Sarutobi Hiruzen left with two ANBU squads, leaving Kakashi and six ANBU members to clean up the mess.
"Scorch Release Kekkei Genkai... this destructive power is truly outrageous!"
As Kakashi's gaze darted around and he Breathed the sulphurous air, even his mask couldn't block it.
Shock flashed across his dead eyes. Across his horizon—the ground ahead was covered in gradually cooling lava, scorching the earth with pits of varying sizes, deep and shallow. Half a street of houses seemed to have been wiped out. The pervasive heat in the air made Kakashi feel a little unwell.
Lava still dripped from the edges of many of the ruins, and to the unsuspecting, one might have mistaken them for an active volcano!
Kakashi also saw the bodies of two Root ninjas.
One was left with only half a body, the other half missing.
The second had a gaping hole in his chest, severed in half.
Kakashi tucked his hands into his pockets in distress.
The two corpses are easy to deal with... just clean them up and have someone hand them over to the Root.
But how should we deal with the devastated streets in front of us?
Uchiha Kaede is really messing around!
But...
Maybe, he is one of the few ninjas in the village who still remembers the Fourth Hokage!
Kakashi recalled what Uchiha Kaede said.
"Only in this way can we be worthy of the Fourth Hokage's sacrifice."
Absolute justice...
Not bad at all.
Just when Kakashi was lost in thought, he suddenly saw a petite figure staggering to her feet not far away. The other party also seemed to be wearing the uniform of the Uchiha Police Force.
Looking at the girl from the Uchiha clan, he quickly followed in the direction Uchiha Kaede left.
Kakashi thought about it.
He chose to ignore it.
...
On the other side.
"I... I won't dare to do it again... Can you put me down first? I can actually walk on my own."
"Um... can you not lock me up for so long? Iruka-sensei will be very disappointed in me if he finds out."
"I really know I was wrong..."
Naruto's voice became weaker and weaker with each sentence, and by the end, he was choking with sobs.
Bean-sized tears slid down his face uncontrollably.
Naruto truly regretted it.
He knew he had gotten into big trouble this time. A prank had wiped out half of Konoha's streets!
In other words, many people had become homeless because of his prank.
It seemed that someone had even died because of it!
But he realized that the man who had picked him up didn't even bother to pay attention to him!
"I... Kaede-senpai, wait for me!" A weak cry came from behind Uchiha Kaede and Naruto.
Uchiha Kaede slowed down his pace, and a girl hurriedly followed.
Her face was pale, and her steps were also weak.
"I'm sorry, senior, I... I used up too much energy after using the Sharingan before, and I accidentally fainted..." Izumi was so ashamed that she wanted to crawl into a crack in the ground, feeling that she was a bit of a drag.
On the night of the Nine-tailed Fox, she unlocked the sharigan at the age of five, and she opened three tomoe at once. This was definitely an unprecedented talent for unlocking the Sharigan in the Uchiha clan.
But...
What was shocking was that Izumi's chakra was too little. The power of her chakra and dojutsu could not support her three tomoe Sharingan at all.
If chakra was measured in "one Kakashi," Izumi's chakra was at most 0.01 Kakashi.
Among her peers who graduated from the ninja school, even if her chakra amount was not at the bottom, she was at the bottom.
"Uchiha Izumi."
"Here!!!" Facing the call of senior Kaede, Uchiha Izumi's instinctive reaction made her quickly cheer up.
"I'll ask you two questions to test you. What do you think of what just happened?" Uchiha Kaede glanced at the frail girl beside him.
"Just now?"
Izumi was stunned.
She vaguely recalled the conflict between Kaede-senpai and the Root of Konoha before she accidentally passed out. Then she remembered the conflict between Kaede-senpai and the Hokage after she woke up.
The conflict had all started with a small disturbance in the village caused by a child's prank.
But in the end, so many conflicts had escalated. Was this... worth it?
As these words flashed through Izumi's mind, she suddenly remembered Kaede-senpai's constant talk of "absolute justice." She recalled the countless incomprehensible "evil" that had arisen from the ninja world's ills.
A father murdering his daughter; a son murdering his mother.
These two events, shocking her perspective, were enough to completely change Izumi's view of the ninja world. And they gave her a deeper understanding of Kaede-senpai's "absolute justice."
"I think... Senior did nothing wrong." Izumi took a deep breath and said seriously, "Even the smallest evil, if left unchecked and unpunished, and allowed to continue unchecked, will sooner or later escalate into a greater evil."
She gathered her thoughts and continued, "Senior, I've always wanted to protect Konoha Village. But before, I didn't know how to do that."
"It wasn't until I met you, Senior, that I finally understood what to do. As long as I do my best and use my power to eradicate the evil in Konoha, things will eventually get better."
"That's my understanding of 'absolute justice'!"
Uchiha Kaede said calmly. "Newbie, you're not a zero anymore. You're at least a ten."
Izumi asked softly, "Senior, what's the full score?"
"One thousand."
Izumi: "..."
Well, as long as it's not negative, that's fine.
"Senior, what's your second question?" Izumi asked tentatively.
Uchiha Kaede said, "What do you think of my 'retreat' just now?"
Izumi was stunned.
"Senior, I don't think you were retreating!" Izumi gritted her teeth, and said seriously with her little face: "In the whole Konoha, I'm afraid you are the only one who silently upholds [absolute justice]. Even the other seniors in the police force have been misunderstanding you, but you have been upholding justice alone from beginning to end."
"If you had insisted on having a physical conflict with Hokage and others at that time", Izumi took a deep breath, and her courage gradually grew: "Maybe there would be no one to protect it, and it would be difficult for the village to have a second person like you."
"You are talking too roundabout."
Uchiha Kaede interrupted her: "If you want to implement [absolute justice], you need absolute power, otherwise it will be like just now."
"You must remember this kind of grievance, remember this kind of anger, remember how the 'evil' of the ninja world is partying over our heads."
Izumi nodded heavily.
"Sooner or later, in the name of 'Absolute Justice,' I will wipe them all out." Uchiha Kaede said frankly and openly, leaving Izumi stunned: "Including the Hokage!"
"This is my third lesson. Politicians only care about their power and the so-called balance. In their eyes, the word 'justice' is dispensable."
"The Hokage is also an enemy of justice."
Izumi's brain froze.
Uchiha Kaede, watching Naruto, temporarily focused on the "reward" for killing three red-named criminals.
Yes.
Three!
Danzo, who rewrote the unfavorable reality with "Izanagi," had already been killed once by his golden finger.