Not long after Yuji and the others left, the battlefield outside the forest went quiet as well. The remaining Konoha squad and the Hidden Mist shinobi had finished each other off in the mist while the three of them were already gone.
"Let's go," Arai said.
They left without looking back.
Running into Aoba Yamashiro and Raido Namiashi had been an unplanned detour, nothing more. What Yuji took from it, beyond the negative experience points, was the existence of the Hatred Value mechanism, something the system hadn't surfaced before.
Between the two of them, his current Konoha Hatred Value sat at fifteen.
He filed it away and kept moving.
A Konoha relief squad arrived at the scene sometime later.
Yano had managed to get a message out before the end, Hidden Mist attack, this location, and they had come to assist. What they found instead was a ruined clearing and a forest that had been fought through hard enough to leave its mark on the trees.
Eight people across two battlefields. Six students, two Special Jonin teachers. All of them dead.
The squad stood in silence for a moment.
The war was winding down. The area had been specifically chosen for its distance from the active front, low risk, manageable conditions, the kind of environment where experienced teachers could put their Genin through something real without genuine danger.
Two squads operating together, two Special Jonin between them. Even so.
"Given Yano's strength, he shouldn't have gone down this fast," one of them said, voice tight. "His message mentioned a small enemy force. The Village had no intelligence on Hidden Mist moving troops into the Land of Rice Fields. None of this adds up."
The Konoha shinobi who had gone into the forest to investigate dropped back down beside the captain. "The Hidden Mist bodies inside were processed, but they weren't killed by Yano's methods."
"From what I can read of the scene, the outside battlefield was Fujiwara's squad and the inside was Yano's." He looked between them. "The terrain in there is complex. A real engagement would have torn it apart, you can't erase that kind of damage completely, even if you try.
But there's almost nothing left to read. The only way that happens is if the enemy was powerful enough to end it very quickly, without giving anyone time to resist or scatter." He paused.
"And if the Hidden Mist had won, they wouldn't have handled their own people's bodies that carelessly."
Nobody spoke for a moment.
"Intelligence squad," the captain said. "From one of the villages. They didn't want their presence known." He exhaled slowly. "Bring the bodies home."
Yuji, Sasori, and Arai reached Sunagakure some time later.
Shortly after their return, word came from the Land of Rice Fields: Kumogakure and Konoha had both withdrawn, leaving only border defense forces in place. The war among the Five Great Ninja Villages was over in any formal sense.
Peace, however, was not what followed.
The war had left too much behind it, in the villages, in the ranks, in the people who had survived it.
Large-scale conflict was no longer viable, but harassment continued, border skirmishes flared without warning, and minor engagements that should have amounted to nothing escalated into killing.
The village leadership could issue orders and draw boundaries, but they could not reach into the lower ranks and undo what the war had put there.
Shinobi who had watched their families and comrades die on those battlefields did not stop carrying it when the fighting officially ended. When they crossed paths with someone from the wrong village, in the field, on a road, anywhere outside the walls, the grief and anger that the ceasefire had papered over found somewhere to go.
That kind of damage settled slowly, and on its own terms.
The formal end of large-scale conflict had only pushed its tensions underground, where they continued moving.
The Third Kazekage read Arai's mission report with particular attention to the sections concerning Yuji and Sasori. When he finished, he set it down and said, "No more missions involving Konoha. Not for these two."
"Understood," Arai said.
The reasoning was straightforward. Konoha now had names and faces, Arai's, Yuji's, Sasori's. They had been noticed. Taking on further Konoha-related missions meant operating against an enemy that was already looking for them, and the risk that posed to two shinobi of their age was not one the village could accept lightly.
Arai was quiet for a moment, then spoke again. "Kazekage-sama. Yuji and Sasori are capable of operating independently now. They don't need me leading them anymore." A brief, self-deprecating laugh escaped him.
"With anyone else, two years of guidance would be straightforward. But these two, honestly, keeping them under my supervision has probably slowed them down more than it's helped. What I had to teach them, I've already taught. The rest of their growth needs room I can't give them."
He looked down slightly. Sasori's path belonged to his puppets, which followed its own logic entirely. Yuji was a Medical Ninja with a sharper mind than most and a clear sense of where he was going, there were things those two understood that Arai simply didn't.
He had felt it for some time. Sasori had never fully lowered his guard around him, and while Yuji's warmth and respect were genuine, it was the warmth of someone who kept their own counsel.
As their captain, Arai had never truly entered their circle. And lately, he could no longer track Yuji's growth rate or gauge his actual level, but Sasori could, and that said everything.
The Kazekage nodded. "You're right. Your post as Kage Guard has been waiting long enough." He considered for a moment. "Rasa has pulled back from the Land of Earth border, but Iwagakure has been restless, small provocations, nothing decisive yet.
Send Yuji and Sasori to that front. They've always operated as an independent unit; it's time they learned to function within the village's broader troop system. Let them develop their coordination with other units and build a clearer picture of how the village deploys on a real front line."
"Yes," Arai said.
He exchanged a few more words with the Kazekage, then turned and left.
He found Yuji and Sasori and told them what the Kazekage had decided. Then he told them his own decision.
"You can protect yourselves now," he said. "As long as you don't run into something genuinely beyond your level, your safety isn't something I need to worry about. I can't keep leading you indefinitely, the village needs my attention elsewhere, and the situation outside has eased enough that you can manage."
He paused, and something in his expression shifted.
"This is personal advice, not an order. You're ninja of this village, and completing missions comes first, that principle doesn't change. But if you find yourselves in a situation where your lives are genuinely at risk, and the mission isn't critical enough to justify it..."
He looked at them both. "Run. Just run. You're exceptional children, but you're still children. The village will grant leniency for a failed mission. It won't grant you a second life."
He turned more directly to Yuji. "The front line is different from anything we've done together. The most obvious difference is the number of enemies, but more important than that is what it means to operate inside a troop structure.
In an independent squad, your judgment is the squad's judgment, you react, decide, and move. In a unit, you obey command. Your personal will becomes secondary. That constraint is real, and it will cost you flexibility." His voice was level, unhurried.
"Even the most powerful ninja, surrounded by enough enemies, will die. Strength changes the odds on a battlefield. It doesn't make you certain of anything."
He stopped. Thought for a moment.
"That should cover it. You're smart, you understand what I'm getting at." He let out a laugh, hand going to his hip, and clapped Yuji on the shoulder with the other. The lightness in it was slightly forced.
Yuji had not expected it to come this soon.
He looked at Arai, the man who had led them across two years and multiple battlefields, who had pulled both of them by the arm and run from Jiraiya without hesitation, who had stood between them and every situation that was beyond what they should have been facing.
He understood why this was the right call. He understood all of it.
He bowed.
"Arai-sensei. Thank you."
Arai's expression shifted in a way he didn't try to hide.
He opened his mouth, seemed to reach for something, and found he couldn't get hold of it. Whatever he wanted to say didn't make it out. He closed his mouth, exhaled, and smiled instead.
"You two," he said quietly. "Do your best."
...
Stones PLzz