Naruto: I Have a Gravity Training Room-Chapter 495 - 493

Tsunade laughed and praised him. "Excellent! Now the strongest in the shinobi world has gotten even stronger!"

Gaara nodded along. "Yeah! The stronger Natsuki is, the safer we feel. Ōtsutsuki or whatever they are can forget about destroying our home!"

Ōnoki, however, sighed with genuine regret. "Such a shame. A talented kid like this already has someone. If he didn't, then my granddaughter Kurotsuchi…"

"Shut it, old man!" Mei shot him a look. "Don't make everyone feel like slapping you when we're in a good mood!"

Ōnoki never learned. The moment he saw an outstanding young shinobi, he started trying to "sell" his granddaughter Kurotsuchi. Now he was even bold enough to set his sights on Natsuki. Was he asking to get hit?

If Natsuki were still single, like Mei would ever let it get to some snot-nosed little girl like Kurotsuchi. She would have made a move herself, okay?

"Ahem." Raikage A cleared his throat and dragged the conversation back on track. "Natsuki being able to control the black eye means his strength will rise to an entirely new level. That's great news for the future of the shinobi world. But we can't rely on Natsuki for everything. Protecting the shinobi world is everyone's responsibility. We need to get stronger too. Even if we're too old to improve much ourselves, we should be cultivating even stronger successors."

Now that was the right attitude.

Natsuki couldn't help giving Raikage A a mental thumbs-up.

Protecting the shinobi world was never one person's job. You couldn't just dump everything on someone because they were stronger. That was wrong. Everyone needed to pull their weight.

Natsuki immediately asked, "So what's this meeting about?"

Tsunade slipped straight into work mode. "Right now, the investigation into Kara is basically at the finish line. The only remaining piece is interrogating Sanzu Amado, who just got back, to see if we can squeeze out more intel. Today we're discussing what to do with Kara, and how to distribute certain items."

As she spoke, she had files handed out.

Natsuki flipped through his copy. The contents were the finalized investigation summary on Kara.

It covered Kara's formation, funding sources, day-to-day operations, special operations, and the damage they'd caused. Maybe not every last detail had been uncovered, but the vast majority had.

Funding mainly came from Victor's business ventures. Cross-border sales of medical devices was only one part. They were also involved in selling ninja tools, human trafficking, and basically every high-profit criminal industry. And they'd hidden it extremely well. Even when someone did discover something, it rarely drew serious attention.

After all, the shinobi world was chaotic. Plenty of people sold ninja tools. Human trafficking was practically routine.

Especially trafficking. If a country or village lacked population, paying to "buy" people was considered normal. That meant traffickers and black markets were always active.

If that kind of thing existed even in peaceful times, then of course it could exist in the shinobi world.

Kara's involvement in trafficking, in particular, was mainly to find suitable "vessels" for Ōtsutsuki Isshiki. Most of the time they would secretly abduct a bunch of children, pick a few they considered qualified as backup vessels, then sell the rest for cash. One operation, two objectives. Their "main goal" and their funding both got satisfied at once.

As for Kara's day-to-day operations, there wasn't much to say.

Ōtsutsuki Isshiki didn't demand much from members. Most of the time, everyone did their own thing. As long as they didn't expose the organization's secrets or interfere with its business, it was all fine. It was hard to imagine a group run this loosely could stay hidden so well.

There were also special operations, though those weren't frequent.

Mostly, it was when they discovered someone who looked like a possible qualified vessel and needed an Inner member to move personally.

Overall, Kara's greatest threat was always their original purpose: planting and cultivating a chakra fruit. Everything else they did was ultimately in service of that.

If a God Tree was planted in the shinobi world, it would drain the entire planet's nutrients. It would absorb every living being's chakra and turn everyone into White Zetsu.

That was no different from ending the world.

The crime was unforgivable.

These people knew Ōtsutsuki Isshiki's goal, and still chose to join and serve him. Their greed had long since smothered their humanity. They were beyond saving. The ones who deserved to die should be executed without debate.

As for the clone units, they should be imprisoned and observed for a time, then judged after sorting out their intentions and behavior.

And then there were special cases, like Sanzu Amado. He knew too much, and his research ability wasn't weak. Maybe, like Orochimaru, he could be forced to atone through service.

"And that Kashin Koji," Tsunade brought up specifically, looking helpless. "Since he's Jiraiya's clone, and his personality is almost identical, the two of them are getting along pretty well. Jiraiya even wants to acknowledge Kashin Koji as his little brother…"

Seriously?

Natsuki hadn't expected that at all.

Kashin Koji was still an Inner member of Kara. Even if he was a clone of Jiraiya, you couldn't handle that so casually. Was Jiraiya getting way too free now that he didn't have to chase some 'Child of Prophecy'?

Or was it just that, after so many years alone, he'd finally met someone who could feel like family, and he couldn't stop himself from grabbing onto that?

That was… normal, in a way. The shinobi world was that kind of place. Sometimes bonds formed for reasons that made no sense.

After thinking it through, Natsuki offered a conservative suggestion. "Then let Jiraiya-sama be primarily responsible for Kashin Koji. If Kashin Koji can genuinely turn over a new leaf under Jiraiya-sama's guidance, then maybe it could work."

"I agree," Minato said immediately. "Jiraiya-sensei isn't reckless. He'll be able to guide Kashin Koji properly. And since Kashin Koji is Jiraiya-sensei's clone, his talent should be excellent too. That means we gain another strong fighter, doesn't it?"

Naruto gave a thumbs-up. "Let's trust Pervy Sage!"

Everyone looked at the father and son pair, more or less speechless. Those two were a little too driven by emotion. Some things weren't solved by "trust." Jiraiya had trusted Orochimaru once too.

So yeah. There needed to be restrictions.

Tobirama spoke up decisively. "Jiraiya can handle it, but for now, he is not allowed to acknowledge Kashin Koji as his brother. And he absolutely cannot act on emotion. Observation comes first. If Kashin Koji makes any suspicious move, he is to be captured and imprisoned immediately!"

Tsunade nodded. "I'll also assign people to keep an eye on it in secret, just in case Jiraiya gets careless."

It wasn't that they didn't trust Jiraiya. It was that sometimes that idiot really was unreliable.

Not even going far back. When Jiraiya took Naruto to find Tsunade, he actually left Naruto alone in the wilderness to train, then used "gathering intel" as an excuse to go hang around the red-light district.

If Natsuki and Guy hadn't arrived in time, Naruto might have been taken by the organization.

That level of unreliability was nerve-wracking. They had no choice but to take precautions.

(End of Chapter)

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