The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

106: Truth

[OP: "The Truth is a Cave"--The Oh Hellos]

After the fight, the adrenaline was gone, and everyone felt ready to collapse.

Kurotsuchi became more businesslike.

"I suppose you need to rest..." she said. "Uh...the thing is, we really have nowhere to put you except...here..." She looked at the compound--what was left of it.

"I don't want to stay there again," Camie said. "Ew."

"But the inns are still too small, and do you want to be separated?" Kurotsuchi asked. "Wait, are you staying overnight?"

"I thought we should," Shine said, glancing at Wally. "We're all too tired to get back on the road. And there's the cure to think about. Sakura has to stay to help with that."

Sakura looked a little important when she said that.

"Yeah, we'll need a few days at least," she said. "Just to get the problem under control."

"Cure?" Kurotsuchi said.

"Oh, yeah, while you were faking out the bandits, they found a cure," Shine said. "Great news, isn't it?"

Kurotsuchi broke down and cried right on the spot.

Maybe she was running out of strength.

"Oh...dear, it's not... It's over now." Momo handed her handkerchief. She felt sorry of her. "They'll be all right, I'm sure."

"Why did you come back?" Kurotsuchi asked, tearfully. "I can't understand it at all... And you solved all this in one day? What kind of people are you?"

"That's just divine guidance, lady," Wally said amiably. "That's nothing for us to brag about."

Kurotsuchi just sniffled more. "Grandfather was so sure you would never come back. That it was your fault..."

"Uh, about that..." Wally put his hands together. "I have a confession to make... Part of it was my fault."

"What?" his own team said.

"Not entirely," Shine said. "It's tricky to explain."

"When I fought Kasasagi before (I think it was him now, though I didn't get a good look at his face before)," Wally explained, "I broke one of his blades, and it fell into the water main outside the Village. I guess he's released it more since then, but that was what kicked off the plague."

"It was you?" Kurotsuchi was stunned. "But...if you did it, why did you come back?"

"We didn't know it was our fault," Shine said. "But it really wasn't his fault anyway. One blade wouldn't have been enough to poison the whole Village, but, once a few people were down with it, Kasasagi figured it out and made a bunch more poisoned items and put them all over the water pipes so that it would infect everyone. I'm guessing that the people who didn't get it right off might use bottled water more? Or might just be lucky--not every drop would be contaminated."

"So that was it?" Sakura said. "So it both was your fault, and it wasn't?"

"I think it's a stretch to say it was their fault," Momo said. "Wally's mistake never would have done this to the Village. The bandits took it too far."

"I still feel bad," Wally said. "Turns out we owed you this after all. I mean, we came back before we knew that, but still, I fix my mistakes."

"But if you claim you didn't know that, that doesn't explain why you did it," Kurotsuchi said. "And why you're owning up to it, because if I were you, I'd never confess to having any part of this."