After a few seconds of silence, Biwa Jūzō drew in a deep breath and continued in a low voice, "Killing without reason, taking by force, violating women and children, slaughtering fellow clansmen with kekkei genkai—all under the so-called name of 'eliminating unstable elements'…"
"Such atrocities may exist elsewhere in the ninja world. But nowhere—not anywhere else—has it ever been as widespread, as rampant, as it is now in the Land of Water."
"The tragedies that unfold here every day are counted in tens of thousands. Behind each number lies a living human life."
"Those whose souls have been completely twisted by the Blood Mist—they exist only to bring more chaos and suffering to the Land of Water. They are like malignant tumors attached to the body of the nation, constantly spreading, corroding everything."
"It was precisely because I could no longer bear to see the Land of Water become like this that I chose the identity of a 'Kirigakure missing-nin,' becoming… a fugitive in search of another possibility."
Biwa Jūzō's rough hand unconsciously stroked the cold, familiar handle of the Kubikiribōchō.
The thick flesh on his face tensed, his expression more serious and solemn than ever before.
"After defecting, I chose a path that I believed might steer the Land of Water—this ship that had long gone off course—back onto its rightful track."
"And that is… to let 'Absolute Justice' completely purge this Land of Water that has already become so filthy and defiled."
This was the first time Biwa Jūzō had ever, in front of others, so plainly and at such length, laid bare his inner thoughts and motivations.
Terumī Mei listened in silence.
She had already learned from intelligence reports about Uchiha Keizumi's concept of 'Absolute Justice,' and thus was not unfamiliar with it.
Yet hearing such "idealistic" words spoken aloud by a former member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist—a missing-nin known for his cruelty—still struck her with tremendous force.
At that moment, Ao could no longer hold himself back. Eyes wide open, he glared at Biwa Jūzō and said, "Biwa Jūzō, bringing a shinobi from Konohagakure into the Land of Water to kill the Fourth Mizukage—this is what you call steering the Land of Water back on course?"
Facing Ao's questioning, Biwa Jūzō's expression did not change in the slightest.
Biwa Jūzō said, "The current Kirigakure—from the Mizukage at the very top down to many of the shinobi below—their souls and hands have long since been rotted to the core by the Blood Mist."
"Killing a Fourth Mizukage who stubbornly enforced that policy, cutting off the most crucial link in this chain of decay—was that wrong?"
That audacious statement left Ao utterly dumbfounded.
He opened his mouth but could not find a single word to refute it.
Terumī Mei was also pulled back from her tangled thoughts to reality. She looked toward the ever-expressionless Uchiha Keizumi and tentatively asked, "So… the so-called 'Lava Release Monster' Uchiha Keizumi—your purpose in coming to the Land of Water…"
"…was not to represent Konohagakure in invading Kirigakure, but to help our Land of Water—to carry out a great purge on its behalf? To bring an end to Kirigakure's Blood Mist Policy as well?"
That inference even made her feel a sense of disbelief.
It was completely different from the worst outcome she had imagined—"Konohagakure launching a full-scale invasion, Kirigakure plunged into war"!
Even…
Did it carry some kind of absurd "goodwill"?
Uchiha Keizumi calmly met Terumī Mei's probing gaze, and his reply was perfectly frank: "You can think of it that way."
Just a few simple words, yet they left Terumī Mei completely stunned.
This…
This utterly overturned her understanding of inter-village relations—and of what a shinobi could be!
A top-class powerhouse from another village entering a foreign nation's territory, killing that village's Kage, and then telling you—he came to "help" with internal cleansing?
"W-why?" Terumī Mei felt her thoughts spinning into confusion. She subconsciously voiced the most central question—the one she could not comprehend at all.
"By doing this… for yourself, for Konohagakure, what benefit is there? Without profit as a motive, why would you involve yourself in the affairs of our Land of Water?"
In her eyes, every action taken by a shinobi must involve benefit behind it.
The village's benefit, the clan's benefit, or personal benefit.
Any one of those would be a reasonable explanation.
Yet Uchiha Keizumi's reply extinguished all her speculation: "To carry out Absolute Justice, to seek justice for countless innocent souls who died in grievance, and to personally cast those unforgivable villains who trample upon life into the hell they deserve…"
His voice remained calm as ever.
"For something like that—why would I need benefit as motivation to act?"
Terumī Mei: "…"
Terumī Mei was speechless.
This Uchiha shinobi from Konohagakure—his way of thinking…
Felt…
Utterly abnormal!
Terumī Mei fell into deep conflict.
Reason told her she must never easily trust a powerful outsider who had just slain her village's Kage.
Uchiha Keizumi's philosophy of "Absolute Justice" sounded lofty, but who could guarantee it wasn't merely a gorgeous façade concealing ambition for invasion?
What if he was only using such rhetoric to lower Kirigakure's guard—
While secretly harboring malicious intent to invade the village?
But that doubt, the moment it flashed through her mind, was forcibly dispelled.
The hesitation in her heart also dissipated with it.
The reason was simple.
—If Uchiha Keizumi truly bore ill intent, he could have simply let Biwa Jūzō, who was far more familiar with Kirigakure's terrain, lead the way.
But he hadn't. Instead, he had given her and Ao the "opportunity" to choose.
That in itself was a signal.
Cooperation might win them a slim chance of survival; resistance, however, would likely lead them to follow the same fate as the Fourth Mizukage.
Although this was largely Terumī Mei's own speculative interpretation, and she couldn't be sure if it was right—
She didn't dare take that risk.
'I can't die here yet…'
Terumī Mei silently recited in her heart.
The future of Kirigakure… still needed someone to change it. If she were to die meaninglessly at this man's hands now, then all hopes and efforts would turn to dust.
Under Ao's astonished gaze—one that even carried a trace of disapproval—Terumī Mei's expression grew solemn as she nodded, as if making some great resolve.
Meeting Uchiha Keizumi's calm eyes, she spoke. "...All right. I'll take you to Kirigakure."
She paused, then added words that even to her own ears sounded somewhat unbelievable. "But… Uchiha Keizumi, if your actions do not match your words—if you truly intend to harm Kirigakure—then even if it costs me my life, I will stop you!"
After saying this, even she herself was surprised at where that courage had come from.
Perhaps it was precisely because, deep within her heart—
There was something greater than her own life and death.
"You can rest assured."
At that moment, the woman standing behind Uchiha Keizumi—Izumi—spoke. Her tone was earnest. "Keizumi-senpai bears no ambition to invade your Kirigakure, nor is he someone who would willingly ignite a war between two nations. His goal has always been the eradication of evil within the shinobi world."
Ao glanced left, then right; his lips moved slightly, as though he still wanted to say something to dissuade or question them.
Yet a sharp, imperceptibly stern look from Terumī Mei silenced him.
He could only swallow his words.
But the worry on his face did not fade in the slightest.
...
"Cough... cough, cough..."
Meanwhile, in a wrecked stretch of forest several kilometers from the battlefield, Momochi Zabuza, straining with all his strength, used the one arm that was still intact to shove off a huge length of timber pressing down on him.
The rending agony all over his body made each breath feel like a knife cut.
He turned his head with difficulty and looked to the side.
There, a fellow Kirigakure Anbu was pinned fast with half his body under a boulder; gurgling blood kept seeping from its edges, staining the scorched earth red.
The man had long since fallen silent.
Momochi Zabuza slowly let out a turbid breath tinged with the taste of blood.
Relying on sheer stubborn will, he struggled and, swaying, climbed to his feet.
Every movement tugged at who knew how many fractures and internal injuries.
He lifted his head and gazed toward the desolate, charred expanse ahead, as though washed by the wrath of the Gods.
The two enormous craters left by the Tailed Beast Ball explosions were like scars upon the earth.
Farther off, a massive mountain had collapsed to either side.
He could faintly see dark-red magma flowing slowly through certain ravines.
A pungent smell of sulfur drifted over on the wind.
It irritated his already dizzy mind.
"Who won?... Who lost?"
The two most crucial questions surfaced uncontrollably in his exhausted mind.
Blood from the wound on his head blurred the vision of one eye, but he still knit his brows tight.
Compared to the "minor matter" of having lucked his way back from an explosion that could annihilate heaven and earth, what he cared about more was—had the Fourth Mizukage, that blood-mist nightmare for Kirigakure and the Land of Water, been killed by the enemy or not?
Clenching his teeth, Momochi Zabuza forced himself to endure pain as if his whole body were falling apart, dragging a leg that hardly obeyed him as he staggered, inch by inch, toward the center of that zone of destruction.
At a pace comparable to a turtle's crawl, by the time he had spent every last ounce of strength and nearly collapsed reaching that core of scorched earth...
The sky had already gone completely dark.
Beneath the night sky, only the dark-red glow from the magma-cut ravines barely lit this dead-silent place.
Momochi Zabuza's face was full of exhaustion, pallid as paper, and he was panting for breath.
It seemed as though he might collapse in the very next second.
He looked around—there was no sign of the Fourth Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura, nor of that Lava Release monster from Konohagakure.
Only the shocking traces left behind by battle remained.
A deathlike silence enveloped Momochi Zabuza. This situation already gave him the clearest possible answer.
—The Mizukage-sama had been killed!
For according to reason, if the Mizukage-sama had won, he would certainly have stayed on the spot to gather the surviving subordinates and reorganize.
"Hah…"
A certain taut string in his heart seemed to suddenly snap.
Momochi Zabuza felt as if every bit of strength had been drained from him; he fell heavily backward, collapsing onto the still-warm scorched earth.
His gaze lifted toward the night sky, where dust hid both stars and moon.
"Today…"
"Really has been absurd…"
"Like a dream."
He murmured weakly.