"It's true."
"Okay, then... Wait, huh?"
Yugito snapped back to reality, suddenly realizing Makoto had just answered her directly.
Without the slightest hint of beating around the bush.
After her brain rapidly rebooted to process this, Yugito quickly reached a conclusion.
"Were some of those things deliberately revealed to us?"
"Yup, you're smart."
"...So you guys came to Hozuki Castle for related purposes too?"
"Good guess, keep going."
"..."
Facing Makoto's praise, Yugito felt absolutely zero happiness.
Was that even worth guessing? If it were her, and she knew about some massive pervert trying to destroy the entire ninja world, she certainly wouldn't have the mind for trivial side quests.
She'd be devoting herself entirely to training, doing everything possible to stop them!
"Did you know in advance that our Hidden Cloud Village team would be here too?"
"Not at all, that's just pure coincidence."
"..."
After a classic talk-no-jutsu session, Yugito discovered Makoto's group truly had no clue about the Hidden Cloud Village's movements, yet they genuinely wanted the entire ninja world to unite.
And as one of the Five Great Ninja Villages, the Hidden Cloud naturally fell right into that scope.
But this created a vicious cycle.
Without hard evidence, even she was only half-convinced about this whole Infinite Tsukuyomi madness, let alone the Raikage, who deeply detested a certain stupid book.
So the core problem remained.
If they could easily find ironclad proof of such an evil existence wanting to destroy the ninja world, it would mean this villain wasn't actually much of a threat, making elaborate preparations completely unnecessary.
Similarly, if this truly was a mastermind schemer intending to destroy the world, how the hell could they possibly allow such evidence to be easily obtained?
It was a single track, completely blocked at both ends.
After leaving, Yugito wore a deeply troubled expression.
"How was it? What did they said?" Samui and Karui, seeing Yugito's worried face, assumed she'd gotten zero answers.
"No, I'm just thinking about how we're supposed to bring this up to Lord Raikage." Yugito shook her head.
Then she relayed the key points of the conversation to both of them, desperately hoping for suggestions.
"There's nothing substantial here at all." Karui also frowned after hearing the account.
"It's normal that there isn't any. And even if there was, do you think they'd just easily hand it over to us?" Samui glanced over and pointed out.
"So what should we do now?" Karui scratched her head—she hated thinking more than anything else.
"Actually, before leaving, that man gave me a suggestion," Yugito finally spoke up, seeing that they had been discussing this for a long time without any results.
"Then why didn't you say so earlier?! If he already told you what to do, let's just follow it." Karui felt her head hurt even more, complaining a little.
Didn't this just make her waste precious brain cells for absolutely nothing?
"Because his brilliant suggestion was to directly tell Lord Raikage and just let him decide for himself."
"..."
'Wasn't that suggestion basically the exact same as saying nothing?'
The three of them sat there in a daze for a while longer.
Still, they couldn't come up with a single solution.
In the afternoon, Mugen—sent by the Hidden Grass Village to replace Mui as the castle lord—had already arrived.
Mui was taken all the way back to the Hidden Grass Village to be imprisoned.
Because wouldn't it be way too easy for him to escape if he were imprisoned nearby in Hozuki Castle, just in case he had loyal followers or die-hard supporters trained by him?
After the handover was completely finished, everyone prepared to withdraw from Hozuki Castle.
On the way back, urged by the other two, Karui had no choice but to follow Makoto's suggestion—the simplest one: to speak up and let the Raikage decide for himself.
Whether he believed it or not, that was it.
The three of them simply had no other options.
If they kept it to themselves, it would be a hundred percent guaranteed failure.
If they told the Raikage, there was at least a slight chance of success.
However, these three weren't totally tactless.
Instead of handing the entire cursed book to the Raikage, they selectively tore out the pages related to the "strategy guide".
Those few pages didn't describe much about the Hidden Cloud Village anyway.
As long as the Raikage didn't know it was a sequel to that awful romance novel, he could actually judge it calmly.
"There's such a thing?"
Upon learning that someone intended to collect all the Tailed Beasts, the Fourth Raikage immediately became tense.
He turned to look at Killer B, who was casually nearby using one of the Eight-Tails' tentacles to fish in the sea, and barked.
"B, after we return, no matter where you go, you must report to me. Understood?"
Originally, the Raikage wanted to tell Killer B to stay strictly confined in the Cloud Thunder Gorge.
But he swallowed his words.
No matter what, as the person who filled the void in Killer B's heart, he couldn't bring himself to say such restrictive things again.
It was fine to care, but he couldn't just completely disregard Killer B's own immense strength.
"Yugito, you too..."
After expressing concern for his brother, the Raikage remembered Yugito, the other Jinchuriki of their Hidden Cloud Village.
"Lord Raikage, I understand. I'll be careful." Yugito nodded.
"Good. You're much more steady than B. I believe you can protect yourself." The Raikage didn't say much more on the matter.
As for what Karui had told him, he only half-believed it anyway.
It was strictly a case of "better safe than sorry," which is what led to this conversation in the first place.
But the Raikage could also tell that Yugito and the other two seemed to believe it heavily.
He didn't know the specific reason why, but if they believed it that much, it meant they would be much more cautious.
After speaking, Yugito lowered her head and quietly glanced at a mark on her hand.
She originally didn't have this mark on her skin.
She only discovered it after waking up—after being pierced by Satori, nearly dying, being saved by Uchiha Hikari, and finally restored by Tsunade.
Before finally leaving the island, Yugito couldn't resist asking about it.
She needed to determine whether this thing was left by Makoto and the others, or by Satori.
Because if it was the latter, wouldn't that mean she was still in danger?
Like a damn centipede that dies but refuses to stop twitching?
Fortunately, Uchiha Hikari's answer put her right at ease.
It wasn't Satori.
Hikari's exact words were, "Makoto left this for you. If you ever encounter any danger, you can use this mark to save yourself."
Yugito just didn't understand how a simple mark could save her.
Could this be a Flying Thunder God mark?
But how would the other party even know when she was in danger?
This was certainly not a Flying Thunder God mark, it was an Eight Thousand Spears Mark.
However, Uchiha Hikari didn't dare admit that she was actually the one who left it, as she had to constantly guard against Yugito developing any unnecessary romantic feelings for her!
(No Yuri here!)
Finally, through Uchiha Hikari's persistent deflecting efforts, Yugito's focus completely shifted.
Yugito was now thinking, Could it be that Makoto actually cared about her that much? Had he heard of her reputation? Was he her secret admirer?
But why hadn't she sensed any of that during their previous conversation?
Was he just too shy? Did he not dare to speak his true feelings to her?
While Yugito was completely lost in these wild delusional thoughts, the Raikage had already made a firm decision.
According to multiple intelligence reports, the other four major ninja villages had already begun trade relations centered entirely around Amegakure, leaving only their Hidden Cloud Village isolated.
The Raikage didn't completely believe this whole "end of the world" rumor, but that didn't prevent him from agreeing to form an alliance.
After all, forming an alliance right now wouldn't require any massive investment on their part anyway—it was essentially just a giant economic development alliance.
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