Just as the three of them were feeling downcast, Li Anshi's voice suddenly sounded in their ears.
"Oh? It seems this mission has allowed you all to grow quite a bit."
"You've even learned how to reason."
"Not bad, not bad at all."
Hearing his voice, the three of them jumped in surprise.
"Whaaa—!"
Nawaki immediately shot up, his foot on the edge of the creek slipping, sending him tumbling over.
"Sensei Li!"
"When did you get here?"
Mikoto Uchiha was doing much better than Nawaki.
Though also surprised, she wasn't so startled that she fell.
After all, when Li Anshi had appeared, Nawaki had just been thinking about how to tattle on him to his sister.
His sudden appearance was like being caught in the act.
As for Mikoto, although she also had some small grievances against him, she had a deep understanding of her own position.
So, even after learning that he hadn't been protecting them from behind, she hadn't said anything inappropriate.
As for Rin, in her eyes, just receiving his guidance and being taught his "Little Li's Flying Dagger" was already a great fortune.
To ask for more, for him to protect her, would be too much.
Moreover, this battle had also exposed some of her own problems.
She clearly knew this was a killing mission and had learned the first stage of the dagger technique.
But when she left the village, she had foolishly not thought to prepare more daggers.
Thinking about it, if she had come on this mission with fifty daggers, there wouldn't have been any other problems.
These common bandits, who hadn't even learned how to refine chakra, couldn't have defended against her daggers at all.
No, not just this mission.
For all future missions, she needed to carry more daggers!
"When did I get here, you ask?"
Li Anshi stroked his chin and said, "What you should be asking is, when was I not here?"
"What?"
Mikoto exclaimed in surprise, "Sensei Li, you can't be tricking me."
"Rin had her Byakugan activated, and she didn't see you."
"Heh, do you think your teacher is a fool?"
"The moment I saw Rin activate her Byakugan, wouldn't I immediately move out of its range?"
"But, but, how is that possible?"
Mikoto couldn't help but retort, "Rin's Byakugan can see for a kilometer."
"Your daggers only have a lethal range of a hundred meters."
"In the short time Rin's Byakugan was active, how could you possibly move a kilometer away?"
It was no wonder Mikoto was so agitated.
For the Uchiha, their emotions were incredibly passionate.
Receiving love, losing love—it would cause their spirits to run wild, allowing their Sharingan to evolve to a higher stage.
For Mikoto, although she knew she was just making up the numbers in this team, she couldn't help but fantasize about finding warmth within it.
However, that fantasy had just been shattered by what Rin had told her. Now, Li Anshi's words seemed to be trying to plant a new fantasy in her heart. How could she accept that?
"No, it's possible!"
"Hmm?"
Mikoto paused, looking at Nawaki, who was climbing out of the creek.
That last sentence hadn't been spoken by Li Anshi, but by Nawaki.
Mikoto didn't understand.
Just a moment ago, hadn't Nawaki also accepted the fact that Sensei Li wasn't protecting them?
Why did he believe him after just one sentence?
"It's the Flying Thunder God Technique, isn't it, Sensei?"
"I heard from my sister that you've learned it."
"If it's that technique, then it's indeed possible to teleport to another location in an instant, avoiding Rin's Byakugan."
"Oh? I didn't realize you knew so much, Nawaki."
Li Anshi smiled, not denying his words.
However, his tone was less polite.
"It's just that, during this mission, I didn't see you applying any of the information you supposedly know."
Hearing this, Nawaki's body stiffened.
This had to be part of his dark history, right?
"It's a good thing nothing happened to Rin and Mikoto. Otherwise, Nawaki, the rest of your life would have been trapped by this single mission."
"Yes, you could say that if something had happened to them, even if you lived, your heart would have died on this day."
"What would be left living would be nothing more than a puppet controlled by regret."
Li Anshi spoke these terrifying words in a light tone, words that were horrifying for the three of them to hear at their age.
In truth, he wasn't just talking nonsense.
Although ninjas were powerful, they had almost no training when it came to the "spirit."
The only thing that could anchor their mental state was a vague "ninja way."
And those ninjas who hadn't found their own path, or who had been forced to deviate from it for some reason, all had significant mental problems.
For example, the most famous "Scapegoat Kage" in the ninja world, Danzo Shimura. Although he had managed to survive for decades, in reality, he had never moved on from the day the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, had asked who was willing to stay behind as a decoy.
It wouldn't be wrong to say that Danzo had died the moment Hiruzen raised his hand.
For the next several decades, everything Danzo did was to prove to the Second Hokage of that day that he had been the first one to think of staying behind!
It was only because he had hesitated for a moment in raising his hand that Hiruzen had beaten him to it.
Danzo's life had been fractured into a before and after by that single moment of "hesitation."
The Tsunade from the timeline without Li Anshi was the same.
Her life had stopped on the day she saw Nawaki's corpse.
The deaths of her lover and brother had crushed her.
If Naruto Uzumaki hadn't appeared later and helped her pull herself together, she too would have "died" on the day of Nawaki's death.
Furthermore, another person who proved this point even more clearly was Itachi Uchiha, who had slaughtered his entire clan, leaving only his younger brother alive.
Well, to say he slaughtered the entire clan was an exaggeration.
Even if Itachi had awakened his Mangekyo at that time, it would have been impossible for him to wipe out the Uchiha clan on his own.
But it was an indisputable fact that he had killed his own father and mother.
Perhaps, the moment Shisui Uchiha had jumped off that cliff, Itachi had already died.
What was left was only a "puppet" who relentlessly pushed his younger brother to improve so that he could survive in the ninja world.
"I'm sorry..."
Nawaki seemed to have lost all his strength. His hands hung limply at his sides as he apologized.
"Nawaki, you've got it wrong."
"The one you need to apologize to is not me."
Shaking his head, Li Anshi said no more.
It was enough to mention something like this once.
Dwelling on it would do the three of them no good.
Of course, more importantly, he had already seen the growth of the three of them from this mission.
"Alright, let's put this matter to rest."
"I believe you've all gained a lot of experience from this mission and will certainly not make such a foolish mistake again."
"However, even though you've eliminated the mission targets, that doesn't mean you've completed the mission."
"Why?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
Seeing their confusion, he explained, "In wartime, every piece of intelligence must be accurate."
"For example, let's replace the three bandit strongholds with strongholds established by another village attacking Konoha."
"And your mission is to clear these three strongholds to cut off the enemy's support."
"Although you successfully eliminated them, if you don't report the successful elimination back to headquarters, then when headquarters formulates their battle plan, they will have to take these three strongholds into consideration."
"At that time, because they haven't received your message, headquarters will assume your mission has failed and that the ninjas stationed at these three strongholds are stronger than the three of you."
"Therefore, headquarters will dispatch ninjas stronger than you to eliminate these three strongholds..."
"This..."
Hearing this, the three of them couldn't help but look at each other.
Even if none of them had any command ability, they still had the most basic judgment.
Because they hadn't reported the completed mission, headquarters not only hadn't considered them in the subsequent mission deployment, but had also had to dispatch stronger ninjas, which was equivalent to losing twice the manpower...
"We understand."
"After we've cleaned all of Rin's daggers, we'll immediately head back to the village and report the mission results."
Nawaki said hastily.
"Haha, there's no need to be in such a hurry."
He waved his hand. "I was just making an analogy."
"We're not in a state of war right now, and you still have seven days for your mission."
"As long as you get back to the village within seven days and submit the mission results, it'll be fine."
"What comes next is the intelligence department's business."
"They'll use certain methods to determine if you've really completed the mission or if you've falsified your report to defraud the village of the mission commission."
"What? How could we possibly do that?"
"There are ninjas who would defraud the mission commission?"
Nawaki and Mikoto exclaimed in surprise.
However, the points of their surprise were different.
Nawaki's surprise was mixed with some anger. He was the grandson of two generations of Hokage, and his sister was a legendary figure who had separated "medical ninja" from normal combat ninja in the ninja world.
Therefore, he could not tolerate others' suspicion of him.
Mikoto was different. She really hadn't thought that there would be ninjas who were so bad as to fake the completion of a mission to defraud the commission.
"Heh, when you've seen more, you'll know that this world is a very strange place."
"It's not surprising to see any kind of person or to have anything happen."
"Alright."
Shrugging, Nawaki said no more and bent down to continue washing the bloodstains off the daggers.
"Alright, Rin, here you go."
A few minutes later, he handed the cleaned daggers to her.
"Sensei, let's go."
"The sooner we submit the mission, the sooner we can start our new training."
"Oh?"
Li Anshi's eyebrow twitched slightly. "What's this? I remember you all seemed very enthusiastic about doing missions before we started training."
"You've only completed one C-rank mission and you don't want to do any more?"
"It's not that I don't want to do missions."
Nawaki shook his head. "I'm very much looking forward to contributing to the village."
"However, this mission has also shown me that I still have many shortcomings."
"Next, I want to train for a while longer, to make up for my shortcomings, and then continue to complete the village's missions in a better state."
"Not bad, you have ambition."
"Then, let's head back to the village."
…
"Sensei, are you going the wrong way?"
At a fork in the road, Nawaki looked at Li Anshi, who was veering off the path, and reminded him, "According to the map, we should go from here, then to here..."
"Nawaki, have you forgotten what we are?"
He didn't stop, just turned his head to the three of them and said, "We are ninjas!"
"Ninjas are beings that cannot be judged by common sense."
"The moment you limit your thinking to the map, you've already fallen behind."
Nawaki was taken aback for a moment, then said no more and followed.
Behind him, seeing him leave the main road, Rin and Mikoto also followed.
If he had chosen to go back the way they came, they would have followed him as well.
Although they were under Li Anshi's command, for them, they were more inclined to follow Nawaki than him.
At first, the three of them were skeptical of the path he had chosen.
But when they saw him, at the bottom of a cliff, using his feet to cling to the cliff face and climb, they finally understood what he had meant by "ninjas are beings that cannot be judged by common sense."
If they had followed their previous path, they would have had to make several large detours and turns to get over this mountain.
But by following him and climbing straight up the cliff, they could cross it in at most three minutes.
Just like that, they had saved at least an hour of travel time.
Following him, it took them only two days to get back to Konoha.