Dead Rura, Dead.

*kach*....*kach*....*kach*

A soft repeated sound woke Sakura up as she rested inside her sleeping bag, slowly opening her eyes with a neutral expression but then remembering what had happened the previous day set a deep frown on her face.

Pushing herself out of the sleeping bag and up, Sakura looked around for Megumi but wasn't able to spot him easily since it was a dark moonless night.

Squinting her eyes a little to filter light better and to focus easier, Sakura scanned around herself but looked in a different place when she heard the same sounds that had woken her up once again.

*kach*....*kach*....*kach*

Just as she was about to speak she heard a soft metallic *thud* as if someone had thrust something into the ground.

Getting up Sakura walked over to the firepit that was just embers now as she used her fire transformation to start a new fire after she kicked in a few large dry cut palm leaves into the pit.

Under the new light that filled the forest, Sakura found Megumi diligently digging up pits using a shovel.

"Whhaaaat are you doing?"

"Oh? Just digging graves."

"Graves? For whom?"

"Who else? For those I killed."

".....stop it."

".....?" Megumi turned over to face Sakura as she saw her in rage.

"....what happened?"

"They don't deserve a grave." Sakura replied through tight lips.

"...they don't, true. But I'm not giving them graves, I'm just giving their bodies a makeshift grave so they mix back faster."

"..." Sakura was left with a stumped expression before she argued her point once again, "Don't make graves for them!!!"

".....your problem isn't graves, it's for their bodies to be treated humanely is it?"

Sakura thought for a second as she nodded resolutely.

"Fine."

Megumi placed the seal that contained the bodies on the ground as he unsealed them into a pile of corpses, corpses of the ninja who had visited the cave during their patrols.

Megumi separated each corpse as he dragged them to their graves before pushing them into them.

Once he did so, he pulled out the katana that was hanging on his waist as he dropped it to the floor whispering, "Seal Eternity Itself, Namari Nemu."

The sword melded into the floor as seals that reflected the light from the firepit appeared on the forest floor.

With a soft wave of his hand the bodies of the people inside the graves were chopped up into little pieces.

Holding out his hand again, Sakura watched as Megumi's sword formed in his hand after which he just turned around to look at her, "Fine with that?"

"....." Sakura didn't know what to say.

"Why did you kill them then?"

"Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what?!!!"

"The Hokage, he asked us to kill anyone that arrived there."

Sakura furiously stomped her way up to Megumi as she stared into his eyes, "Why did you stop me then?"

Megumi just shook his head with a soft *sigh* as he spoke, "Because you just wanted to take revenge."

"So as long as their deaths can be used you'll kill anyone?"

"...What??" Megumi asked, looking back at Sakura confused.

"Didn't you just kill them then because you think the Hokage will use their deaths?"

"....not really. I killed them because their deaths signified something bigger than simply personal revenge."

"And what is that?"

"It was how one hidden village decided to respond to the actions of another. While you're killing of the bandits was just an attempt at getting personal gratification by implementing-"

"NOTHING WAS PERSONAL ABOUT THAT!!"

"....Rura you're clearly too riled up, calm down."

"What calm down!!??? How can you say that!??"

"What else do you want me to say? That you punished those criminals the way they deserved? With death?"

"YES!! And I still feel bad just letting them off, I wanted to rip them into pieces while I kept those bastards alive for as long as I could just to make them feel pain."

".....why don't you go cut those trees, we're running out of firewood." Megumi said as he pointed at the only tree near them since they were camping out at an oasis.

Sakura looked at Megumi with a fierce expression as she conveyed something along the lines of 'Don't think I'm so stupid that I don't understand what you want to do.'

Sakura walked upto the tree as she unsheathed her katana and swung as fast as she could with it.

The palm tree offered little to no resistance as the tree fell but Sakura just stood there with an ugly, frustrated expression on her face that looked like she was repulsed by what she just did.

The cut wasn't clean.

Megumi just skirted past Sakura as he used his own katana to chop the tree into multiple smaller pieces which he locked away into a storage seal.

What made the entire ordeal only worse for Sakura was Megumi's silence. He just walked to and away from Sakura without saying a word.

Megumi calmly sat down in front of the firepit as he used its warmth since the desert night felt rather cold.

With soft slow crunches of sand Sakura made her way back to Megumi as she just stood over him until he looked back up at her.

"What happened?" Megumi asked Sakura with a confused look as Sakura just kicked his legs to make some space for herself and sat down in between them leaning back to use his chest as the back rest and his hands as her blankets by pulling them to wrap around herself.

"....." Megumi just rested his chin on her shoulder as he continued to stare into the fire generated by the fire pit.

"Megi…" Sakura pleaded as she spoke while pulling Megumi's hands closer to herself.

"*sigh*....violence is never the answer to something Rura….the most it'll do is sow hatred into both you and your enemy. Your personal justice is just an attempt to deal with your pain. There is no such thing as justice anywhere. The most people can do is try and correct the others that they think have a chance to be corrected and try to deter the others who want to emulate them. Violence rarely ever solves anything, and even if it looks like it does it leave lasting scars over everyone involved in it."

"Then what about you? Isn't killing them considered violence? Isn't chopping up their bodies considered violence? You did it so apathetically…."

"Violence that I'm talking about is not just action, I'm talking about an action that stems from ignorance. Violence is not just murder, it could involve words and still cause just as much hurt as physical violence could. Simply by speaking a certain way you could lead people to their deaths."

"What about you then!!??"

"My sword slices are still clean."

"...."

"You are trying to act out of your own personal sense of justice. As if there's something grand about it. As if it has a finality to it, as if you are the only person in the universe who knows right from wrong."

"I know I can be wrong!! But-"

"But? But there's no one else who can argue with you about this issue? And anyone who does, is wrong?"

"You can't use that as an argument since I can't argue with you about the desert being dry, or the night being cool or the moon being round."

"True. You can't and you should not since I'll call you delusional then. What I'm talking about and what you're talking about are two completely different things. One is your imagination and the other is your reality."

"But you did chop them into pieces!!"

"That's a lie."

"But you did!!!"

"I just chopped their bodies into pieces. Not them."

".... what's the difference…"

"Oh there is plenty, is there not? Your body is made out of the earth while you, well you are just stuck inside it. The body doesn't belong to you forever, you leave it behind when you go, wherever you think you go."

"...."

"I just chopped up the material that was their bodies since you didn't think that material deserved to be buried in an easier way. Your struggle is not in reality because that wouldn't satisfy you. Your struggle is with the act that the people who performed it did. You see the people not as people but as tools for this act to play out. You feel by desecrating their bodies you'll somehow cause pain to the 'act' to this imaginary thing in the same way you feel. It's sort of like telling you hate 'pain' so you'll kill all the people in the world that cause pain. It's a stupid thing to do and say."

"Then what should I do!!!!!! My chest!!! It hurts!!! I haven't taken a full breath since I've stepped into that cave!!!!!"

"....you can't, that's the problem. You're doing too much in the first place."

"What..?"

"I can't give you a short term solution without sounding like a jerk but since you love me sooo much, I'll try." Megumi said as he rubbed his cheeks against Sakura's to make her feel comfortable and relaxed.

"The easiest thing you have to do is recognise you aren't your imagination. Your pain is not physical, it's imaginary. Are those people poking you and standing you right now? They weren't even able to do it then. How are you feeling it now?"

"THEY DID SUCH HORRIBLE THINGS!!!!"

"True, they did. But why are you feeling pain for that? Have you done the best you could to help whoever they hurt?"

"....."

"Then what are you so riled up about? You have done everything you could do, what else do you want to do?"

"But….I….I still haven't done enough!!! I should kill each and every person that was involved in the process!!!"

".....sure you can do that and I'll give you my total support, but before we go off why not instead of making this such a simple thing that we stop at this one incident why don't we go around everywhere and kill anyone who does such things??!! Give me a list of all the things in the world that you will choose to kill someone else for. Then we can filter the rumors people talk about and then investigate all those rumors as we go around killing all those people in the most appropriate way we can, like burning them in oil or keeping them alive while we chop them up!"

"Yes!"

"Then let's start writing a list right now, Sexual Assault, Murder, but wait, murder can be carried out by people who were sexually assaulted and they were just trying to kill their captors, but we can surely excuse this man woman or child since they were clearly just defending themselves?"

"....yes…"

"Then let's ignore all those people who have the right to defend themselves and do so in a right manner. Let's only kill those people who incited the violence and those people who defend irresponsibly."

"....ok."

"Alright so now that we've decided that we'll only kill people who incite the violence, let's see, how do we decide who incited the violence? Does stepping into their lawn count as violence? If we go to their house without permission, does that count as violence? Probably does, since this person was upto no good anyway. So that person should be allowed to defend. But what if that person who entered the house only did so because he wanted to save someone else inside the house? What then? Clearly the person inside the house is wrong so he shouldn't be allowed to defend himself right?"

"....yes…"

"Then let's see, since it has already gotten so complicated in this one case, we'd need someone to figure out cases like these and help us to speed up our process of killing everyone bad and wrong and saving those suffering from injustice right?"

"Yeah….we could just get someone randomly for that though and give them the list and ask them to follow it."

"Great. Let's see what such a world would look like inside the mindscape first."

"...ok."

Sakura and Megumi slipped into their mindscape when Megumi changed the entire mindscape to a rather beautiful world filled with people laughing all around on the streets and children jumping around as they ran around in joy.

"Nice right?" Megumi asked, but Sakura stayed silent.

Sakura looked at Megumi as she questioned in a harsh tone. "What is this?"

"Huh? What do you mean? Isn't this perfect!? Look!! Everyone is laughing so loudly and looks super happy!"

"Yes but that's just here!! What about there behind those large buildings!?? Why did you make the people there so sad and cry and hide in fear inside their houses!!??"

"Huh? Those people!? Oh they're just waiting to be executed. Someone told the people you asked to help you that those people assaulted them in some way, so they lost their rights to be treated as humans, and were thrown into a waiting area where they'll all be killed later on after their cases are verified."

"But…."

"What? Why should we let potential criminals stay in the same area as normal people? They can come back when their cases are cleared up if they were innocent. But we obviously can't let someone who has hurt another person live in the same place. I mean what if they hurt another person right?" Megumi said with a smile that screamed pride as he watched a pregnant woman being dragged away by their hair to be kicked and beaten for the sick satisfaction of someone else in the criminal district.

"Why are you doing this!??"

"What? Why is it wrong? That lady was accused of killing her husband. Surely potential criminals don't deserve to be treated like normal people?"

"....no she's just a potential criminal!"

"Oh? So you want criminals to live in the same area as normal people until they are proven guilty? And then when they are proven to be guilty they can be killed?"

"Yes!"

"Alright let's see what that looks like."

The world in front of them instantly transformed into one where gangs ruled the streets as people became slaves to them as they were forced to act in whatever ways the gang decided. 

Shoot outs plagued the streets as the number of people truly happy reduced to a tiny fraction.

"No! This would only happen if we weren't killing anyone bad!"

"Of course. But it happened because the people you selected don't report anyone bad to you."

"Why wouldn't they!?"

"Because they all come from these gang ruled areas. Why should they listen to you when you'll only kill them if they commit an act of violence but the gang will if they rat them out?"

"We can just find people who are loyal to us!"

"Who? Family? Let's start with Tsuna-nee. She should be loyal enough right?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't you convince her first so that we can get started immediately."

"...."

"Let's go, I'll call her, wait a second."

Turning the mindscape back into their room, Megumi called Tsunade through their communication seal.

*Tring* *Tring*...*Tring**Tring*...*Tring*

*click*

"Tsuna-nee! I need some help!"

"Huh? Megumi! What happened? Did you encounter shinobi you couldn't handle? Akatsuki!?"

"No, no, Tsuna-nee. Don't worry. Nothing like that. Here Sakura wanted to speak with you for a second, she'll explain."

Megumi waited as he heard Sakura speak for a while when suddenly he heard Tsunade shout, "You woke me up for this!?? What is this a game!??? Shut up and go to sleep! What killing all the bad people? Are you delusional??? Give me Megumi if you want to behave so childishly!!!! I can't believe you're my disciple!!! Let me sleep now! Bye!"

Tsunade cut the call as Sakura just looked at the seal in her hand.

She then looked at Megumi who was clearly trying to control his laughter as his lips twitched.

"....."

"What? Do you still now get it?"

Sakura shook her head.

"As long as you involve people other than yourself into anything you want to do you're basically just creating another country. Albeit a uselessly small one that has dreams too grand for its own good."

"What…?"

"Do you know what'll happen when you try doing what you want to?"

"....."

"You'll end up being blamed as a terrorist and then you'll be revolted against by all the other shinobi nations. How many will you fight then? Will you kill hundreds of innocent soldiers simply because they were following orders? Will you kill innocent people simply because you think they're stopping you from creating justice? You must understand something, Sakura. Something you're very confused about…..Justice doesn't exist anywhere in the world, there is no right and wrong. It only exists as long as everyone agrees on something to be it. So if you go around the world parading justice, you'll be put down faster than you can spell the word justice. You're nothing but a rabid dog acting on your out of control emotions. Justice? That's funny because every result in your justice would either make people live in absolute fear of you or step up to kill you."

"...but I just wanted to not give them a proper burial."

"And I'm telling you, they're not alive anymore. They're already dead. Dead Rura. Dead. They don't breathe, their brains don't work, their heart doesn't beat, they won't react to any gold you'll place on them, neither will they react if you stab them, nor if their friends or enemies walk past them. Dead Rura. Dead."

Sakura's eyes widened for a second before she teared up and stomped away as she pushed herself into the bed and covered herself in a blanket.

Megumi just smiled as he left his mindscape to go cover up their bodies that were probably freezing by now outside in the desert cold.

-------------------------

A/N: Will upload an extra chapter for every hundred power stones! 

Thank you for reading!

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