Aftermath

"At last, it's over." Jin sighed and dropped onto the ground.

This battle had cost him dearly.

The Chakra he had accumulated over so many years was down to less than a fifth.

He had suffered a devastating loss.

He had also understood the gap between himself and a jonin. Their combat was one chain after another, filled with every kind of tactic. One wrong step meant death unless you had some powerful ability to turn things around.

Jin still could not fight like that.

Those were things polished bit by bit through experience.

His Golden Finger could not Deduce experience yet.

It was incredibly frustrating.

"Why were there Iwagakure ninja here?"

Kushina could not understand it.

"They probably infiltrated this place to do something."

Jin looked at the jonin ahead, his entire body charred black as he stood there without moving.

He stepped forward, intending to search him for anything useful.

"Wait, Jiraiya-sensei said not to touch corpses carelessly."

Minato Namikaze spoke up to remind him.

"Don't worry." Jin waved a hand. "In that state, he couldn't have hidden any Explosive Tags, and he didn't have time to set any traps."

He valued his own life greatly.

If he was not certain there was no danger, he would definitely have sent a Shadow Clone to scout first.

He used his blade to cut through Chudo's body, but aside from a few ninja tools burned red-hot, he found nothing useful.

However...

"This guy should be the real culprit behind the person you wanted to defeat, Kushina."

Jin used his blade to turn over the ninja tools. Once they cooled down, they could still be used.

Still, he found those ninja tools somewhat distasteful.

"What?" Kushina ran over and examined Chudo from head to toe.

"It was them?"

It was the village they had passed on their way to the outpost, where every human and animal had been slaughtered.

Only one little girl had survived.

The three of them had nearly fallen out over it.

Even now, Kushina was still somewhat resentful toward Jin.

Minato Namikaze said nothing beside them, lowering his head as he thought through the details.

"But what about the things they took?"

Kushina looked completely puzzled. Jin had said when he searched the village that all its valuables had been taken.

Kushina had not searched the girl at all, and Minato Namikaze had no intention of searching corpses either.

But she did not look like she had any valuables.

"For that, you'll have to ask the Village Chief here."

Money did not grow legs and run away.

Jin smiled, but there was not a trace of amusement in his scarlet Sharingan.

He was a believer in fairness.

Anyone who had taken advantage of him, ninja or ordinary person, would have to pay the price.

Even the Hokage—he would deal with that once he was strong enough to beat him.

The Village Chief sat up in bed. Looking at the hazy light filtering in through the window, he knew dawn was approaching.

He had not slept well all night.

He walked to the table and poured himself a cup of tea. Just as he raised it to his lips—

"You still have the mood to drink tea?"

A voice suddenly sounded.

He spat out all the tea in his mouth.

He hurriedly lit an oil lamp.

It illuminated the three extra people in the room.

Jin stood by the door with his arms crossed, watching him. Kushina hung upside down from a ceiling beam, while Minato Namikaze stood at the window, blocking his retreat.

"What brings the three ninja-sama here in the middle of the night?"

The Village Chief forced a smile.

But looking at the three expressionless ninja, he could no longer smile.

They clearly meant trouble.

"If you've come for money, our village isn't wealthy, but we'll do everything we can to gather it for you three."

The Village Chief spoke in panic.

The tremble in his eyes made him look exactly like a civilian being forced by ninja to hand over his money.

"You're still pretending?"

Jin sneered.

Even Kushina was swayed by his act, but Minato Namikaze and Uchiha Jin remained completely unmoved.

Kushina really would believe someone if they looked miserable enough.

Minato Namikaze would not be careless in serious matters.

"You were the one who leaked our whereabouts to Iwagakure, weren't you?"

Jin directly questioned him without any pretense.

"You've wronged me, sir! I don't know anything!"

The Village Chief fell to his knees and wept bitterly, banging his head against the floor over and over, looking as innocent as could be.

"What Iwagakure ninja? I've never even seen one!"

The Village Chief wailed.

Jin walked over and crouched in front of the Village Chief, speaking slowly.

"From the start, I found it strange. Why had your village continued to exist in such a crucial location?"

"Because—"

"Don't try to fob me off with those words."

Jin interrupted the Village Chief.

"Ninja don't care whether you live or die. You should understand that."

In the wars of the shinobi world, civilians always suffered the greatest losses. That was a crime ninja could never erase.

During the Sengoku era, the far fewer ninja had somehow accounted for half the death toll alongside civilians. That alone showed what civilians meant in the eyes of ninja.

That mindset had not changed even now.

Ninja did not care whether civilians lived or died when they fought.

"For a village to survive here, ninja must have had some use for this place. You couldn't provide ninjutsu or money, so there was only one thing left: intelligence."

"Among the Five Great Shinobi Villages, Konoha treats its own people the best. Under normal circumstances, Konoha would not drive away or exterminate the civilians of the Land of Fire, so you were given the foundation to remain here."

"On that basis, how could Takigakure, Kusagakure, or even Iwagakure possibly let you off?"

At such a vital route, the other shinobi villages naturally had no reason to leave them alone.

Whoever occupied this place would gain the advantage of moving first. They might not be able to withstand Konoha's counterattack, but that was still better than giving it to someone else.

"There was only one way to make them spare you."

Jin's face darkened.

"Leaking information about Konoha Ninja."

"Your enthusiasm was because you wanted to get close to ninja and learn more intelligence, then sell it to people from other shinobi villages."

"The Rogue Ninja you spoke of were actually buyers dissatisfied with your prices. You used them to lure Konoha into investigating as a threat, forcing them to offer more money."

As Jin explained, Kushina pieced together the details as well.

"The main reason those Iwagakure ninja attacked the village was because they hadn't brought enough money, so they looted several other villages!"

"Once they had enough money, you immediately gave Iwagakure our whereabouts."

Minato Namikaze added from behind.

As for what other information they had traded, that was beyond what Jin's group could infer.

This village had openly put a price on information about Konoha Ninja and sold it.

At the same time, they had harmed several nearby villages in order to gather money.

Under Jin's analysis, the Village Chief resigned himself to it.

"We only wanted to survive! What did we do wrong?!" the Village Chief roared.

"This is our home! Why can you ninja destroy it without restraint? You can destroy our homes, so why can't we use you to secure our own survival?"

Jin could not refute that. As for relocating the village, that was impossible.

The Daimyo's Estate had issued a law called the Land Protection Law. Civilians had to protect the land granted to them by the Land of Fire.

They were not allowed to leave on their own.

This regulation was connected to the time when the shinobi villages had just been established. Jin guessed it had originally been meant to restrict ninja, but unfortunately, it had failed to do so.

In the end, it had instead deprived all civilians on the battlefield of their chance to survive.

"But you still shouldn't have let Iwagakure harm other villages." Kushina glared and rebuked him.

She still had nightmares about the horrific state of that village.

"We only wanted to survive." The Village Chief lowered his head and only repeated that sentence.

At the very least, he still felt guilty toward those villages whose people had died at the hands of ninja.

"Unfortunately, you won't survive."

Jin shook his head and sighed. Though he wanted to take revenge, in some ways, these people had been left with no choice.

He could not be bothered to argue with a group of dead people.

"What do you mean?"

The Village Chief raised his head, his face twisted with rage and his eyes bloodshot.

"Did you really think betraying Konoha came without a price?"

Jin shook his head and sighed.

He glanced at the gloomy Minato Namikaze and Kushina. They both understood what fate awaited this village.

"Spare everyone else! Whatever you want, take it out on me!"

The Village Chief hurriedly tried to grab Jin, but Jin kicked him in the face and sent him crashing into the wall.

"You can't bear it."

Jin shook his head, opened the door, and looked outside.

"At this hour, they've already arrived."

Before coming to the village, they had Minato Namikaze use Reverse Summoning to send the message back.

The sun peeked over the mountains.

A sliver of light illuminated the woods beside the village.

Ninja wearing green flak jackets stood on the branches, looking down at the entire village.

A woman with markings on her face crouched atop a black wolfhound and licked her black-painted nails.

"Leave no one alive!"

"Kill!"

The massacre began.

Konoha's newly replaced outpost.

Within a secluded forest.

Jin was inside the mission tent, taking out scroll after scroll.

"Jin, what are you doing?" Minato Namikaze asked with a puzzled look.

"Exchanging battle merits, of course."

Jin pushed the scrolls toward the clerk. The man stared at them in a daze. There were not many scrolls, but every one contained newly created ninjutsu.

But this was a frontline outpost, not the village's ninjutsu research room.

Why was he exchanging battle merits here?

"Can't I exchange them?"

Jin asked the staff member curiously.

"You can, but they need to be sent back to the village first for evaluation."

The staff member forced a smile. He had seen plenty of people exchange bloody heads for battle merits, but this was the first time he had seen someone use ninjutsu. The important thing was, the village actually accepted them.

It was absurd.

Minato Namikaze stood beside him with his eyes wide. Even he was tempted by so many ninjutsu.

"These are all useless. If you want to learn them, I have a catalog. You can pick whatever you like."

Jin spoke without concern.

In truth, these were all ninjutsu he had no use for. He planned to exchange them for battle merits, then trade those for other things.

At the same time, he wanted to see whether he would be transferred to the rear as a developer, while also securing his position as a ninjutsu development genius.

It was killing three birds with one stone.

Of course, getting transferred to the rear might be difficult.

"How is Kushina?"

"She still hasn't recovered from that day. Even though her chunin appointment has come through, she isn't in the mood for anything."

Jin sighed.

That night had indeed been too much of a shock for Kushina.

At the same time, because they had taken down a jonin,

they had also honorably been promoted to chunin.

A Working Stiff Starting from Douluo

Those of you who like Douluo can go check it out.

Then,

let me say this.

This is already the end of Volume One.

In Volume Two, the Protagonist will not appear very often.

It will mostly be new powerful characters created by the Protagonist's ninjutsu.

Volume Three is when the Protagonist's era truly begins.

Let's see which one you all prefer. Please look forward to it.