"No need to say more, Raikage. Didn't I come down here specifically to treat that young girl?" Tsunade said, cutting off Ay's attempt to formally request her help.
"..."
The Raikage was genuinely surprised.
Had Tsunade's personality really changed this much after becoming Hokage?
She definitely wasn't like this last time!
Years ago, he had waited in the pouring rain all day and barely won an arm-wrestling match with some cheating, yet Tsunade still hadn't personally treated his subordinate—she had just let her disciple Shizune handle the surgery!
Throughout the entire process back then, Tsunade hadn't even glanced at the operating table.
Now, Tsunade was being so proactive and warm-hearted toward a dying Cloud ninja?
'Is Tsunade trying to build friendly diplomatic relations with the Hidden Cloud Village?' Ay wondered.
'Or...'
The Raikage suddenly thought of that cursed, degenerate novel series written by Kakashi of the Sharingan, which vaguely hinted at and slandered Ay's character, suggesting highly improper, muscular relationships between him, Killer B, and Onoki.
There seemed to be one particularly outrageous line in volume four...
'Wait.'
'Could Tsunade be planning to turn Yugito into a medical experimentation package to blackmail the Cloud?!'
Just as the Raikage was letting his political paranoia and cursed porn knowledge run wild, Satori had finally been completely drained dry by Hikari.
This time was different from her previous chakra harvests.
Multiple Eight Thousand Spears marks were absorbing simultaneously.
The absorption efficiency was even faster than when she drained the Ley Line during the Dragon Vein incident.
After Satori was completely hollowed out of chakra, the massive gargoyle form withered and collapsed, leaving only the dried human corpse of Muku remaining on the stone floor.
That's right—Hikari didn't leave even a sliver of chakra to maintain Muku's survival.
All the dark chakra had essentially been absorbed and converted by the Box of Ultimate Bliss over the years.
If she had left even a little bit inside the boy, it would have been equivalent to leaving the demonic Satori alive.
Hikari wasn't exactly known for her mercy.
Even if Muku had been using his own pure chakra instead of the Box's corrupted reserves, he still wouldn't have been allowed to live.
The Box of Ultimate Bliss had no subjective consciousness of its own—all of Satori's dark, murderous thoughts and actions had originated from Muku's twisted despair.
Regardless of whether he was magically induced by the Box or not, the bloody fact remained that he acted on those thoughts and tried to kill them.
Obito had been manipulated by Madara too.
Did that make his crimes okay?
As Makoto had said last night—If having difficult, tragic circumstances could wash away your sins and earn instant forgiveness, do they think this is some kind of cartoon?
Of this tragic father-son pair, at least Warden Mui's crime was technically "Attempted Destruction."
Muku had already launched a lethal attack, stabbing straight through the cat-girl Jinchuriki.
Didn't he deserve to die for that?
What would be the point of keeping him alive?
To have a tearful, happy reunion with that gender-swapped Nagato while making sushi in the background?
Aren't you afraid this mentally unstable kid might suddenly turn around and kill someone else the next time he gets sad?
Therefore, Hikari was extremely decisive, holding absolutely nothing back.
...
In the distance, still hiding in the shadows, Ryuzetsu watched this brutal execution scene with an utterly calm, resigned expression.
In her heart, her former close friend had long since died years ago; what lived inside that box was merely a monster wearing his face.
That was precisely why she had volunteered to infiltrate Hozuki Castle in the first place—to stop Mui from resurrecting Muku.
Warden Mui, however, was far from calm.
Upon seeing the massive Satori wither away and transform back into the corpse of Muku, he immediately shrieked his son's name and tried to rush down the stairs.
But he completely forgot that he was currently surrounded by three elite Hidden Cloud bodyguards tasked with watching him.
Samui remained relatively composed, her hand on her blade.
Omoi was simply enraged by the Warden's betrayal.
Karui, on the other hand, held absolutely nothing back.
Even Naruto had been beaten to a bloody pulp by her when he refused to sell out Sasuke.
What was the Warden of a prison to her?
The monster his son had become had just nearly murdered her mentor and idol, Yugito!
And now this bastard wanted to run over and cry about it?!
Samui's short sword flashed, blocking Mui's path and pressing coldly against his neck.
Mui, driven by sheer, blinding desperation for his son, boldly began forming hand seals to attack Samui with Celestial Prison.
But he critically overlooked the two other Cloud ninja flanking him.
Accustomed to bullying defenseless, chakra-sealed prisoners as the Warden, Mui's actual live-combat experience against Jonin was practically nonexistent.
He backflipped to evade Samui's blade, but as he landed and prepared to finish his hand seals, Omoi moved like a blur, grabbing him from behind in a brutal lock, pinning Mui's arms painfully apart.
Karui immediately stepped up and began raining devastating punches on the Warden's face and torso.
She cursed violently with every single hit.
To finish the combo, she delivered a merciless, full-force punt directly to Mui's balls, ensuring there would be absolutely zero chance of him ever producing another son to turn into a "Satori."
Karui truly held nothing back.
While Mui could endure the broken ribs and a shattered nose, the critical hit to his balls was unbearable.
Mui's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he instantly passed out from the sheer agony.
...
Meanwhile...
Hikari dispelled the Majestic Attire: Susanoo.
The Susanoo Armor wasn't just a cosmetic transformation or simply cloaking the Tailed Beast in a hard shell.
The Susanoo enhanced the Tailed Beast's speed and power, while the Tailed Beast's massive chakra reinforced the Susanoo's structural integrity.
It was a mutual, symbiotic enhancement.
That was the only reason the Susanoo Armor had managed to physically hold Yugito's shredded organs together and sustain her life this long.
Essentially, Hikari had been aggressively burning through her ocular power to act as a metaphysical bandage for Yugito's fatal injuries.
With the Susanoo gone, Yugito could no longer hold on.
Even the Two-Tails within her was utterly powerless at this point, its chakra exhausted from the fight.
Hikari, showing a rare flash of compassion, didn't let the dying woman fall onto the hard stone.
Instead, she cradled the unconscious Yugito in her arms, floated down to the ground and walked toward Makoto.
"Gentlemen, step aside," Tsunade commanded, patting the Raikage's massive shoulder and stepping forward with glowing green hands.
The highly conflicted Raikage paused briefly upon hearing her authoritative tone, then understood Tsunade's meaning.
Medical privacy was required.
He prepared to turn around and leave the immediate area without looking back.
Just then, Killer B—who had been violently elbowed into a wall earlier—came sprinting back out of the crater.
"Is Yugito okay?! I need to see her!" Killer B yelled, trying to push past his older brother to "check on" the unconscious half-naked Jinchuriki.
THUD!
Killer B was brutally elbowed in the face by the Raikage again, sending him flying back into the exact same crater.
The Raikage believed Killer B genuinely cared about his comrade's life, but he didn't trust that concern was 100% pure.
As B's older brother, Ay knew him too well.
The guy was secretly a massive lecher—the type of degenerate who'd try to sneak a peek at cleavage even on a dying woman.
He needed to be properly disciplined later.
"Slandering such an upright, honorable man... Kakashi's novels really went too far," Makoto remarked dryly, watching the Raikage drag the groaning Killer B away by his collar.
(Kakashi : YOU'RE THE ONE WHO WRITE IT!).
Thanks to his hyper-muscular appearance and intense brotherly bonds, the Raikage had tragically become a frequent subject in the ninja world's underground Boys-Love (BL) adult comics.
But the Raikage was tired.
He didn't want romance—his heart belonged entirely to the economic development of the Hidden Cloud Village!
His true love was military infrastructure!
Think about it: the Raikage had never been canonically interested in women or men from beginning to end.
He'd even chopped off his own left hand to hit Sasuke!
This clearly showed the Raikage was a man of focus, commitment and sheer will, someone who had transcended vulgar romantic interests.
When Tsunade had commanded, "Gentlemen, step aside," Makoto notably didn't leave.
After all, they were standing in a massive, open stone courtyard without any privacy screens or walls.
Even from a distance, the Cloud ninja would be able to see everything.
So Makoto stood right in front of Tsunade and Yugito with his back turned, folding his arms to serve as a tall, human privacy screen.
'Hmm.'
Makoto glanced back over his shoulder for a split second to assess the damage, then quickly faced forward again.
"This hollow chest wound is much larger than Rin's was," Makoto remarked clinically.
"You'd better be talking about the wound."
Tsunade, who had just crouched down and ripped Yugito's shredded top open to begin treatment, immediately responded with a dangerously flat tone.
"? "
Makoto typed a massive question mark in his mind.
Is this the difference between pure and impure people?
Tsunade was truly one of the legendary "Gambling, Alcohol, and Debauchery" Sannin.
She showed absolutely no signs of having transcended vulgar interests if that was where her mind immediately went.
'To misinterpret a medical observation like that...'
Makoto didn't look back again, though he recalled that brief glance.
'It looked like half her torso had been violently torn away by the piercing damage'.
Fortunately, Tsunade, the literal God of Medical Ninjutsu, was here.
Otherwise, Yugito might have bled out on the stone, or worse, earned the tragic post-mortem nickname "Armor Revealer" in the future databooks.