East side of Kusa.
Kushina, who had temporarily reached an agreement with the Nine-Tails, unleashed an unparalleled fighting power.
She had already possessed strength close to that of a weak Kage. Now, after temporarily becoming a perfect jinchūriki, her power soared several times over, so much so that few in the entire ninja world could claim they could suppress her.
However, she had never experienced the baptism of war, nor had she ever gone on missions outside her village. So while her strength was formidable, her temperament did not match that strength.
At first, she killed a few enemy ninjas who actively charged at her. But soon, Kushina, feeling pity, began to hold back, injuring but not killing. Even so, her heart still ached with reluctance.
After blasting open a path, she stopped fighting and began heading back.
"I'm definitely going to get scolded by Shin again," she muttered to herself.
She knew all too well how ruthless Shin could be toward enemies, so ruthless that it defied reason, so ruthless she couldn't even comprehend it.
"Maybe Minato is right... I really haven't seen enough of the world."
She had often heard Minato talk about the horrific things the Suna ninjas did after infiltrating the Land of Fire, things so outrageous they would enrage both gods and men.
Killing and looting were considered mild. There were many things Minato would say that Kushina couldn't even bear to hear.
"But... can people really be as bad as Minato says?"
Lost in thought, she passed by a courtyard when suddenly she saw a man run out, a trace of blood at the corner of his mouth and a strangely satisfied look on his face.
When the man saw Kushina, his expression suddenly changed. He quickly turned and fled.
Kushina frowned. She remembered she had kicked him earlier, he should have been seriously injured. But now he looked perfectly fine.
For no reason, a bad feeling rose in her heart. She leaped into the courtyard, following the smell of blood, and pushed open the door to a woodshed.
The sight before her made her heart quake, and she covered her mouth tightly.
On a haystack lay a red-haired woman with disheveled clothes, completely lifeless. Her eyes were wide open in unwillingness, with faint traces of tears mixed with blood running from the corners of her eyes. She had died without peace.
Exposed on her skin were numerous bite marks, some scarred over, some fresh, as if just inflicted.
"What... is this?" She could hardly believe what she was seeing.
Snapping back to her senses, she quickly took off her coat and covered the woman. After the shock faded, a torrent of grief and rage surged up inside her.
This woman was from the Uzumaki clan.
As a fellow Uzumaki, she knew better than anyone the special nature of their clan, their abundant life force gave them a recovery ability far surpassing that of others, and their blood could help others heal quickly.
She didn't know why this clanswoman had ended up here, but at that moment, her fury could no longer be restrained.
"Ah!"
With a roar, Kushina instantly entered the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode. In a flash, she rushed out of the woodshed, her scarlet eyes killing everyone she saw, with no mercy left in her heart.
These people deserved to die.
The ninjas who had escaped earlier didn't know why Kushina had returned to slaughter them. They knelt and begged for mercy, but Kushina, her eyes red with bloodlust, gave them no chance to explain. Everywhere she passed, only severed limbs and scattered corpses remained.
After cutting through an entire street, Kushina turned down another road, activating her Kagura's Mind Eye, determined not to let a single person escape, and began another massacre.
She finally experienced the cruelest side of this world.
At that moment, Kushina felt she had been ridiculous, to think she had wanted to spare those who had harmed her clan, to even feel pity for them.
But had they spared her clanspeople?
Had they ever felt pity for them?
If, back when the Allied Shinobi Forces attacked Uzushio, Tsunade and Shin hadn't gone to help, would Uzushio have met the same fate?
If she hadn't been strong enough... if she hadn't been protected in Konoha... would that clanswoman's fate have been hers as well?
A deep sense of guilt wrapped itself around her.
If it hadn't been for her hesitation, that clanswoman wouldn't have died at all, it was her own stupidity that had killed her.
Unable to accept reality, she went straight into a berserk state. In Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, a Tailed Beast Ball began to form in the chakra-formed maw before her, and she fired it in one direction, obliterating an entire street.
Then came the second. The third. The fourth...
Tailed Beast Balls rained down one after another, and in mere moments, one-third of the village lay in ruins.
Even Kurama, sealed inside Kushina, was startled. The hell, are you trying to squeeze me dry? I may be a tailed beast, but I'm not some Tailed Beast Ball factory!
But when it thought about the "big promises" Shin had dangled before it, Kurama gritted its teeth and went all in.
The amount of chakra Kurama had without losing even half of its power was beyond ordinary comprehension. A mere dozen Tailed Beast Balls? Even if it made it cough up blood, it'd spew them out.
What it didn't expect was, it wasn't the one going berserk... Kushina was. Who could it even complain to about that?
Just as Kurama was about to continue cooperating, a voice rang in his ears:
"Enough."
Kurama shivered all over, immediately withdrew its chakra, and obediently shrank back into the seal, feeling uneasy.
Was that guy satisfied... or not?
With the Nine-Tails Chakra Cloak stripped away, Kushina's strength drained completely. Her body wavered, about to collapse forward.
But she was caught by Minato, who had long since rushed over, watching her with pained eyes.
"It's okay... just sleep. When you wake up, everything will be fine," Minato whispered, gently stroking her hair, lulling her, already half-conscious, into sleep. Inwardly, he sighed, blaming himself for not choosing this direction sooner.
Holding Kushina in his arms, he was the last to arrive at the village center. His gaze turned icy cold as he stared at Kusa's surviving leaders, eyes so sharp they seemed to want to devour them alive.
They made Kushina cry?
Shin waved his hand, signaling Minato to calm down, and spoke in an equally cold tone:
"Now... it's time we discuss Kusa's compensation to Konoha."
The remaining twenty-some Kusa ninjas thought they'd misheard.
Kusa... compensating Konoha?
Our entire village's ninjas have been slaughtered by you, and you still have the nerve to talk about compensation?
"Don't go too far," an elder of Kusa said in a trembling voice, as though he'd suffered the greatest injustice in the world.
Shin's gaze instantly locked onto the man.
Minato, as if receiving an unspoken order, gently handed Kushina over to Tsunade, then used Body Flicker to appear in front of the elder.
With one clean motion of his short blade, a head flew skyward. Blood splattered across Minato's face, making him look all the more terrifying.
The Kusa ninjas instantly froze in fear, no one uttering another word.
"One life, one billion," Shin said, without wasting breath. "Pay, and you live. Don't pay... and you all die here."
Thinking about it, Shin felt a twinge of irritation, these guys were ridiculously good at hiding things.
If it weren't for the fact that he didn't want to waste time searching for their hidden treasure, he wouldn't have bothered speaking at all. He'd just have killed them all outright.