Five months—a period not short at all, feeling almost like a lifetime.
Kaede Tsukasa once again stood under the sunlight, spreading his arms to feel the warmth, as if escaping the icy chill built from countless corpses.
"This feeling… it's strange, as if the entire world has changed. How should I describe it… the scent of freedom?"
Kaede Tsukasa took a deep breath.
For five months, he had seized every second, recklessly training, using countless corpses to pave his path forward. The energy consumed in this process was incalculable.
Having endured many years of illness and being accustomed to walking the edge between life and death, his mind had long been tempered to a rock-like hardness. Only such resilience could allow him the patience to endure this period of unending training, not knowing when the dawn would arrive.
But in the end, he finally saw the light, able to bathe under its radiance.
"It feels like so much time has passed."
Kaede Tsukasa's expression returned to calm. The long darkness had left his skin pale, but his physique had recovered somewhat, no longer emaciated as before.
"Lord Kaede Tsukasa, are you going out?"
The three assistants at the corpse disposal area looked up in surprise, disbelief written on their faces.
Since being transferred there, they had never seen Kaede Tsukasa leave. Even when the ruined walls had been restored, he remained deep in the lab, surrounded by countless corpses—a place they dared not approach, where wails of the dead were always heard.
"Yes, I'm going out for a walk. Otherwise, I feel like I might turn into a quiet corpse myself… You continue your work, and call me if anything unusual happens."
Leaving this instruction, Kaede Tsukasa picked up his coat and walked into the village.
He knew these three assistants were not entirely clean; some surely leaked information to others. But it didn't matter—Kaede Tsukasa couldn't care less about this level of intelligence exposure.
Using corpses for training—Danzo Shimura knew, Tsunade probably knew too—but no one said anything. They waited to see what level Kaede Tsukasa would reach after completing his training. He was the first ninja to need to consume so many corpses to increase his strength—a precedent since Konoha's founding. Using enemy corpses for secret training fell within tolerated limits.
Kaede Tsukasa had to once again be grateful for the village's atmosphere at this time. Under Naruto and Sasuke's era, trying something like this would have led to the entire village ruthlessly condemning him; his very existence would have been an unbearable mistake.
Along the way, Kaede Tsukasa occasionally paused, observing the bustling village as if seeing it for the first time, sometimes taking out coins to buy items from various shops.
If one ignored the forehead protector he wore as a belt, he looked exactly like a tourist.
Indeed, though Konoha Village was the Fire Country's massive military district, also functioning as defense, intelligence, and public security centers, its ability to generate its own military funds guaranteed it would be a mixed military-civilian zone.
Though the war continued, Iwagakure lacked the capacity to decisively defeat Konoha. With its powerful regenerative ability, Konoha recovered rapidly; each passing day increased its advantage over Iwa.
By now, commerce was gradually thriving. While villagers occasionally showed moments of gloom, overall, they could enjoy relative peace and engage in various consumption activities.
"Hey, did you hear? We destroyed two more enemy bases and killed over sixty ninjas!"
"Is that so? That's really good progress. If we achieve this kind of victory a few dozen more times, Iwagakure definitely won't hold out!"
"Damn Iwa, why are they really like rocks—stinking and hard? Why are they still fighting instead of surrendering to us already!"
"Sunagakure has already signed a surrender agreement, handing over 31% of their missions to Konoha each year, and the compensation has supposedly been paid! Why is Iwa still stubbornly resisting?"
While strolling, Kaede Tsukasa listened to the villagers' chatter and noticed many of them were slightly rattled, even frustrated.
"As official residents of the world's strongest ninja village, facing an enemy strong enough in both power and numbers who refuses all compromise, it's only natural that any momentary lapse in vigilance leads to tension, pain, and discomfort…"
Kaede Tsukasa nodded silently, roughly gauging the current public sentiment. Of course, he didn't really care about ordinary villagers' opinions; he was merely taking the opportunity to understand Konoha as it is now.
He knew very well that a decisive battle would erupt this year—either when Konoha had accumulated enough advantage, or when Iwagakure realized that if they didn't take the risk of a final showdown, they would completely lose their chance.
Don't forget, Kumogakure and Kirigakure had always been playing the team-infiltration game—not just harassing Konoha, but also testing Iwa, looking for opportunities, never missing a chance to weaken enemy villages.
Every enemy ninja killed was a reduction in the enemy's strength and potential. After all, these two villages had nothing better to do.
Moreover, Iwagakure and Kumogakure were longstanding rivals, with grudges far deeper than those between Konoha and Sunagakure.
Kaede Tsukasa pondered this while trying to blend into the current atmosphere. The natural chill he radiated, the "keep out" aura he carried, was gradually melting away.
For several consecutive days, Kaede Tsukasa wandered about—no work, no missions, no visits, and no visitors. He treated himself as an ordinary villager, enjoying this rare leisure and relaxation.
"Hm?"
Until one day, Kaede Tsukasa stepped out of a barbecue shop and suddenly froze, frowning slightly as he saw two women approaching.
One elderly, one young, both with red hair—ordinary enough to the casual observer.
A perfectly normal grandmother-and-granddaughter pair. As for their hair? Nothing unusual; after all, people's hair came in all sorts of colors.
Yet Kaede Tsukasa felt the hairs on his body stand on end, his muscles instinctively tensing.
He had already recognized them—these two were… Mito Uzumaki and Kushina Uzumaki!
Kaede Tsukasa hadn't expected that after so many days of wandering the streets, enjoying a sense of relaxation he hadn't felt in over ten years, he would encounter these two extraordinary individuals.
Kushina Uzumaki, meeting Kaede Tsukasa's gaze, showed no reaction. She was just a fourteen-year-old girl—lacking both real combat experience and experience in taking lives, having never left Konoha since arriving.
She enjoyed the village's highest level of protection, but her freedom was limited.
Mito Uzumaki, however, was far more formidable.
This seventy-six-year-old kind-hearted woman, the wife of the First Hokage and the current Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, showed no change in expression. Yet the casual glance she threw, intersecting with Kaede Tsukasa's gaze, gave him a sense of pressure as immense as a mountain.
---
If you can, support me on pa treon:
Pa treon. com/ RightTranslations (No spaces)
Up to 50 chapters ahead.
You can also support by leaving a review