"Absolute Justice?"
"What is that, some childish make-believe fantasy?"
"In the adult world, there are only interests. Justice? In the end, it's just another way of grabbing benefits!"
In Iwagakure of the Land of Earth, Ōnoki looked over the intelligence Kitsuchi had brought him and let out a mocking laugh.
"But Konoha has produced yet another genius…"
"First it was Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara. Then Senju Tobirama, Shimura Danzō, and Sarutobi Hiruzen."
"Then in the Second Great Ninja War, Sakumo Hatake and the three Sannin rose to fame."
"In the Third Great Ninja War, it was the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze."
"And now there's another one—Uchiha Chizumi, waving the banner of Absolute Justice."
"The shinobi world really does favor the Land of Fire."
Ōnoki couldn't help sighing. Compared to Konoha's endless stream of talent, Iwagakure was clearly running dry. The one good prospect he'd finally found was just some little brat obsessed with explosions.
Unlike Konoha's Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Ōnoki genuinely wanted to retire. But the problem was that there simply wasn't a single shinobi in Iwagakure capable of taking on the burden of the Tsuchikage. So Ōnoki had no choice but to keep going.
"Father, are we really going to declare war on Konoha?"
Kitsuchi looked at Ōnoki worriedly. Just like the Land of Lightning, the daimyo's court in the Land of Earth had been constantly pressuring Iwagakure, even threatening to cut funding to the village unless they moved against Uchiha Chizumi.
"Declare war on Konoha…"
Ōnoki frowned, clearly conflicted.
At most, only seven or eight years had passed since the end of the Third Great Ninja War. Even though Iwagakure had the largest number of shinobi among the Five Great Nations, that wasn't nearly enough time for the village to recover much strength.
Back in the Third Great Ninja War, Iwagakure had thrown over ten thousand shinobi at the Third Raikage. In the end, they had successfully worn him down and killed him—but after a full day and night of fighting, Iwagakure itself had suffered two to three thousand casualties.
"No. We can't declare war on Konoha."
"At most, we do what we did in the Third Great Ninja War—send Iwagakure's shinobi to bury that Uchiha brat under sheer numbers."
After a long silence, Ōnoki made it clear he had no intention of openly declaring war on Konoha.
He didn't want to trigger the Fourth Great Ninja War just like that, much less be the one blamed for starting it.
"Declare war on just that Uchiha brat?"
"Using the name of an entire village to declare war on a single person?"
Kitsuchi stared at Ōnoki, dumbfounded. Looking across the entire shinobi world, there had probably never once been a case where a major hidden village declared war on a single ninja.
"But if we do that, then Iwagakure will…"
Kitsuchi hesitated. Ōnoki's idea was a good one, but it was also humiliating.
"Oh, give me a break. Back in the Third Great Ninja War, the whole business with the Third Raikage already made Iwagakure lose all its face. Losing a little more won't matter."
"Oh, right—get in touch with the Akatsuki. The last time we hired them, those people did a pretty good job."
"Tell the Akatsuki lot to see if they can just assassinate that Uchiha brat outright."
Iwagakure had hired the Akatsuki before. In fact, before Deidara defected from Iwagakure, the relationship between Iwagakure and the Akatsuki had always been fairly decent.
"Yes!"
Once Kitsuchi saw that Ōnoki had made up his mind, he said no more.
The daimyo of the Land of Earth certainly mattered to Iwagakure's funding, but Iwagakure was not at the point where it had to obey the daimyo's court like a dog. In Kitsuchi's view, declaring war on Uchiha Chizumi in the name of the village—and even contacting the Akatsuki to deal with him—was already more than enough.
As for Sunagakure, on the other hand, when Rasa received the demands from the Wind Daimyo's court, he barely gave them a second glance.
No special reason. He was just too busy panning for gold in the desert.
The Land of Wind was poor—so poor that even the daimyo's court didn't have much money.
Rasa, as the Kazekage, was working like a beast. Every day he woke up and had to think about how he was going to feed the entire village, and whenever he had any free time at all, he still had to worry about his son Gaara. There was no way he had the energy to care about the daimyo's attitude on top of all that.
Genji and Hiruzen Sarutobi had both independently reached the same conclusion: Uchiha Chizumi might well become the one who ignited the Fourth Great Ninja War.
And yet, aside from tightening security along their borders, the three major hidden villages didn't make any large moves.
Meanwhile, Uchiha Chizumi had carried Absolute Justice to its utter extreme.
Every single city in the Land of Water was baptized in Absolute Justice. Everywhere Chizumi passed, the air in that city reeked of blood.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Uchiha Chizumi had probably become the greatest killer in the entire shinobi world.
By the time he had gone through the whole Land of Water, the number of lives on his hands had already reached thirty thousand. And as merchants across the country passed the news from city to city, Uchiha Chizumi's name had all but become something used to stop children from crying.
"Chizumi… didn't we kill a little too many people this time…?"
Even Kitsujiro, crouched on Uchiha Chizumi's shoulder, sounded hesitant now.
He believed in Absolute Justice with all his heart, but watching tens of thousands die beneath it still made him worry a little about Chizumi's mental state.
"Too many?"
"This is only one country—the Land of Water. And the shinobi world isn't made up of just the Land of Water."
Uchiha Chizumi's mental state hadn't changed at all from all the killing. If anything, as more and more evildoers in the Land of Water were purged, he felt better than ever.
"Then in the future, are we going to keep coming back to the Land of Water for regular purges of evildoers?"
Kitsujiro, seeing that Chizumi was unaffected, brought up another concern. After spending so long in Konoha, he knew very well that even under Absolute Justice, evil would never simply disappear.
"No. I'm going to establish a police force in the Land of Water."
Uchiha Chizumi shook his head. If left unchecked, evil in the shinobi world would only continue multiplying.
If he wanted to stop evil from being born in the first place, then there had to be a powerful law enforcement organization. Everyone had to understand that if they committed evil, punishment would absolutely follow.
In Chizumi's eyes, the role of the police force was precisely that—to become the mechanism that restrained evil.
"A police force?"
Kitsujiro's mouth fell slightly open. He hadn't expected Uchiha Chizumi to actually want to expand the police force into the Land of Water.
"But don't we have a manpower problem?"
Kitsujiro immediately thought of the other issue. The Uchiha clan did believe in Absolute Justice now, yes—but the actual number of Uchiha who had truly passed the test was still small.
"Even if we don't have enough people, it still has to be done."
"Because if we don't even try, then all we can do is sit back and watch the Land of Water turn back into what it used to be."