Meeting (Part 2)

With that, Hétián began walking toward where Nagato and his group were located. As for the subordinates behind him, only two followed; the other three remained in place, presumably to guard the heavily injured ninja.

Seeing them approach, Nagato quickly assumed a defensive stance. Hétián stopped about ten meters away, and the two subordinates behind him also took up guard positions.

"Hey, brat, at this point, your chakra must be exhausted, right? Let's see what you can do now," Hétián threatened.

"Then why don't you try and see if our chakra is truly exhausted?" Nagato stared at Hétián, refusing to yield an inch.

"Brat, although you are indeed surprising and have caused us such heavy losses, you are merely relying on those Rinnegan of yours. I don't believe you can still use them now. As for you brats, why did you attack us? You better give me an explanation, or don't blame me for being impolite." Hétián also glared fixedly at Nagato.

In Hétián's eyes, only this brat with the Rinnegan posed a threat. As for the other two, let alone their current heavy injuries, even if they were in perfect condition, Hétián wouldn't fear them. As one of the top experts in Kirigakure, he possessed that much confidence; otherwise, he wouldn't have been chosen to lead this mission, especially with only two other Jonin assisting.

One must know that other pursuit squads were composed of five Jonin each. For this mission, Kirigakure had dispatched five full squads just to ensure that "guy" wouldn't escape. If the Great Ninja War weren't nearing its end, Kirigakure wouldn't have been able to mobilize so many ninjas at once—nearly thirty Jonin and nearly a hundred Chunin—all for that one person. Yet, who would have thought that before even seeing him, his own squad would be nearly wiped out.

Hétián was now filled with regret. Had he known, he would have acted in a joint operation of five Jonin like the other squads, and such a situation wouldn't have occurred.

"It was you who attacked us first. I didn't expect Kirigakure to have no other skills, but this ability to turn black into white is quite something," Nagato retorted coldly.

"We attacked you?" Hétián pondered for a moment after hearing this, then said, "When did we attack you? Be clear. During wartime, attacking civilians and children is a common rule of the ninja world. We, the Kirigakure ninjas, have at least that much standard." From this statement, it was evident that this ninja named Hétián was the type of "orthodox" ninja—one who followed the rules of the ninja world and placed missions above all else.

"As expected, Kirigakure's level of distorting the truth is high. But you're already denying what happened not long ago?" Nagato said coldly.

"Hmph!" Hétián snorted and was just about to say something when he was interrupted by one of his subordinates.

"Um, sir, it seems we did indeed attack them first," the ninja said, looking at Hétián's stern expression.

"What? Who did it? Was it not made clear before the operation began? Attacking children unprovoked—what does he want? Does he want to become a missing-nin or a wandering ninja?" Hétián roared in anger upon hearing his subordinate's words.

Come to think of it, although this world had its dark side, ninjas were not exactly as Ye Wuji had heard. This point had been mentioned before.

In general, the ninjas of this world were like the armies Ye Wuji knew on Earth. Although there were no treaties like the Geneva Convention, there was indeed a regulation that civilians and children should not be attacked without cause during wartime. While there were those who didn't follow this, they did so in secret. If done openly, unless one chose to become a missing-nin or a wandering ninja, they would be punished, sometimes even with the death penalty.

Of course, if you weren't caught, no one would care. Moreover, this rule was quite flexible; it only stated that one could not attack "without cause." If there was a cause, then it was permissible.

This regulation mainly circulated among the Five Great Nations. As for the smaller countries, they didn't care about such things; if things went wrong, their countries could be wiped out, so who would worry about civilians?

In this world, there were indeed cases of ninjas being executed for attacking civilians during wartime, and this happened in every country, primarily among the Five Great Nations. Some smaller countries had also done similar things. Ye Wuji had discussed this with Minato, who had used this point to persuade Ye Wuji that he didn't necessarily have to be a ninja—that even living as a civilian could be a good life. After all, in any world, bad people were always a minority, just like in the countries on Earth during Ye Wuji's previous life.

It was a simple logic: if the ratio of bad people exceeded that of good people, then neither a country nor the world could function. If a country hadn't fallen into chaos, it meant there were more good people than bad.

At first, Ye Wuji thought this was an exaggeration. After all, even if civilians were harmed during wartime, there was no need to go that far. For example, in his previous life, soldiers from the developed United States often did such things without facing major punishment.

Later, Ye Wuji realized that this world was different from his previous life. In his previous life, if a soldier from the U.S. broke into a home to commit evil, it wasn't certain who would end up dead. But in this world, the strength of ninjas was far superior to that of ordinary people. To put it bluntly, a capable Genin, if patient enough, could easily wipe out a village. If everyone did that, there would be no one left in the Naruto World.

By issuing such regulations, matters were confined to ninjas. If there were issues, ninjas would resolve them among themselves without involving civilians. If there were no civilians, who would pay taxes? The purpose of war was to destroy other countries, not to kill everyone in them. If that were the goal, there were plenty of ninjutsu in Naruto that were equivalent to nuclear bombs—mobile, eco-friendly, and reusable. If used a few times, the civilians would either be dead or have fled. If not by ninjutsu, one could use large summoning beasts or directly use Tailed Beasts. The Tailed Beasts here were at least as tall as a dozen-story building; destroying towns would be a breeze.

This was why ninjas didn't attack civilians and children during wartime. Because of the influence of the Five Great Nations, as long as they wanted to, people would eventually treat this rule as a code of conduct after a few years. As for those who didn't follow the rules, they were simply killed.

This was also why there were so many villages in the Naruto World without any protection that hadn't been wiped out. If you dared to do such a thing, the ninjas belonging to the country would deal with you immediately, and even those in the dark world would come after you—and they could even trade your corpse for money.

Thinking of the Bounty Stations scattered throughout the Naruto World, one shouldn't think of them as mere decorations. Just knowing they dared to put a bounty on the Twelve Guardian Ninja of the Land of Fire showed how powerful they were. Unfortunately, the Naruto series from his previous life had very little information on this, and Ye Wuji couldn't exactly ask Minato about it.

Ye Wuji had always kept the matter of the Bounty Stations in mind. With Konoha's strength, the fact that they hadn't shut them down meant either the Five Great Nations controlled them themselves—though that didn't make sense, as no one would use something they controlled to target themselves; the Fire Daimyo's Twelve Guardian Ninja were targeted, and the Daimyo wasn't a fool—or the Bounty Stations possessed such immense power that even the Five Great Nations were wary of them. Konoha had known the location of the Bounty Stations for a long time; after Chiriku's body was given to the Bounty Station, Konoha only went after Kakuzu and his partner. It seemed no one went to the Bounty Station to demand Chiriku's body back. Perhaps the high-level officials of each country had an agreement with the Bounty Station: the station could provide bounties, but they couldn't take action themselves. That was the only way countries could tolerate their existence.

Of course, perhaps the Bounty Station was just an ordinary trading place; no one knew for sure. Ye Wuji had even argued with others about the Bounty Station in his previous life. Some speculated that the Akatsuki were behind it.

Ye Wuji first started paying attention to the Bounty Stations when it was mentioned that Kakuzu had fought the First Hokage before being defeated by Naruto. Given Kakuzu's ability to escape from the First Hokage, dying at the hands of Genin like Naruto could be considered an "unjust death." Of course, that was also because he severely underestimated Naruto's strength and was hit by that Rasenshuriken.

It was from there that Ye Wuji learned Kakuzu had been a missing-nin from Takigakure for a long time. It was then that Ye Wuji realized the Bounty Stations weren't simple. If Kakuzu could fight the First Hokage, then Uchiha Madara must have been alive as well. From that time on, Kakuzu seemed to have lived by hunting bounties. But back then, the Five Great Nations hadn't been established, and the world was in chaos. Even if there were occasional bounties, they wouldn't be constant. So, Kakuzu must have been exchanging bounties for money at the Bounty Stations back then. If that were true, the Bounty Stations were truly terrifying, implying they had existed since the era of war. These were all deductions Ye Wuji made from that one line of Kakuzu's. After all, he had just been watching it as an anime back then, and no matter how powerful the Bounty Station was, it didn't affect him.

But now that Ye Wuji had appeared in this Naruto World, although the real world was definitely different from the anime, it was precisely because of this that Ye Wuji began to consider the issue of the Bounty Stations.

Originally, Ye Wuji's speculation was simple, but the changes in Naruto before he transmigrated made him even more wary of the Bounty Stations in this real world.

Anyway, enough digression. Back to the main point: if you want others to follow the rules, you must follow them yourself. This was why the Five Great Nations always emphasized that war should not target civilians and children—it was to prevent ninjas from countries destroyed by the Five Great Nations from seeking revenge. You can seek revenge, but you must target ninjas, not civilians. Otherwise, if the ninjas of destroyed countries were all assassinating civilians in your country, no matter how strong your country was, you would be exhausted. After all, this was a high-martial-arts world.

That was why Hétián was so angry when he heard his subordinate say that. Although he wasn't afraid of his village punishing him for such a problem, it was a matter of reputation. Reputation in this world was very important; at the very least, if you wanted to become a Kage of one of the Five Great Nations, reputation was even more critical.

Hétián had always had a good reputation in Kirigakure, and combined with his strong strength, while becoming the Mizukage might be a stretch, he had high hopes for becoming an elder or holding another high-level position. But if he were tainted with attacking civilians during wartime, combined with the tactics of his competitors, his chances would be slim.

For the villagers, attacking civilians during wartime was the thing they despised the most.