The Goal

"Senior Duy, how did it go?"

Not long after the questioning ended, Yuzuru saw Might Duy, who had also completed his review. Duy looked rather serious, as if he'd been through something unpleasant.

Torture? Given Duy's situation, that seemed unlikely.

"Yuzuru, I just feel it's a shame. So many comrades died on the battlefield in the Land of Rivers, yet in the end, the enemy got away unscathed. They even nearly attacked our headquarters... It's just too frustrating."

"I wasn't useful when it mattered most. Clearly, I haven't devoted enough of myself to training."

Yuzuru was taken aback. He hadn't expected Duy to think that way.

You haven't devoted enough of yourself to training? By Might Duy's standards, every ninja in Konoha must have fallen short.

As for the way Duy regarded Konoha, he was surely a true inheritor of the "Will of Fire."

"Senior Duy, you've already accomplished a great deal."

There was something a little odd about the tone Yuzuru used to praise him.

As a Genin who could only take the lowest-ranked missions, and with his strange personality, appearance, and way of doing things, Might Duy had faced countless rumors and instances of discrimination in Konoha.

Given his circumstances, it would have been understandable if he'd turned bitter. Yet Might Duy not only held no grudge against Konoha, he even loved it.

"Me?" Might Duy hadn't picked up on the extra meaning in Yuzuru's words. He merely shook his head and said, "The ninja who stopped Sunagakure's surprise attack is the one who's truly accomplished."

When they'd faced the Second Kazekage, all they could do was struggle to stay alive. What was there to praise about that? They'd neither distinguished themselves nor failed.

By now, the story of Hatake Sakumo's deeds had spread throughout the camp, and most of the ninja greatly admired him.

Hatake Sakumo had made a name for himself in a single battle. By comparison, what had the Eleventh Squad accomplished? At most, Yuzuru had kicked the Kazekage once.

After Yuzuru and Might Duy had chatted for a while, Shinnosuke Kohinata came over to them.

"Are you two all right?"

"Nothing happened. They said it was a routine review. What about you, Senior Shinnosuke?" Yuzuru asked.

"I'm not doing so well... I ran into people from the Hyuga Clan. Considering their attitude toward me, they might as well have accused me of being a spy for Sunagakure or Iwagakure."

Compared with talking to ninja from the Hyuga Clan, Shinnosuke Kohinata would rather have been interrogated outright. But since he'd been suspected of using the Gentle Fist, he had no choice but to face them.

Most ninja clans were fiercely protective of their secrets, and that went doubly for an ancient, traditional clan like the Hyuga.

The Kohinata Clan's position in Konoha was probably worse than Might Duy's. They were the "outsiders" among the ninja clans, and in some ways, their background was even less advantageous than that of civilian ninja... Kohinata ninja really were more likely to become spies for enemy villages.

Given the relationships between the ninja clans, Yuzuru and Might Duy couldn't say much.

When their squad leader, Kiba Inuzuka, showed up, everyone realized he looked the worst of all. His squad had exceeded its mission objectives, yet he was the one being treated with suspicion. And all because of a so-called routine procedure?

The higher-ups' attitude was clearly at odds with what he, as squad leader, thought.

Unfortunately, Kiba Inuzuka was only a squad leader. He couldn't change the orders of the higher-ups.

To make matters worse, even though Kiba was extremely unhappy about it, he still had to explain things to the others:

"Everyone's fine now. Don't take this to heart. Every ninja who survived in the Land of Rivers was questioned. The Second Kazekage showing up was just too unusual, so they had to get every detail straight."

People feared unfairness more than hardship. When everyone was unlucky, no one's individual misfortune stood out.

But that wasn't convincing enough for Yuzuru. The problem was clearly with Konoha's system, or even the broader system of the hidden villages.

To lighten the mood, Kiba tried a joke that wasn't very funny:

"Actually, I'm the one who's in trouble?"

"Captain, what's wrong?" Might Duy immediately asked.

"Based on how you all performed in the Land of Rivers, it seems I've become the weakest member of the squad..."

Well, that joke wasn't very funny.

If they laughed along, it would seem like they agreed that their captain was useless, which wasn't appropriate. But if they denied it, that wouldn't be right either: the captain was telling the truth, and denying it would seem insincere.

And so, the mood suddenly turned awkward.

"Being a squad leader isn't just about strength... Hmm? The squad only just formed. They're not going to disband us already, are they?" Shinnosuke Kohinata asked.

"I haven't received any orders to that effect," Kiba Inuzuka said, shaking his head.

He actually knew what was going on. Given their similar strength and fighting styles, this squad really would be more useful if it were split up. What was the point of grouping a bunch of Taijutsu users together? But they wouldn't do that anytime soon... It wouldn't make sense to disperse people under suspicion. What if they caused even wider "contamination"?

The front-line camp had only just finished rooting out a batch of spies, so everyone was especially sensitive to anything like that.

"Everyone, get some rest for a few days. There'll definitely be a major battle soon. Sunagakure's planned operation was too dangerous for this to end here. We'll have to retaliate in kind..."

Retaliate in kind? It went without saying that more Konoha ninja would have to become cannon fodder. The Shinobi World War would only grow more intense, which was no good news for Yuzuru.

Over the past few days, Yuzuru had more or less figured something out. First of all, even with the help of the instance, he couldn't predict how strong he'd become in the future. In the Shinobi World, the system might not even compare to bloodline, and his "instance" was just a strange thing, after all.

Or perhaps bloodline was actually the most powerful system in this world.

For now, Yuzuru couldn't completely leave Konoha, but it was even harder for him to fit in. So, by comparison, he thought it made more sense to use Konoha to "incubate" power for his own purposes.

With like-minded "friends," whatever he wanted to do next would be much easier... He could stay back and protect himself, or move forward and take control of a hidden village. If he wanted to be more ambitious, he could even try to bring about "world peace," like the Akatsuki Organization would later.

After all, the core ninja of the Akatsuki Organization were all closely connected to Konoha. That would save him the middleman's cut.

To achieve this goal, Yuzuru needed to further increase his strength. So, as soon as the instance's cooldown ended, he chose to enter again.

He had three goals for this visit to the instance:

First, confirm the state of his Chakra Spiritual Body. Given what had happened before he left the instance last time, he suspected it might have undergone some kind of abnormal development.

Second, see if he could complete the mission to deal with the Nine-Tails by relying on baby Naruto.

Third, confirm how large the "instance" was and whether it encompassed the entire world.

Fourth, start collecting "attributes"—to grind his stats, on the one hand, and to try to gather all seven nature transformations of chakra, on the other.