The night breeze is slightly cool.

The shore of the island is blown by a slight smell of the sea, and even if the terrain surrounded by mountains is used as a barrier, the sound of the waves can still be faintly heard by ninjas.

Jiraiya leaned on the railing of the corridor of the academy specially built by the Kirigakuin to facilitate the exchange team from Konoha Village, looking at the Kirigakuin Village who seemed to be draped in a white veil in the moonlight, and let the air that he was not so familiar with blow the white hair on his sideburns.

A "squeak" sounded, and not far from him, a door was pushed open from the inside, and Tsunade, dressed in a very relaxed nightgown, walked up to Jiraiya with two small flasks and handed one of them to him.

"Can't sleep?"

"Aren't you too?"

Jiraiya laughed helplessly, and he turned around and took the craft sake he bought from the restaurant at dinner from Tsunade's hand, and after taking a sip with his head up, he slowly exhaled a puff of white breath.

"How dare you, Kaguya pity that kid...... There is no difference between Konoha and the Blood Mist that was secretly manipulated by Madara Uchiha, and only a guy like him who doesn't know what to put in his head can say it, right? ”

"But from his point of view, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that, right?"

Tsunade sighed and said with some distraction:

"If he hadn't mentioned it, I would have almost forgotten what my grandfather told me about the Warring States Period......"

"Who's to say it isn't?"

Jiraiya's expression and tone were equally melancholy and complicated, "The sooner you graduate from the ninja school, the sooner your hands are bloody, but the more these children graduate early and are promoted early, the easier it is to be the object of high hopes from the village and family...... Even if they had learned the value of peace in later years, it would have been difficult for them to realize the problems with this way of evaluation. ”

"Especially when everyone in the ninja world is doing this." Tsunade poured some clear liquor into his mouth and said indistinctly.

"yes, everybody is doing that, so no one thinks there's anything wrong with it."

After looking up and drinking again, Jiraiya looked at the half-empty wine jug in his hand, but his eyes were exceptionally clear.

"Is there anything going on after that, Tsunade?"

"Me? I should have followed Mitarai Azuki first, and went to see the so-called commoditized spell mark that she and the four generations of Mizukage had made together, and then I should consider whether to accept the invitation that Kishigaku threw at me. ”

Tsunade stopped his sipping and tilted his head slightly, looking at Jiraiya's resolute face, "What about you, Jiraiya?" What are you going to do? ”

"I'd like to go to that historical research group organized by Kaguya."

Jiraiya turned his head and said with a firm gaze:

"Before today, I thought that he studied the history of Madara Uchiha's covert manipulation of the fog, just to figure out the methods used by the other party, improve the experience of the fog in dealing with similar incidents, and also apply this method to the external penetration of the fog......"

"And now? Now you think he wants to do something, Jiraiya? ”

"I don't know, but I have a guess."

Jiraiya took a deep breath, his eyes awe-inspiring.

"In order to survive the chaos of the Warring States Period, it is a matter of course to study how to clench your fists to be the most lethal...... But it would be absolutely not normal to delve into this matter to the point of going mad, and even completely forgetting the common sense of how to release the fist, or even the common sense that the fist can be released. ”

……

At the same time, Kakashi Hachiki and Itachi Uchiha were in the room.

"Kakashi-senpai, are you asleep?"

"No...... Are you the same, Itachi? ”

"Hmm."

Seeing that they had no intention of sleeping, the two simply sat up from the bed, turned on the lights in the room again, and then sat down face to face and began to chat.

"Kakashi-senpai, what do you think...... What Mizukage-sama said to us at dinner today was intentional? ”

"Intentional must be intentional, the fourth generation of Mizukage is a person who can make a genius like Uchiha Shisui who is praised by everyone at the expense of everything and wants to defect, and he has the strength to use words to shake people's hearts, no matter how overestimated." Kakashi Hachiki looked at his right hand and said with mixed feelings.

"Then Kakashi-senpai thinks that how many of those intentional words are worthy of our serious consideration?" Uchiha Itachi asked with a slightly confused expression, hugging his knees.

"This ...... I do not know. ”

Kakashi Hachiki smiled bitterly and buried his head in his knees, then replied in a dull tone:

"Judging by the expressions of Jiraiya-sama and Tsunade-sama, they must have been touched by the words of the four generations of Mizukage, right? But in my opinion, there must still be a difference between Konoha and the fog in the Blood Mist Period...... Big, big difference. ”

"But what Mizukage-sama said, about the criteria for evaluating a child's value as a ninja, I ...... It seems to be the same. ”

Uchiha Itachi pursed his lips, and in his small head, a big question mark swirled, "A child who graduates early from a ninja school is better than those who learn all the processes step by step and take years to graduate, but if you graduate early and become a ninja, you will inevitably take the lives of others in the process of carrying out your mission." ”

"Is there really such a huge gap between taking the lives of people you don't know and taking the lives of friends who love each other?"

"Who can tell?"

Kakashi turned his face sideways, looked out the window with his only remaining right eye, the starry sky obscured by the fog, and muttered to himself in the same confused tone:

"Perhaps in that person's view, the fact that a young child took the initiative to take the life of someone else was in itself unacceptable. But even if it's true, as he says, ninjas are a pathetic group that only clenches their fists and weapons...... What can we do after we release our fists? ”

Itachi Uchiha didn't know the answer to this question.

But he felt that since Kaguya, who had made Uchiha Shisui die for him, asked Kaguya Ren to be desperate, then he must have given an answer to this question in the process of communicating with Uchiha Shisui.

So should I take the initiative to ask him for this answer?

Even if you know that the other person cares about you?

The Uchiha Itachi also didn't know the answer to this question.