Kakashi watched as Sarutobi Hiruzen departed with two Anbu squads, leaving him and six others to clean up the aftermath.
"Molten Release Kekkei Genkai… the destructive power is just insane," Kakashi muttered, inhaling the thick sulfurous air that even his mask couldn't fully block. His eyes scanned the devastated surroundings.
Before him, the ground was littered with cooling lava, the earth scarred with pits of various sizes and depths. Half a street's worth of houses seemed to have been wiped away as if erased by some unseen force. The oppressive heat made Kakashi feel uneasy.
At the edges of many ruined buildings, molten rock still dripped like a slow waterfall. Anyone unfamiliar might have thought they'd stumbled onto an active volcano.
Kakashi's gaze fell on two bodies of Root ninjas. One was missing half its body, the other had a massive hole in his chest and was bisected at the waist.
Sighing, Kakashi stuffed his hands into his pockets. The bodies were easy enough to handle—just bag them up and hand them over to Root. But the ruined street? That was a nightmare to fix.
Ikeizumi had really made a mess.
But then again… maybe he was one of the few in the village who still remembered the Fourth Hokage.
Kakashi recalled Ikeizumi's words: "Only by doing this can we honor the sacrifice of the Fourth Hokage."
Absolute justice… it was a harsh ideal, but not without merit.
Lost in thought, Kakashi suddenly noticed a small figure struggling to stand nearby. The girl wore the same Uchiha Military Police uniform.
She staggered toward the direction Ikeizumi had left.
Kakashi hesitated, then chose to ignore her.
—
Elsewhere, Naruto whimpered, "I… I won't do it again… Can you please put me down? I can walk on my own."
"And… can you not lock me up for so long? If Iruka-sensei finds out, he'll be really disappointed."
"I really know I was wrong…"
His voice grew weaker with each word, ending in a choked sob. Tears streamed uncontrollably down his cheeks.
Naruto truly regretted it. He knew he'd caused a huge mess—a prank that had wiped out half a street in Konoha.
That meant many people had lost their homes.
And apparently, someone had even died because of it.
But the man carrying him barely acknowledged his words.
"Ike… Ikeizumi-senpai, wait for me!" a weak voice called from behind.
Ikeizumi slowed his pace as a pale-faced girl hurried after him, her steps unsteady.
"I'm sorry, Senpai. After using my Sharingan earlier, I overexerted myself and fainted…" Izumi's cheeks burned with shame. She felt like she was holding everyone back.
At five years old, Izumi had awakened her Sharingan during the Nine-Tails attack—a rare triple-tomoe awakening unprecedented in the Uchiha clan.
But…
Her chakra reserves were pitifully low. Her chakra and ocular power barely sustained her triple-tomoe Sharingan.
If Kakashi's chakra was a unit, Izumi's was only about 0.01 Kakashi.
Among her graduating ninja school peers, she was near the bottom in chakra capacity.
"Uchiha Izumi."
"Here!" Izumi snapped to attention at Ikeizumi's call.
"I have two questions for you," Ikeizumi said, glancing at the frail girl.
"The first: What do you think about what happened earlier?"
Izumi blinked, recalling the conflict between Ikeizumi and the Konoha Root before she fainted, and then the confrontation with the Hokage after she woke.
All of it had started with a child's prank that spiraled into chaos.
Was it really worth it?
That thought flashed through her mind as she remembered Ikeizumi's constant talk of "absolute justice" and the many evils born from the shinobi world's sickness.
—A father who killed his daughter; a son who killed his mother.
Those two shocking cases alone had changed Izumi's view of the ninja world completely.
And deepened her understanding of Ikeizumi's absolute justice.
"I think… Senpai didn't do anything wrong," Izumi said seriously after a deep breath. "Even the smallest evil, if left unchecked and unpunished, will grow into something worse."
Gathering her thoughts, she continued, "Senpai, I've always wanted to protect Konoha. But before, I didn't know how."
"Meeting you showed me the way. As long as I do everything I can to purge evil from Konoha, one day the village will be better."
"That's my understanding of 'absolute justice.'"
Ikeizumi gave a faint nod. "You're no longer a zero. At least a ten."
Izumi timidly asked, "Senpai, what's a perfect score?"
"One thousand."
Izumi: "…"
Well, at least not a negative score.
"And the second question?" she asked hesitantly.
Ikeizumi said, "What do you think about my 'retreat' earlier?"
Izumi was surprised.
"Senpai, I don't think you retreated!" she said firmly. "You're probably the only one in all of Konoha silently upholding absolute justice. Even other elders in the Military Police misunderstand you. From start to finish, you've stood alone for justice."
"If you had clashed physically with the Hokage and the others, Konoha's 'justice'…" Izumi took a deep breath and grew bolder, "might have been lost. The village might never see another like you."
"You're too indirect," Ikeizumi interrupted. "To enforce absolute justice, you need absolute power. Otherwise, it ends like before."
"Remember this frustration, this anger, and how the 'evil' of the ninja world dances above our heads."
Izumi nodded heavily.
"One day, in the name of absolute justice, I will purge them all," Ikeizumi said openly, leaving Izumi stunned. "Including the Hokage."
"That's your third lesson. Politicians care only about power and balance. To them, 'justice' is meaningless."
"The Hokage is also an enemy of justice."
Izumi's mind went blank.
Carrying Naruto, Ikeizumi turned his attention to the "reward" for killing three red-named criminals.
Yes.
Three.
Danzo, who rewrote reality with Izanagi, was already counted as dead once by Ikeizumi's standards.