Chapter 216: No Greater Sorrow Than a Dead Heart
Seeing Itachi's despair, Jiraiya only felt intense irritation in his heart.
Finally, after carefully considering his words, he spoke to comfort:
"Itachi, this isn't your mistake."
"This was—the village made an erroneous decision. You were merely the executor."
"Your loyalty to the village wasn't wrong."
"You absolutely needn't feel pain over others' mistakes."
"Let the past remain in the past. We should look forward, not remain trapped in past suffering unable to extricate ourselves."
"Trust me, Itachi. After I become Hokage, I'll definitely change the village's past bad habits, definitely make the village's future more beautiful."
"Itachi, come help me! Together, let's rebuild Konoha Village, establish a wonderful village where everyone can live happily."
Jiraiya comforted Itachi with complete sincerity. But Yasushi watched from above with full malice, his mouth corners nearly reaching his ears.
To avoid interrupting Jiraiya's words, Yasushi had to forcibly cover his mouth with both hands to prevent his laughter from leaking out.
One couldn't say Jiraiya lacked sincerity. What he said wasn't unreasonable either. But the problem was—he completely didn't understand the Mangekyo Sharingan's obsessive effects, nor did he know where Itachi's fixation truly lay.
This fundamentally wasn't about right or wrong! Much less about responsibility attribution!
Sure enough, just as Yasushi predicted—after Jiraiya's comfort, Itachi not only didn't improve but collapsed even further.
His entire person seemed dead, his whole body lacking any trace of a living person's aura. Only a dry, hoarse voice squeezed from his throat.
"In other words, slaughtering the entire Uchiha clan brought the village absolutely no benefits, correct?"
"Well..." Jiraiya hesitated, deflecting: "Let's allow past matters to remain past!"
"Teacher Hiruzen has already passed away. The Hokage advisors also long ago paid with their lives for this. We needn't dwell on whether it was good or bad."
"Haha..." Itachi suddenly laughed miserably, his entire face filled with death aura. "How can I not dwell on it?"
"If exterminating the entire Uchiha clan brought the village no benefits, then what meaning did my actions have?"
"What exactly did everything I did amount to?"
"What necessity was there for all my persistence?"
Facing Itachi's counter-questions, Jiraiya also discovered he'd apparently bungled things again.
"Well... you—you were obeying the village's orders!" He forced himself to defend Itachi: "The village commanded it. Could you possibly refuse?"
"But the village didn't force me!" Itachi collapsed softly to the ground, his entire person as if drained of his spine, speaking miserably: "I voluntarily accepted this mission!"
"Haha..." Yasushi eavesdropping above finally couldn't hold back anymore, laughing and slapping his thigh. "Jiraiya, you really supplemented that knife beautifully!"
"Itachi's starting point for exterminating the clan was believing doing so benefited Konoha Village, could spare Konoha Village from war's flames, could maintain village peace."
"What about right or wrong, what about responsibility attribution—would he care about those?"
"No, he fundamentally doesn't care about those trivial details!"
"He only cares about one thing—whether what he did ultimately benefited Konoha Village!"
"As long as it benefited Konoha Village, even personally killing his parents, he'd do it without hesitation!"
"No one forced him. He willingly did it!"
With Yasushi's reminder, Jiraiya immediately reacted. His expression instantly changed multiple times. His heart filled with regret, deeply regretting speaking carelessly without understanding the situation, instead producing the opposite effect.
"Haha..." Yasushi laughed loudly flying around in the sky, like a happy little bee, sometimes tracing an S shape, sometimes a B shape.
"Jiraiya, you definitely couldn't understand Itachi's brain circuitry before, right?"
"Isn't it strange enough?"
"Not understanding is quite normal! What ordinary person would have such twisted worldviews?"
"Let me tell you, Jiraiya—as a genius child, Itachi is extremely arrogant!"
"He never trusted others' methods of protecting Konoha Village. He always firmly believed his way of protecting the village would be better."
"He deeply loved this village, so he wanted to protect Konoha Village in his own way."
"Only now it seems his 'protection' fundamentally wasn't protection at all—it was harm!"
"Also, you think he was pledging loyalty to Konoha Village or Sarutobi Hiruzen?"
"No—he was being driven by his own obsession to act!"
Yasushi extended his hand, pointing at Jiraiya, calling out exaggeratedly:
"And you, my hero—you just completely shattered Itachi's obsession!"
"Sure enough, only someone with a bright heart like you could truly wound someone dark like Itachi!"
"The killing power of one sentence from you far exceeds a thousand or ten thousand sentences from me!"
"No matter what I tell him, he won't believe me. He'll only think I'm maliciously slandering Sarutobi Hiruzen or sowing discord between him and the village."
"Only when someone like you, a Hokage who still maintains right and wrong in his heart, speaks—telling him everything he did harmed Konoha Village without any benefits—only then will he truly lose heart!"
"Haha, Jiraiya, what you said earlier completely negated the meaning of his existence!"
Yasushi raised his thumb, praising from his heart:
"Beautifully done, Jiraiya!"
"Look—you just took office and already solved such a huge problem for me."
"I must thank you, Jiraiya."
Hearing Yasushi singing like opera there with affected tones, then seeing Itachi before him who'd completely lost the will to live, Jiraiya's complexion immediately turned pale. His entire mind went blank.
Though he'd known before that killing the person and destroying the heart existed in this world, having lived so many years, except for that incident with Sakumo Hatake, he'd truly never encountered a second case.
Most shinobi doing things directly destroyed physically. Where were there so many scheming bastards who'd leave people alive specifically to destroy their mental states?
In his impression, probably only daimyo, nobles, or those politicians enjoyed playing this hand—after all, they dealt with their own people, inconvenient to kill directly.
Who knew that having just inherited the Hokage's banner before even officially taking office, he'd personally witness what "killing the person and destroying the heart" meant!
The current Itachi still lived, but basically could already be considered dead.
A shinobi whose heart had already died—how could he still execute missions?