How can an ordinary family burn through a lifetime of savings? Marriage, buying a house, a serious illness—or getting dragged into a pig-butchering scam will do the trick.
How can a great ninja village burn through years of accumulated strength? There are plenty of ways as well—external wars, internal wars, letting tailed beasts out to "play," or having someone come right to your doorstep to tear the place down.
After the New Year, the ninja world was quiet, yet mixed with chaos.
Among the Five Great Ninja Villages, Sunagakure was wholeheartedly focused on recuperating and restoring its strength, planning to enter peace negotiations with Kirigakure.
It was said that the Wind Country Daimyō was extremely dissatisfied with his village's performance in this war. Reconstruction funds had been cut again and again, to the point that Rasa was losing hair by the handful.
He had already prepared to implement two contingency plans: pushing the village toward an elite-focused route, and using ninjutsu to pan for gold in the desert to subsidize finances.
Iwagakure had withdrawn into the northwest. This time, Ōnoki was determined not to take the lead. Watching Konoha produce one batch of geniuses after another, he drooled with envy while rummaging around inside his own village.
Then he realized there really wasn't anything worthwhile at home. Looking at his age and his old back, he grew anxious about finding a successor, losing hair strand by strand.
Why strand by strand? Because the old man was already bald—there wasn't much hair left to lose.
Kumogakure's strength was second only to Konoha. Originally, they had wanted to take advantage of the Nine-Tails incident to gauge Konoha's true strength. But before the year ended, they were beaten badly at the Sakama mine, and even the Two-Tails' jinchūriki was nearly crippled by Makoto.
Now, they neither sought peace nor withdrew their troops. They remained locked in a stalemate, waiting for the enemy to make a mistake and give them an opening. As the most united ninja village, they had great confidence in the character of their opponents' leadership.
Ideally, the other side would do something stupid—like Kirigakure—and start targeting their own bloodline clans.
Kirigakure had originally followed Kumogakure's lead. But seeing the one in front falter, they followed suit, maintaining friction with Konoha in the southeast without escalating the conflict, waiting for their "big brother" to rise again so they could sneak in and reap some benefits.
But Kirigakure's own problems were too severe. Within the village, the conflict between clans and civilian ninjas had already become irreconcilable. They had originally hoped to use war to shift internal tensions, but unfortunately, they lost.
Worst of all, during the war, there had been more than one instance of bloodline clan ninjas using civilian ninjas as cannon fodder. That was the final straw—now the two sides were like fire and water within the village, and it had escalated to the point where words no longer worked, only blades.
Obito, hidden in the shadows, was delighted and decided to help them "push the game forward."
The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, looked at the now-quiet ninja world with satisfaction. This was the kind of peace he wanted.
Now, it was time to resolve some of the issues left over from his tenure, to pave the way for the Fourth Hokage's return. Letting things continue like this wasn't a solution—sooner or later, something would go wrong.
He was very clear about that.
But how to resolve it?
Hiruzen did have methods. But at this moment, his old problem of softness resurfaced. He didn't want to use overly drastic measures. He only wanted his old comrades to recognize the general trend and act accordingly.
Unfortunately, he was clearly too naive when it came to his old classmates. In this world, the hardest thing is making someone give up what they've already swallowed. Because of this, he too began to grow anxious, losing hair strand by strand.
He was a bit better off than Ōnoki—but he was starting to go bald as well.
While the great nations paused, the smaller ones fell into chaos.
In the ninja world, aside from the Five Great Nations, many countries had their own ninja villages. Those that didn't still had various ninja forces within their borders.
They usually existed in the form of clans.
These small villages, or clan-based ninja groups, had limited strength and narrow vision. They couldn't see the overall situation of the world. They only saw that the Five Great Ninja Villages had suffered heavy losses due to the war.
Didn't that mean their opportunity had arrived?
With the pressure lifted, ambitious small ninja villages began expanding their territories. Clans without villages attempted to establish ninja villages within their own countries. Many small nations, having just endured the devastation of war between the great powers, now fell into chaos under the harm of their own ninjas.
...
After the New Year, since no large-scale conflicts had broken out in the southeast or the north, Makoto returned to his previous leisurely lifestyle—working while training.
Of course, he would occasionally carry out ANBU missions as well.
At present, Minato had retired, focusing on staying at home while continuing his training. The Sannin were nowhere to be seen. The Hokage needed to remain in the village. Shimura Danzō's Root answered to orders but not to command, doing as they pleased.
Thus, Makoto had become the strongest combat force Konoha could regularly deploy.
Some important missions still required him to handle personally.
In the ninja world, there was no strict classification of ninja strength—only three ranks: Genin, Chūnin, and Jōnin.
If Special Jōnin were included, then there were four.
"Elite Chūnin" or "Elite Jōnin" were merely informal titles for those who were exceptionally outstanding within their rank.
Only the leaders of the Five Great Ninja Villages could be called Kage.
Generally, a Kage's strength was clearly above that of a Jōnin. Thus, those who surpassed Jōnin were often described as having "Kage-level" strength—calling them that wasn't wrong.
As for the current Higashino Makoto, in the intelligence records of the major ninja villages, he was already classified as having Kage-level strength—even though he wasn't yet twelve years old.
In the ninja world, age didn't matter—only strength.
...
Konoha Year 52, June. Half a year passed in the blink of an eye, and Konoha had entered the height of summer.
Within the Land of Fire, two teams of eight ninjas moved swiftly through the forest, keeping a certain distance from one another.
The four in front were dressed as ordinary Konoha ninja: Sarutobi Asuma, Yūhi Kurenai, Yamashiro Aoba, and their leading Jōnin.
This man came from the Sarutobi clan and was named Sarutobi Musashi. It was said that within the clan, he was second only to the Third Hokage.
Or possibly third, because Sarutobi Hiruzen's eldest son was very mysterious. People only knew that he was in charge of the former Third Hokage's personal ANBU—very few knew the details.
In theory, after becoming Chūnin, Asuma and the others could leave their team leader and carry out missions independently. But in practice, the old man still didn't trust his rebellious youngest son.
Due to the death of Sarutobi Biwako, the conflict between father and son was severe—reportedly to the point where they could no longer live under the same roof.
At fifteen, a boy was at the age of overflowing energy and stubbornness, unwilling to listen to anyone, believing only in what he himself thought was right.
Except when it came to the girl he liked.
Their pace wasn't particularly fast. Near noon, Musashi said, "Stop advancing. Rest where we are."
The four began eating to replenish their energy.
Asuma pulled out a number of pre-prepared foods from his pack and started enthusiastically catering to Yūhi Kurenai.
Kurenai, with her sharp eyes, spotted something unexpected in the bag. "Huh, Asuma, is that a pack of cigarettes? Why do you have something like that in your bag?"
The young man awkwardly said, "Uh… maybe I was in a hurry this morning and packed the wrong thing. It's all that old man's fault—he just leaves this stuff lying around at home."
"If I remember correctly, the Third Hokage only smokes loose tobacco, not cigarettes, right?"
Kurenai looked at him with suspicion. After all, he had a record—he had once stolen the Third Hokage's tobacco, rolled it into cigarettes with paper at school, and tried to share it with classmates.
Asuma: "…"
Musashi shot a fierce glare at his junior.
Asuma: I'm done for. When we get back, I'm definitely getting chewed out by the old man again.
Yamashiro Aoba was already used to this. Without needing the team leader's instructions, he habitually scanned the surroundings—but everything was normal, nothing unusual.
...
In the forest far behind them, another team of Konoha ANBU ninja also stopped to rest.
Leading them was Makoto. This time, he had brought along the three members of Genma's squad.
Ever since Gekkō Kumomi had fully taken charge of rebuilding the ANBU, he had handed over the members of the Fourth Hokage's guard unit to Makoto for management.
Now, when Makoto went out on missions, he would rotate between leading Genma's squad and Hayate's squad, giving everyone a chance to gain experience in the field.
Yamashiro Aoba's sensory abilities were decent, but compared to Makoto, they were far inferior. Unless Makoto deliberately closed the distance and exposed himself, Aoba had no chance of detecting them.
After resting for a while and seeing that Makoto still hadn't moved, Shiranui Genma complained, "What are Asuma and the others doing? Why are they resting for so long?"
Makoto said, "Don't worry about it. We'll just follow behind them for now."
"Seriously… why do I feel like I've become that guy's babysitter?"
Genma, Asuma, and Kakashi were from the same cohort and knew each other well. Namiashi Raidō and Tatami Iwashi were one or two years younger than them.
Makoto replied, "You're overthinking it. Asuma is a ninja, not a child. Our main task isn't to protect him."
"That's good then. Otherwise, with his temper, if he found out, he definitely wouldn't be happy. By the way, we're dealing with the Fūma clan this time, right? Anything we should pay attention to, Captain?"
"If anything unexpected happens, then they are the enemy. Kill on sight—no exceptions."
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