Konohagakure.
After the Kirigakure army was driven back, good news quickly reached the heart of the village.
Cheers rose through Konoha once more.
The tense silence that had weighed over the village finally broke, replaced by the noisy excitement of civilians rushing toward the battlefield. Everyone wanted to see the hero who had saved Konoha from disaster.
But when the crowd arrived, they were stopped by the shinobi cleaning up the battlefield.
Yagami had already left with Mikoto some time ago.
Left with no other choice, the villagers could only return in disappointment.
Even so, the discussions about Yagami did not die down. If anything, they became even livelier.
Because Konoha had survived, order gradually returned to the village. Many shops even began using his return as a signboard.
"Yagami-sama has returned to the village! Special discount!"
"Victory sale! Big bargains today!"
Signs like that appeared one after another.
Because of that, Yagami—who had only gone out to buy ingredients so he could prepare a warm, gentle meal for Mikoto after she woke up—found himself in a very troublesome situation.
The moment he was recognized outside, people surrounded him from every direction.
Some wanted to get closer to him.
Some asked for autographs.
Some even dragged out the old man from the photo studio and somehow convinced him to take pictures of them with Yagami.
Once again, Yagami deeply understood something.
Being treated like a public hero was far more troublesome than expected.
Originally, buying ingredients should have taken half an hour at most.
But under the crowd's constant staring, cheering, and surrounding, Yagami somehow spent nearly two full hours before finally escaping.
Of course, it was not all bad.
Whenever Yagami bought ingredients, the shopkeepers immediately brought out the freshest and highest-quality goods they had.
Some even tried to give him things for free with almost frightening enthusiasm.
More importantly, his prestige continued to rise without stopping.
"Haah…"
"I hope this excitement settles down soon."
When Yagami finally returned home, he let out a quiet breath.
Dealing with those overly enthusiastic villagers somehow felt more exhausting than facing enemies on the battlefield.
Perhaps this was the kind of trouble only heroes had to deal with.
"Yagami-kun… you're back?"
Just as Yagami stepped inside, a gentle voice reached him.
Mikoto had woken up without him noticing.
Although she had not slept for very long, she clearly looked much better after resting. The exhaustion around her eyes had faded, and her usual gentle, graceful air had returned.
"I'm back."
Yagami smiled, still carrying the ingredients he had bought.
"I wanted to prepare something for you while you were asleep, but I didn't expect you to wake up this soon."
"Eh? Yagami-kun, you can cook?"
Mikoto looked genuinely surprised.
And from the way he said it, he did not mean simple homemade food.
He meant proper cooking.
"Of course. I live alone, after all."
Yagami carried the ingredients into the kitchen, then turned back and smiled.
"Want to help?"
He also wanted to show Mikoto, who was skilled at cooking herself, a little of what he could do.
After all, excellent cooking skills were also a good way to leave an impression.
"Of course."
Seeing him invite her so naturally, Mikoto responded with a soft smile.
She was also curious.
What kind of food would Yagami make?
"Then come here."
Yagami put down the ingredients and handed Mikoto an apron with a smile.
After that, the two began preparing lunch together.
Naturally, while helping him, Mikoto could not help being surprised again and again.
The way Yagami handled the ingredients, controlled the heat, seasoned the food, and moved through each step was far beyond ordinary home cooking.
Every movement was smooth and precise.
Watching him work gave Mikoto the strange feeling that she was learning something new with every passing moment.
By the time they finished, she even felt that her own cooking might improve greatly from this experience alone.
And that feeling was not wrong.
In the future, Mikoto's cooking skills would indeed become almost comparable to Yagami's.
Of course, that was a story for later.
While Yagami and Mikoto were quietly enjoying their meal together, the flames outside Konoha were finally extinguished through the tireless efforts of the Water Style users.
The shinobi assigned to clean the battlefield also completed their work and finished counting the results.
Beneath the broken outer wall, the area where Yagami had used the Yasakani no Magatama to wipe out the enemy had already been buried by Earth Style users through large-scale ninjutsu.
There was not much worth collecting there.
Ninja tools, explosive tags, and supplies had already been ignited and destroyed by the downpour of Yagami's light bullets.
As for collecting the corpses of the Mist shinobi to use as bargaining chips, no one even suggested it.
The scene there was far too bloody.
Most of what remained could barely even be called bodies.
"Have the numbers been confirmed?"
Sarutobi Hiruzen, who had returned after helping extinguish the fire, looked toward Utatane Koharu and asked.
He and Danzo had gone to deal with the flames, so the cleanup and casualty report had been left to Koharu.
Hearing Hiruzen's question, the Konoha higher-ups gathered on the damaged wall also turned toward her.
Koharu narrowed her eyes slightly and flipped through the recorded data.
"The count is complete."
She paused briefly before continuing.
"In this battle, Konoha lost four hundred and twenty shinobi. More than six hundred were injured."
The atmosphere immediately grew heavier.
For Konoha, the casualties from this one night were already worse than many frontline clashes.
If Yagami had not arrived in time and overturned the situation, none of them dared imagine what would have happened next.
Because without him, the Mist shinobi would have already broken into the village.
"What about Kirigakure's losses?"
After a moment of silence, Hiruzen asked again.
He knew that after Yagami arrived, the enemy must have suffered tremendous losses.
But from his position on the wall, he had not been able to grasp the exact number.
"Before Yagami arrived, we relied on the outer wall to counterattack and killed roughly three hundred of them."
Koharu's expression became complicated.
"But compared to Yagami's results, that number is hardly worth mentioning."
She turned to the next page.
The figures recorded there were enough to make anyone fall silent.
"The exact number of Mist shinobi who died beneath the wall can no longer be verified."
"But based on our visual estimates, when Yagami first arrived and launched his rescue, he killed close to a hundred enemies."
"After that, when the Mist shinobi charged together, he wiped out another five to six hundred."
"Then he used that straight beam of golden light to sweep across the battlefield, killing nearly two hundred more."
"Finally, after the forest fire was put out, we recovered nearly six hundred additional bodies."
Koharu's voice lowered slightly.
"Yagami's confirmed kill count is over one thousand four hundred."
The moment those words fell, the entire wall became silent.
Even the Konoha higher-ups, who had experienced countless battles, were unable to speak for a while.
They had fought through the entire night.
Yet all of them combined had not even reached one-third of Yagami's result.
For a long moment, only the wind passed over the broken wall.
Hiruzen slowly exhaled smoke from his pipe, his eyes deep and unreadable.
"…So this is the strength that turned the battlefield around."
No one answered.
Because everyone understood.
From that night onward, Yagami's name would no longer be remembered merely as that of a powerful shinobi.
He had become a symbol.
A hero of Konoha.
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