"Nine hundred ninety-seven, nine hundred ninety-eight, nine hundred ninety-nine... one thousand!"
By the stream behind the Orphanage, Lin Ze stood bare-chested, sweat covering the defined lines of his lean muscles.
He had just completed a thousand weighted punches, and his breathing was somewhat heavy.
"Phew-"
Letting out a long breath, Lin Ze sat on the ground to rest, but his eyes involuntarily drifted toward a nearby hill.
A month had passed since the old director's death.
On a quiet night, that kindly old woman had peacefully stopped breathing in her sleep, a trace of relief and contentment still on her face.
There had been no pain, no regrets.
Lin Ze and the others had buried her on the hill behind the Orphanage, overlooking the place she had protected her entire life.
She had not been buried in Konoha's shinobi cemetery. The old director had lived an ordinary life and had not been a shinobi, but he had protected Konoha's future in another way.
Lin Ze looked up at the hill, his gaze seeming to pierce the woods and see that small grave.
A faint sadness welled up in his heart, but more than that, he felt acceptance.
Birth, aging, sickness, and death were the natural order. Without attaining Kekkei Mōra, even someone as powerful as Hashirama Senju could not escape it. The old director had passed peacefully; perhaps this was the best ending.
Her departure also meant that the last of Lin Ze's ties to "Konoha" in this world had dwindled further.
Miyamoto Ichirō and Kabuto had also successfully left Konoha five days earlier, under the respective pretexts of "looking for work elsewhere" and "visiting distant relatives."
By now, they should have made contact with the Shadow Clone Lin Ze had sent ahead to Ascension Island in the Land of