Chapter 519: Funeral

Chapter 519: Chapter 519: Funeral

Clang, clang, bang...

The noisy sounds of hammering converged from every direction, causing Kagami, who was walking down the street, to furrow his brows slightly.

At this moment, Konoha had completely transformed into one enormous construction site.

This wasn’t a metaphor, nor was it an exaggeration. It was simply the most straightforward and accurate description of the village’s current state.

Standing on the street, nearly everything within sight consisted of buildings under construction. The streets themselves were filled with busy craftsmen, along with carts traveling back and forth transporting construction materials.

Exactly three days had passed since the attack that night.

Grief was still festering in everyone’s hearts, but the reconstruction of the village could not be delayed. And as the foremost of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, Konoha naturally possessed considerable resources and foundations of its own. Thus, once the ruins and corpses had been cleared away, a massive reconstruction effort immediately began in full swing.

On the second day after the battle, the other four Kage, who had secretly arrived in Konoha to participate in the Five Kage Summit, hurriedly led their respective groups back to their own villages.

After experiencing this battle, the Five Great Shinobi Villages quickly reached a consensus.

They unanimously agreed that Akatsuki was a threat to the entire shinobi world—an evil organization that had to be eradicated at all costs!

And this wasn’t merely because Akatsuki had brazenly attacked Konoha.

More importantly, right before everyone’s eyes, Akatsuki’s leader Nagato had openly used the Gedo Statue to extract the Tailed Beasts from the two Jinchuriki, Yagura and Killer B.

In doing so, Akatsuki had exposed their ambition to collect the Tailed Beasts in the most direct manner possible.

Such an act had undoubtedly crossed the bottom line of all Five Great Shinobi Villages.

Even Iwagakure, which had never really had much of a grudge against Akatsuki, could no longer tolerate them.

As everyone knew, the Tailed Beasts were strategic weapons belonging to the major shinobi villages—the trump cards they kept hidden up their sleeves.

The reason Kumogakure had previously been so aggressive, even daring to provoke Konoha, was precisely because their village’s Jinchuriki were in the best condition and possessed the greatest combat strength.

It could even be said that the Tailed Beasts played no small part in why the Five Great Shinobi Villages were known as the Five Great Shinobi Villages in the first place.

There had previously been rumors that Akatsuki’s ultimate goal was to collect the Tailed Beasts belonging to the various shinobi villages, but rumors were ultimately just rumors. Without any concrete evidence, none of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, including Konoha, had taken them particularly seriously.

After all, Tailed Beasts weren’t merely weapons.

They were also highly volatile bombs that could explode at any moment.

Even the Five Great Shinobi Villages, which had spent so many years studying and dealing with Tailed Beasts, didn’t dare claim that they had completely mastered them. Naturally, the rumors that Akatsuki intended to collect the Tailed Beasts had sounded somewhat sensational.

But after this battle, the Gedo Statue controlled by Nagato had entered the Five Great Shinobi Villages’ field of vision.

To their horror, the Five Kage discovered that the strange giant beside Nagato truly could extract the Tailed Beasts from within their Jinchuriki.

This meant that Akatsuki not only possessed the ambition to collect all nine Tailed Beasts—

They also possessed the ability to do it.

That was truly terrifying!

As for the catastrophe that had befallen Konoha, the other four Kage, including the Tsuchikage, had all explicitly told the Third Hokage that they would provide whatever assistance they could toward Konoha’s reconstruction.

This time, they genuinely wanted to help Konoha.

Because they understood perfectly well that only with Konoha, the foremost of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, standing at the very front would their own villages remain relatively safe.

Otherwise, the next village to receive a baptism from Shinra Tensei might very well be theirs.

"Haah..."

At that moment, Hayate, who was walking beside Kagami, let out a yawn.

Kagami glanced at him and found that Hayate, who already looked sickly to begin with, was now deathly pale, with deeply sunken eyes. He practically had the face of a dead man.

Kurenai and Yugao beside him looked equally exhausted.

Because none of them had suffered any casualties during the catastrophe that night, Kagami’s ANBU Team Seven had been forced to shoulder what would normally have been the duties of nearly three entire ANBU teams.

Including Kagami himself, none of them had gotten a proper rest for three whole days.

Kagami encouraged his subordinates, "Hang in there a little longer. Once we attend the funeral later, Team Seven will be dismissed and everyone can finally get some rest."

Hayate yawned again and said, "Captain, we can still hold out."

Yugao nodded in agreement.

Kurenai, however, seemed somewhat distracted, as though something was weighing heavily on her mind.

Kagami gave Kurenai a brief glance but didn’t pay much attention to it. After all, right now, nine out of ten shinobi in the village wore the same grave, troubled expression.

That afternoon, the funeral officially began.

After several days of frantic work, the village had finally compiled a preliminary count of those who had been killed or gone missing.

The number of dead and missing civilians had exceeded a thousand. Most of them had failed to reach the shelters in time and had subsequently been controlled by the evil chakra of the Box of Ultimate Bliss, turning them into living corpses.

The number of dead and missing Konoha shinobi was also close to a thousand.

The overwhelming majority of those casualties had been caused by the Deva Path’s Shinra Tensei and the monster known as Satori.

As for everyone listed as ’missing’ in the statistics, they could essentially be presumed dead.

They had only been classified as missing because their bodies had yet to be found.

And during the catastrophe that night, many of the victims hadn’t even left corpses behind.

At the cemetery.

Dressed entirely in black, Kagami led Team Seven into the cemetery.

By this point, rows upon rows of Konoha shinobi had already assembled before the Memorial Stone, numbering several thousand in total.

Aside from those who were currently on duty, virtually every shinobi in Konoha had gathered here.

The Third Hokage stood silently before the Memorial Stone, his figure appearing somewhat hunched.

Among all those who had fallen this time, the person of highest status was undoubtedly the village’s advisory elder, Mitokado Homura.

That night, after the Third Hokage temporarily lost contact with the village, Mitokado Homura had taken up his responsibilities and joined the other four Kage in launching a surprise attack against Nagato.

As one of Konoha’s leaders, he naturally received the same kind of special ’attention’ from Nagato as the other four Kage.

However, the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, was an old fox.

Not only had he remained floating in the air the entire time, but he had also deliberately positioned himself toward the rear, always maintaining a position from which he could either advance or retreat.

And so, Nagato’s four Limbo shadows naturally set their sights on Mitokado Homura and the other three Kage.

The Fourth Kazekage had the protection of his Magnet Release Gold Dust...

The Fourth Raikage had his Lightning Release Chakra Mode protecting him...

The Fourth Mizukage was a tough and exceptionally durable Jinchuriki...

And so—

Mitokado Homura’s name ended up carved onto the Memorial Stone.

That wasn’t particularly surprising.

The strength of the two advisory elders, Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu, had already been inferior to that of the Third Hokage, and even inferior to Danzo. After the Third Shinobi World War, the two had gradually shifted toward administrative roles.

Combined with the decline brought about by old age, Mitokado Homura’s current strength was basically equivalent to that of a relatively powerful elite jonin.

Against Nagato’s Limbo shadows, which he could neither see nor sense, and with those shadows specifically targeting him, there was simply no way he could withstand them.

In truth, many of the people Kagami had snatched away from Nagato on the cliff that night had already been corpses.

It was simply too difficult for him to distinguish them one by one at the time, so he had used Wheel of Will to pull away every shinobi from the Five Great Shinobi Villages who was lying on the ground...