The Sorrow of a Small Nation

The farther Lu Zeming went, the narrower the passage became. After another twenty meters, a small door appeared ahead of him.

Dense runes covered the door, with the character for "seal" at their center. A sign above it bore a red character: "Forbidden."

Could there be forbidden techniques inside?

Lu Zeming suppressed his excitement and began trying to break the Sealing Technique on the door.

The instant he placed both hands against it, a powerful sense of danger surged up from deep within him.

He hurried back, holding his blade across his body, every nerve on alert.

Where he had just stood, a blade of grass burst through the ground and grew at an impossible speed.

In the space of a breath, it reached four or five meters tall and over a meter wide, nearly filling the passage.

A huge white flower bud bloomed among its leaves. The petals opened, and a stooped old man with snow-white hair and beard stepped out.

"No need to be nervous. I just wanted to find an interesting youngster to chat with before my life ends."

Lu Zeming did not lower his guard. He had seen the old man's statue in the most prominent spot in Kusagakure.

The Third Kusakage, Kusakaito.

Lu Zeming knew his limits. In a head-on fight, his current strength put him at Special Jonin level at best. He was still a fair way from an Elite Jonin, let alone a Kage Level fighter.

It felt awful to have his life in someone else's hands!

Lu Zeming sent five Kunai flying out to hover before him and brought up a shield of Spiritual Power to keep himself from being killed in one blow. His left hand found the Poison Needles hidden behind his back, ready for a desperate fight.

Kusakaito looked at him and nodded in approval.

"In this world, it's good to be cautious. Your ability looks a little like Hashirama Senju's Wood Release. If I hadn't sent someone to investigate your village, I might have thought you had some connection to the Senju!"

Lu Zeming's heart sank. His eyes narrowed, the killing intent in them almost tangible.

"What did you do to them?"

Kusakaito rolled his eyes like a mischievous old man, then turned, undid the Sealing Technique on the door, and pushed it open.

"If you want to know, come in and talk."

At that moment, Lu Zeming felt like a mouse being toyed with by a cat, helpless and humiliated.

He gritted his teeth, tightened his grip on his sword, and followed him inside.

Once inside, Lu Zeming found that Kusakaito was not even looking at him. The old man was carefully arranging the scrolls on the shelves.

"These aren't scrolls of forbidden techniques. They contain Ninjutsu developed by generations of geniuses in the Land of Grass—Ninjutsu unique to this country."

Lu Zeming had no patience for that. All he cared about was how the village was doing, and whether Rin, Kumi Uzumaki, and the others were in danger!

But the old man showed no sign of stopping. He kept rambling as though no one else were there.

"Unfortunately, these techniques involve extremely subtle changes in chakra nature, and few people can master them. Add the influence of the two great nations, and everyone seems to think that only foreign things are good, that anything learned from a powerful country must be more advanced. Little by little, no one wanted to learn these 'relics' anymore!"

"Sigh. Once old men like me are gone, I'm afraid these techniques will be lost too!"

"By the way, at the inn, you said civilian ninja are too scattered to stand against the great clans because they lack a unified organization and plan. Could you tell me more? How would you bring them together?"

Lu Zeming was shaken. He had never said any of that in public!

Only Mayuko and a few others had been there. He refused to believe one of them was a traitor.

He tested the waters. "I doubt you planted a spy among Yuka and the others. Do you have some way of listening in that I don't know about?"

Stroking his beard, Kusakaito chuckled. "You're still young and inexperienced. The world is vast, and ninja abilities come in every form imaginable. There's no shortage of ways to eavesdrop. As it happens, one of my abilities let me use the potted begonia in your room as my ears."

"That's quite an ability."

"Ninjutsu is a minor art."

"I agree."

Kusakaito's curiosity was piqued. "Then what do you consider the greater path?"

"People. People are the greater path."

"Hahaha! Interesting, very interesting! It took me until this age to catch a glimpse of that truth. Put the way you just put it, so many things make sense!"

As Kusakaito's laughter faded, his eyes slowly darkened.

"But you and I had the misfortune of being born in a small nation. The great nations drag us along, and we cannot decide our own fate. What can we do?"

"The great nations aren't united, and the small nations aren't doomed to lose. What matters most is fighting back. Someone once said that peace won through struggle survives, while peace sought through compromise dies."

"Good, good! To have such insight at your age is remarkable. It's a shame we met so late. Otherwise, I could have taken you as my student and passed the position of Kusakage to you. The Land of Grass might not have come to this."

"The Land of Grass is caught in a proxy war between the Land of Fire and Land of Earth. There was no avoiding it."

"Sigh. A pack of old fools, and not one of them sees as clearly as a child like you."

"No, they see it clearly. They just don't care! National interests and clan privileges often conflict. To them, it doesn't matter how many people die or whether the country falls. What matters is keeping their privileges in their own hands. They're locked in such fierce competition that none of them dares stop and gamble on the others showing mercy."

"Then is there no saving the Land of Grass?"

Lu Zeming shook his head. "Instead of endlessly patching a rotting hut, tear it down and rebuild it."

Kusakaito stared at him for a long, long time. At last, he asked a question Lu Zeming had never expected.

"You said you came from the Flower-Planting Clan. What sort of clan is it? I'm curious how they raised a child with such extraordinary insight."

Lu Zeming scratched his head awkwardly, unsure how to answer.

Anyone who's had nine years of schooling would understand all this!

Seeing that Lu Zeming was not going to answer, Kusakaito did not press him.

"I've withdrawn the guards from the Ninja Armory. Take whatever catches your eye."

With that, Kusakaito turned to leave.

"Hey! You still haven't told me what you did to my village!"

"Your village is doing well. So are you."

Kusakaito's voice faded into the distance, filled with boundless loneliness—and, beneath it, one tiny glimmer of hope.

Lu Zeming had been baffled the whole time. What was that old man trying to do? I can't figure him out at all.

Forget it. If I can't figure it out, I won't bother!

Lu Zeming focused on packing up the Ninjutsu scrolls.

His priority was the local Ninjutsu Kusakaito had spoken of.

Perhaps it was gratitude, or perhaps he wanted to offer a dying old man one last comfort.

Lu Zeming did not want those techniques to be lost.

Fortunately, Sealing Scrolls that could store items saved them a great deal of space. Even so, all six of them ended up carrying packs far larger than their bodies.

From a distance, they looked like six little hills on the move.

Lu Zeming left a letter each for Shinbu Kosuke and Mui, then led the others out of Kusagakure under cover of night.

Fighting raged inside the village, and the gate was packed with families fleeing together. Mixed into the crowd, the six of them and their enormous packs did not stand out so much.

Once they made it out, Lu Zeming dared not waste time on the road. He chose to travel through the night back to the village...

From the outside, the former bandit stronghold seemed unchanged. Inside, it had been transformed.

Two neat rows of wooden houses were under construction, with busy people moving between them. From the large building at the center came the singsong voices of children reading aloud.

Behind the settlement lay broad stretches of farmland. Farmers worked among the fields. Though the labor was hard, their eyes were full of hope.

Farther up the mountain, a dozen or so youths were going through their daily training.

Some threw Kunai. Some practiced the Three Body Technique. Others stood upside down on tree branches, working on their Chakra control.

None of them dared slack off. They knew that with their leader away, they had to step up and protect the village and their families.

At the summit behind the village, a little girl stood at the edge of a cliff, her gaze fixed on the road below. She was waiting for her brother to appear.