Tsumiki Kido and Magire were transferred to the custody of the interrogation force. The investigation proceeded with Morino Ibiki in the lead, but at first, Kido and Magire held their tongues. So Ibiki changed methods, switching from oral interrogation to reading his prisoners’ minds.
The intelligence division’s specialized machine was readied, and someone from the Yamanaka clan was called in to be the examiner.
No matter how tightly they might have kept their mouths shut, it was pointless when their minds could be read with the machine and the jutsu.
As a result, Kakashi and his team learned a number of things concerning the Kido faction. Most notably, the locations of safe houses and hideouts within the village. And the other members of the faction.
By cracking the safe houses and hideouts, they were able to seize all of the Tailed Beast drug. The confiscated drug was brought to Shizune, who began analysis on it, together with the information read from Kido’s and Magire’s minds.
“So they really did collect Naruto’s hair and blood from the Final Valley. And then they extracted the Tailed Beast chakra and made the drug,” Kakashi said in the Hokage’s Office.
Sakura, Ino, and Sai took in this report, standing in front of his desk.
“But could they really make the drug with just that?” Sakura asked. “And in such large quantities?”
“There’s a story to that. They went and found someone with the blood of the Sage of Six Paths and forced him to help with researching and producing the Tailed Beast drug.”
“The Sage of Six Paths…?” Sakura furrowed her brow.
Kakashi nodded before turning toward Ino. “You don’t remember, Ino? The brothers Kinkaku and Ginkaku who used to be in Kumogakure?”
“Of course I remember. We fought them in the war, after all,” Ino replied.
Ninja brothers, powerful in the village of Kumogakure. In the last Great War, they had been brought back to life with Edo Tensei and fought Ino’s team. Sakura knew this as well.
“But what does that…?”
“Kinkaku and Ginkaku ate the flesh of Nine Tails and gained Tailed Beast chakra. Kido and his team took a clue from that and came up with the Tailed Beast drug, apparently.” Kakashi paused before continuing, “They collected Naruto’s personal material in the Final Valley. The amount of chakra they got from that was too little to make into a drug. So they needed to make more. And Sakura and Ino, you two probably know more about this than I do, but when you’re cultivating cells, you need a medium, right?”
“That’s right. Something to feed the cells you want to grow, some kind of base for them,” Sakura said.
“This descendant of the Sage of Six Paths—well, it was some boy in one of the small lands to the south, but anyway—Kido and Magire kidnapped him and locked him up in one of their safe houses. Then they made him donate some tissue and used that as a medium to increase the amount of Naruto’s Tailed Beast chakra.”
The boy had refused. Naturally. He was a boy from a country with nothing whatsoever to do with Konoha, living a very normal life as a noncombatant. But Kido had used threats and drugs to break his will. Unable to resist, the boy had been forced to donate tissue under the supervision of Kido’s faction.
“And now he’s…?” Sakura asked.
“Don’t worry,” Kakashi replied. “He was rescued when we searched their hideouts.”
“Thank goodness.” Sakura breathed a sigh of relief, and Ino and Sai exchanged a look.
“And,” Kakashi announced. “There’s one more report from the examiner who dove into Kido’s memories.” But instead of continuing immediately, Kakashi took a moment, almost as if choosing his words carefully. “The primary factor in this incident—I’m not sure if we can say for sure, but it’s about Kido’s upbringing. Tsubaki Kido was born into a poor family…”
The story Kakashi then told was one to make their hearts ache, when seen from the point of view of the recent series of events.
A father who, in order to send his son to the academy, quit taking his own medication, and instead took empty capsules. A painful story.
Although the Land of Fire, where the village of Konohagakure was situated, was relatively wealthy compared with the other five great nations, this sort of thing still happened.
An abnormal fixation on money. Military business through drugs. The connections with Kido’s youth were obvious. But…
“That said, this mess Kido caused now, we can’t just wave it off like it was bound to happen,” Kakashi noted.
Sakura and the others frowned slightly. It was a tough problem. Not the sort of thing where you could simply say “do this” and be done with it.
“Well, as Hokage, I’m just going to make sure I create a village where we don’t see kids going through this kind of thing,” Kakashi declared.
∞
“I’m glad we created the children’s therapy center,” Sakura said to Ino and Sai after they had left the Hokage’s Residence.
“Because of that story about Kido’s childhood?” Ino asked, and she nodded.
“Yeah. We really can’t just leave kids with that kind of emotional trauma.”
In that last fight, Kido had denied there was any meaning to the children’s therapy center. He had aggressively asserted that the center would only increase the number of weak children in the world.
Was it his own painful experiences during childhood making him spit such bitterness at her?
There was nothing like that for me. Don’t spoil them. I made it through on my own strength. Maybe that kind of hard feeling drove Kido.
But this was from the man had put into motion the recent scheming and trouble. Thinking about it like that, she felt even more keenly how critical it was to care for children’s minds. It was hard to treat mental scars.
She glanced at Sai. He’d also gone through a cruel childhood. A war orphan, he had joined Root and been forced into fierce training. He’d had painful partings as well.
Back when they first met, Sai was like an emotionless machine. Not only did he not smile, he was a boy who didn’t even know at what sorts of times anyone smiled. He could definitely smile now, though. And get mad. Because he had friends right there alongside him to heal those mental scars.
And Sasuke too. Sakura’s thoughts turned to the traveler.
The tragedy of his clan—his boyhood was one of being tossed around by destiny. Nearly carried away by hatred, what saved Sasuke was Naruto and all of his other friends in the village.
It would be so great if the children’s therapy center could be a friend like that, Sakura thought. A place you could visit freely and talk about anything. And if you were bad at talking, then you could just be bad at it. They would work on their side to make it so you could get the words out—they would wait until you said something. That kind of place.
“I want this to be a village where all the children are laughing,” Sakura said. “Although that might be hard to do.”
It might be hard. But this whole incident had only strengthened her conviction that they had to try.
“Yeah,” Ino said, and Sai smiled.
“Sakura!” A voice called out.
Turning around, she saw a younger medical ninja who worked at Konoha Hospital running toward them. It was the woman who had reported on the results of the therapy center at the last meeting.
“The medical ninja of Sunagakure have come with a number of questions about the children’s therapy center,” this younger ninja said.
“They have? Okay, I’m coming,” Sakura replied.
“I’ll come too?” Ino asked.
Sakura was about to agree, but quickly rethought that. “Mm, it’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”
“But—” Ino began, but Sakura leaned over to whisper in her ear.
“It’s okay. You go and get something to eat with Sai.”
“Hey…” Ino’s face grew red as if to say “Don’t get the wrong idea.”
“It’s okay!” Sakura said again. “Ino-Saku-Sai was just this once,” she whispered. “And once you’re given a mission on a formal team again, you won’t have as many chances to be alone together, you know?”
When Sakura pointed this out, Ino’s feelings seemed to resolve themselves.
“Right, okay then.” Ino nodded.
“See you later.” Sakura waved a hand and turned on her heel.
Maybe I shouldn’t have butted in.
Heading toward the hospital with the younger ninja, Sakura looked back at Sai and Ino walking side by side. Sometimes, she saw smiles on their faces that had the same air to them as the ones she had seen before on Naruto’s and Hinata’s.
Lavender and dogwood.
Ino didn’t know which to choose, but Sakura thought the answer would probably come unexpectedly fast.
You can do it, Ino! she yelled after her friend in her heart.
The Sakura of a little while ago would have been panicking. Everyone’s finding love; she was the only one who wasn’t. That sort of thing.
But she was different now.
“I’ll see you soon.”
That “soon” was bound to come. She even thought it was maybe almost time for it to be “soon.”
When Sasuke came home, she wanted to talk about this mess with Kido—she wanted to talk about so many other things with him too.
Welcome home, Sasuke.
The thing is, I…
“I’m back, Sakura.”