The sky over the Hidden Mist Village didn't seem as gray as it used to be.
At the end of the month, Ao brought over the new reconstruction plan for the Village. It was a thick folder with a dark red cardboard cover, its corners worn and curling from use.
He held it with both hands and placed it on Mei Terumī's desk, his movements gentle, as if he were setting down something precious.
On the title page, a few words were written with a brush: "New Hidden Mist Village Construction Outline."
The handwriting was Ao's own. He had practiced calligraphy for a few years in his youth before giving it up, so he hadn't expected to still be able to write like this.
Those characters sat on the snow-white paper, the ink full and the strokes powerful.
Mei Terumī took it.
She turned to the first page: expansion plans for the Ninja Academy, new school buildings, new training grounds, and new textbooks.
The children who once crowded into dilapidated classrooms would have more spacious places in the future.
The second page: the budget for the orphanage, tripled compared to last year. The children without parents would be able to eat a little better and dress a little warmer.
The third page: promotion paths for civilian Ninja, no longer based on clan or background, but only on ability and loyalty.
The fourth page: reconciliation agreements for Kekkei Genkai clans—those clans that had been purged, those who had survived, could now return.
She turned the pages one by one, very slowly, reading every page with great care.
Those dense lines of text, those numbers, those plans—they settled into her eyes and into her heart.
Reaching the final page, she picked up a pen. The tip hovered over the signature line, pausing for a moment.
Then she suddenly asked: "Tell me, what will the Hidden Mist Village be like in ten years?"
Ao, standing in front of the desk, was taken aback by her question.
He thought for a moment, thinking for a long time.
Long enough for the sunlight to shift an inch through the window, long enough for the sound of children running past outside to fade into the distance.
"Children won't have to carry Kunai to school, I suppose," he said.
Mei Terumī froze for a moment. Then she smiled.
It was very light, very faint—so faint it was almost imperceptible.
Just the corners of her mouth curving slightly, as if brushed by something gentle. But it was a smile, a genuine smile.
She lowered her head and wrote her name on the signature line—Mei Terumī.
The nib glided across the paper with a soft, rustling sound. Those three characters landed on the paper, beneath the title of "Fifth Mizukage."
Outside the window, sunlight leaked from behind the clouds, falling onto the paper, onto those three characters, making the ink shine.
The people on this land, which had been turbulent and stagnant for decades amidst internal strife and foreign enemies, felt what development was for the first time!
Something called hope and expectation began to grow in everyone's hearts.
That evening, Mei Terumī went to the memorial monument alone.
It wasn't like the forest of monuments in Konoha; there were no vast fields of white stone tablets, no neat rows, and no crowds coming to pay their respects.
It was just a single black stone, standing on a slope by the lake, facing the perpetually gray water.
The stone was large, two people tall, with a rough surface eroded by wind and rain into countless fine lines.
Names were carved into the stone—the names of all the Ninja who had died in the line of duty since the Blood Mist era. There were too many to fit.
The front was full, the sides were full, and even the back was full. Those names were packed densely together, like a forest that could never rest.
Some had been worn blurry by wind and rain, some were still legible, and some remained only as faint scratches.
Mei Terumī stood there. No incense, no flowers, no words.
The wind blew in from the lake, carrying moisture, a chill, and the scent of distant snowy mountains.
The wind tousled the hair on her forehead, stirred the hem of her clothes, and swept past the black stone, emitting a soft, wailing sound.
She just stood there, looking at those names.
Some she recognized—the Kaguya, the Yuki... those who died when she was a child.
Some she didn't know—from earlier times, from further away, who died in eras before she even knew what the Blood Mist was.
But they were all dead, having died during the coldest years of this Village.
Footsteps came from behind. Very light, rustling on the grass. They stopped three steps away from her.
Shinji stood there. He didn't speak. He didn't walk to her side, didn't ask why she had come alone, didn't say a word.
He simply stood three steps behind her, facing the black stone covered in names, just like her.
The two of them stood like that. Silent for a long time.
Then Mei Terumī spoke: "Today, I..." She paused.
Shinji did not rush her. He just stood there, waiting.
"When I was signing today, I was thinking about something."
The wind blew from the lake, disheveling Mei Terumī's hair and clothes: "In ten years, there will be many children here. They won't know what the Blood Mist was, and they won't know how I became this Mizukage."
She turned around and looked at Shinji. The afterglow of the setting sun fell on her face, making those eyes, usually so calm, shine a little.
"They will only know that there was a person named Mei Terumī."
She paused: "Who made this Village not so cold anymore."
After she finished speaking, her eyes reddened first. But she didn't let the tears fall, just kept them red.
Shinji stood still. He just stood there, looking at the girl in front of him.
What should he say at a time like this? Shinji found his heart felt very tired.
The setting sun fell between the two of them. The wind blew from the lake.
Finally, he spoke: "Mm." A single word. Very light, so light it seemed it might be scattered by the wind.
Mei Terumī stood there, her eyes still red. But the corners of her mouth twitched—it was a smile.
The setting sun sank. Only the last line of light remained on the horizon.
The second month, everything had settled.
The news of the Fourth Mizukage Yagura's death in battle spread throughout the Hidden Mist Village.
The news first spread within the Anbu, and subsequently, the Council of Elders and prominent figures in the Village learned of it too.
Soon, even the women selling vegetables on the street and the old people sunning themselves by the walls were whispering about it.
The news swept through like the wind, traveling down every street, slipping into every window, and falling into everyone's ears.
That puppet Mizukage, who had been controlled by genjutsu for decades, had finally fallen.
Falling with him was the Blood Mist policy that had lasted for decades.
The children hiding in cupboards could finally step out of the shadows.
The defectors who once dared not return home could now return to their homeland.
And those purged Kekkei Genkai clans, the survivors, could finally stand tall.
The Hidden Mist Village welcomed its first ray of sunlight in decades.
Real sunlight—not the kind where a crack opens in the gray sky, not the kind that leaks a single ray from behind the clouds.
It was the sun fully emerging from behind the clouds, completely exposed, illuminating the entire Village.
People stood on the streets, heads tilted back, looking at that unfamiliar blue sky.
The blue was so unreal, as if painted with watercolors; many people who had lived for half their lives had never seen such a sky.
By the roadside, someone cried: squatting by the road, covering their face, shoulders heaving, crying like a child.
It was the first time in their lives they had seen such a sky, the first time they knew that the sky could be this color.
In the center of the street, someone laughed: standing in the middle of the street, head tilted back, mouth wide open, laughing until their face was full of wrinkles.
As they laughed, tears streamed down, flowing into their mouths—salty.
Others knelt on the ground, kowtowing to the sun. Once, twice, three times.
Their foreheads struck the ground, covered in dust, but they didn't care.
They knelt there, kowtowing while murmuring something that no one could hear clearly.