Chapter 26: Giving a Lesson to a Hot-Blooded Youth
After listening, Haruko simply gave a flat "Oh."
Mei Terumi looked at Haruko's unsurprised reaction, and a question she had harbored for years finally had an answer.
"So, you foresaw this day when you were six... which is why you fled the Hidden Mist to seek refuge with the 'Main Family' here in the Land of Fire?"
"Hmm?" Haruko blinked, his brain working at high speed.
" Land of Fire? Main Family?"
Finally, in a corner of his memory, he found a clue.
There was a plotline in the TV original where Hyuga Hiashi took Hanabi on a diplomatic mission to the "Taketori Clan," which also allowed them to avoid Pain's assault on the Village.
Later, in Boruto, a character named Taketori Houki also appeared.
'I always thought the two Taketori groups were unrelated, but it seems there is a connection after all."
While waves of shock surged in his heart, his face instantly returned to an unfathomable expression.
Mei Terumi thought she had guessed correctly.
"Is that really it? I heard they were once one family, but later split into the hawk faction and the dove faction. The doves changed their name and went into hiding in the northern borders of the Land of Fire. I didn't expect you to actually find them."
Haruko was blooming with joy inside.
'I was just worrying about an excuse to explain the legitimacy of my bloodline in Konoha, and here comes a pillow just as I was getting sleepy. I'll ask Hinata when I get back and try to find the specific address to check it out."
"Cough, something like that," Haruko responded ambiguously, making it up as he went along with her words. "But the people over there are too boring, with dead-set rules for everything. Konoha suits me better."
"Back to business." Mei Terumi bit her lip and finally asked the question that had troubled her for a long time.
"Since you know so much... tell me, what exactly... happened to the current Hidden Mist?"
Over these past few years, she had watched the Village slide step by step into the abyss.
Comrades killing each other, masters and disciples turning against one another, Kekkei Genkai clans being purged, and talented Ninja defecting one after another.
Haruko looked into her eyes, which were filled with confusion.
At this moment, Mei Terumi was not yet the Fifth Generation Mizukage who could stand alone; she was just an idealistic youth who had battered her head against the darkness.
'What a Pain..."
Haruko complained in his heart, but seeing his former teacher—who had been good to him—in this state, he couldn't hold back after all.
'Although she eventually became the Fifth Mizukage, she only took the position hastily before the Five Kage Summit, and then stepped down for that weakling Chōjūrō a few years after the Fourth War. That Mizukage life wasn't comfortable at all."
Since he wanted to stall for time anyway, he might as well give her a lesson and completely hoodwink her.
It would also save her from becoming that damn Mizukage later, remaining unmarried for life and throwing away her lifelong happiness.
"Teacher, do you think the current " Bloody Mist " is entirely because of the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura?"
"Isn't it? It's because Lord Fourth's policies have become increasingly radical in recent years, completely disregarding the lives of Ninja."
"Wrong, dead wrong." Haruko shook a finger. "This has never been the madness of one person; it's a carefully designed power reshuffle."
"To stabilize his position and suppress established Bloodline powerhouses like the Hōzuki, the Third Mizukage recruited ordinary Ninja families without Kekkei Genkais—which is the current Council of Elders."
"Later, after the defeat in the Third Ninja World War, the loss of the Three-Tails, and the Seven Ninja Swordsmen being reduced to a laughingstock, the Third took the blame and stepped down. At that time, the Fourth Mizukage Yagura took over. To calm the turmoil of the defeat, he had to rely on the power of the Bloodline clans. During those years, the " Bloody Mist " was paused, right?"
Mei Terumi nodded subconsciously. Indeed, during the first few years after Yagura took office, the Village had a brief period of peace.
"But!" Haruko changed the subject. "The Council of Elders left behind by the Third was unhappy. The revival of the Bloodline clans meant their piece of the pie was being touched. And Yagura... heh, that young man was likely forced into it as well."
Haruko pointed to his head and said meaningfully, "Whether he was being controlled or was trying to play a balancing act, the result was the same—he restarted the Bloody Mist, and the Council of Elders actively responded and fueled the flames, together suppressing the Bloodline clans to reach a dirty cooperation."
Mei Terumi's body trembled slightly.
Behind this river of blood was such cold, rational interest calculation.
All the sacrifices, all the passion, all the hatred—in the eyes of the high-level officials, they were nothing more than discarded pawns on a chessboard.
She had never thought of these things before, or perhaps... she was unwilling to think of them?
"Ninja... are just tools," she muttered to herself, as if trying to soothe her own mind.
"If you are a tool, then why are you worried and sorrowful?"
Haruko pressed her further: "A tool—that's just what they want you to be. Don't go fooling yourself too."
The wind blew through the woods, making a rustling sound.
"Why did I run away back then? Because I saw through it; this broken Village is rotten to the core. My clan treated me as a weapon, and the Village treated me as a consumable. I owe them nothing, and I left with a clear conscience."
Mei Terumi stood frozen in place, unable to speak for a long time.
If it were seven years ago, she would have angrily denounced this as a traitor's sophistry.
But having experienced the bloody purges of these past few years and watching her comrades fall one by one, Haruko's words were like a Kunai, cutting open the always-glamorous outer layer of the Hidden Mist in her heart to reveal the bloody, rotten interior.
It turned out that it wasn't that she wasn't working hard enough, but that she had been heading in the wrong direction from the very beginning.
"...You guy."
After a long while, Mei Terumi found her voice again, bitter yet with a hint of relief. "When you were little, you clearly only thought about slacking off. Why can you see through these things so clearly?"
"Because only by slacking off do I have time to think so much. Well, I guess it's a case of the bystander seeing things more clearly?" Haruko spread his hands.
Mei Terumi gave him a playful glare. The heavy and oppressive atmosphere from before dissipated quite a bit with his interruption.
"Thank you, Haruko."
Mei Terumi turned around, her back to him, her reddish-brown long hair fluttering in the wind. "Even though your words are hard to hear, they... are very useful. This time when I go back, I will use my own eyes to confirm everything you said myself."
"Are you still going? Then you must be careful. They won't tolerate a tool having its own thoughts. If you're exposed, the next one to be purged will be you, with your dual Kekkei Genkais."
Haruko looked at Mei Terumi, a rare hint of seriousness in his eyes.
"Don't die, Teacher."
"Hmph, if you want to see this big sister off to her grave, you're a hundred years too early."
The corner of Mei Terumi's mouth curled into a confident arc, and she regained her enchanting and domineering posture.
"Next time we meet, if it's on the battlefield, I won't show mercy again... even if you are my student, you're still a little man I want to 'melt'."
"Next time we meet, I'll treat you to a meal." Haruko grinned. "I'll treat you to Ichiraku Ramen in Konoha. You can eat as many bowls as you want."
"Your treat is just ramen?" Mei Terumi also let out a light laugh. "Then I'll be waiting for that bowl of ramen."
Before her voice had even faded, her hands formed seals, and her figure instantly turned into a puddle of clear water, vanishing without a trace.
"What's wrong with ramen? It's pretty good... By the way, does what I just said count as a flag?"
Haruko looked in the direction where Mei Terumi had disappeared and muttered to himself.
Not long after, several figures wearing Konoha headbands jumped out from the distant treetops.
"Haruko, kid! Are you okay?!"
Yui Iwashiro's loud voice carried over from quite a distance.
"Ah—I'm fine, I just almost got steamed to death."
"Huh?"
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