"And Sensei, there's one more thing you're overlooking. I'm pretty sure we already told you about this."
Maki pressed her advantage and continued.
"The gay ninja of the shinobi world trace all the way back to Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama, the two men who ended the Warring States Period. They established the new rules of the shinobi world—and dragged the entire world into the abyss of gays along with them."
"And from what I've heard, Makoto wasn't the one who started all of this. He's actually one of its strongest opponents."
"The whole reason he and Uchiha Hikari are reforming the shinobi world is to tear down the old system and create a new world where those gays are no longer mainstream."
"So that's how it is…"
Pakura finally relaxed.
"Then it really does seem I misunderstood him. Haa…"
Leaving everything else aside, Maki had reminded her of one indisputable fact.
The true source of the gay phenomenon was Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama.
If Makoto had not created it in the first place, then all of Pakura's conspiracy theories built on that assumption naturally collapsed.
As for whether the stories about Madara and Hashirama were actually true?
There was no need to investigate any further.
Uchiha Madara's behavior just a short while ago had already provided more than enough evidence.
"His body was powerful and pure."
Could two shinobi with a perfectly ordinary relationship ever describe each other like that?
"Sensei, why are you sighing?"
Now Maki was confused.
She knew her teacher's personality extremely well.
Edo Tensei might have changed Pakura slightly, but deep down she was still the same person.
Right was right.
Wrong was wrong.
Once Pakura realized her argument had been disproven, she should have accepted it readily.
Why the sigh?
"I thought of another possibility."
Pakura hesitated before slowly explaining.
"If the whole gay phenomenon began with Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, then why didn't I notice anything like this during my own era?"
"I suspect the gay ninja of the shinobi world were simply suppressing themselves."
"A ninja is someone who endures everything."
"So they endured."
"Until now."
"Makoto wants to tear down the old world before rebuilding it, so naturally he first has to drag all the people who have been suppressing themselves—everyone hiding in the shadows—out into the sunlight."
"Only once they've been exposed can the problem actually be dealt with."
"So some of his actions may look like they're increasing the number of gay ninja, but in reality, it's more like: 'Whom the heavens would destroy, they first drive mad.'"
"He isn't breeding cockroaches."
"He's ripping up the floorboards and exposing all the cockroaches that were already hiding underneath."
"That's why I mistakenly thought he was the one creating them."
Once a scholar had decided which side of the argument they supported, there would always be a grand theory available to justify it.
Now that Pakura had accepted Makoto, she naturally began interpreting everything from the opposite direction.
"Exactly! That has to be it!"
Maki nodded repeatedly.
"A lot of people probably just never exposed themselves before."
"Take Kakashi's father, the White Fang of Konoha."
"I've never once heard anyone mention who Kakashi's mother was. Who was Hatake Sakumo's wife?"
"It's almost like Kakashi was born without a mother at all."
"But everyone in the shinobi world knew about the White Fang stabbing people on battlefields with his White Light Chakra Sabre and his One Thousand Years of Death."
"Back then, people probably just admired how strong he was."
"But if you stop and think about it now…"
"That's terrifying."
Maki's expression grew solemn.
"The White Fang must have fallen hopelessly in love with some male shinobi who didn't return his feelings. But because the Hatake clan still needed an heir, he had no choice but to produce Kakashi."
"And there's something even more suspicious."
"Everyone says the White Fang was actually an incredibly gentle and kind person in everyday life, completely different from the terrifying killer he became on the battlefield."
"That means there's a very real possibility the White Fang was the receptive one."
"…"
Maki was only getting started.
"Then there's the Third Hokage and Shimura Danzō.
"Apparently, when the Second Hokage stayed behind as a decoy and decided who would become Third Hokage, what he was really deciding was which one of Hiruzen and Danzō would take the lead in their relationship."
"Danzō already spent years regretting that he didn't volunteer first and lost his chance."
"But what he never expected was that Sarutobi Hiruzen would betray the bond between them entirely, go off, marry a woman, and have children."
"And I mean genuinely marry a woman and have children."
Pakura's expression slowly went blank again.
"Danzō became jealous of Sarutobi Biwako."
"So during the Nine-Tails' attack, he deliberately allowed the mysterious masked man into the village so that Biwako would be killed."
"That way, the widowed Third Hokage would become single again, and Danzō could finally have him all to himself."
"But what Danzō never anticipated was that after spending so many years happily married, Hiruzen's old gay preferences had completely faded."
"He had become a normal shinobi."
"So even after Danzō got Biwako killed, the Third Hokage still refused to accept him again."
"That was when Danzō finally snapped."
"Evil took root in his heart."
Temari and the others listened with complete concentration.
"Danzō discovered that the Third Hokage often used his crystal ball to spy on Konoha's women's baths."
"So Danzō deliberately started behaving as though he were plotting something suspicious, knowing it would attract Hiruzen's attention."
"The Third Hokage would then have no choice but to use the crystal ball to monitor him."
"But every single time Hiruzen watched him through the crystal ball, Danzō would immediately start posing."
"Sometimes he would take a bath."
"Sometimes he would start exercising."
"His goal was obvious—he wanted to awaken Hiruzen's old gay tendencies and win him back."
"Unfortunately, the Third Hokage's will was as solid as stone."
"He never changed."
"…"
"At some point, Danzō also discovered that the White Fang of Konoha was another gay ninja."
"He mistakenly assumed Sakumo was the Third Hokage's secret lover and that he was the reason Hiruzen refused to take Danzō back."
"Furious, Danzō decided to destroy him."
"So he orchestrated a massive public-opinion campaign against the White Fang."
"But Danzō had actually misunderstood Sakumo."
"The White Fang's true partner was the teammate he abandoned his mission to save."
"By pure accident, Danzō's scheme caused that very teammate to turn around and condemn Sakumo."
"Sakumo never imagined that even the person he loved most would fail to understand him."
"With all hope lost, he chose to take his own life."
"…"
Temari suddenly clapped both hands together.
"THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!"
Her face lit up with realization.
"I always wondered why the White Fang of Konoha would kill himself just because some people criticized him for abandoning a mission."
"So the person condemning him was the love of his life!"
"Case closed."
Pakura slowly nodded as well.
The explanation did sound disturbingly plausible.
Then another thought occurred to her.
"Wait. How do you girls know any of this?"
She stared suspiciously at the three gossipmongers.
Even after accepting their conclusion, their intelligence-gathering ability still frightened her.
How did they know secret stories like these?
"Oh, that's simple."
Yukata pulled a scroll from inside her clothes.
"We subscribed to Shinobi World Secrets: Weekly Gossip."
"Hm? What's that?"
Pakura immediately noticed a familiar symbol stamped onto the scroll.
More importantly, who used a storage scroll just to deliver a newspaper?
That was not something an ordinary publisher would do.
"The underground black market?"
Pakura's eyes widened.
The symbol on the scroll belonged to the underground bounty network.
And what kind of place was that?
All sorts of missions that could never be openly acknowledged were posted through the black market.
Even the enormous bounties placed on important figures from the major ninja villages were publicly circulated through that network.
The people who secretly issued those bounties might very well have been rival ninja villages themselves.
And now…
They published newspapers?
Gossip newspapers?
Oh.
Right.
Pakura suddenly understood.
The shinobi world was mostly at peace now, with the major villages setting aside their disputes and developing together.
All those high-value assassination bounties had quietly been withdrawn by mutual understanding.
As for cheap missions?
The villages barely had enough of those to keep their own shinobi employed.
The underground black market was facing bankruptcy.
Naturally, it had been forced to diversify.
And considering the black market's enormous intelligence network…
It really was hard to casually dismiss the stories in that newspaper as fake.