Chapter 217: The Story of Mu and Hōzuki Gengetsu
With Hōzuki Castle now leaderless, Shiromo and the others could only stay for a few days.
Someone had already been sent to Kusagakure Village to bring over the new castle lord.
The movie's ending never mentioned who the new lord was, but in the Boruto era, the lord of Hōzuki Castle was someone named Mujō.
He even looked very similar to Mui and was about the same age, no one knew whether they were related.
"Strange."
With nothing to do, Yugito picked up the intel on the table and skimmed through it. After reading Mujō's background, she noticed something odd.
"By the way, does Kusagakure Village even have a clan with the surname 'Mu'?
"Hōzuki Castle, the Hōzuki clan, that's supposed to be from Kirigakure, right?"
"And the Mu surname… I've never heard of any famous figures with it before…"
Yugito stroked her chin thoughtfully.
"No, actually there is one."
Samui shook her head slightly: "The Second Tsuchikage, Mu."
"Then that makes it even less related, doesn't it? One's from Iwagakure, one's from Kirigakure, completely different places, and they didn't even get along."
Yugito picked up a glass of milk from the table and took a sip.
Yes, Yugito liked dorayaki and milk.
This 'cat-like' preference somehow felt straight out of 'Doraemon'.
"Wrong, that makes it even more connected."
Karui pulled a book with a big 'Restricted' label on the cover out of her ninja pouch.
"What's that? And how does that make it more connected?"
Yugito leaned in curiously.
"Do you remember that day? The book Samui and I picked up and showed you."
"...This is that book?"
Yugito fell silent for a moment.
Back when 'Buff Man Paradise' was first published, the Raikage had personally read it in his office.
After seeing plots about implanting purple bows and Ōnoki forming 'bonds' with someone, the Raikage had angrily thrown the book away.
Of course, the generous Raikage hadn't officially banned it as forbidden reading.
Still, the people of Kumogakure had enough sense not to openly read it.
After that book was tossed aside, it had been picked up by Samui's squad when they were returning from a mission.
More precisely, it was Karui who picked it up.
After she and Samui read part of it together, they went to find Yugito, who was training outside, and forced her to read a bit too.
Naturally, Yugito wasn't interested in that kind of nonsense and never followed the rest of the story.
What she wanted to know now was, why was Karui bringing it up again?
Did the book actually contain some hidden intelligence?
"Of course not that one."
Karui shook her head, ripped off the 'Restricted' seal on the cover, and opened it: "This is the sequel, the second edition!"
"..."
Yugito was speechless.
A sequel, how was that any different?
"This one records the connections you're curious about~ You know, there's no smoke without fire. If someone wrote this kind of content, they must've known some special information to be able to write it."
As Karui spoke, her expression suddenly turned serious.
"Why?"
Samui looked confused.
Yugito was just as puzzled.
"I once heard a scholar say that what happens in reality is often more outrageous than what's written in novels, because stories need logic, but reality doesn't."
"Think about it carefully. Are those kinds of plots really something humans could just make up?"
"If not, then there's only one possibility."
"These things must have actually happened, just with the details altered by someone who knew the inside information."
"We can totally sift out the real facts and discard the fake parts…"
"That makes sense."
"Yeah."
Hearing this, Samui and Yugito both felt it sounded reasonable, so they sat down on either side of Karui and started flipping through the book.
"No need to look, I've already finished it. What you want to know is on this page..."
Karui smiled confidently, counted a few pages along the edge, and flipped straight to it.
The [truth] appeared…
In shinobi history, records about the Second Tsuchikage Mu and the Second Mizukage Hōzuki Gengetsu were extremely scarce.
All that was known was that their relationship seemed very bad, and that the bandages covering Mu's body were from burns and blast injuries caused by Hōzuki Gengetsu's Steam Imp.
But this book revealed the real truth.
It turned out Mu and Hōzuki Gengetsu had originally been a pair of star-crossed lovers, forced into opposition only because of their villages.
Mu being injured by Steam Imp wasn't what it seemed.
When Iwagakure and Kirigakure were at war, the innately evil Second Hokage Senju Tobirama showed up, trying to reap the benefits.
Even if Mu and Hōzuki Gengetsu stopped fighting each other in time, they still couldn't turn the tide.
To buy time for the comrades he cherished, and to deal with the innately evil Senju Tobirama, Mu used the Fission Technique, tightly locking Tobirama in a death grip while crying out tragically to Hōzuki Gengetsu: "Gengetsu, blow it up! Blow it up! I, Mu, belonged to you in life and will be your ghost in death! Don't let me look down on you!"
To protect the Iwagakure ninja Mu cherished, and the Kirigakure ninja he himself cherished, Hōzuki Gengetsu activated Steam Imp in agony.
At that moment, his heart was being torn apart.
He had killed the one he loved with his own hands.
Sadly, he didn't have the Sharingan, otherwise he would've awakened the Mangekyō on the spot.
It hurt…too much.
Even worse, the innately evil Senju Tobirama actually knew space–time ninjutsu, and escaped at the very last moment with Flying Thunder God.
Only Mu alone bore the full force of Steam Imp's explosion.
And so, in later records, it became "the Second Mizukage burned Mu's entire body with an explosion."
Thankfully, Mu didn't die, he was just burned and disfigured.
But Hōzuki Gengetsu didn't love Mu for his appearance, he loved Mu's heart.
After the battle, the two poured their hearts out to each other. Yet their relationship could never be accepted by either Iwagakure or Kirigakure, so they fled overseas and found a hidden paradise where they lived together for a time.
During that period, Mu used Fusion Fission Technique, taking parts of Gengetsu's body and his own, successfully giving birth to their child.
The child took the surname 'Mu', representing Mu himself.
And the island they lived on, under Mu's Earth Release, rose into the early shape of a city, named Hōzuki Castle, representing Hōzuki Gengetsu.
After living there for a while, the two ultimately couldn't let go of their responsibility to their villages.
In the end, the tragic lovers left their paradise and returned to the shinobi world.
But for the sake of their child, they established a new ninja village beside Iwagakure, Kusagakure Village.
Grass corresponded to Wood Release, the product of water and earth combined, symbolizing the love crystallization of Mu and Hōzuki Gengetsu.
At the same time, since Mu possessed earth, fire, and wind affinities, it was perfectly reasonable that the Hōzuki Castle Lord Mui specialized in the Fire Release technique.
Fire Release: Heavenly Prison was also a jutsu Mu developed in memory of his beloved, passed down for the descendants of Kusagakure Village.
"Isn't it a really touching story?"
"Yeah, it really is a tragic love story."
"Who would've thought the previous Kage of Iwagakure and Kirigakure had such a past."
Yugito and Samui sighed emotionally.
"Karui, you were right. Reality really doesn't need logic. If it followed novel logic, shouldn't it have been the female Second Mizukage who got disfigured? Why was it the male Second Tsuchikage instead?"
Yugito reminisced about the plot while picking up her warm milk for another sip.
"Huh? Who said the Second Mizukage was a woman? Hōzuki Gengetsu is a man."
Karui froze for a second, flipped a couple pages, found an illustration with a small mustache, and showed it to Yugito.
Yugito: "..."
(End of this chapter)