Sorry, We Came Too Late

"Captain Sou, it's right here."

After making their way through countless obstacles, taking out several patrols along the way, rescuing more Konoha captives, and witnessing countless beasts bare their fangs, Uchiha Sou and his group finally arrived in front of a small town.

Looking at the town before him, Uchiha Sou finally breathed a sigh of relief. But when he glanced at the people beside him, he couldn't help feeling a little frustrated.

Still, he had to admit that Nara Rukawa was no ordinary man.

He really hadn't expected that after giving Nara Rukawa just a little hint, the man would not only figure out what he planned to do, but even guess that it wasn't Orochimaru's order!

But after thinking it over carefully, he came up with an answer that made the corner of his mouth twitch.

"Does Konoha have plans for the Land of Whirlpools?"

"Don't put it like that. Konoha is just protecting this place."

Just as he'd expected, Uchiha Sou could only curse inwardly: Damn, it really is the same story everywhere!

The reason was simple. It all came down to the ordinary people.

Uchiha Sou wanted those ordinary people to help them, and even to resist Kirigakure's ninja to some extent. For that to happen, there was one thing they had to do.

Train the civilians.

If the civilians were going to gather intelligence and help them by causing trouble for Kirigakure in certain areas, then training them was essential.

Even if they couldn't help in battle, at the very least, they could reduce the risks they faced and help them survive.

Or at least they could learn to use Explosive Tags and other odds and ends, right?

But that was precisely what made the situation so troublesome. If they trained all these civilians, then even if they weren't ninja, they'd at least become experienced fighters with a strong spirit of resistance!

When the war ended, Konoha could just walk away. Coming back afterward wouldn't be so simple!

"The Land of Whirlpools has always been something of a land without a master. Its location and resources are both extremely important to Konoha, so..."

Seeing that Uchiha Sou had figured it out, Nara Rukawa explained quietly.

Obviously, a Land of Whirlpools with no teeth, entirely dependent on Konoha, would be the ideal Land of Whirlpools!

In fact, the great nations and their hidden villages across the Shinobi World didn't take the smaller countries seriously at all.

Those smaller countries were not only buffer zones between the great nations and their hidden villages, but also boundaries marking out their respective spheres of influence.

After all, the hidden villages needed money and resources. Raising ninja and making ninja tools consumed plenty of both.

Sometimes, relying on domestic production and the daimyo's assistance simply wasn't enough. Mission shares, in particular, had to be fought over using one's own influence.

Sunagakure's conflict with Konoha, which had even sparked the Third Shinobi World War, was essentially no different from what Hanzo, the Demigod, had done during the Second Shinobi World War.

Put simply, they'd hit a bottleneck in their development and could only expand to secure better prospects.

With their lousy land covered in sand, where every resource had to be imported, how could they develop and become self-sufficient without swallowing the fertile Land of Rivers?

But as luck would have it, the other half of the Land of Rivers belonged to Konoha.

Clearly, the Land of Whirlpools was in the same situation now.

Uchiha Sou even wondered whether Konoha's inaction when Kirigakure landed during the Second Shinobi World War, while the Uzumaki Clan was wiped out, had been part of the plan all along.

If it had been, then the Uzumaki Clan must have been so "grateful." Having a brother like Konoha was a blessing earned over eight lifetimes!

But whether it was true or not didn't matter. What mattered was the present.

Faced with the situation, Uchiha Sou was frantic with worry. They couldn't just sit around and die of thirst, and he desperately needed a way to break through the impasse in the Land of Whirlpools.

But soon, he suddenly thought of something. "Chunin Rukawa, I wonder, when you were in school, did you ever study The Will of Fire?"

"The Will of Fire?" Nara Rukawa thought for a moment. "You mean the version revised by the Lord Third?"

The Will of Fire had always been part of the curriculum. Uchiha Sou had studied it when he was in school, too.

But after reading it, he'd had just one thought: What a vicious brainwashing scheme!

At first glance, the book seemed pretty good and reasonable. It explained famous sayings like "Where the leaves dance, the fire burns on."

But then you looked at children graduating at six or seven, and at people like him going to the battlefield as cannon fodder at just ten.

Were they using the lives of the young to light the way for the older generation?

But he didn't dare say any of that. He didn't even have a Mangekyo—what gave him the nerve to be so bold?

"That's right. That's the one."

Uchiha Sou nodded, then lowered his voice with a smile.

"Chunin Shikaku, think about it. If we have them keep studying and reading books like The Will of Fire while we train them..."

"That would strengthen their unity and their will to resist!"

Nara Rukawa caught on quickly. At that, his eyes flickered slightly.

"And with just a few small changes, they could..."

"They could remember Konoha for good, even after we leave!"

Uchiha Sou summed it up, and Nara Rukawa looked at him a little differently.

Nara Rukawa knew Uchiha Sou was a genius. They were both bloodline ninja, after all, so news naturally made its way around.

But he knew very well that Uchiha Sou's genius showed itself in battle, not in strategy.

It made him wonder how a clan full of people who only knew how to fight had produced someone like this. It didn't seem to match what he'd heard.

But that was someone else's business, and it had nothing to do with him. All he knew was that the most troublesome problem seemed to have been solved just like that.

At first, he'd thought he'd gotten on a sinking ship and would end up at the bottom of the sea no matter how he looked at it. Now, it seemed the situation wasn't quite so bad!

"In that case, I think I can relax. And I can offer a little help, too."

After confirming all this, Nara Rukawa became more enthusiastic than ever.

He was also fairly familiar with the Land of Whirlpools. With his help, Uchiha Sou finally settled on their destination, and they eventually arrived at the town without a hitch.

"Let's go. Everyone's tired." After taking a careful look around at the entrance to the town, Uchiha Sou finally gave the order.

The group of more than fifty hurried forward. But as they stepped into the town, they all felt an inexplicable sense of sorrow spreading through the air.

The townspeople watched them in terror, and many of the children began to cry.

Before long, all the men in town, no matter their age, came running out.

They ushered the children and women in the streets back into their homes, then stood in front of Uchiha Sou and the others. Their faces were fearful, but their resolve was firm.

"Lord Ninja, how many people are you going to take this time? How much food?" an old man asked in a heavy voice. The grief in his tone was especially painful to hear.

"I think you've mistaken us for someone else. We're not Kirigakure ninja."

Uchiha Sou sighed softly. Then, as the villagers stared at him in fear and disbelief, he walked toward them and stopped two or three meters away.

"We're Konoha Ninja. Sorry, we came too late."