Cultivating a Successor to [Absolute Justice]?

Cultivating a Successor to [Absolute Justice]?

When Sarutobi Hiruzen returned, a Sarutobi Clan shinobi had just stepped forward to greet him when he spotted a figure in the distance, dressed in the uniform of the Konoha Military Police Force.

His pupils contracted, and he hurriedly asked Sarutobi Hiruzen, "Lord Hokage, that person..."

"Pay him no mind."

Sarutobi Hiruzen shook his head with a grim expression, but anyone could hear that there was something off about his tone.

It was as though he were forcefully holding something back.

Sarutobi Hiruzen silently walked over to Sarutobi Shinosuke's coffin and stood quietly behind his daughter-in-law, Sarutobi Fuyuko.

Then—

He heard Sarutobi Fuyuko say, "Lord Hokage, you needn't worry about me. I've calmed down. Everything... everything must be for the greater good of the village, mustn't it?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen was silent for a long while.

He felt somewhat guilty, but only somewhat. He said, "This old man has his own difficulties. Fuyuko, you understand Konoha's current situation just as well as I do. The village needs a shinobi with a fearsome reputation to deter the petty villains of other villages."

"Konoha has lost Sakumo, seen Orochimaru defect, watched Jiraiya leave, watched Tsunade leave, and lost Shisui. Uchiha Chisen is already one of the few remaining pillars of the village."

"And..."

"Uchiha Chisen's existence can also deter certain ambitious people within the village, including some within the Uchiha Clan."

Sarutobi Hiruzen paused before continuing, "Even if Shinosuke came back to life, he would do as I have. You and he were both my right-hand aides. He understood me, and you should understand me as well."

Sarutobi Fuyuko nodded gently. "Lord Hokage, I understand everything."

Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed softly. "You've suffered for Konoha."

Then—

Sarutobi Hiruzen opened his mouth to warn the Sarutobi Clan members, who had grown indignant and restless upon seeing Uchiha Chisen appear.

"None of you are to act rashly! He's only here to apprehend a criminal!"

Yamada Binjiro also saw Uchiha Chisen.

Though he believed there was little chance that he had been exposed, he instinctively shuffled several steps backward.

Carefully hiding himself at the rear of the crowd.

"Gasp, I remember now!" Yamada Binjiro heard his companion gasp in sudden realization. "Uchiha Chisen, isn't that the plague of the Konoha Military Police Force... Damn it, is that guy... walking this way?"

Yamada Binjiro's heart abruptly skipped a beat.

Cold sweat instantly broke out in his palms.

The last trace of luck in his heart was extinguished by Uchiha Chisen's indifferent voice. "Yamada Binjiro. Burdened with massive debts, after your elder brother, 'Yamada Binichiro,' died of illness over four years ago, you attempted to seize his inheritance but failed. In a fit of rage, you murdered the wife and daughter he left behind, dismembered their bodies, and disposed of them."

That utterly emotionless voice was no different from the Shinigami tolling Yamada Binjiro's death knell.

He saw his companions hastily distance themselves from him in alarm, staring at him with horrified eyes.

He also saw them, terrified of Uchiha Chisen, quickly make way for him.

Completely exposing the figure he had tried so hard to hide.

Yamada Binjiro watched helplessly as Uchiha Chisen walked up to him and stopped quietly two meters away.

He did not dare meet the eyes of this young man, who was more than a decade younger than himself.

The drizzling rain could not soothe the terror in his heart.

He wiped the rain from his face, lowered his head, and forced himself to stay calm despite his parched mouth. "I... I don't understand what you're talking about."

"Uchiha Izumi."

"Here!!!" Izumi immediately stepped out from the back.

"Interrogate him."

Izumi froze. She took a deep breath, quickly steeled herself, and immediately replied, "Yes, Senior!"

She knew what Senior Chisen meant by "interrogate."

Because the first time she had met him, Senior Chisen had ordered her to interrogate a criminal.

And it had been under broad daylight, in full view of everyone, using bloody and brutal torture on the criminal!

This time...

It would likely be exactly the same as last time.

Moreover—

Izumi realized that this time, it was not only in public, but under the gaze of Lord Hokage in the distance! Perhaps this was a new test Senior Chisen had given her.

She felt a little pressured.

But compared to the pressure of disobeying Senior Chisen's orders, this pressure was nothing.

Then she remembered the mother and daughter whose bodies had been reduced to shattered bones.

The visible hesitation in Izumi's eyes dissipated.

She drew her Ninja Sword.

She took several steps forward.

"Hey! Wh-what are you doing?!" Cold sweat streamed down Yamada Binjiro's face. He backed away in panic, only to find that the young girl before him, her gaze turning cold, kept closing in on him.

"You have two choices now." Izumi felt that she was becoming worse, but when facing scum like this, perhaps no method was too extreme.

Trying to imitate her senior's tone, she said, "First, you refuse to cooperate, and I kill you so the Yamanaka Clan can investigate your memories. Second, you confess everything you did four years ago."

"I already said it! I don't understand what you're saying... Aaaahhh!!!"

Yamada Binjiro suddenly let out a miserable scream.

He hurriedly covered his groin and fell to his knees. The indescribable agony turned his entire face deathly pale.

"I'll give you thirty seconds to think."

Izumi forced herself to act and kicked him again, sending him sprawling across the ground.

Her gaze hardened, and she drove her blade through Yamada Binjiro's left palm, pinning it to the ground.

"AAAAAHHHH!!!" Yamada Binjiro continued screaming.

"Twenty-nine."

Remembering the shattered bones that had made her hair stand on end, Izumi twisted her wrist, and the blade instantly sliced off half his palm.

"Twenty-eight."

"Twenty-seven."

Izumi's Ninja Sword flashed, sending an ear flying high into the air. The splattering blood was quickly washed away by the rain.

"Twenty-six."

"Lord Hokage! This is clearly torture to force a confession! And... they're doing this at Senior Shinosuke's funeral, right in front of you, Lord Hokage!"

One of Sarutobi Shinosuke's friends said to Sarutobi Hiruzen in horror, "Isn't this coercing a confession? Maybe that man was innocent to begin with, but under such torture, he would have no choice but to admit guilt."

"This kind of conduct is already..."

Sarutobi Hiruzen stood with his hands behind his back, gazing into the distance.

He interrupted, "Uchiha Chisen often leaves this old man deeply disappointed in many respects. But... when it comes to enforcing the law, no matter how extreme his methods may be, the results he delivers are always impossible for this old man to refute."

"When Uchiha Chisen determines that someone is a murderer, that person... is absolutely a murderer. Not once has he ever been wrong."

Sarutobi Hiruzen stared at the girl's back.

In a low, distant murmur, he said to himself, "Are you preparing to cultivate a successor to [Absolute Justice], Chisen...?"

Shinosuke's friend had not expected Lord Hokage to speak up for the man who had killed his son.

Moreover—

The way Lord Hokage spoke, wasn't Uchiha Chisen being a little too "deified"?

How could a person possibly never make a mistake?!

"AAAAH! I admit it! I admit it!!!"

A civilian's bones were ultimately far softer than a shinobi's. After all, he had never undergone any strict shinobi training.

The pain wracking his body, coupled with the oppressive presence of the Uchiha Clan's military police force, had already driven him to a mental breakdown.

His psychological defenses, already on the verge of collapse after Uchiha Chisen appeared, completely crumbled at this moment.

With tears and snot streaming down his face, he shouted in terror, "Don't kill me, don't kill me!"

"I... I did kill my brother's wife and daughter! When I asked them for money, that damned woman told me right to my face that she would never lend money to someone addicted to gambling!"

"They were the ones who disregarded family ties first! No! That's not right—they were outsiders to begin with. They just wanted to monopolize my brother's inheritance!"

Yamada Binjiro went from an emotional breakdown at first to suddenly making excuses for his actions in the end.

Not even ten seconds had passed.

He gritted his teeth and shouted in anguish, even becoming enraged as he did so. "I was only cleaning house for my brother!"

"I did nothing wrong! Why should I be arrested?!"

"Why don't you arrest that woman who stole my brother's inheritance?!"

"You aren't fair at all!!!"

"You..."

The instant Yamada Binjiro raised his head in agitation and looked toward Uchiha Chisen, a pair of scarlet Three-Tomoe Sharingan entered his vision.

His entire field of view seemed to be consumed by those Sharingan.

Yamada Binjiro's expression shifted from rage to terror.

As if he had seen something no one else could see.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

Izumi paused, then quickly realized that Senior Chisen had directly cast a Sharingan Genjutsu on him!

Izumi did not know what terrifying scenes Yamada Binjiro had witnessed in the Genjutsu, nor what horrifying illusion he had endured.

But...

She felt he had brought it upon himself!

"Rookie, this is the 'evil' of the Shinobi World. Even when the blade of justice is already at their throats, they still will not repent. Gentle laws cannot deliver justice for the dead."

Uchiha Chisen said faintly, "Use your [Absolute Justice] to deliver justice for the dead."

"Kill him."