Chapter 127: Yugito Nii
"The battlefield here has been scrubbed clean. I can't find any useful information. The only thing I can confirm is that the enemy masters Earth Style of immense power and scale..."
Standing where Kael and Dodai had fought their final battle, Yugito Nii murmured to herself.
Although young, she was a seasoned ninja who had completed multiple S-rank missions. Her experience was vast.
She made this judgment after only a brief investigation, but she couldn't reconstruct the specific details of the battle.
Not only was the terrain completely destroyed, but the information left behind by Dodai's opponent was pitifully scarce.
"But at the very least... it must be a powerful ninja who has been famous in the Shinobi World for years. Otherwise, it would be impossible for even Dodai to be unable to escape!"
Yugito came to this conclusion in her heart.
After circling the scorched earth a few more times and finding nothing useful, she headed straight for the Hidden Frost Village.
Hidden Hot Water Village.
Kael woke from a deep sleep, slowly opening his eyes.
He had slept until the sun was high in the sky.
Even now, his body felt heavy with fatigue.
It had been the early hours of the morning when he returned home last night. Personally experiencing a major battle and then traveling for so long had exhausted him.
He put the matter of the Hidden Frost Village to the back of his mind for now.
Having just killed a squad of Cloud ninja, including a genius like Dodai, the Hidden Cloud Village would definitely not let this go.
So, now was absolutely not the time to make a move on the Hidden Frost Village.
Because of his physical exhaustion, Kael didn't rush to get out of bed. Instead, he lay there, thinking.
"Dodai, a Lava Release user from the original story, actually died by my hands..."
Kael muttered.
Lying in bed, his expression was still somewhat dazed. For some reason, he felt a lingering sense of unreality.
It was as if he were supposed to be just a passerby, yet he had changed the historical trajectory of the Shinobi World.
This massive contrast left Kael feeling a bit adrift.
Laughing at himself slightly, a complex look crossed his face.
"It seems I still haven't truly adapted to my identity..."
Indeed, he was no longer Kael Cross, the upstanding young man from 21st-century Earth. He was the Second Leader of the Hidden Hot Water Village, a genius ninja with a file on the desk of every major village's Kage.
With his current strength, every move he made had the potential to alter the original plot.
It was just that the shock of killing a well-known character from the original story was taking some time to process.
Just then, Watanabe Musashi walked in from outside.
He had heard the news of Kael returning in the middle of the night covered in blood and had rushed over.
As the Minister of ANBU, his main responsibility these days was actually overseeing the village expansion. Even the ANBU ninja had no missions and were all working as construction crews in the village.
On the eve of the Great Shinobi War, no one dared to come to the Hidden Hot Water to post commissions.
Watanabe walked up to Kael in a few steps, looking at him with concern.
"Are you hurt?"
Kael shook his head slightly. Although Dodai's counterattack before death had been fierce, Kael had many tricks up his sleeve. Aside from being tired, he wasn't injured. The blood covering him last night had splattered onto him during the taijutsu fight with Dodai.
"That's good!"
Watanabe visibly relaxed. Kael was the pillar of the Hidden Hot Water now. If something happened to him, Watanabe didn't dare imagine the village's fate.
"In the future, try not to sneak out of the village alone. If something were to happen..."
Watanabe stopped mid-sentence.
He suddenly realized that with Kael's highly intelligent and powerful summons, he was actually safer than he would be with Hidden Hot Water ninja guarding him.
Thinking of this, he understood.
Then, a mischievous grin appeared on his face.
"By the way, Lord Leader, when do you plan on getting married? You're not getting any younger. It would be good to get engaged to Rei soon, so that girl stops being so suspicious all day!"
"...How is the village expansion going?"
Kael's mouth twitched, and he immediately changed the subject.
He felt helpless.
He saw Rei as a little sister, but the people in the village didn't see it that way. They all treated Rei as his tongyangxi (child bride).
Now that even Watanabe Musashi was bringing it up, Kael felt a wave of powerlessness.
But this was something he couldn't explain.
The more he tried to explain, the guiltier he would look, making people think he had some weird Lolita complex.
"The expansion is on track. Everything is proceeding in an orderly manner. With the Feudal Lord's spare-no-effort financial support, all problems have ceased to be problems..."
As he spoke, Watanabe looked at Kael with a meaningful gaze.
Kael just smiled faintly, not elaborating.
With Watanabe's wisdom, he had realized early on that something was wrong.
The Feudal Lord had always been stingy; when had he ever been this generous? Kael must have used some method to make the Daimyo compliant.
But Kael had done it with extreme secrecy; even Watanabe hadn't heard a whisper of how. Although he was curious, Watanabe was more than satisfied to have the Daimyo's full financial support without causing any turmoil.
Unlike Jade, who had founded the village and felt a sense of closeness and indebtedness to the Daimyo, Watanabe didn't have those feelings.
He was a simple ninja. Seeing the Hidden Hot Water Village become more vibrant and powerful made him happy enough. Even if Kael had used underhanded means to control the Daimyo, he didn't care.
Controlling the Daimyo was proof of Kael's capability as Leader. Watanabe was only gratified.
The two chatted a bit more about the expansion before returning to the main topic.
"Since the Hidden Cloud has intervened, we should put the matter of the Hidden Frost Village on hold for now to avoid giving them a handle to grab. Next, as long as we are careful before the Great Shinobi War fully breaks out, the flames of war shouldn't burn our village."
Watanabe nodded in agreement.
For a tiny nation like the Hidden Hot Water, surrounded by major powers, development inevitably meant conflict with other forces, eventually escalating into disputes between nations and ninja.
Expansion without strength is suicide. But since Kael had demonstrated extraordinary power, Watanabe wasn't too worried about the fact that they had made an enemy of the Hidden Cloud.