Even though someone—Black Zetsu—had been nagging nonstop the moment he heard Yorin's decision, saying things like, "With time to waste like that, you should be collecting more Tailed Beasts," and claiming he already had intel on Rōshi too and that they had to move immediately…
Yorin wasn't the kind of guy who'd ditch his friends for personal desires.
Sure, he wanted to hurry up and—one day—bring Kaguya out and make her his, but he wasn't going to abandon Minato and Kushina over it.
So, Kusagakure it was.
Yorin said goodbye to Shisui and Kakashi, then headed for the Hidden Grass in high spirits, trading snark with Black Zetsu along the way until he'd annoyed that "little weirdo" into a real, genuine huff.
And then…
He saw ruins.
"…Did I take a wrong turn?"
He flew his Susanoo around the area once, then confirmed it: no, this was the right place. The Hidden Grass Village. So why was it a wreck?
"Bro, what happened here?"
Yorin dropped down, grabbed a Grass ninja, and with a single genjutsu turned him into a "buddy who could talk about anything."
When Yorin asked, the guy made a face like he'd eaten something sour and said, "Ugh, don't even ask. I don't know what happened these past few days—we suddenly went to war with Konoha.
I hate to admit it, but how could Kusa possibly beat Konoha? We got trashed.
Seriously, even if they're the number-one village in the world, they can't just bully people like this! We'll get revenge one day!"
Yorin: …What the hell?
"Konoha versus Kusa"… can you people stop trying to inflate your own importance?
"Konoha and Kusagakure went to war"?
Can you not do the whole Kakuzu thing—desperately wanting the entire world to know you "fought the First Hokage once"?
If Konoha had actually gone to war with Kusa, this place would've been crushed into something far worse than "mostly broken." This was damage, sure, but not annihilation. And the Grass ninja even sounded kind of proud saying it.
Classic Kakuzu mentality.
So the story clearly wasn't what this guy thought it was. But at the same time, Yorin trusted his own genjutsu—this random Grass ninja absolutely didn't have the power to resist it. Meaning the guy genuinely believed Kusa and Konoha had fought.
"Then Kusa's higher-ups are covering it up," Yorin concluded instantly. "They're twisting the facts, pointing at a deer and calling it a horse. The truth has to be something else."
And Yorin had a guess.
Kusagakure probably picked a fight on purpose. They could've just handed Karin and her mother over, apologized, paid compensation—problem solved.
Minato and Kushina were good people; good people could be reasoned with.
But Grass didn't do that.
Yorin didn't know if they were playing dumb or being even nastier, but either way, they must've pushed the Uzumaki couple too far.
If it had been Kushina alone, fine—"Red-Hot Habanero" always had a short fuse and blew up at the slightest breeze. But Minato was steady.
If it were just ordinary provocation, Minato could've held Kushina back and kept her from doing anything that would damage Konoha's image and create a diplomatic mess.
But if Grass kept doing stupid things, that was a different story.
"I'll head back to the village first," Yorin decided.
If even Minato—the ultimate nice guy—got angry, then Kusagakure must've done something truly disgusting.
Maybe Kushina would just smash a street or two and be done with it.
But for Uchiha Yorin, there were only ever two modes.
He didn't do "light taps." He either didn't move… or he finished the job.
"After Takigakure, is Kusagakure going to get erased too?" he thought for a few seconds, then shrugged. "Would that make Konoha's expansion 'too much'? Would a coalition form against us?"
And then he reached his conclusion:
"Whatever."
All the powerful villages were already in Konoha's alliance. Who exactly was going to form an anti-Konoha encirclement? It was laughable.
…
So, with that in mind, Yorin used Flying Thunder God and jumped back to Konoha first—reported in, went home, and played around with his wives for a bit.
The Grass situation mattered, but it wasn't on a timer.
So he'd rest tonight and ask Minato and Kushina tomorrow what exactly happened.
"Are you sure it's fine?" Yakushi Nono—who could read people like a book—asked softly. "Kushina looks really angry."
"Shouldn't you go talk to them right away?"
"It's not necessary," Yorin said, slightly shamelessly—but the logic was, annoyingly, sound. "For me, there's no such thing as a problem I can't solve. So being a little lazy once in a while is fine."
Reality slapped him in the face almost immediately.
Just as he was happily enjoying family time and about to start round two, someone pounded on his door like they were trying to break it down.
Uzumaki Kushina had stormed his house, and beside her was Namikaze Minato with a helpless, apologetic smile.
The look on Minato's face screamed, I tried to stop her, but I failed, and Yorin really wanted to roll his eyes.
Come on—if you truly wanted to stop her, you'd stop her. But fine. Since they were here, Yorin at least had to give his buddy some dignity.
He didn't look pleased, but he stepped aside to let them in and asked, "What is it? Coming this late."
"Yorin—did you already know what happened at Kusagakure?!" Kushina snapped back, bristling.
Yorin frowned and glanced at Minato.
"Calm down, calm down, Kushina," Minato hurried to soothe her, then explained to Yorin, "We went to Kusagakure like you told us to—and we saw something so shocking you wouldn't believe it. You absolutely wouldn't guess what we found there."
Minato opened his mouth, then hesitated like even he couldn't stand to say it out loud.
"So what did you run into?" Yorin asked.
Kushina's body trembled. Yorin confirmed this wasn't something to say on the doorstep, so he brought them inside.
After Nono served tea, Kushina steadied a little. Then Minato finally told Yorin what they'd witnessed in Kusagakure.
"They… ate Karin's mother."
Literally.
Yorin: "…Wait—what?!"
Minato nodded. "They could tell Konoha's pressure was tightening, but they still refused to hand the Uzumaki over…
That mother and daughter have a special constitution. If you bite them, it can heal injuries…"
"That's an Uzumaki trait," Kushina added in a low, heavy voice. "A powerful healing ability."
Yorin took a slow breath. "Then I get it. For small villages, medical resources are scarce… honestly, even big villages feel that. Even Konoha complains we never have enough medical-nin.
So…"
He understood.
Grass didn't want to hand Karin's family over, and they didn't want to offend Konoha. They also didn't have the confidence they could hide them forever.
So the "best solution," in their twisted minds, was to extract the healing benefit for themselves—then kill them and dispose of the bodies.
But "eat them" was still beyond insane.
Even in the brutal Warring States era, cannibalism was taboo unless things had utterly collapsed. And yet Kusa crossed that line anyway.
Did they seriously believe that by eating Karin's mother, they'd gain that regenerative ability permanently?
Idiots.
Completely broken in the head.
But regardless—
"Kusagakure can't be allowed to exist anymore."
Yorin made the decision instantly.
Grass had crossed the line into something that wasn't human. They were worse than animals—monsters. And dangerous monsters at that.
You don't gamble with monsters like that.
You hit them hard.
"I understand," Yorin said, nodding. "Next, we mobilize and erase Kusagakure."
"Wha—huh?"
Minato and Kushina both reflexively nodded… and then snapped back into shock, staring at him like he'd sprouted horns.
They'd only been explaining why they were furious and why they wrecked part of Grass—not asking him to start a war.
Shouldn't the next step be negotiations, demands, punishment, and cleanup?
"Wipe out Kusagakure" wasn't even on their radar.
But Yorin's next words made Minato realize he wasn't joking at all.