"Others are geniuses who pave their own paths, so let them walk first. They'll slowly turn back when they hit a wall. Makoto's guidance is for people like us who can't see the road ahead and don't know where to go."
Tsunade expressed her opinion with a sigh.
She was absolutely right.
Just like her Creation Rebirth—it had reached its hard limit and couldn't advance further.
Because according to her development process, no matter what she did, Creation Rebirth consumed her lifespan.
Advancing the jutsu further would just mean dying faster, right?
"Yeah. Kurotsuchi, you seem quite confused about your path too," Makoto nodded.
"Ah? Oh, right! Confused! I am especially confused!"
Kurotsuchi, who had been staring blankly at the glowing red jewel in her hand, quickly agreed.
She hurriedly put the stone away, afraid that if she denied being "confused," Makoto would take the god-tier stone back.
Kurotsuchi was a highly practical ninja.
If not for her chakra natures being Water, Earth, and Fire, with her personality, she would have relentlessly pestered Onoki to teach her Dust Release years ago.
Kurotsuchi slipped the red stone into the small pocket on the seat of her pants and patted her ass twice to make sure it was secure.
"Alright, mission accomplished here! I should head back to the village... Huh?"
Kurotsuchi raised her arms to stretch and say goodbye, when she suddenly felt her backside get warm.
Was Makoto touching her secretly? No, this was openly touching her, right?!
Kurotsuchi's body immediately stiffened.
'Wait. Oh, seems like that's not it.'
Makoto had casually reached into her back pocket, taken out the stone, walked around to her front, grabbed her hand and placed it firmly back in her palm.
"As everyone knows, things put in your back pockets are things you subconsciously don't care if a pickpocket steals. Keep it in your front pocket," Makoto said earnestly.
"Ah? Is there really such a psychological saying?" Kurotsuchi was confused.
But she obediently tucked the stone securely into her front pouch.
"Huff... huff... I've stored all the chakra in the Gedo Statue!"
Uchiha Hikari deactivated her Susanoo and came jogging back, waving cheerfully.
Just a moment ago, she was a terrifying Giant of Light executing a demon.
Now, she was jogging back and waving like a schoolgirl after a sports match.
It gave Makoto the bizarre feeling of watching an Ultraman protagonist power down!
"Good work."
"Hehe."
Watching the "warm" dynamic between everyone, Shion felt deeply envious.
Clatter.
Shion's bell fell to the ground and shattered.
(Note: The bell here refers to an actual, physical warding bell passed down through the Priestesses.)
Instantly, Shion began to glow, erupting with a massive pillar of pure, unadulterated chakra.
As mentioned before, the Priestess and Moryo were a pair.
Both were frogs at the bottom of a well. Rather than the Priestess sealing Moryo with her power, it was more accurate to say Moryo had forced the Priestess to seal her own power to keep him contained—they had deadlocked each other.
Now Moryo was dead and the Priestess's "Destiny" had ended.
With the bell shattered, her true power was naturally unsealed.
"Oh, such tremendous power. It's on par with Moryo's," Uchiha Hikari noted.
She casually turned around, activated her skeletal Susanoo ribcage to shield the group from the chakra wind, took a candy from her pocket and tossed it into her mouth.
'On par with Moryo's...? You mean the same Moryo who, without even putting up a fight, was scared to tears begging for mercy before being turned into fireworks? That's not exactly a high bar anymore!'
"I..."
After the power surge subsided, Shion felt the immense terrifying power now unsealed within her and stared blankly at her glowing hands.
"I'm so lost too! I need guidance as well!"
Mustering her courage, Shion ran up to Makoto and pleaded in an earnest tone, hoping to join the club of "confused people getting power ups."
"?"
Makoto certainly understood why Shion would be confused.
Someone who knew nothing about combat suddenly gaining crazy power with no clear goals—of course she'd be disoriented.
But their earlier conversation had been about veterans needing a breakthrough.
Shion didn't even know the basics.
Giving her another mysterious power-up would only make her a walking hazard.
"If you don't know what to do, why not come study in the Land of Rain first? Learning brings joy." Makoto thought for a moment before offering a classic proverb.
"Studying without thinking leads to confusion, thinking without studying leads to peril."
"That last part sounded quite philosophical. What does it actually mean?" Tsunade asked curiously, crossing her arms.
"It means if you study without thinking, you'll end up mindlessly browsing the internet. If you think without studying, you'll end up taking out high-interest loans."
"????"
Tsunade knew about loans (all too well), but what was this "internet"?
Who was "Net"?
Now Tsunade was confused too!
"But... what about the Land of Demons?" Shion asked softly, wringing her hands. "I'm the Priestess of the Land of Demons. I am its leader..."
"?"
Makoto laughed out loud.
"Little girl, do you even hear what you're saying?" Makoto gave her a ruthless reality check. "What should happen to the Land of Demons? You talk as if before today, you were a master politician managing the economy and drafting laws."
"You act as if the Land of Demons would collapse without you, as if you alone are the pillar holding up the sky."
"Tell me honestly: have you ever actually managed a single administrative matter in your country?"
"..."
Makoto's bluntness made Shion face beet-red with embarrassment.
Thinking about it carefully... it was true.
The Land of Demons functioned exactly the same with or without her.
Before today, there was no way national affairs were being handled by a sheltered twelve-year-old child. T
he ministers did everything.
Her actual daily tasks were eating, sleeping, and doing light indoor exercises to maintain her figure.
"Alright... I'll go study," Shion accepted Makoto's suggestion, hanging her head. "But I need to go back and inform the ministers first."
"Fine."
...
Makoto's group and the newly empowered Priestess Shion set off on the road back to the capital of the Land of Demons.
On the road, Tsunade raised a deep lore question that had suddenly occurred to her while watching Hikari absorb Moryo's energy.
"Makoto, as the progenitor of chakra, Kaguya Otsutsuki represents the source of all chakra in this world, right? If the total amount of chakra on the planet is a fixed number, wouldn't collecting chakra from these random demons be like trying to extinguish a burning cartload of firewood with a single cup of water?"
"Not exactly."
Makoto had already considered Tsunade's question before coming here.
Kaguya's descent required the Infinite Tsukuyomi to reunite 'all' chakra back into one fruit. But did 'all' truly mean everyone? Clearly not.
Half of the Nine-Tails, along with various sealed entities, weren't absorbed by the tree.
Even those caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi only had part of their chakra drained over time to turn them into White Zetsu.
If all their chakra were completely absorbed instantly, they would end up like Kakashi after he used Kamui too much—dead on the spot.
Thus, one thing became logically evident: The current total volume of chakra in the ninja world absolutely far exceeds the amount from when Kaguya first consumed the fruit.
Chakra grows and multiplies with life.
"If the total amount of chakra were a fixed, many things in history would become hellishly dark to explain," Makoto proposed a morbid hypothesis.
"Think about it. If total chakra were fixed, and everyone in the ninja world possesses a base level of chakra within their cells... then the ninja world's total population cap would be directly tied to chakra distribution."
"Your grandfather, Hashirama Senju, possessed an unfathomably enormous amount of chakra. If it was a zero-sum game, his mere existence would mean millions of other people physically couldn't be born because he was hoarding the global chakra pool. Only after his death could the population spike."
"And the Uzumaki Clan—with their exceptionally high chakra levels per capita—wouldn't have just been destroyed out of fear of their sealing jutsu. They would have been exterminated simply so the rest of the ninja world's population was allowed to naturally reproduce!"