"What does this mean?"
Kaito was in a situation he had never expected to experience, something he had seen many times on television, but had never imagined would happen to him.
In front of him, Shiho was sitting on a chair with her legs and arms crossed, looking at him with narrowed eyes while waiting for an answer.
Meanwhile, he was kneeling on the floor in front of her, apologizing.
"I am sorry, I am not sure what went wrong," Kaito apologized sincerely.
"I... I thought I could trust you, you lied to me" Shiho said. Her voice, once cold and angry, was now broken and weak, showing how she truly felt.
"No, I did not lie to you. I have revived people before," Kaito replied immediately.
The current situation was quite simple to explain.
After a full month had finally passed since the previous time, Kaito was able to use omnipotence again, and now that he had already taken care of La Bodega, the first thing he tried was to fulfill the promise he had made to Haibara, now Shiho, back then, to revive her sister.
However, when he tried, for some reason, it did not work.
What he had done before when reviving Hatake and Kushina was not really difficult, he had simply reversed the state of their bodies to before they died, bringing them back to life.
However, when he did the same with Miyano Akemi, it did not work. Even though her body returned to a state before her death, she did not wake up or breathe, she was dead and alive at the same time, her body in a kind of frozen state, as if her body were alive but something was missing.
Because of that, after breaking the only promise he had ever made to Shiho, Kaito could perfectly understand why she was angry with him.
Especially because, even though she did not say it out loud, Kaito knew that the reason she accompanied him was not only because of her curiosity about the supernatural world, but also because she had realized that Kaito missed his own world and felt quite lonely.
As someone who had lost her parents at a young age, lived locked in a room in La Bodega, and later also lost her older sister, the only person she had left, Shiho understood what loneliness was, and that was why she decided to accompany Kaito even though it was not necessary.
For Kaito, knowing all this only increased his guilt. After all, having the chance to take her out of her loneliness, he could not do it.
While he was thinking about that, Kaito felt a hit on his shoulder.
"You are an idiot," Shiho said, hitting him with her fist.
"You are an idiot, you are an idiot, you are an idiot."
Kaito stayed still, taking the blows a little longer, until she finally calmed down and clung to him while crying.
Kaito hugged her and tried to calm her down.
"I will find a way to bring her back, trust me one more time."
"Sniff... do... do you not know what went wrong?"
"I do not know, maybe..." While thinking, Kaito reached an answer and opened his eyes in excitement.
"That is it, the soul!" he said.
"The soul?"
"That is right. The previous times I revived someone, they had just died. Even though I did not know it before, this world showed me that the soul exists. If that is the case, a person cannot be revived without their soul.
Maybe the people I revived before, since they had died recently, still had their souls nearby, or maybe they stayed in the body for a while before leaving.
The point is that, after more than four months dead, the soul has probably already gone wherever souls go, and with the range limit of my ability, I cannot reach it" Kaito explained quickly.
Shiho recovered when she heard that.
"So, you just have to retrieve her soul and you will be able to revive Akemi?" Shiho asked, seeing hope, without doubting that Kaito could do something like that.
"That is right. As for how..."
"You need the object they used to send the dream ghost and the doll, right?" Shiho finished, guessing his thoughts.
"Yes. Right now, I do not have any ability to manipulate souls, so it is our best option" Kaito nodded.
"And how long will it take to find them?"
"That... I have no idea" Kaito admitted, somewhat embarrassed. After all, after searching the internet, he had only found the Another object. He had no information about the other four remaining ones.
Shiho saw his expression and finally laughed.
"I understand."
"You understand?"
"I just have to keep you company while you look for the objects, just like until now, right?"
"Basically."
"Then... let us go to the United States, that is where you were attacked last time."
"I thought the same" Kaito replied.
---
One month later, nothing relevant had happened in the world of Detective Conan.
However, in the ninja world, things had changed too much.
Inside the central tent of the camp, where only Raizen and Kushina were present, the atmosphere was somewhat heavy.
"How is everything?"
"Everything is... excellent" Raizen replied. Even so, neither of them was truly happy with this result.
The reason, once again, was quite simple. Two months ago, the situation had completely gotten out of control.
Thanks to Kushina, the front against Iwa remained stable. Normally, saying that something like this was due to a single person would be extremely presumptuous, but everyone there knew it was true.
Not only did it remain stable, it accumulated victory after victory, which caused Iwa to send more ninjas.
Normally, Konoha's formation was divided into three parts.
The first was the main front, where most of the war was concentrated.
Further ahead were the reconnaissance and stealth teams, which did not engage in direct combat, but instead reported on enemy numbers and strength.
Finally, there was the rear, where the true masters were located, those who rarely left the village unless it was absolutely necessary.
Of course, there were exceptions, such as Onoki, who was mainly a strategist, Kumo, where the Kage usually went to the front when the situation required it, or Hiruzen, who had not left the village since the Second Ninja War, which demonstrated his incredible strategic mind.
But setting the exceptions aside, that was how things normally worked.
However, this time, when Iwa sent large reinforcements, the ninjas in charge did not report it for some reason, which ruined the format of small squad battles and triggered a battle that lasted more than a month without rest, with many losses.
To break this stalemate, Konoha "was forced" to send twice as many reinforcements as Iwa in order to defeat them.
But due to the tactic of overwhelming with numbers, the numbers here were already incredible, and Konoha even had to withdraw ninjas from the front against Kumo in order to match them.
However, once the stalemate was finally broken, the reinforcements were not withdrawn. Instead, they were ordered to remain on the front against Iwa in case the situation repeated.
But Iwa was not stupid and would never repeat the same mistake.
During the last month, the small teams sent by Iwa were defeated easily, but with so many Konoha ninjas involved, Kushina's name stopped resonating as much as before and became the merit of the entire camp.
This caused her reputation to stop increasing so rapidly.
At the same time, with fewer ninjas on the front against Kumo, the situation there became much more difficult, although not enough to be critical. By holding on and achieving several victories, Minato's reputation also increased greatly during these months.
And Kumo, seeing what had happened with Iwa and knowing that Konoha was willing to send double the reinforcements, did not use the same tactic, leaving Minato in a stable position.
"Haha, we should thank the Hokage for sending people now to support us, extremely foresighted" Raizen laughed, with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
Kushina nodded, completely in agreement.
After all, if anyone said that this situation, so convenient for Minato and so bad for her, had nothing to do with Hiruzen, she would punch them immediately to shut them up.
"Kushina, for now go rest, we will think of something later" Raizen sighed.
"I understand, thank you very much" Kushina replied before leaving.
When she reached her tent and was alone, her emotions finally came out.
"Damn old man, I am going to beat you until you stop your intri..."
"Calm down."
"Kaito, did you not see what he did? I have gone more than a month without doing anything."
[Did he not send reinforcements? What is wrong with that? In the end, he helped the village.]
"Helped the village? Please. Normally, with the number of people Iwa sent, the news would have arrived immediately and the front would have gone to intercept them on the way.
But none of that happened.
Because of Hiruzen's orders, we never found out until they reached us. Not only were there losses on our side because of his tactics, how many villages in the Land of Fire did they pass through to get here? How many died to support such a huge army? He does not even think about Konoha or the country, only about his own interests, without caring about other people's lives" Kushina said angrily.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
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(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)