Funeral

Compared to chasing those three men, Oguri Hayashi had something more important to do.

That was Yamada's funeral. Yamada was the old farmer Jonin who had died.

By the time Oguri Hayashi and the others returned to Takigakure, Yamada had already been laid atop a pyre.

The people here were not particularly skilled at fighting, but when it came to chopping firewood and felling trees, they were countless times more efficient than ordinary ninjas.

The villagers had all gathered. More than two hundred people stood in the open ground outside the village, staring at the pyre, no one knowing what the others were thinking.

Some of them had always lived here, while others were refugees who had moved here bit by bit over the past three years.

How loyal were they to this village? Would they be willing to die for it?

Now that someone had died for the first time, no one understood what was going through their minds.

If Oguri Hayashi and Tsunade went after those Reincarnators, then the village would...

"Today, five ninjas posing as Konoha ninjas entered our village. Yamada discovered them." Oguri Hayashi stood atop the pyre, Yamada lying at his feet.

"They may have heard some news. They may have come for our village's secret techniques, for our Seven-Tails, for Tsunade, or for me."

"Or perhaps they came for one of you." Oguri Hayashi swept his gaze over the crowd. His eyes shone brightly, making everyone unable to help but look at him.

"They were very strong. Yamada, who had farmed for twenty years, was no match for them. Before we arrived, they killed him."

"Will Yamada's death make us submit?" Oguri Hayashi's voice was calm yet forceful. "Will they leave just because they have achieved their goal?"

"Today, they took Yamada's life. Tomorrow, they will take our secret techniques. The day after that, they will take our land and seize our village."

"Haven't we lived comfortably enough these past three years? No, we have lived as though we were in paradise. Everyone has worked hard together here, and without needing much money, we have lived better than the nobles outside."

"Are you willing to hand everything you have over to them?"

People were forgetful. Most had already forgotten what Takigakure had been like three years ago, but they knew what the world beyond Takigakure was like.

The war had only ended three years ago. Productivity could not possibly have recovered to what it had been before the Second Shinobi World War. The entire shinobi world was barren and desolate. The outside world was a nightmare for the poor. Now that they had land to farm, homes, and places to live, they were already very happy.

They had also met the merchants who came to the village from outside and heard them describe the misery beyond its borders. Did they truly want to hand all of this over without resistance?

"Yamada's death is unacceptable!"

"He died protecting this village! He died for all of you! If it had not been Yamada today, it might have been Kimura, or Oda, or Fugken."

"You may die protecting this village in the future as well. But remember, your sons and grandsons will continue living peacefully in this village, just like Yamada's son Taro and his grandson Koichi. Yamada's death, and your deaths, will not be in vain!"

His words made forty-something-year-old Yamada Taro, his wife, and his son Yamada Koichi sob quietly.

One possessed Chunin-level Chakra, while the other two had Genin-level Chakra. But their family had farmed for generations, and they cultivated only the Lightning Release Body Cultivation Technique. Aside from their daily morning martial arts exercises, they did not know how to fight.

Yamada, their father and grandfather, had been the same. They should never have been the ones to initiate a battle.

But Yamada had forgotten Oguri Hayashi's words and attacked an enemy he could not defeat alone. By the time Oguri Hayashi arrived, it was already too late.

Yet Oguri Hayashi was right. The villagers' expressions were solemn.

Yamada Taro and Yamada Koichi were the continuation of Yamada's bloodline, and also the continuation of Yamada's soul. The Japanese believed in spirits, and they believed even more strongly that those who died in battle would become spirits who protected their descendants.

To the Japanese, death was not frightening. What mattered most was being able to continue oneself.

"Light it. Cremate him!" Oguri Hayashi raised a hand and spoke.

Konoha constantly talked about the Will of Fire, yet after the Impure World Reincarnation ninjutsu appeared, the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Hokage who emerged clearly showed everyone that cremation had never been seriously carried out.

Oguri Hayashi could not possibly hand these Jonin corpses over to Obito and Madara as materials for the next Shinobi World War.

Cremation was necessary. It was something everyone was informed of upon entering the village, and something everyone had accepted.

Four Jonin formed Fire Release hand seals nearby. Four Great Fireball Techniques instantly turned the firewood into a seven-hundred-degree inferno, with thick smoke billowing into the sky.

"I'll go after those invaders with Tsunade shortly. I'll leave a Shadow Clone here. Starting today, ninja training will begin every afternoon. We have to make sure they can protect themselves." He spoke to several of the original Waterfall Ninja beside him.

They nodded. Oguri Hayashi left behind a Shadow Clone to relay news from the village to him at any time. In the next instant, he vanished from the village and appeared beside Tsunade.

"Finished?" Tsunade glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Rather than running at high speed, she was following the others' footprints on the ground. She had deliberately slowed her pace, making simple tracking time-consuming and exhausting.

"That was fast. In Konoha, this kind of ceremony takes quite a while." Konoha naturally had memorial monuments and speeches from the village head to help unite the people, but Konoha was a major ninja village. The Hokage would even spend an entire day on such matters.

Oguri Hayashi smiled. "After all, we're only a small ninja village."

He did not bring up the village again, and Tsunade did not ask. No matter how much she had personally watched Oguri Hayashi build Takigakure, she was still, in the end, only an outsider.

Am I ultimately still an outsider?

The thought flashed through Tsunade's mind and was never considered again. Oguri Hayashi, meanwhile, cared more about the Reincarnators than Tsunade's feelings. "Are the three of them still heading toward Konoha?"

"Mm. They're fleeing in panic, scared out of their wits." Tsunade sneered. They had come full of confidence after learning of her hemophobia, only to flee in disgrace after seeing that she had recovered. They were cowards among cowards, utterly unworthy of being opponents—or even of being called ninjas.

Even when facing an enemy they could not defeat, a ninja would never abandon the mission. But Tsunade had guessed their identities correctly.