"What are you thinking about?"
Kakashi noticed Lin Qing had been deep in thought the whole way.
"I'm wondering why these cultists are killing people."
Shizune, carrying the little pig Tonton, tilted her head and pondered for a moment. "Cultists... They're crazy to begin with. What other reason could there be? They're simply going mad... aren't they?"
"They are indeed insane, but they aren't stupid. Even madmen have their own logic.
"They kill either to vent their inner urge to slaughter—that's for emotional gratification.
"Or they do it as part of some kind of ritual—that's to achieve an ideal.
"Since they call themselves the Jashin Cult, I'll assume the latter is more likely. These enemies can kill from a distance with a curse. Could that ability complement their killing rituals? In other words..."
"The more people they kill, the stronger their ritual becomes," Lin Qing said.
Tsunade pointed to the wound on her chest, which kept healing and tearing open. "Isn't this strong enough already?"
Lin Qing shook his head. "They could only curse you after making contact with you.
"We're right beside you, and we can all sense the eyes watching us from the shadows. But neither Kakashi nor I have been cursed, and neither has Shizune, who's been with you the longest.
"That means they probably need some kind of 'medium' to curse us."
Tsunade had considered that possibility too.
But before fighting the cultists that day, she'd gotten drunk and thrown up all over the place.
She'd also bled a little during the fight.
And afterward, she'd spat in the direction the cultists had fled.
As for which of those might have been the "medium"... Tsunade gave an awkward laugh. She really couldn't tell.
"What do you mean by 'stronger and stronger'?" Kakashi asked.
"For example, they