Chương 133: A Surplus of Tragedy

The following day, the trek back to the Leaf began in earnest. The Owl Squad moved in a tight triangular vanguard, boxing their prisoner in the center. Aside from stripping him of his weapons and tools, Zhen had refrained from further physical restraints. Fusa—the Leaf defector—remained cooperative, his demeanor a mask of weary resignation. Earlier, when the Genjutsu had first lifted, he had attempted to test the perimeter, banking on Yugao being the weak link in the chain.

He had been corrected with a brutal efficiency that left him bruised and humbled. Yugao had not been gentle. The rogue's assumption that she was the "soft target" had pricked her pride. She might not be able to match her teammates' monstrous growth, but she wasn't about to be bullied by a middle-aged Chunin. It was a grim realization for Fusa: a man of his years and experience, a veteran of the Great Wars, surpassed by a girl barely out of the Academy.

But that was the cruel reality of the shinobi world; talent was a ladder that ignored the grey in a man's hair. Minato had requested the target be brought back alive. The Fourth remembered Fusa from the Stone front—a soldier who had once served under his command. He sought justice, perhaps, but not necessarily a summary execution. The rogue's operation had been doomed from the start. They had sought the Hero's Water, unaware that their plans had been sold to the Leaf before the first kunai was even sharpened.

Against such a logistical disadvantage, success was a fantasy.

"My name is Fusa," the rogue said suddenly, the silence of the forest finally weighing too heavy. Hayate and Yugao offered him a cursory glance before returning their focus to the path. Zhen, sensing the man's need for catharsis, answered simply, "We know. It was in the briefing."

"Will I be executed when we reach the gates?"

"That depends," Zhen replied.

"On how much intel you compromised, and whether your actions resulted in the death of Leaf personnel."

"I told them nothing of importance! I never raised a hand against our people—not even the civilians of the Fire Country."

"Your word carries no weight," Zhen said coolly.

"The Torture and Interrogation Force will decide the veracity of your claims. If you speak the truth, you won't face the noose, but you will spend a very long time behind bars." Zhen wasn't lying. In a village where the likes of the Gold and Silver brothers or traitors like Mizuki often escaped the ultimate penalty, a common Chunin's flight was hardly a capital offense—especially since Fusa possessed no state secrets of any real value.

"I see." Fusa stared at the canopy above, his voice hollow.

"If only my sons had been as gifted as you three... they wouldn't have died. And I wouldn't have run." It was a familiar story: a father and his sons, bound by blood and the service of the state, shattered by the grinding gears of war. It was a tragedy that mirrored the stories of many, yet Zhen felt no surge of empathy. He had stood on the front lines with his own father, but he had done so with the power of a Kage-level threat. He couldn't truly relate to the helplessness of a common man.

"So that was your catalyst?" Zhen asked.

"Grief?"

"I just wanted a life where no one knew my name," Fusa whispered.

"I wanted enough gold to disappear. I wanted to be an ordinary man."

"You could have done that in Konoha. There are pensions. You could have retired as the father of heroes." Fusa's face contorted with a sudden, jagged pain.

"I couldn't go back. Not to those empty rooms." The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. He sounded like Tsunade, but without the lineage or the strength to back up his wandering. In the Leaf, if you weren't a legend, leaving without permission made you a ghost to be hunted.

"The world doesn't care about your grief," Zhen said.

"You understood the rules when you donned the forehead protector. So, what are you really asking for? Mercy?"

"I'm asking why," Fusa cried, his voice cracking.

"I've given two lives to that village. Why can't they let me have mine? Haven't we paid enough?"

"You'll have your life," Zhen said.

"In a cell. It's better than the alternative."

"No, boy. You don't understand. For me... going back is a fate worse than death."

"Perhaps. But it is our mission to ensure you arrive." That was the social contract of the shinobi village. You could check in, but you could never truly leave without a signature from the top. To rebel was to invite the hounds. They reached the Hidden Leaf by midday. The journey from the Grass border was significant, but Zhen had utilized the Flying Thunder God to shave hours off the trek before Fusa had been allowed to wake. He had no intention of revealing his spatial mastery to a prisoner.

Even now, the number of people who knew of his progress with Minato's signature technique could be counted on one hand. After delivering the prisoner to the Anbu headquarters and scrubbing the grime of the road from their skin, Zhen turned to his team.

"Come on. Lunch is on me." Yakiniku Q was relatively quiet in the afternoon. Zhen sat in a corner booth, meticulously turning strips of beef over the grill. He looked at his teammates, who were unusually subdued.

"The rogue's sob story get to you?" They were barely ten years old. No matter how many bodies they had seen, the raw, human tragedy of a broken family still had the power to sting. Zhen, with his older soul, was the only one immune to the infection of sentiment.

"A little," Hayate admitted.

"The man is... he's lost everything."

"The Leaf is full of people who have lost everything," Zhen reminded him.

"Yugao, your aunt fell on the Stone front. Hayate, didn't your clan lose half a dozen members in the last push? Grief isn't a license to betray the collective."

"It's different," Yugao argued, poking at her rice.

"My brother, Shige, is still here. There's still a future. But for that man... there was nothing left."

"And?"

"I just think... if he really didn't sell us out, maybe he shouldn't be a prisoner. Maybe he could just be allowed to live as a civilian. Away from the war." Zhen chuckled, a dry, mirthless sound.

"Go ahead. Pitch that to the Third and Fourth. See if they're in the mood for a policy change." Yugao bit into a piece of beef with unnecessary force.

"I know it's impossible. I'm not an idiot."

"Glad we cleared that up. Hayate?"

"He's a tragic figure," Hayate sighed.

"But my instincts tell me we can't just let people walk away whenever they feel sad. It would be chaos. I just can't reconcile the two feelings."

"It's a conflict of the social contract," Zhen explained.

"Our allegiance is to the Leaf. Therefore, we uphold the rules of the Leaf. If betrayal could be excused by a sad story, the rules would cease to exist. Every disgruntled Chunin would sell a secret for a ticket out. The village would crumble, and then everyone—including the people we love—would lose their safety." Hayate looked up, the fog in his eyes clearing.

"I see. The rules protect the majority. We can't break them for the individual without endangering the whole."

"Exactly. We can afford to be kind as individuals, but as shinobi, we are the walls. Those who try to tear the walls down are the enemy, no matter how much they've suffered. Unless you value their happiness more than your own family's safety?"

"Of course not," they replied in unison.

"Then eat. Compassion is a virtue, but don't let it become a liability." Zhen returned home to an empty house. His parents were still at the hospital, and the silence was a welcome change. After a brief rest, he descended into his ritual. Training was no longer a chore; it was a fundamental part of his being. It provided a sense of progression that was almost addictive—a literal "leveling up" that mirrored the rising numbers on a bank statement. Why do children hate school? No immediate feedback.

Why do bodybuilders live in the gym? Because every rep is a visible step toward a goal. Even if his progress was slowing, the incremental gains were enough to keep Zhen obsessed. He activated the sensory-dampening seals in his bedroom—a suite of barriers he'd originally set up just for practice. Today, they served a more practical purpose. He unfurled the scroll containing the Seven-Tails' chakra. He didn't need to seal it within himself as a battery; he had plenty of his own. Instead, he used it as a catalyst.

He had discovered that "White Natural Energy" was significantly more reactive in the presence of Bijuu chakra. It acted like an accelerant, weakening the entropic force of the primordial energy and making it easier to assimilate. This was the same "hidden perk" he'd enjoyed while guarding Kushina. He wasn't cheating; he was simply optimizing his environment. The chakra would have eventually dissipated into the atmosphere anyway. Using it as a training aid was just efficient recycling.

To Zhen, this was his "Sage Mode Accelerator." And in a world where a godling like Obito was lurking in the wings, he would take every advantage he could get.