and etch your light into your spirit. Then your chakra becomes stronger, your physique improves, and even your mind becomes calm."

He tilted his head.

"But what's the price? To achieve immortality, I became neither human nor demon; to attain godhood, I had to turn the ninja world into a pasture. And what about you?"

"I'm done talking," Sheng Ren finally said.

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes slightly.

"That's all."

Sheng Ren nodded.

Then, I closed my eyes.

Everyone on the battlefield was watching him. Allied survivors, resurrected beings, remnants of the Akatsuki…

But nobody knows what he's doing.

Yishi also looked at him without moving.

Because he wanted to see it.

Two thousand years have passed, and yet someone on this planet has driven him to this point. He wants to see what this person has left to offer.

Shengren's spirit seeped into the spiritual network he had woven himself. From the Land of Bears to the Land of Water, from the Land of Water to the border villages of the Land of Fire, and from the border villages to every corner of the entire ninja world.

Countless tiny points of light, as fine as hair, shone in the darkness, and Sheng Ren's consciousness touched the brightest ones.

Summer Star.

She was kneeling on the top floor of the castle tower of Xingnin Village, with the wooden statue he had carved himself in front of her.

His voice reached her consciousness.

"Visualize myself."

Xia Rixing was startled.

She didn't ask why. She simply clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and began to sketch his image in her mind.

Terumi Mei.

She was reviewing official documents in the Water Shadow's office when the nib of her pen suddenly broke. She looked down at the small gold statue that had never left her palm and bit her lower lip.

"...I must be crazy."

She placed the gold statue in the center of the table and clasped her hands together in prayer.

Zabuza raised his head and looked towards the unseen battlefield on the northern horizon.

"Ninjas are just tools."

His voice was very soft.

"But tools should also know who is using them."

He closed his eyes.

Ten, a hundred, a thousand...

Yishi looked at him.

"...What are you doing?"

Sheng Ren did not answer.

He simply raised his head and glanced at the sky.

Then--

Xia Rixing opened her eyes.

Her eyes were red. She didn't know what had happened, nor what she had just transmitted. All she knew was that in the last moment before she closed her eyes, she saw the sect leader standing in a white light, his back to her.

He didn't turn around.

But he nodded.

Terumi Mei lay face down on the table, panting heavily.

Her palms were sweaty, and the fabric of her clothes was soaked and clung to her spine. She didn't know what had happened in those last ten seconds, she only knew that she had never been so tired in her life.

Zabuza opened his eyes.

He looked at his hands, the hands that had killed countless people.

He put his hand down.

Star Village, Hidden Mist Village, Land of Bears.

In a leaky little house on the border of the Land of Fire, an old man clasped his hands together in prayer; in an underground market in the Land of Wind, a merchant pulled out a small figurine wrapped in oiled paper from the bottom of a box; in the mountains of the Land of Thunder, a child secretly took out a small golden figure hidden under his pillow, closed his eyes, and muttered incantations; in a mine in the Land of Earth, miners gathered in a tunnel two hundred meters underground, looking at a human-shaped silhouette.

No one speaks.

Everyone had their eyes closed.

Sheng Ren stood opposite Yi Shi.

His knife was still in his hand, its blade still lifeless.

But behind him, the air began to distort, like countless invisible threads extending from afar, one end tied to Sheng Ren's spine, the other end disappearing into the void.

The threads are getting denser.

Sheng Ren's white robes moved without wind, the hem of his robes floating slowly as if immersed in water.

Yishi looked at him.

His face finally lost its composure.

"...This is not something you can do alone."

Sheng Ren did not deny it.

"no."

Yishi remained silent for a long time.

"...How many people on this planet are helping you?"

Sheng Ren did not answer.

he does not know.

He didn't count them.

But at this moment, he could feel it. Those threads were surging in from all directions, crossing mountains, rivers, borders, and the outposts and defensive barriers of the five great nations, one by one, tying themselves to the hilt of his sword.

Star Ninja Village.

Summer Star knelt in the castle tower, his forehead pressed against the cold floor.

The fog obscures the view.

Terumi lay face down on the desk, her fingernails digging into her palms.

Bear country.

Along the edge of the field, farmers buried their heads in the soil.

The Land of Fire.

In the border hut, the old man's back was bent like a bow.

The Land of Wind, the Land of Thunder, and the Land of Earth.

Underground markets, mountain cabins, mine tunnels.

A single thread.

Ten.

One hundred roots.

Thousand roots.

Sheng Ren gripped the hilt of the knife.

The lightning patterns on the spine of the blade, which had been extinguished for a long time, lit up again.

Take a half step back.

He has lived for thousands of years, traveled through seven star systems, witnessed countless power systems, and devoured the stars of at least three civilizations.

But this time, he had never experienced this situation before.

"……I see."

His voice was very soft, so soft that only Sheng Ren could hear it.

"It's everyone."

He paused.

"You're not alone."

Sheng Ren did not speak.

Yishi nodded.

He looked up at the sky.

The sky was gray, just as gray as when Kaguya pushed him into the tree hole two thousand years ago.

Sheng Ren brandished his knife.

Without any preparation or stance, with just a slight twist of the wrist, the blade fell from its highest point.

The blade struck Isshiki's brow. Isshiki's body froze, his head still raised.

A thin, hair-like mark ran vertically from the center of his forehead down his nose, lips, jaw, throat, and sternum—

A straight white line.

He looked down at his body, at the line.

"...A fine knife."

He said.

His body parted along that line.

"...this planet," he said, "I still haven't seen it."

He didn't finish speaking.

Otsutsuki Isshiki's body, starting from the thin line between his eyebrows, peeled away, disintegrated, and dissipated inch by inch, like a rock wall weathered for thousands of years.

The wind blew from the edge of the ice field, sweeping away the last grain of silver dust.

Only a three-foot-long knife mark remained on the ice, along with a knife stuck at the end of the mark.

The lightning patterns on the spine of the blade had completely disappeared.

Sheng Ren stood still, expressionless, looking towards the Allied Shinobi Forces.

"Should we continue?"

In the distance, within the allied forces, someone knelt down first.

It's not surrendering, it's just that my legs went weak!

Then the second, the third, the tenth, the hundredth.

Like dominoes, they silently knelt down one after another on the ice.

No one speaks.

No one cheered.

No one cried.

They just knelt there, heads bowed, staring at the pool of blood freezing on the ice.