4

1

Chino appeared suddenly and cast her genjutsu. Before he knew it, it wasn’t just she who had vanished; Nowaki and their comrades had also disappeared. The woods had been mowed down by Nowaki’s Typhoon Style; the island was a wretched sight.

“Hey, you okay?” But in the midst of all this, he was able to find several of the ninja imprisoned by Chino and her gang. When he woke them with a counter-genjutsu, they quickly regained consciousness. Because they had been blown about by Nowaki’s wind, they were all injured in one way or another, but they were still alive. They offered their deepest gratitude to Sasuke—although a little reluctantly on the part of the Kumo ninja.

In the past, Sasuke had attacked the Raikage’s younger brother, the Eight-Tails’ Killer B, and tried to abduct him. Later, he had also fought the Raikage and taken one of his arms. These ninja adored the leader of their village, so it was no wonder their feelings now were a little complicated.

To begin with, Sasuke decided to take them home to their own villages. First, Kirigakure. Then Kumogakure.

When they arrived at the port in the Land of Lightning where the village of Kumogakure was, there was a bit of a commotion.

“Whoooaaaaaaa! You guys are okaaaaaaay!!”

“Raikage?”

“It’s the Lord Raikage!”

“Lord Raikage is coming to welcome us!”

Smashing buildings along the way, the Raikage charged toward the port. Perhaps having heard the news of the ninja rescue, he had been unable to simply sit still and had shown up here. Next to the Raikage, Sasuke could see his close aides, Darui and C.

Once the brawny leader had arrived at the port at something approaching the speed of lightning, he clapped the ninja on the shoulders, shouted “Good work making it back safely!” as if rewarding them. He hit with such force that Sasuke wondered if he wasn’t going to break some bones, but with the Raikage directly praising them, perhaps the tension was released; tears sprang up in the eyes of the Kumogakure ninja.

Watching this out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke moved to slip away from the scene.

“Boy!”

However, the shout of the Raikage stopped him. Unable to ignore it, he turned around to find the Raikage glaring at him with a complicated expression on his face. Sasuke looked at him. It was hidden by his jacket, but the Raikage had no left arm. Sasuke’s past actions had affected the Raikage’s future. The Raikage glared at him silently.

Instead, Darui opened his mouth. “Sorry. You really helped us out.” He probably also had complicated feelings about Sasuke. Even so, he offered his thanks as a representative of Kumogakure.

C followed him. “The medical ninja in Konoha say they’ve found a way to treat the ninja who attacked the villages under the genjutsu; they were able to save everyone. But the treatment requires a high level of skill, so right now, the Konoha medical ninja are on their way here.”

In Konoha, they had Tsunade, famed for her medical ninjutsu, and if Sasuke considered freedom to move about, there was probably Sakura as well. So she’s become a ninja people count on, huh, Sasuke thought. Then he couldn’t stop either one.

Sasuke had to find Chino. He set his feet in motion again; he had to stop that strange jutsu she used.

“Where do you think you’re going?!” the Raikage shouted after him.

“I’m going to go find the ringleader.”

“Then Kumogakure will help. This criminal attacking the villages with such brutal methods! They need to be caught right away!” the Raikage raged.

“No.” Sasuke shook his head from side to side. “Only I can do this.”

“What?!” The air was instantly electrified.

Feeling the wrath of the Raikage, Sasuke continued. “The enemy has a special ocular jutsu. It goes beyond genjutsu. This ability’s still an unknown variable. Considering the fact that the ninja that went missing this time were abducted without the chance to resist, if we approach her carelessly, there will just be new sacrifices.”

The Raikage’s mouth pulled down at the corners.

“I was also caught in her genjutsu, but I was able to release the technique myself. The only things that can resist those red eyes are my eyes.”

Red eyes. He had said it quite casually. But the Raikage’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Did you say red eyes?”

“Yeah. The enemy has eyes that are red like blood.”

The Raikage shifted his gaze away as if in thought, and then looked at Sasuke once again. “It couldn’t be the Chinoike clan with their ketsuryugan.”

“Do you know them?” Chino had said she was a member of the Chinoike clan.

Seeing Sasuke’s reaction, the Raikage asked in return, “You don’t?” Sasuke couldn’t understand the intent behind the question. “Hmm. I have no choice, really. I’ll tell you this much, at least.”

The story went back to even before the era of ruthless competition between Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara.

The Chinoike clan. Living in the Land of Lightning, they had had ketsuryugan, eyes wet with red blood. They were able to manage a variety of techniques using blood. They particularly excelled in genjutsu; apparently, once a person was caught in those eyes, they couldn’t escape.

A daughter of this Chinoike clan had married into the family of the daimyo of the Land of Lightning as a concubine. She was a beautiful girl with a lovely disposition, and the first wife was jealous. Unfortunately, the daimyo fell ill and died not long after he took her as a concubine.

“It’s because he married this woman!” The first wife then made everything the girl’s fault. She said that the Chinoikes had deceived the daimyo and killed him.

It was a just a fabrication, lies from start to finish. But the people around them who knew the strange nature of the Chinoikes swallowed the words of the first wife. As a result, the girl, together with her clan, was banished to a place called Hell Valley.

“At that time, it was the Uchiha clan the first wife hired to chase out the Chinoike clan.”

“What … ?”

“In every era, the Uchiha name has been widely known. More than anything, the only ones who could have resisted the Chinoike clan with their special ocular jutsu were the Uchiha clan with their sharingan. Apparently, the Chinoikes sought a place to talk with the Uchihas, but they wouldn’t listen.”

Long persecuted and suffering in Konoha, the Uchiha clan had inflicted persecution on others. That was the nature of war. Sometimes, you chased someone into a corner and crushed them irrationally.

Here, the image of Itachi came back to life in his mind. Itachi had probably seen not only the achievements of the Uchihas, but also the darkness that lay within them. Perhaps that was why, rather than reproaching them, he had taken it all in by himself, carrying the darkness and deciding to die with it, so that the hatred wouldn’t be disseminated.

The people involved in this incident now had been forced to bear the burden of the irrationality of the world, an absurdity they could do nothing about under their own power. They were running in the darkness. A crime was absolutely a crime, but would defeating them really end this?

“Boy.” Here, the Raikage opened his mouth. “For your sake, Naruto once put both his hands on the ground and bowed his head to me in the middle of the snow.”

Sasuke’s eyes widened at the unexpected words.

“It was when you abducted my little brother B, and Danzo gave his permission to deal with you as a rogue ninja at my request. Naruto wanted me to withdraw it; he said he was your friend, and he couldn’t just watch it happen without saying something.”

Sasuke was stunned into silence.

“Know yourself, know people, don’t mistake your path again. Understand what it means that you are allowed to walk freely in this world now. And create a reason for others to accept that.” His words were very direct.

Sasuke had previously tried to execute the five Kages and control all the villages himself. He had thought that was right. However, as he stood and listened to this advice from the Raikage, who was a little rough around the edges but still adored by the ninja of his village, he had the thought that if he had succeeded in executing the Kages, he would have been hated by an even greater number of people, and perhaps created an even greater shadow.

“After being banished to Hell Valley, the Chinoike clan vanished from the ninja world. It was thought that they had been destroyed. However, if someone with the ketsuryugan has appeared now, they might have lived on in secret. Hell Valley is in the Land of Steam. The location should only be known to the Uchiha clan and the ninja of Yugakure.”

The Land of Steam. That was where Sasuke had met Chino and Nowaki. Also, the Land of Steam was relatively close geographically to the villages of Konoha in the Land of Fire, Kirigakure in the Land of Water, and Kumogakure in the Land of Lightning.

Chino was in Hell Valley. For some reason, that was what his gut was telling him. But although Sasuke was a member of the Uchiha clan that had driven the Chinoike clan out, he didn’t know where Hell Valley was.

“I’ll talk to Yugakure for you. The rest is up to you.” The Raikage snorted, and returned to the shinobi of his village.

Sasuke bowed his head slightly at the other man’s departing back. And then he stared in the direction of Yugakure and kicked at the ground.

2

After running without rest for several days, he finally arrived in the village of Yugakure, where steam rose up in puffy clouds from the hot springs all around. Resort hotels were lined up next to the steam, and the place was lively with tourists. Because the ninja of the village were there to maintain the peace, people likely felt secure during their stay there. He could also see people who looked to be VIPs of the land.

“Sasuke from Konoha, yes? I’ll show you the way to Hell Valley.”

Apparently, they had already gotten the message from the Raikage; when he visited the central offices of Yugakure, a ninja appeared to act as his guide. He looked to be about thirty.

“However, the fact that you arrived here so quickly … It will take at least a day to reach Hell Valley. Will you rest for a while before we go?”

“No, I’d like to set out right away.” There was no time for resting.

The ninja nodded. “I understand.”

Sasuke had intended to go alone as long as they would just tell him where the valley was, but it seemed that Hell Valley was difficult to reach, and only someone from the local area would know it.

“To begin with, Hell Valley is forbidden ground,” the man explained as they proceeded through the forest. “It was originally a place that outsiders, of course, were told to stay away from, but even people from the village were told this, lest the calamity of the Chinoikes befall them.”

“The calamity of the Chinoikes?”

“Yes.” The man nodded. “After they were driven out to Hell Valley by the Uchiha clan, the only path left for the Chinoike clan was to fall into ruin and die. Hell Valley is a rocky place where no plants grow, full of volcanic gases; it’s not a place where people can live. However, a few months after the Chinoikes had been driven to Hell Valley, someone went to check on them and saw it.”

“Saw what?”

“An ocean of blood spreading out over the rocks where there had been nothing, and the Chinoike clan sipping it.”

Sasuke remembered Chino’s genjutsu. He had been pulled into a red sea. “Was genjutsu cast on this person?”

“No. I don’t know all the details. But after that, the village declared Hell Valley to be off-limits and prohibited anyone from going near it. And then the ninja of Yugakure forgot about its very existence. They even lost track of where it was.”

So then, why did he know the way to Hell Valley now? The question rose up in Sasuke’s head at the contradiction in the man’s story, and the man lowered his eyes.

“In recent years, someone found Hell Valley once again. His name was Hidan. He later joined Akatsuki and spread the horrors of war throughout the ninja world.”

Sasuke never expected to hear about Akatsuki in this place. It was an organization that his older brother Itachi had belonged to; Sasuke himself had also been taken in by them for a time. But by the time Sasuke joined Akatsuki, many of its members were already missing, and Hidan had not been a part of it.

“Hidan was not a man who did what he was told, and at the time, he was still a child. After hearing rumors of Hell Valley, he went and found it out of curiosity. Apparently, he was disgusted by the smell of sulfur and didn’t go too far into the valley, but he did say that there were corpses all over the place. So people thought, well, of course, no one could actually live in the valley, so they had indeed met their deaths, after all. But Hidan said that the bodies were not bones, but actual bodies, the blood not even dried. When the ninja of the village went to investigate, it was just as Hidan had said. They found the bodies of people who had only just been killed.”

So then, the Chinoike clan had lived on in Hell Valley until recently.

“Some people suspected that Hidan himself had killed them, but it appeared to have been members of the clan killing each other. We don’t know what happened, but we once more set Hell Valley as a forbidden place that was not to be approached.”

Here, the man closed his mouth for a moment. His gaze wandered around as though he were struggling with something, and then finally, he said, as if squeezing it out of himself, “No. Perhaps we just decided to feign ignorance, not wanting to get dragged into something troublesome. Yugakure has many resources; we live comfortable lives. There is the feeling among us of wanting to get rid of anything that would cause waves in our peaceful existence.”

Sasuke listened silently.

“As a safe hot-spring resort, Yugakure has also been since ancient times a pipeline between the daimyos and senior officials of the various countries. Apparently, we took in the Chinoikes because of some connection with the daimyo of the Land of Lightning. There’s also the fact that we avoided war with backdoor deals. And by pretending we saw nothing, we were able to maintain the peace.”

The man’s face was sorrowful.

“It’s the same with Hidan. Normally, the established practice is to deal with rogue ninja. But there wasn’t a ninja in Yugakure who could take on Hidan. The village decided to let him be. And because of that, people died.”

Perhaps a peaceful world dulled the senses of a ninja. And the world would likely proceed down that path from now on. However, dissenters would always suddenly appear. At those times, there had to be someone who could stand up against them. That was probably also the reason why Orochimaru and Kabuto had been allowed to live. But they needed to have other ninja who kept their skills sharp for the sake of peace, ready for the crisis that might happen at any time.

Sasuke suddenly had the thought that maybe that’s what he should aim to be.

“It’s over there.”

After a full day, they arrived at Hell Valley, just as his guide had said. Clouds of steam on a scale incomparable with what he had seen in the village of Yugakure rose up from the ground all over.

“I’ll go by myself from here,” Sasuke said.

“Be careful,” the man said, and left.

Alone, Sasuke set foot in Hell Valley. On both sides of the valley were bare, rocky mountains. The stone face was discolored a reddish brown in some places, and there was no sign of any plant life. The valley was replete with a foul-smelling steam, and hot water jetted out of geysers. You had to make an effort just to keep standing in the place. Banished to somewhere like this, you shouldn’t be able to live.

But the man from Yugakure had said that the Chinoike clan had been doing just that until recently. How hard it must have been for them.

Konoha’s huge, so you’re guaranteed the basics, I guess, but most places are like this. Absurd. Chino’s words came back to life in Sasuke’s mind.

Hell Valley was bigger than he had imagined, but Sasuke proceeded deeper, as if guided there.

Further in, he stumbled upon a bright red pond. It looked almost like blood. Instantly, he was on guard, wondering if he had fallen into a genjutsu, but there was no aura of chakra.

He walked over to the pond. “This …” When he took a closer look, he saw that red-hot earth was erupting from the ground. This collected at the bottom, and made the water look red.

He looked around and saw that the path ahead was dotted with these red ponds. What the ninja from Yugakure had seen was probably these ponds, Sasuke thought as he looked out over at them.

He drew in a sharp breath. In one of the ponds, he saw a human form. He immediately ran over.

“This …” It was a sight that made him doubt his own eyes. In the red pool, ninja, probably the abducted ones, were snugly packed together. A layer of red earth also covered the bottom of this pond, half-burying the ninjas’ bodies. The water was apparently cooler than the earth; he didn’t feel any heat from it. But the bodies of the ninja in it were red.

And he could sense a chakra aura in it. With his sharingan, Sasuke looked at the pond and at the ninja.

“This is …”

There was chakra in the pool, wriggling around like earthworms. The ninjas’ bodies had been cut in various places, and the chakra appeared to be entering them through these wounds. Once inside, the chakra crept and crawled around their bodies like blood circulating. The ninja with the foreign chakra winding around into every crevice of their bodies had scabs over their wounds almost like lids to keep the chakra inside, and the wounds were quickly disappearing.

Apparently, after the abducted ninja had been brought here, they were transformed into human bombs in these pools, and then sent out to the villages.

Sasuke tried a counter-genjutsu on the ninja right beside him. But the instant he put his hand into the pool, the wriggling chakra started to collect around his hand. A stinging sensation raced across his skin.

“Tch!”

Apparently, the chakra created cuts, and tried to get inside the body. He pulled his hand out of the pool, shaking off the chakra, and looked once again at the ninja sleeping in the water. He felt no intention or will in them. Having lost human emotion, they were merely Chino’s soldiers. They had indeed been made to closely resemble White Zetsu.

Sasuke turned his gaze forward. In order to save the ninja imprisoned in the ponds, in order to protect the villages, he would have to defeat Chino.

“This place …” He had finally made it to the deepest reaches of Hell Valley. The scene that spread out before him made Sasuke unconsciously hold his breath.

There, he found a red pond so enormous that the ones he had seen thus far didn’t begin to compare, bubbling and boiling, giving off great clouds of steam. It looked like the red ocean he had seen in the genjutsu. The choking heat made breathing difficult.

“Tenacious like a snake, huh?” A voice rang out from a place in the center of this boiling pool, clouded by steam. “I gotta hand it to you, Sassy.” Chino was walking toward him, barefoot on the simmering earth. Her eyes were not yet red.

“Why do something like this?” It wasn’t his nature to have leisurely chats with his opponent, but Sasuke had to ask.

Chino had been so talkative in the village of Takeno, but now her mouth was clamped shut.

“Is it true that the Uchiha clan drove your clan to this land?”

When he changed his question, Chino’s eyes narrowed as if she were glaring at him. “First, Nowaki, now me. Where’re you getting your info, anyway?” Chino looked at Sasuke with annoyance. “That’s right. Our clan was falsely accused and locked away in this land by the Uchiha clan. Right from the start, the ketsuryugan of our clan was looked down on, compared with the so-called three great ocular jutsu of the byakugan, the sharingan, and the rinnegan.”

“But, like,” Chino said. “We drank this boiling water, we shot birds out of the sky, we ate the few grasses that grew; we survived. Tired of fighting, our clan lived a careful life here, rather than going out into the world outside. And then, the world forgot about the Chinoikes … or they should have.”

“Should have?”

Chino turned sad eyes away. “Oyashiro learned about the existence of the Chinoike from past documents, and kidnapped me when I was still little. Then he slaughtered my entire clan.”

To increase the level of rarity, I’ve even had all but one person in a clan killed. The words Oyashiro had said to him in the Coliseum. So that had been Chino, then.

“This history of my clan I just told you, I actually learned about it from the old historical documents Oyashiro had. After I was kidnapped, ever since I can remember, I was put through ninja training in Oyashiro’s mansion. I was made into a tool to carry weapons on a fierce battlefield; I killed without wanting to. That’s why I ran away.”

In which case, had she also been part of Bright Lightning? That was Sasuke’s thought, but apparently, he was wrong.

“The majority of the bodyguard group I escaped with formed Bright Lightning with Nowaki and moved together, but I came back to Hell Valley by myself. I felt like I would understand who I was once I got here. But it was no good …” A pained look came across Chino’s face. “My own father and mother, the faces of the people of the clan, I couldn’t remember anything. I didn’t know why I had been born, why I was alive. It was empty … It was just empty.”

Chino’s face grew grim. Her eyes were gradually colored red. “Still, I had planned to live here quietly by myself. I wanted to get away from fighting. But after he was deceived by Kirigakure and disbanded Bright Lightning, Nowaki fled and showed up here. It took over a year for his wounds to heal, you know. He got no asylum in the villages. He had no family to protect him. He had no one to love him. He was used and tossed aside; that was his entire existence.”

Sasuke waited for her to continue.

“People like us, born with kekkei genkai, are always made to suffer. Our persecutors call themselves ‘normal’ and make false accusations about us just because we happen to be alive. They’re all ‘peace, peace,’ but once war is gone, people with kekkei genkai are still persecuted! So I decided to smash it all for them! There’s no hope for the future of a world like this!”

Sasuke couldn’t deny what Chino was saying. The Uchiha clan too had been exposed to cold stares in Konoha. That was why Sasuke had hated the village.

But there was a definitive difference between the two of them. Sasuke had been born in the middle of connections, and he had keenly felt those connections as he grew up. Chino had never had anything. She didn’t know her parents’ faces, she didn’t know warmth, she didn’t know bonds. That had to be close to how Naruto felt.

You were alone to begin with!! What can you know about me?! Hunh?!

This pain is born from my family bonds!!

How could you ever know what it means to lose anything?!

In my pain at losing those bonds, I yelled at Naruto, who had no bonds, about how he couldn’t understand me.

But still, Naruto had desperately tried to understand him, to get closer to Sasuke’s heart. He thought about it now. About how painful it must have been for Naruto to have no connections. About the terror of not having a single being to affirm you, of there being no one to love you. And then how tremendous was the loneliness when you found important people from that state of nothing, built connections, and then lost those connections? Sasuke’s heart hurt.

Even so, Naruto had never abandoned him, right up to the very end.

“I was jealous of you, Sasuke.” Chino stared at him. “Being born in Konoha, bearing the Uchiha name, and having a family that loved you. You became infamous after you left your village, but now you’re traveling freely like this. That’s because you have people who love and protect you.”

He gasped. The red ketsuryugan.

A tear spilled out of one of them. “I get it. That you lived always, always, always loved by someone. You just didn’t realize it, you just didn’t bother to look at it; there were always people like that around you. Unlike … me.” Chino punctuated this with, “That’s too much talk. If you want to stop me, go ahead and kill me. But this time, don’t forget the ketsuryugan of the Chinoike clan!”

Chino pulled out a kunai and quickly cut both of her wrists. Hot blood spilled out, pouring into the simmering red pool.

“Using blood, the Chinoike clan can make use of all kinds of techniques. In particular, we can use the iron in blood. And in this place.”

Chino’s chakra wriggled around in the red pool.

“These red pools contain a lot of iron, which further enhances the Chinoike powers.”

Chino wove signs.

“Ketsuryugan! Blood Dragon Ascension!”

The chakra squirming around in the red pool began to collect at her feet and rise up, transforming into a red dragon with eight heads. It was big enough that he had to look up at it.

“Take this!” One of the dragon’s heads opened its mouth wide and came at Sasuke.

“Ngh!” This wasn’t an opponent he could go up against with naked flesh. Sasuke concentrated his power in his eyes.

Susano’o!

The armored warrior appeared, and Sasuke thrust Susano’o’s sword at the head of the blood dragon. He had no sooner watched the force of it send the head flying, than another head grew up to take its place. And this bit down on Susano’o, stopping his movements. Steam sizzled up from the place where the dragon’s teeth were locked on. The dragon’s other heads also coiled around Susano’o.

Sasuke spread Susano’o’s wings, and escaped into the sky.

“As if I’m letting you get away!” Chino opened her eyes wide, as if to catch hold of Sasuke.

Sasuke’s vision was dyed red. Chino’s genjutsu. The instant he tried to undo the genjutsu, one head charged, stretching out toward Susano’o’s wings. Sasuke plunged his sword into the open maw of the dragon, and it ripped through the blood dragon’s throat. One of the heads bounced back and scattered everywhere.

Sasuke brought Susano’o back down to the ground. and aimed with his sword at the base of the eight heads. “There!”

His sword pierced the dragon deeply, and two of the heads fell into the red pond, waves of water splashing up high.

As Susano’o and the blood dragon drew ever closer to each other, Sasuke met Chino’s eyes, and caught her in a genjutsu as well.

“Tch!”

But Chino apparently had set up any number of genjutsu guards in her mind; several red walls stood in his way, blocking Sasuke’s entry. The walls melted, and became waves crashing down on him.

“Genjutsu trap, huh?” The waves touched his body, and his memory was slightly exposed to her. Chino’s genjutsu was clever. And his head was spinning. She was probably fiddling with the iron in his body. It would be to his disadvantage to let this draw on. He focused on figuring out how to defeat her.

“Why?!” she suddenly cried out at him. “Why are you fighting for the sake of Konoha?!”

Perhaps she had seen something when she touched Sasuke’s memories.

“Konoha’s leaves are bright, its roots are dark! There is light and darkness in Konoha! For Konoha’s nourishment, your entire clan was absorbed by its roots! So how can you fight for Konoha?! How can you not be pessimistic about Konoha’s future?!”

Sasuke got some distance from Chino and looked at her. Why did he fight for Konoha? He found the answer surprisingly fast. “Because I’m alive.”

“What does that mean?!”

Sasuke remembered. The sunrise he had seen with Naruto in the Valley of the End. The day he acknowledged defeat.

“I have a friend who saved me. A friend who can share my pain.”

“A friend who can share your pain …”

“And a heart that wishes that someday the whole world could be like that too … connects me to Konoha!!”

He would endure until that day came. He would be the one to watch it happen.

I am not alone anymore!

“I’ll sever the chain of vengeance running rampant in this world! Just like my brother did, I’ll support this world from the shadows, along with,” Sasuke spat it out clearly, “the light this world is gazing at up ahead!”

He opened his eyes. This time, the Mangekyo sharingan caught hold of Chino.

“Ngh, ah …” Chino and the blood dragon stopped moving.

Sasuke aimed Susano’o’s sword at her. He would decide this battle.

“Chino!!” Nowaki called, and came flying in.

Typhoon Style! Tornado Destruction!!

Instantly, the wind rose up, and became a sword to knock away Susano’o’s blade. Although the sword’s trajectory was off, the pressure wave sent the two ninja flying; having lost its chakra, the blood dragon splashed into nothing.

“Ow …” After slamming into a rock wall, Chino stood up, pressing a hand against her back.

Nowaki had fallen very near her, and he was more seriously injured than Chino.

“Nowaki! Why did you come out?!” Chino grew pale and raced over to him. Nowaki forced himself to his feet and pushed Chino behind him.

Sasuke stood before them. He looked at the two of them and said to Chino, “You should understand the meaning of what I said now.”

Chino eyes widened, and she looked at Nowaki with a gasp.

I have a friend who saved me. A friend who can share my pain …

“I’m not alone. I have connections and live in this world.”

Tears spilled from Chino’s eyes. Red tears. They rolled down her cheeks, and fell to the ground.

“Nowaki, that’s enough,” she said, pushing back a groan. “That’s enough …” She placed a hand on Nowaki’s back, and looked up at Sasuke. “I wish we’d never met you in Takeno. Then I could’ve hated you whole-heartedly.”

Belying her words, the expression on her face was clear somehow. “I mean, once I met you and talked with you, it turns out you’re not really the kind of opponent you can hate.”

You meet people and become connected to each other by talking and getting to know each other. Many things are changed by a single word alone.

“You win.” Her red tears changed into transparent water. “With a guy like you in it, I want to see what kind of future’s coming for this world.”

3

Chino stood in front of a red pond. Sasuke watched from behind.

“Sasuke, I saw just a little of your memory. Something that could turn into the answer to your questions might be here.” There was already no will to fight left in her. She intended to accept whatever punishment was meted out.

Telling him that she wanted to talk with him before that, she had brought him to the pond where the shinobi lay. She reached a hand in and the wriggling chakra returned to her, including the chakra circulating in the ninja’ bodies.

“During the Fourth Great Ninja War, a suspicious group passed under Yugakure,” she told him, a faraway look in her eyes, as if remembering it. “I was able to get the information from the mineral springs. When the strange group touched the mineral springs in the earth, the information flowed into it.”

It had likely been the White Zetsu.

“I used that structure as a reference to create this technique. But there was something I thought was weird while I was making it.” When Chino placed her hand on the bottom of the pool, the boiling geyser stopped and returned to inside the earth. The water of the pond pulled back, finally releasing the bodies of the ninja. She looked back at Sasuke. “In the middle of that strange group, there was one person who was faintly thinking that he should be fighting something different. Or maybe it’s not like he was thinking about it. Maybe the idea had been planted in him.”

“What do you mean?” As Sasuke listened to her, his heart had started to pound a little faster. He had a bad feeling.

“I don’t know exactly. But I feel like they were prepared for something different. To fight a more powerful something,” Chino said.

Sasuke closed his eyes tightly—this was the thing that had bothered him in the fight with Kaguya. Why, despite the fact that Kaguya was so strong, had she created the corps of White Zetsu and prepared for war? An absurd fear was about to become reality.

“That something’s definitely going to come along one day,” Chino noted.

“The idea that there’s a being that could threaten even Kaguya … and it’s going to appear in this land?” Did that mean that the day was coming when the peace they had finally obtained would be disturbed? Was the future people were walking toward now going to be destroyed once more?

But Sasuke shook his head no. He wouldn’t let that happen. He would protect it himself.

Chino looked at Sasuke. “You shouldn’t carry it all by yourself, you know.”

When he looked at her, Chino was smiling.

“You have a friend to share your pain with, right?”

These words instantly shut him up, and finally, he nodded quietly. “I guess I do.”

Right. He wasn’t alone.