Rei Kaguya found the remaining Kirigakure forces who had retreated in a small village southeast of Kannabeyama.
Looking at the Kirigakure shinobi, almost every one of them wounded, yet all of them without exception revealing guilty expressions when they looked at him, Rei sighed. He walked over to Mei Terumi, who was sitting at the side in a daze while bandaging herself, and gently patted her shoulder.
"We won, so don't put too much pressure on yourself, Mei."
"Did we really win, Rei?"
Mei raised her head, her eyes full of wavering as she asked,
"We lost the Kannabeyama stronghold, lost more than half our companions, and even affected your battle record… Can that really be considered our victory?"
"Although we lost control of the Kannabeyama stronghold, I went to take a look before coming back. All the buildings and facilities inside have already been corroded beyond use. Konoha won't be able to continue using Kannabeyama to obstruct Kirigakure's advance in the short term. If we round things up, we barely achieved our initial goal in attacking this place…"
"Besides, I only barely managed to win that fight against Minato Namikaze and his wife. If I could have returned earlier, things would not have become like this."
Rei did not intend to push the responsibility for the failure of his main mission onto anyone else.
Because he understood very clearly that aside from himself, the hard strength of this Kirigakure force had always been far beneath Konoha's in a way that was difficult to make up for.
If he wanted to win everything, then the only viable plan was for him to quickly severely injure Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki, knock both of them out of the battlefield, then rush back to the frontal battlefield before his Bone Clone was dealt with and repel all the invading Konoha shinobi.
But from the moment Orochimaru shamelessly ambushed him and forced out one of his Sage Art clones in advance, that plan had been doomed to fail.
Fortunately, Kushina had been injured badly enough by his "corpse" strike to satisfy Optional Mission 4's requirement of forcing Konoha to replace its frontline commander with someone else.
In the end, the system still reluctantly recognized the fact that Optional Mission 4 had been completed before the main mission failed, and issued him the Keystone Rune, Strength of Ages.
Although it was somewhat regrettable that he had not obtained all five Keystone Runes, having profited this much already, Rei had no real regrets.
Seeing that Mei still looked deeply self-reproachful, Rei reached out and rubbed the head of this girl who had only just turned thirteen, yet had already begun carrying such heavy burdens on the battlefield. Using a gentle tone even he was not used to, he comforted her.
"Although with your personality, I don't think you're very suited to crying like pear blossoms in the rain… if you want to cry now and vent the self-blame and frustration in your heart, I don't mind lending you something to lean on."
"So you can admire my weak and helpless crying face all by yourself?" Mei lowered her head, unwilling to let Rei see her current expression.
"I can close my eyes. Turning my back to you works too."
Rei took out the credibility he had long since almost exhausted in front of Mei and said it very seriously.
"Hypocrite."
"Just say whether you want to lean or not."
"…I do."
Mei unhappily nudged Rei's lower back lightly with her elbow, then shifted her position. Ignoring the fact that her smooth, beautiful hair would be stained with blood that would be hard to wash out, she sat back-to-back with him. Then she wrapped both arms around her knees, her body trembling faintly.
Heh. Just a brat whose mouth says no while her body is honest.
Rei sneered inwardly.
Then, like Mei, he slowly closed his eyes and took a calm nap.
He was a little tired too.
…
At the same time, in Konoha.
"Lord Minato, your injuries have not fully healed yet. Please return to your room and rest. Once we have the result, we will inform you immediately."
Outside the intensive treatment room of Konoha Hospital, a young medical-nin was constantly trying to persuade Minato Namikaze, who was waiting there, to return to his ward and recover properly while the wound on his side was still bleeding.
But Minato, who had always been good at accepting advice, shook his head with absolute firmness and stood outside the treatment room without wavering, waiting for the result inside.
Seeing that persuasion was useless, the young medical-nin could only have Minato sit down on a chair while using the Mystical Palm Technique to treat his wound.
An unknown amount of time later, the door to the treatment room finally opened.
Looking at Kushina Uzumaki, who was slowly pushed out by several senior medical-nin, Minato rushed over at once and looked anxiously at his pale-faced wife.
"How are Kushina's injuries? Have they stabilized, Haruto?"
"For now, they can be considered stabilized. But the follow-up treatment will be very troublesome."
The medical-nin in charge of the emergency treatment removed his glasses. After rubbing his eyes, which had gone blurry from excessive chakra consumption, he sighed and said,
"Lady Kushina's injuries are very strange. The bone spear that pierced through her abdomen seemed to carry some extremely special chakra that can obstruct wound healing. After we pulled out that section of bone spear, the remaining special chakra began fighting against Lady Kushina's own recovery ability."
"We barely helped Lady Kushina's chakra gain the upper hand by investing a large amount of chakra, but if we want to completely expel that foreign chakra, we can only rely on Lady Kushina's own strength. Before that chakra is fully driven out, a medical-nin must remain by her side at all times to ensure her wound does not suddenly worsen."
"I'm sorry. Our abilities are insufficient, Lord Minato."
"No, don't say that. You all did everything you could. The one who caused Kushina to become like this was me… Ugh!"
Minato clutched the wound on his waist and began breathing heavily.
Looking at the scene of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki both gravely wounded, Haruto Yamanaka, who had treated both of them, could not help showing a deeply worried expression.
Lord Minato, who had swept through the wars against Kumogakure and Iwagakure without being stopped, actually has times when he can be injured this badly too…
Could Konoha really suffer a humiliating defeat at Kirigakure's hands this time?
If that truly happens, then Iwagakure and Kumogakure, who had finally settled down for the moment, as well as Sunagakure, who seemed to only want to protect itself, will immediately smell blood and come over, wanting to bite a piece of flesh from Konoha too…
Lord Third, Lord Orochimaru, Lord Jiraiya… please think of something.
"Hey, Haruto…"
Minato caught his breath, raised his head, and looked at Haruto Yamanaka. His voice was unstable as he asked,
"If… if we bring Lady Tsunade back, can she heal Kushina?"
"Lady Tsunade…?"
Haruto thought for a moment, then gave an answer that lifted Minato's spirits.
"If it is Princess Tsunade of the Sannin, she can definitely find a way. Even if she cannot immediately let Lady Kushina recover, she should at least be able to come up with a better treatment plan than ours and help shorten Lady Kushina's recovery period."
"I'll go ask Lord Third about Lady Tsunade's whereabouts right now—"
"Stop! Minato, you are still a patient too! I order you to rest properly in the hospital for at least half a month! Get back here! Minato Namikaze!"