Meeting (Part 2)

As he spoke, Hétián began walking toward Nagato and the others. Of the men behind him, only two followed; the other three stayed where they were, apparently guarding the badly wounded ninja.

When Nagato saw them approaching, he quickly took a guarded stance as well. Hétián stopped about ten meters away, and his two subordinates behind him also stood ready.

"Hey, Ghosts, your chakra must be all used up by now. What do you think you can do?" Hétián threatened.

"Then why don't you try and find out whether we're out of chakra?" Nagato stared at Hétián, not backing down.

"Ghost, you may have surprised us and caused us heavy losses, but you only rely on your Rinnegan. I don't believe you can still use it. And why did you Ghosts attack us? You'd better give me an explanation, or I won't go easy on you." Hétián kept his eyes fixed on Nagato.

As far as Hétián was concerned, the only one before him who could pose a threat was the Ghost with the Rinnegan. As for the other two Ghosts, even if they weren't badly wounded, Hétián wouldn't fear them. As one of Kirigakure's few elite shinobi, he had every reason to be confident. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been put in charge of this mission with only two other elite ninja supporting him.

The other pursuit teams had been made up of five elite ninja working together. Kirigakure had dispatched five full squads for this mission, all to make sure that man didn't escape. If the Shinobi World War weren't nearly over, Kirigakure couldn't have sent out so many ninja at once—at least thirty elite ninja and nearly a hundred Chunin, all for that one man. But who could have guessed that before they even saw him, Hétián's own squad would nearly be wiped out?

Hétián was already regretting his decision. If only he'd joined the other squads in a five-man elite ninja team. Then this wouldn't have happened.

"You're the ones who attacked us first. I didn't expect the Mist Ninja to be so good at twisting the truth," Nagato retorted coldly.

"We attacked you?" Hétián fell silent for a moment before speaking. "When did we attack you? You know very well that during wartime, civilians and children must not be attacked. That's a rule shared by the entire Shinobi World. We Mist Ninja know better than that." From his words, Hétián seemed like a traditional sort of ninja. Traditional ninja followed the rules of the Shinobi World and put the mission above all else.

The world did have its dark side, but its ninja weren't quite like the ones Ye Wuji had heard about. As mentioned earlier, there was at least one important difference.

In general, the ninja of this world were like the military back on Earth in Ye Wuji's time. They had no Geneva Convention or anything of the sort, but they did have a rule against attacking civilians and children without cause during wartime. Some people broke the rule, of course, but they did so in secret. If they did it openly, they would be punished unless they became missing-nin or wandered as rogue ninja. In serious cases, the punishment could even be death.

Naturally, if no one found out, no one would stop you. And the rule had plenty of leeway: it only forbade attacks "without cause." If there was a cause, then surely it was allowed.

The rule was mainly followed among the Five Great Nations. Smaller countries didn't care about such things. They might be wiped off the map at any moment, so who had time to worry about civilians?

People really had been executed in this world for attacking civilians during wartime, and every country had done it. It was mainly an issue among the Five Great Nations, though some smaller countries had also done similar things. Ye Wuji had talked about this with Minato, who had used it to persuade him that he didn't have to become a ninja. He could live well as a civilian, too. After all, no matter the world, bad people were always in the minority. Even back on Earth, in Ye Wuji's previous life, that had been true.

The logic was simple: if bad people outnumbered good people, any country or the world itself would descend into chaos. If a country hadn't fallen into chaos, it meant there were more good people than bad.

At first, Ye Wuji had thought that sounded exaggerated. Even if civilians were hurt during wartime, surely there was no need to make such a big deal of it. For example, soldiers from the developed country of America in his previous life often did things like that, yet they didn't face much punishment.

Only later did Ye Wuji understand. This world was different from his previous one. If an American soldier in his past life broke into someone's home to commit a crime, it wasn't certain who would end up dead. But in this world, ninja were far stronger than ordinary people. To put it bluntly, a capable Genin with enough patience could easily wipe out a village. If they all behaved that way, there would be no one left in the Naruto World.

Rules like these confined conflicts to the ninja. Whatever the problem, ninja were to settle it among themselves and leave civilians out of it. If there were no civilians, who would pay your taxes? And while the goal of war was to destroy another country, that didn't mean killing every person in it. If that were acceptable, the Naruto World had plenty of ninjutsu equivalent to nuclear bombs—ones that could move quickly, were entirely environmentally friendly, and could be reused. Use them a few times, and the civilians would either all be dead or have fled. The same could be done with giant Summoning Beasts or Tailed Beasts. The Tailed Beasts in this world were at least as tall as several-story buildings and could easily destroy towns.

That was why ninja didn't attack civilians and children during wartime. And given the influence the Five Great Nations held in this world, if they wanted to enforce the rule, people would adopt it as a code of conduct within a few years. Anyone who broke it could simply be killed.

That was also why so many villages with no protection at all still existed in the Naruto World. If you dared attack them, the ninja belonging to the nations would come after you immediately. Even people in the underworld would come after you, and they could sell your corpse for money.

Just think of all the Bounty Stations scattered across the Naruto World. Don't assume they were there for show. They were powerful enough to put bounties on the Twelve Guardian Ninja of the Land of Fire. It was a pity that the original Naruto series had said so little about them, and Ye Wuji hadn't felt comfortable asking Minato about it.

Ye Wuji had always kept the Bounty Stations in mind. Konoha was powerful, yet it hadn't shut them down. Either the Bounty Stations were controlled by the Five Great Nations—which didn't make much sense, since nobody would use something they controlled to target themselves—or they were powerful enough to make even the Five Great Nations wary. Konoha had known about them for a long time. After Chiriku's body was handed over to the Bounty Station, Konoha had only gone after Kakuzu and the others. No one seemed to have gone to the Bounty Station to retrieve Chiriku's body. Of course, perhaps the leaders of the various countries had reached some agreement with the Bounty Station: it could offer rewards, but it couldn't get involved itself. That might have been why the countries tolerated its existence.

Of course, maybe the Bounty Station was just an ordinary marketplace. No one knew for sure. Back on Earth, Ye Wuji had argued with others about the Bounty Station before. Some people guessed that Akatsuki was behind it.

Ye Wuji first started paying attention to the Bounty Station when Kakuzu mentioned, before Naruto defeated him, that he had once fought the First Hokage. Given how Kakuzu had managed to escape the First Hokage, dying at the hands of Naruto and the others—mere Genin—must have left him full of regret. Of course, that was because he'd badly underestimated Naruto's strength and been hit by the Rasenshuriken.

That was when Ye Wuji learned that Kakuzu had been a missing-nin from Takigakure for a very long time. It was also then that he remembered how mysterious the Bounty Station was. If Kakuzu had fought the First Hokage, then Madara Uchiha must have still been alive at the time. And from then on, Kakuzu seemed to have made a living hunting ninja with bounties on their heads. The Five Great Nations hadn't even been established yet, and the whole world was in turmoil. There might have been the occasional bounty, but there couldn't have been a steady supply. So Kakuzu must have been going to the Bounty Station for money. If that were true, the Bounty Station was truly terrifying. It meant it had existed throughout the age of war. Ye Wuji had pieced all this together from Kakuzu's words. After all, back then, he'd only watched it as an anime. However powerful the Bounty Station was, it couldn't affect him.

But now Ye Wuji had arrived in the Naruto World. The real world was certainly different from the anime, and that only made him think more carefully about the Bounty Station.

Ye Wuji's original theory had been simple, but the changes in Naruto before he crossed over had made him even more wary of the Bounty Station in this real Naruto World.

All right, enough digressing. Back to the point. If you wanted others to follow the rules, you had to follow them yourself first. That was why the Five Great Nations always stressed that civilians and children were not to be targeted during war. They wanted to prevent ninja from countries the Five Great Nations had destroyed from taking revenge. You could take revenge, but you had to go after ninja, not civilians. Otherwise, ninja from the countries you had destroyed would start assassinating civilians in your country. No matter how powerful your country was, your ninja would be worn down fighting them. This was, after all, a high-power world.

That was why Hétián had been so angry when his subordinate said that. He wasn't afraid his village would punish him over it, but reputation mattered in this world. It mattered even more if you wanted to become the leader of one of the Five Great Nations.

Hétián had a good reputation in Kirigakure, and he was strong. He might not become Mizukage, but he had a good chance of becoming an elder or holding some other high-ranking position. But if he were tainted by an attack on civilians during wartime—and his rivals took advantage of it—his prospects would be in doubt.

To the villagers, attacking civilians during wartime was one of the most despised acts.