Outside Kirigakure, in an abandoned training ground that had long been forgotten and was known to almost no one.
That was where Rei Kaguya and Mei Terumi now stood.
"I mean, we're only talking about a topic that doesn't really need to be said outright. Was there really a need to come all the way out here, Rei?"
Looking at the increasingly desolate surroundings, and the flecks of old blood still left on the abandoned training equipment, Mei Terumi frowned. She crossed her arms and questioned Rei Kaguya.
"Atmosphere. It's a matter of atmosphere."
Rei Kaguya walked over to a humanoid training dummy with a huge hole pierced through its chest. He raised a hand and brushed his fingers over its main body, already broken and battered by years of wind and rain, then answered leisurely,
"Some things, when spoken aloud, need a fitting environment as contrast. Only then can the speaker's true thoughts be conveyed more clearly…"
"So, you plan to borrow the atmosphere of this abandoned training ground to tell me something?"
Mei Terumi found a scarred tree and leaned against it, tilting her head as she waited for Rei Kaguya to speak.
"Don't be so cold and aggressive. We've known each other for five or six years. Aside from the times when I can afford to be unserious, when have I ever been unserious?"
Rei Kaguya bit into a still-warm three-colored dango, then pointed the untouched skewer in his hand toward Mei Terumi.
"Want something sweet? I heard sugar is good for thinking."
"Then you'd better tell me something worth using all this extra sugar on, Rei."
Mei Terumi raised her hand and caught the three-colored dango Rei Kaguya tossed over. She took a small bite. The soft, chewy, fragrant dango carried a sweetness somewhat excessive for ordinary people, easily filling her mouth with its sugary flavor.
Even the cold, gloomy environment around them seemed to soften a little under the warmth of the dango.
"So sweet… Just how much extra sugar did you make the shopkeeper add?"
"Well, in this cold and oppressive Kirigakure, only sweets with absurdly high sugar content can bring me even a little warmth."
Rei Kaguya finished the last dumpling on his skewer.
Then he looked at Mei Terumi, whose body had suddenly tensed, even her chewing instinctively stopping, and asked with a half-smile,
"What? Did you think that after saying something like that, I was about to tell you some heartfelt missing-nin rhetoric? Hey, hey, isn't that reaction a little too distrustful of me, Mei Terumi?"
"That's because ever since I met you, you've always been someone I can't see through…"
Mei Terumi did not feel embarrassed that her instinctive reaction had been exposed. After swallowing the dango in her mouth, she calmly asked back,
"So, what did you really call me here to say?"
"Lord Third's thinking is outdated."
Boom.
Above Kirigakure, where rain fell almost all year round, a bolt of lightning suddenly flashed across the slightly gloomy sky, illuminating it completely.
What followed was a rolling clap of thunder, loud enough to frighten young children into hiding indoors.
But how could the thunder of nature compare to the shock caused by the sentence Rei Kaguya had just thrown out so casually?
"Rei…"
Mei Terumi took two steps back. Her originally steady breathing could not help becoming slightly hurried.
"What exactly happened to you during this mission? Why… why would you suddenly say something so strange!?"
"Hmm, are you suspecting that I'm someone else in disguise? Not that far, not that far. Unless it's one of Konoha's Three Sannin, the Kage of the other four great villages, or a Jinchuriki-level expert, no one could replace me that easily."
Rei Kaguya waved his hand, signaling that Mei Terumi did not need to worry about him being mind-controlled or impersonated through Transformation.
Then he placed his right hand into the large hole in the chest of the humanoid dummy beside him and spoke with a hint of emotion.
"Question. Do you know what kind of place this training ground is?"
"What kind of place?" Mei Terumi asked cautiously.
"This is where I took my graduation exam from the Ninja Academy and became a genin."
Rei Kaguya closed his eyes as if remembering something. He began walking around the abandoned training ground with great familiarity, murmuring in a dreamlike voice as he walked.
"Here, I killed a guy who had never gotten along with me back at the Ninja Academy. But in reality, the grudge between us was nowhere near the point where one of us had to die.
"That was what I thought. Apparently, he didn't think the same. So the moment the graduation exam began, he rushed at me, looking as if he would never stop until he killed me.
"Then, after losing the target of her graduation assessment, that guy's best friend rushed at me too. She wanted to use my life in exchange for the right to graduate from the Ninja Academy and become a genin.
"She died too. Died at the hands of my best friend from the Ninja Academy… Mm, she was a girl.
"But the funny thing is, she didn't protect me because we were friends. She did it to make sure I died by her hands, so she could become a qualified ninja, earn money, and feed her younger siblings at home.
"I don't know whether you encountered something similar when you took your Ninja Academy graduation exam.
"But from that day onward, I've always believed that Kirigakure's current systems have a problem."
Another bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating Rei Kaguya's calm face, which looked almost like a mask.
After listening to his murmured monologue, Mei Terumi sighed and said softly,
"But… this has always been Kirigakure's tradition, hasn't it?"
"When Lord Second, Gengetsu Hozuki, was still alive, Kirigakure wasn't like this.
"After Lord First founded the village, Kirigakure has always followed the secret laws established by Lord Second, right?
"But when Lord Second governed, the Ninja Academy graduation exam never required students to kill each other in pairs, with only the winner allowed to graduate, did it?"
In a voice as still as an ancient well, Rei Kaguya directly refuted Mei Terumi's words.
The precocious girl bit down on her full lips. For a moment, she could not think of how to refute him.
Lord Second was the founder who had set many of Kirigakure's current systems in place.
Lord Third was the one who had developed Kirigakure into what it was today.
Which of their decisions was more reasonable was not something an underage girl like her could clearly judge.
"M-Maybe Lord Third has his own considerations? Look, at least right now, the average quality of our village's ninja and our mission completion rate are both higher than other villages, aren't they, Rei?"
After thinking it over, Mei Terumi found an explanation that could barely stand and anxiously conveyed it to Rei Kaguya.
But Rei Kaguya merely shook his head helplessly and asked in a low voice,
"Is average quality useful?"
"Starting from the succession of each village's Second Kage, how many Kage-level powerhouses famous throughout the shinobi world have the other villages cultivated?
"Kumogakure had the Gold and Silver Brothers, who assassinated the Second Hokage. It had the Third Raikage, who could subdue the Eight-Tails alone and fight ten thousand shinobi from the Land of Earth by himself. It has Killer B, the perfect Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, and his elder brother, the Fourth Raikage A.
"Sunagakure had the Third Kazekage, who specialized in the Magnet Release Kekkei Genkai. It has the top-class puppeteer Chiyo and her grandson Sasori of the Red Sand, as well as the Fourth Kazekage Rasa, who can subdue the One-Tail Shukaku by himself.
"Iwagakure may not have many famous ninja, but Onoki of Both Scales can absolutely be called the undisputed strongest among the Third Generation of the Five Kage.
"As for the strongest, Konoha, there's even less need to say. The legendary Sannin, Konoha's White Fang Sakumo Hatake, the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, Root's founder Danzo Shimura, and the rising Yellow Flash, Minato Namikaze. Every single one of them is a heavyweight.
"What about us, Kirigakure?
"Other than Lord Third, how many ninja in Kirigakure can pat their chest and guarantee they can fight the Kage or Jinchuriki of other villages head-on?
"Not one.
"Not a single one.
"Even Amegakure, a village smaller than ours, produced Hanzo of the Salamander, a man who triggered the Second Shinobi World War and was even praised as a demigod."
At this point, Rei Kaguya paused.
Then he sighed and, in a self-mocking tone, told Mei Terumi, who was already feeling ashamed enough to want to sink into the ground, a piece of news that almost made her heart stop.
"Mei Terumi, weren't you curious why I returned to the village so quickly?
"The reason is simple.
"Our mission failed.
"Of the Anbu who participated in the mission, fewer than one-fifth returned alive, including me. The two jonin who led the teams died in battle. Even the precious Three-Tails entered an unusable revival period because its Jinchuriki died.
"Do you know how we failed?
"We were defeated by a twelve-year-old Konoha jonin, and an unknown ninja who possessed both the Mangekyo Sharingan and Wood Release.
"Hard to imagine, isn't it?
"Kirigakure's veteran jonin couldn't last ten exchanges before that twelve-year-old brat before being killed on the spot. Dozens of Anbu were turned into tattered dolls hanging from tree branches by that Wood Release-using Uchiha in a single encounter…"
P.S.:
The following is purely the author's personal analysis of Kirigakure's background.
Working backward from Zabuza's age, he should be around the same age as Kakashi. Before he even reached the age to attend the Ninja Academy, he killed all the candidates of that year and forced Kirigakure to change its exam policy. That means this happened at least twenty years before the start of the main storyline.
And more than twenty years before Naruto was born, the Third Shinobi World War was not even close to happening yet. In other words, before the Fourth Mizukage was controlled by Obito, Kirigakure was already carrying out that Gu-style survival exam model.
The Second Mizukage died early, and he did not seem like the type to implement such a harsh policy. So the blame for this policy can only be thrown onto the nameless Third Mizukage, who was somehow controlled by Madara at some unknown time, died at some unknown time, and did not even get a name.
Then, if you count the famous Kage-level powerhouses each village had accumulated by this era, Kirigakure's lineup is so poor that it would not be strange if it were kicked out of the Five Great Shinobi Villages entirely…
Thinking about it this way, Kirigakure's later weakness probably wasn't entirely caused by Obito ruining it. Madara probably tripped Kirigakure up plenty from the shadows while he was alive too.
After that, in the original timeline, Kirigakure still managed to produce Mei Terumi, a standard Kage-level fighter, Kisame Hoshigaki with Samehada, a high Kage-level fighter, and Zabuza, a Six Paths-level existence—very seriously speaking. Their ancestors must have been smoking from the grave.