The next day, on the road back to Konohagakure.
While traveling, Makoto's group of three moved in a triangular formation, keeping the Konohagakure rogue ninja surrounded in the middle. Apart from confiscating all his weapons and ninja tools, they did not place any restraining measures on him.
His genjutsu had already been dispelled, and he was now fully conscious. However, he behaved very obediently and did not attempt to escape, as if he had already resigned himself to his fate.
Earlier, after the genjutsu had been lifted, he had not wanted to accept his fate. With a fluke mentality, he tried to break through from what he thought was the weakest point—only to be beaten up by Yūgao.
The young girl had not held back. His actions had clearly marked her as the weak point among the three.
Although that was the truth, she was still furious. I can't beat my teammates, but can't I beat a bastard rogue ninja like you?
This left the rogue ninja very dejected. He had never expected that, as a middle-aged senior chunin, he would not even be able to defeat a young girl. But the profession of ninja was like that—sometimes strength could not be judged by age.
If they could bring back a living person, it was certainly better than bringing back a corpse. The mission requirements were the same—the Fourth Hokage had instructed them to capture him alive if possible.
After all, this man had once served under him on the battlefield against Iwagakure. The Fourth Hokage still had some impression of him and did not wish to take his life.
One could only say that they had tried to steal Takigakure's Hero Water, but their operation had been completely exposed by an insider. Even the identity of the Konohagakure rogue ninja within their team had been thoroughly known by Konoha.
For such a rabble, it would have been a miracle if they had succeeded.
"My name is Fūsa," the Konohagakure rogue ninja suddenly said.
Hayate and Yūgao glanced at him, then continued on their way without replying.
Seeing that the man seemed to have the urge to talk, Makoto responded to him. "We know. It's written in the mission file."
"When I return to Konoha… will I be executed?"
"That depends on how much Konoha intelligence you leaked outside, and whether you caused any substantial harm to Konoha."
"No. Not at all. I never harmed any Konoha shinobi, nor even ordinary people from the Land of Fire."
"That's not for you to decide. The Intelligence Interrogation Unit will decide. If what you say is true, you won't die—but you will serve time in Konoha Prison."
Makoto was not lying to him about this. The Fujin and Raijin brothers had killed their own comrades, and Mizuki had targeted a jinchūriki, yet neither had been executed. For something as minor as this, execution was even less likely— even if he had leaked Konoha's intelligence.
After all, he was only an ordinary civilian chūnin. What important intelligence could he possibly possess?
"I see." Fūsa did not seem to care much after hearing this. He continued, "If my sons had been as strong as you, they wouldn't have died… and I wouldn't have defected."
Hm. This was also one of those stories of a father and sons going to war together— the kind where they risk their lives on the battlefield while bringing their sons along.
The difference was that Uchiha Itachi had only been taken to the front line by Clan Head Fugaku to experience war. When Makoto went to the northern front to act alongside his father, his strength had already reached the Kage level. As long as he did not court death himself, dying would be extremely difficult.
That chūnin, Fūsa, really had lost sons—two of them. And with his wife having died early, he felt there was no hope left in life, so he defected on the spot.
In a brutal war, tragedies like this were common in Konoha, or in the shinobi world as a whole. Since it had not fallen on Makoto himself, he could not truly empathize, and he made no comment.
So he asked directly, "Is that your reason for defecting?"
"Yes. I just wanted to make a sum of money out there, then find a place where no one knew me and live an ordinary person's life."
"You could do the same in Konoha. They… provide bereavement compensation, and you could retire as the father of heroes."
Fūsa fell silent for a moment, then showed a pained expression. "I really don't want to go back to that place."
It sounded similar to Tsunade's reason, but the problem was that without strength and backing, he absolutely should not imitate Tsunade—he would be declared a rogue ninja.
"You don't get to decide that. You should understand, so what exactly are you trying to say?"
"What I'm trying to say is: I won't do anything that harms Konoha, and I don't want to go back to that place. So why do you still have to drag me back? Why can't you let me go? My family gave Konoha two lives—is that not enough? Do you still need to add mine?"
"I told you: if what you said is true, you won't die."
"No, child, you don't understand. Going back… for me, it's worse than dying."
"Sorry. This is our mission."
Shinobi were like this: if you wanted to retire, you had to apply. After retiring, if you wanted to leave Konoha and live elsewhere, you also had to apply—you could only do so after getting approval from above.
That was the rule of a ninja village.
Want to resist? Unless you were strong enough to ignore those rules.
...
When they returned to Konoha, it was about midday.
In fact, returning to Konoha from the border of the Land of Grass was much farther than coming back from the eastern front.
To be able to arrive this quickly, naturally someone had used Flying Thunder God to speed things up, but that had been before Fūsa's genjutsu was dispelled. Makoto would not expose in front of a rogue ninja that he could use Flying Thunder God.
In fact, up to now, only a limited few people knew about it.
After completing the mission and changing clothes and washing up at the ANBU base, Makoto suggested, "Come on. I'll treat you to a meal."
...
Inside Yakiniku Q, there were not many customers at midday.
In a booth in the corner, Makoto carefully grilled the beef and looked at his two companions, who did not seem very interested, and asked, "What—don't tell me you were affected by what that guy Fūsa said."
No matter how precocious the two of them were, they were still only a little over ten years old. It was easy for them to be affected by this kind of family tragedy. Unlike Makoto, only the outer shell of him was that of a boy.
Hayate said, "A little. That guy… is truly a pitiful person."
"There are plenty of pitiful people like that in Konoha. Didn't Yūgao's aunt also die in the war against Iwagakure? And didn't the Gekkō Clan lose anyone in this war? That's not a reason to defect."
Yūgao retorted, "That's different. My younger brother Shige is still living in Konoha, so my uncle's hope hasn't disappeared. But that guy… he's already completely without hope, isn't he?"
"So?"
"I think that if he really didn't betray Konoha's intelligence, maybe he could be allowed to live in Konoha as an ordinary person. As long as he doesn't become a shinobi, that should be fine."
"Sure. Go tell the two Hokage and see whether they agree. Maybe they'll adopt your suggestion."
Yūgao bit fiercely into a piece of grilled meat. "Hmph, as if that would happen."
She had only been stirred by sympathy, but she was not stupid.
"Oh, so you also know it's impossible. Hayate, what do you think?"
"Fūsa really is pitiful, but my shinobi instincts tell me that we can't forgive something like defection just because he's pitiful. It's very contradictory. Makoto, do you know the reason?"
After thinking for a moment, Makoto replied, "Because of stance and rules. Our stance can only be on Konoha's side, so we cannot break Konoha's rules."
"Stance and rules?"
"Yes. If defection could be forgiven, then the village's rules would become meaningless. In the future, there would only be more rogue ninja leaking Konoha's intelligence."
"Think about it—if that continued for a long time, what would happen? The village of Konoha would collapse, and everyone in the village would lose the stable living environment they once had."
Hayate suddenly understood. "Oh, so that's how it is. I get it now, Makoto. What you mean is that rules are the guarantee that most of us can live safely, and they can't be broken because of a single person."
"That's exactly it. Those who break the rules—no matter how pitiful they are—are still our enemies. Unless you place their interests above those of your own family and friends. You wouldn't do that, right?"
"Of course not." ×2
As long as someone wasn't stupid, no one would do such a thing—except saints.
"Then that's settled. We can be kind, and that's a good quality. But the premise is that it cannot come at the cost of sacrificing the interests of the people around us or the majority. It's that simple."
Hayate sighed. "Sigh, in the end, it all comes down to war. If there were no wars in this world, none of this would have happened."
"Hard to say!"
...
After returning home, he was alone. His parents were still at work. After resting for a while, Makoto began his usual training.
It was not only because the Night of the Nine-Tails was drawing closer; more importantly, training had already become part of his life.
Just like before, he was obsessed with training. It allowed him to feel happiness.
The feeling was like watching the numbers in a bank account slowly increase in his previous life.
Why do children dislike studying? Because they cannot see positive feedback. Why are gym enthusiasts obsessed with lifting weights and taking mirror selfies? Because they can see the changes in their muscles growing—
So even though his training progress was slow now, he could still see a little bit of growth. That tiny bit of positive feedback was already enough to make Makoto deeply addicted to it.
Inside the bedroom, Makoto activated a barrier that blocked perception and chakra fluctuations. This was something he had set up after learning Fūinjutsu.
When he set it up at the time, he had not thought much about it. He had simply learned the technique and practiced on his own room. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be useful today, saving him the time of setting it up again.
Then he directly took out a sealing scroll and released the chakra of the Seven-Tails.
With the amount of chakra he possessed, he did not need to seal this thing into his body as a power bank. However, he could make use of the characteristics of tailed beast chakra to train.
Because he had long discovered that in places where tailed beast chakra was active, white natural energy could also be absorbed more easily. It was just like when he had sensed the Three-Tails' chakra being highly active on the eastern front before, which had been beneficial for his training.
It was similar to the hidden benefit he had recently gained while protecting Kushina.
The tailed beast chakra leaking into the outside world would stimulate the red natural energy to become more active, thereby weakening the decomposing and annihilating force of the white natural energy.
So after completing his experiment, he had kept this portion of Seven-Tails chakra—this was essentially a training accelerator.
This did not count as cheating. Strictly speaking, it was called making reasonable use of the resources at hand.
As for where this resource came from, don't worry about it.
In any case, the tailed beast chakra that leaked out would eventually dissipate completely. If he collected a little as a souvenir, it could be considered recycling waste.
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