Chapter 283
This actually wasn't a problem.
With the classified information she had recently read, and having personally experienced the beginning of the night of the massacre, Haruno Sakura quickly came to an answer.
Without a doubt, these were the supplies the Uchiha were using for their rebellion.
For some reason, they had been left here all this time and had not been sent to Konoha.
Perhaps the supplies here were just a backup, supplies left for them to flee Konoha after a failed rebellion, in hopes of making a comeback one day?
In any case, the large-scale hoarding of such strategic materials already spoke volumes.
Sakura looked at Sasuke. The black-haired youth's eyes were flickering, and it was hard to tell what he was thinking.
There was an outsider, Rin-chan, following behind them, so the two of them didn't say much. After a moment of silence, Sasuke asked, "The scrolls and books are up ahead, right? The information you want should be in there."
The three of them walked to the innermost part of the warehouse. Although the Uchiha clan was mostly made up of rough people, after many years of accumulation, they still had a large collection of books, including a large number of rare and out-of-print books. Many of them were not kept in the Uchiha compound in Konoha, but had instead appeared here, properly preserved by barriers and ninjutsu.
"Hn?" Sasuke glanced at the bookshelf, took a book from it, flipped through a few pages, and said, "I read this book when I was a child. I couldn't find it later. I never thought it would be stored here!"
"Hn..." Sakura pondered for a moment.
She found the bookshelf for miscellaneous notes, travelogues, and other books introducing the local customs of various places. "The books here, your family doesn't have any copies of them."
Sasuke sighed. "Yeah. These books, I thought... they were all gone after that day."
The two looked at each other.
The purpose of this warehouse, the meaning behind it, was already clear.
Neither Sakura nor Sasuke said anything.
Sasuke wandered through the bookshelves and, surprisingly, found a lot of good things. He even found a book of Uchiha Madara's training insights.
Seeing how carefully Sasuke was putting it into a scroll, Sakura pouted. "Whether this kind of thing is useful or not is a matter of opinion! I prepared 600,000 words of materials for Naruto, and he didn't even read a single word, did he?"
Sasuke was not the type to delve deeply into theory either. To some extent, he was like Naruto, preferring to experience things with his body first, rather than thinking with his brain. If he brought that book back, he would probably just flip through it a few times and then put it on a high shelf. In the entire ninja world, only Orochimaru and Haruno Sakura had made a decent show of getting stronger by studying theory.
"What's more, that's all knowledge from decades ago. The ninja world's understanding of many problems has been updated several times. There are bound to be fallacies in here."
The average strength of ninja, on the whole, was constantly increasing. Especially after the establishment of the village system, ninja had obtained a stable rear, and finally had the ability and leisure to study ninjutsu in depth. Therefore, these decades had also been a period of great development for ninjutsu, and a large number of ninjutsu had been developed during this time.
So, when it came to reading training notes, the newer the better. As for a character like Uchiha Madara... he was strong, but that didn't mean his insights were necessarily correct. If Haruno Sakura also had his talent and chakra amount, she might have been able to do even better than Madara!
Unfortunately, no matter what Haruno Sakura said, just based on the name Uchiha Madara alone, Sasuke would not give up Madara's notes.
On the contrary, he said, "No matter what, Madara's training insights are still more important than some travelogue or local customs written by some nameless nobody, right?"
Haruno Sakura, holding a thick "Record of Strange Objects" in her hand, said nothing.
She wouldn't argue with him about this kind of issue. When the Yang God Mode was developed, he would know which of the two was more important.
"A creature called a 'Sand-Burrowing Scorpion' lives in the deserts and gobi of the Land of Wind..." Sakura found something familiar in this book. "The venom of the Sand-Burrowing Scorpion is extremely potent, and many ninja use it to prepare poison. They can grow very large. It is said that in the depths of the desert, there are Sand-Burrowing Scorpions that are close to a hundred meters in size..."
—This was not right. Sakura had seen with her own eyes that that giant scorpion could clearly grow to a size of more than a hundred meters.
It also mentioned the so-called ancient kingdom of Rouran. A hundred years ago, it was still a habitable city with a humid climate, but it didn't mention the energy under the ground. Probably, in all these years, Sakura was the first person who could safely travel through time and space and return to her original time—after all, it wasn't her second time transmigrating. Her soul had the aptitude for it.
This book might have the information she wanted.
She closed the book and put it into her scroll as if she had found a treasure. The two of them found a few more books. Finally remembering that there was an outsider, Rin-chan, waiting for them, they stopped dawdling.
On this trip, Sasuke had also taken a lot of supplies, filling his storage scroll to the brim—although, relative to the total amount in the warehouse, this amount of supplies was not even a drop in the bucket.
Then they reluctantly left this treasure trove.
"Sorry, Rin-chan, for making you wait so long," Sasuke said apologetically on the way out.
"It's fine. It's the first time Sasuke-nii has been here. It's normal to take a little longer," this girl named Okura Rin said with a smile. When Sasuke had come here as a child, they had played together. To some extent, they could be considered childhood friends.
"I'm glad you don't mind... By the way, Rin-chan, are you really not considering becoming a ninja? You also have a Kekkei Genkai and are very talented. If you came to Konoha, you could definitely become a great ninja."
Rin-chan looked at Sasuke seriously.
"Is it really that good to be a ninja?" she said faintly. "If you have the power to fight, you can't help but use that power for fighting. And in the end, it only leads to tragedy... In the past, your Uchiha clan was so glorious. But in the end, in the blink of an eye, you're the only one left of the people who used to play with me."
Sasuke looked at Rin-chan, whose eyes were a little red, and sighed. "Having power can also protect the important people around you!"
"I don't have anyone I need to protect anymore. I'm an orphan, just kindly taken in by Granny Cat. My parents died at the hands of ninja, and my friends also died at the hands of ninja..." she said in a low voice. "You're the only one left, but you're so strong, you don't need my protection."
Sasuke looked at her, and for a moment, he had nothing to say.
A silence fell between the two.
"So you think that ninja are the source of the world's chaos and tragedy, Okura Rin?" Haruno Sakura, who had been listening to the two of them talk on the side, interjected during their silence.
"Hn... if there was no chakra, no ninja, this world would definitely be a more peaceful and beautiful place, wouldn't it!" she said, sizing up Sakura and stating her thoughts.
"Is that so... But I feel that even without chakra, people would still develop all kinds of weapons for war, and rack their brains to find ways to kill their own kind."
Airplanes, cannons, tanks, guns... and even poison gas, nuclear bombs...
In terms of the efficiency of slaughtering one's own kind, that world without chakra was in no way inferior to the world with chakra.
The world wars in this world, the ones who suffered were mainly the small countries. The great nations could still more or less retain a lot of their vitality. In her previous life's world wars, ten million had died in World War I, sixty to seventy million had died in World War II, and over a hundred million had been injured. There were great nations that had lost an entire generation. If World War III had started, the casualties would probably have been in the billions...
In terms of war, it was, on the contrary, the world without ninja that fought even more intensely!
The ninja wars here, hehe, to be honest... from Sakura's estimation of the casualty figures, they weren't even worthy of carrying the shoes of the world wars in her previous life. It was just that for various reasons, including the fact that the lessons of war were too tragic, and the threat of mutual destruction from nuclear bombs, as well as various other factors, that world had later maintained a mainstream peace. Despite this, the flames of war were still burning in various parts of the world.
Sakura was not proud that more people had died in her previous world's wars. She just wanted to argue that ninja and chakra were not the root cause of war.
"What causes disputes and wars is the human heart, not chakra and ninja. What do you think?"
"That makes sense," Rin-chan replied with a blank expression. "But I still hate ninja."
The atmosphere became heavy.
Haruno Sakura had no way to refute this. She was a ninja now, so of course her ass was on the ninja's side. Others were not ninja, so there was no need for them to understand whether the root of the world's chaos was in the ninja or not.
Rin-chan just needed to know that most wars were caused by ninja.
In the end, it was a matter of different standpoints.
From the standpoint of all humanity, did ninja and chakra hinder human development? Haruno Sakura hoped the answer was no, but she wasn't sure if that was the case. This kind of question might take a lifetime to find an answer.
The three of them were silent until Rin-chan had escorted them to the door. No one spoke.
After bidding each other farewell, they went their separate ways.
The exit, as it happened, was under the tallest building in the ruins. Sakura, with a few consecutive leaps, jumped onto the roof.
"What are you trying to do?" Sasuke asked, following her up.
"The view here is very good, isn't it! You can overlook the entire city," Haruno Sakura said, standing on the edge of the rooftop and raising her hand. The wind from the high place carried the sweltering heat of summer, blowing through her hair.
In an instant, the gloomy atmosphere from the small debate just now had vanished in the magnificent view before her.
"If it were a normally functioning city, then the scenery would indeed be very good. It's a pity this is just a ruin. It's dirty everywhere, and there's nothing to see," Sasuke said, shaking his head.
"Is that so?"
Haruno Sakura smiled faintly.
She formed hand seals, created a huge amount of chakra, and pulled all the water from the small river that ran through the city, hundreds of meters away, onto the street.
Below this magnificent high-rise building, there was also a very wide square, which could be used to hold large-scale events.
Sakura then controlled the huge amount of water to wash this area of the street and the square below. She meticulously controlled the river water to clean every corner. Finally, carrying countless pieces of garbage, it returned to the river channel. The street and square under her feet were cleaned up and instantly took on a new look. It was immediately much more beautiful.
"What do you think? Chakra and ninjutsu can also make the world a better place, right!" she said, her eyebrows raised, with a hint of smugness.
To be honest, Sakura felt that using ninjutsu in these places was actually much more meaningful than her using it for battle.
Sasuke walked to the edge of the rooftop, his arms crossed, and looked down at the clean street below, lost in thought.
"When you were designing this city, you had a very serious oversight," Haruno Sakura said. "In a city with a high concentration of population, security issues will be very severe!"
She gave an example: "Suppose this square is currently holding a large-scale event, with tens of thousands of people gathered here. And then an enemy with ill intentions is standing in my position and uses the same water jutsu, but not to clean the streets, but to attack the crowd. The casualties would be particularly tragic... If it were a traditional city with low-rise buildings, there wouldn't be such a worry!"
"To be honest, the population density in our Konoha is already very high. If an enemy, for example, someone from the Akatsuki, runs into the village and wreaks havoc, and casually uses some ninjutsu, it will cause huge damage..."
"So, this kind of city with a higher population density can only be truly built after the ninja world has achieved peace..."
Sasuke said with emotion, "The application of chakra, whether it is used to kill people or to transform the world into a better place, is just a matter of the user's thought. However, the ninjutsu that we ninja learn, almost all of them are developed to better slaughter our own kind..."
"One thought to become a demon, one thought to become a Buddha," Sakura added.
"So for Rin-chan to choose not to become a ninja, perhaps she will live a happier life..." Sasuke sighed, then turned his head and looked at Haruno Sakura seriously. "I know this isn't what you wanted to say. If you have something to say, don't beat around the bush. Just say it!"
❃❃❃
⤑ Show your support with Power Stones!
⤑ Unlock a Bonus Chapter every time we hit 400 Power Stones!
❃❃❃
♕ Get early access to 30+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
🔗 https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to open the link!)
💬 Enjoying the story? Drop a review!
Your support really helps the series grow—thank you!