Chapter 104: Kakashi: Is the Will of Fire Making Konoha Weaker?
Izumi quickly sheathed her ninja blade and opened the first page of the notebook, where she found a name, a detailed address, and some of the person's transaction records.
Izumi immediately realized what it was and said in shock, "Ikeizumi-senpai, is this—"
"Yes."
Uchiha Ikeizumi said flatly, "It's a list of those involved in the smuggling and selling of illegal drugs. Every single person on the list is inside Konoha."
Izumi: "!!!"
She hadn't even noticed where Ikeizumi-senpai had gotten the list. Could he have taken it from one of the Uchiha ninja just now while I was distracted by the ANBU?
She flipped through a few pages quickly, growing more and more astonished with each one.
She discovered that the list included not only civilian ninja and merchants, but also ninja from established clans.
The total number of people was a staggering fifteen!
She took a deep breath and said, "Every time I think I've finally seen the limit of the ninja world's evil, some new, mind-boggling 'evil' always appears."
So many people were involved in smuggling and selling illegal drugs in a village as small as Konoha.
It was unimaginable how many people these terrible things must have harmed in the village.
Kijiro had said that several people in Konoha died from illegal drugs every year.
And the number of people suffering from them and barely clinging to life was countless.
A sharp, murderous intent flashed in the young girl's eyes.
The strength in her fingers, gripping the notebook, increased slightly.
"Senpai, we—"
"We'll split up," Uchiha Ikeizumi said, seeing through Izumi's thoughts as he always did, since she always wore her heart on her sleeve. He said with a blank expression, "You will execute the civilian merchants and ninja on the list. Just to be safe, Kijiro will go with you. I will deal with the rest of the clan ninja."
"Yes, Senpai!"
Kakashi, standing by, watched Uchiha Ikeizumi walk toward him. He wisely moved out of the way.
Izumi picked up Kijiro and followed closely.
She didn't forget to remind Naruto and Sasuke.
"Absolute Justice, huh..." Realizing he was the only one left in the basement, Kakashi looked at the gruesome corpses and the illegal drugs filling the cellar, and he muttered, "He really practices what he preaches. He has no hesitation in killing his own clansmen. He truly has zero tolerance for evil!"
If Naruto Uzumaki follows this kind of [Absolute Justice] in the future, it wouldn't exactly be a wrong path, would it? The village already owes that kid so much. What's wrong with letting him be a little rebellious? At the very least, [Absolute Justice] won't create any rogue ninja.
Kakashi thought of Obito, who once wanted to become Konoha's Hokage so badly. Now, he had betrayed Konoha, betrayed his past. If Uchiha Ikeizumi hadn't told him some of Obito's secrets right in front of him, he would have still been kept in the dark.
A thought, one that even he found a little bold, emerged in Kakashi's mind.
Does the Will of Fire really make Konoha better?!
His father believed in the Will of Fire and was forced to commit suicide by the village's negative opinions. Obito also believed in the Will of Fire, but now he had become a rogue ninja from Konoha. Danzo also believed in the Will of Fire, but his true colors were clear for anyone to see. He, too, believed in the Will of Fire, but everyone he knew had left him one after another... In his memory, Konoha was also becoming more and more decadent.
At the very least, the current Konoha was much weaker overall than the Konoha before the Third Great Ninja War.
Kakashi fell into a moment of silent contemplation.
"If you don't want to be buried in a sea of fire with over a ton of illegal drugs, then hurry up and come out."
A sudden, faint voice snapped Kakashi back to reality and startled him. He immediately went up the stairs and saw Uchiha Ikeizumi standing at the entrance to the basement.
Kakashi saw that Uchiha Ikeizumi's arm was flowing with lava!
The moment Kakashi walked out, the scorching lava, like a landslide, rushed down into the cellar. In just a few seconds, the lava completely filled the basement, turning everything inside into glowing ash.
Kakashi broke out in a cold sweat.
This method of destroying illegal drugs was a little too hardcore. If Uchiha Ikeizumi hadn't warned him, he might have been buried in a sea of fire with those illegal drugs!
"Sasuke!" Suddenly, a group of people burst into the house, and the person in front called out Sasuke's name directly.
Hearing the familiar voice, Sasuke turned around in surprise: "—Father?!"
"Father? Huh??!" Naruto looked at Uchiha Fugaku in shock. "This poker-faced old man is your dad? I've seen him twice, ya know!"
Sasuke: "???"
The newcomers were none other than Fugaku and several ninja from the Police Force.
Fugaku's eyelid twitched imperceptibly.
If he had a choice, he would rather never see the jinchuriki.
Fugaku pushed aside his chaotic thoughts, frowning as he scolded, "Sasuke! You didn't come straight home after school. What are you doing in a place like this?"
Sasuke lowered his head, nervously twisting the corner of his clothes. He didn't dare to make a sound. Fugaku's strict parenting style prevented Sasuke from having any rebellious thoughts, let alone talking back to his authoritative father.
Fugaku then glanced at the entrance to the basement, where the lava was about to overflow.
Feeling the high temperature in the air, he asked with a frown, "Ikeizumi, are you—"
"Clan Head Fugaku, Ikeizumi-senpai is carrying out justice!"
Izumi took the initiative to explain on behalf of Ikeizumi and highlighted that "Uchiha Hayata," "Uchiha Tadashi," and "Uchiha Naoto" were all involved in smuggling and selling a large amount of illegal drugs.
Fugaku's brow twitched violently.
Although Izumi hadn't explicitly said that Ikeizumi killed the three men, the words "carrying out justice" and the lava-filled basement had already given a clear answer.
Ikeizumi had killed three Uchiha clansmen!
And those three bodies were probably already bathing in lava!
The identity of one of them, in particular, gave Fugaku a headache.
Uchiha Hayata was Elder Uchiha Setsuna's grandson!
He couldn't even begin to imagine what Setsuna, a man with a very radical personality, would do when he found out that Ikeizumi had killed his only grandson?!
Fugaku could already smell the impending internal strife within the Uchiha clan.
He didn't expect the conflict between the Uchiha and Konoha to erupt so soon. Now, the internal conflict within the Uchiha was about to explode.
With a painful headache, he took a deep breath and couldn't help but say, "Ikeizumi, those three, like you, all carry the Uchiha name..."
But Uchiha Ikeizumi interrupted his thought: "Just because they carry the Uchiha name, they have special privileges?"
Fugaku was speechless.
He then suddenly remembered that Uchiha Ikeizumi had even killed his last blood relative, Uchiha Onigawara! Just because his blood relative had fallen into the abyss of sin!
Compared to a blood relative, what did these three Uchiha ninja matter?
Fugaku fell silent.
"Clan Head Fugaku, please don't block the way." Uchiha Ikeizumi reached out and pressed his hand on Uchiha Fugaku's shoulder, pushing him to the side. Caught off guard, Fugaku stumbled to the side.
"Hey! Uchiha Ikeizumi! You—" The several Police Force ninja Fugaku brought with him couldn't help but speak up.
But Fugaku held out his hand, interrupting them: "...It's fine!"
Fugaku's expression wasn't good, but he didn't show the dissatisfaction and anger that were welling up inside him.
He could feel that after today, the Uchiha clan was probably going to become a powder keg.
In this situation, his role as Clan Head should be to prevent this powder keg from exploding, not to add fuel to the fire. Even if Uchiha Ikeizumi's actions were disrespectful to him as the Uchiha Clan Head, Fugaku still gritted his teeth and endured it.
He convinced himself that by making this sacrifice for the Uchiha,
he was a very competent Clan Head.
He fell into a state of self-pity.
Fugaku watched silently as Uchiha Ikeizumi, Uchiha Izumi, Kijiro, Naruto Uzumaki, and Kakashi—a group of people who by all rights shouldn't be together—left one after another.
Until he saw that Sasuke was following them.
Fugaku couldn't remain silent anymore. He frowned and immediately questioned Sasuke's small back: "Sasuke! Home is to your left. What do you mean by walking to the right? It's getting dark. Go home immediately!"
Sasuke's body stiffened.
His father's strict tone made him feel inexplicably sad.
"Yes, Father."
Sasuke was pursing his lips and about to turn around when he noticed that Naruto Uzumaki, who was supposed to be leaving, suddenly turned back and grabbed Sasuke's wrist, pulling him in the other direction.
"? Dead-last! What are you doing?!"
Sasuke was shocked.
While pulling Sasuke with all his might, Naruto turned his head and said seriously to the surprised Fugaku, "Old man, this arrogant guy has been asking me what [Justice] is all day. I brought him to meet Ikeizumi-sensei to let him know what [Justice] is. So, please lend him to me for a while."
Under Fugaku's gaze, his second son was being pulled along by the jinchuriki, running after him, and ultimately had no choice but to leave with the jinchuriki. He felt that Sasuke's struggling look was a little fake.
"I see..."
Fugaku shifted his gaze to Uchiha Ikeizumi's increasingly distant back, his expression becoming extremely complex as he muttered to himself, "Ikeizumi, you once targeted Itachi with malice, and now you're targeting Sasuke with good intentions. Are you using Sasuke? Or are you trying to use me through Sasuke's hand?"
But on second thought, was Uchiha Ikeizumi really the kind of person who would use others?
Fugaku concluded that he wasn't.
This meant that Ikeizumi truly wanted Sasuke to understand what [Justice] was!
But the biggest problem was that Ikeizumi's justice was too extreme.
Would his justice really not lead Sasuke down a wrong path in the future?
And did he even know about this?
On the other side, Kakashi, who was overly worried about the jinchuriki getting into trouble, had come out for nothing and was now stealthily hiding again.
"Nothing's going on." After putting his ANBU mask back on, Kakashi said to his ANBU subordinates.
"Oh, and..."
He said to one of them with a pair of dead-fish eyes and a listless tone that would surprise anyone, "Go back and inform the Hokage that Uchiha Ikeizumi might go on a killing spree tonight. But I expect the ones who get killed today will all be evildoers."
"I only know that the first three to die were Uchiha clan members. As for who is about to be killed next, I don't know, but I remember the number is probably around fifteen!"
Kakashi hadn't peeked at the notebook in Izumi's hand. He could only roughly guess that each page of the notebook represented one person. The Uchiha girl had flipped through the pages about fifteen times, so Uchiha Ikeizumi's target was fifteen people. That should be right.
"Yes!"
The subordinate immediately realized that something big was about to happen. He left the jinchuriki supervision team and rushed to the Hokage's office. By the time Hiruzen Sarutobi received the message,
it was already getting dark outside.
"Pfft—" The information from Kakashi made Hiruzen Sarutobi spit out the mouthful of hot tea he had just put in his mouth.
"Fifteen people?!!" Hiruzen Sarutobi stood up abruptly. The last time Uchiha Ikeizumi killed so many people at once was when he killed the Daimyo's second son and a host of the Daimyo's vassals.
This time, he was going on a killing spree again to kill so many people. Hiruzen Sarutobi couldn't imagine what kind of mess Uchiha Ikeizumi was going to cause now!
But before he could even prepare to go and investigate.
Another ANBU ninja rushed over in a hurry.
"Lord Hokage! Captain Kakashi ordered me to come and tell you that Uchiha Ikeizumi has broken into the Tsume clan and killed two ninja! Furthermore, Uchiha Ikeizumi and Uchiha Izumi have split up, and it seems they're going to act separately to carry out a high-efficiency killing spree!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi: "???"
It was certainly "high-efficiency."
The previous ANBU ninja had just arrived to warn him, and the next one was already here to say that Ikeizumi had killed two people, and they were from the Tsume clan, no less!
Hiruzen Sarutobi couldn't imagine how furious Koharu Utatane would be tomorrow.
Wait!
Hiruzen Sarutobi suddenly remembered that Naruto was still with Ikeizumi!
Would a killing spree like this corrupt Naruto?
What if he turns the kind and obedient Naruto into a bloodthirsty Naruto—
Hiss! Will that still be the Naruto Uzumaki I know?
Just as Hiruzen Sarutobi was eagerly about to take action.
He saw another ANBU ninja return.
"Lord Hokage!" This time, it was Yamanaka Ryo, who had rushed over: "Kakashi-taichou assigned two of his subordinates to me to track Uchiha Izumi. That girl, Uchiha Izumi, broke into a tavern and chopped off the tavern owner's head in front of everyone!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi: "..."
Before he could calm down, yet another ANBU ninja rushed back, out of breath, to report: "Lord Hokage, Uchiha Ikeizumi has broken into the Mitokado clan! An old ninja in his sixties from the Mitokado clan was killed by him!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi nearly stopped breathing. Why does that sound so much like Homura Mitokado?!
The ANBU ninja seemed to have realized that his words were ambiguous. He quickly added, "It wasn't Homura Mitokado-sama, the advisor. It was Homura Mitokado-sama's cousin!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi: "..."
He suddenly felt a little faint.
Homura's cousin was also a well-known figure in Konoha.
He couldn't even imagine what kind of angry posture Homura Mitokado would adopt when he talked to him, the Hokage, tomorrow.
Although Homura Mitokado was the best-tempered of the four of them, it was his cousin who had died!
His blood relative!
"Lord Hokage!" When that same call sounded again.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's face was already ashen.
Even if he were to go and find Ikeizumi now, he probably couldn't stop him.
Once [Absolute Justice] found its targets and began its killing spree, it was destined not to stop. What's more, he might not even be able to find Ikeizumi, who was running rampant all over the village!
Unless he waited for Ikeizumi to finish killing everyone.
Sigh...
He stood up abruptly, but it was for nothing. Hiruzen Sarutobi sat back down.
Tonight—
I probably won't be able to sleep again!
"D-d-dead-last, which one is this?" Sasuke stared at the corpse in front of him with a look of terror. He was already stunned by Uchiha Ikeizumi's "killing spree" behavior.
Maybe his father was right to stop him. He had no idea that "carrying out justice" would be so bloody!
"—I-I lost count." Naruto was also so shocked by the gruesome methods that he didn't even mind Sasuke calling him a dead-last.
Naruto had mentally prepared himself a little.
But he found that this little bit of mental preparation was not enough!
"Let's go."
Uchiha Ikeizumi pulled out his ninja blade, shook off the blood, and glanced at the two brats who were so shocked they couldn't speak properly. He said with a blank expression, "There's one last one left. Naruto Uzumaki, that one—is for you to handle."
"...Huh???"
Naruto was stunned.
....
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