Naruto: Chronicles of A Fire Ninja

Chapter 162: Rehabilitation

After an hour, Kaida finally erased the memories of 12 bandits, and the remaining two were killed by him. After erasing their memories, Kaida implanted new memories in which they were very good people but had harmed many families due to the fear of the bandit leader and his crew.

And now they wanted to work for the rest of their lives to support those families.

Seeing the result of Kaida's hard work, Minoru nodded his head. "Good job, now what do you want to do with this thing?" Minoru asked, pointing towards the bandit leader.

He had been under that genjutsu for the last 2 hours, his mentality had been completely crushed due to suffering unimaginable pain for the last 2 hours. Even though his life could still be saved, Kaida just looked at his body like he was looking at an unrecyclable waste which had no use on the planet.

"Let's just dispose of him; he doesn't deserve a second chance," Kaida said.

"Good choice," Minoru said, and in an instant, the head of the bandit leader got separated from his body. All Kaida saw was a clean, fast sword strike because his sharingan was activated at that time.

"Now, what do you want to do about the money?" Minoru asked.

Kaida understood what he was talking about. When the bandit leader offered Kaida 2 million Ryo in exchange for his life, Kaida realized that he had purged too much money from the merchants. So, he once again searched his memories and found that he had stored a total of 3.5 million Ryo in this base.

Even Jonin would not have this much liquid money with them. Alas! It is true that earning money through illegal means is the fastest way, but that money will not give peace to anyone, no matter how much you have.

"Since this was a clan's mission, we would have to submit that money to the clan," Kaida said.

"Good, very good. Since I am an elder in the clan, I use my authority and give the loot of this mission to you as a reward," Minoru said.

Kaida was a little shocked hearing that. 3.5 million Ryo was by no means a small amount, but when he remembered how that money was earned, he lost any will to take that money. Kaida looked toward the bandits sitting in a corner, thinking about the families they had harmed.

"In that case, Grandpa, can you use this money and arrange some means for them to earn a livelihood, like boats or land, etc.? So that these guys can start earning money for themselves and those families through legal means

"As you wish, but are you sure you want to use all that money for them? You can keep something for yourself too," Minoru asked.

"No thanks, I don't like the feeling of getting money painted in red," Kaida said, shaking his head

Minoru nodded his head in approval. After knowing that Kaida had to live a life of an orphan, he wanted to see whether he had become greedy for money like many other orphans, which is one of the main reasons a ninja becomes a rogue ninja, even at the cost of making an enemy out of an entire village.

A rogue ninja can earn many times what a normal ninja of the same rank would earn. Even these bandits, with no real power, had more than 3 million Ryo with them. A rogue Chunin can easily earn twice as much with the least bit of effort.

Seeing that Kaida had maintained a solid character and had not become greedy for money, Minoru became less burdened by the fact that he was unable to become a guardian for Kaida after the death of his parents, even when he considered Aiko his daughter.

He looked towards the bandits and asked, "Are you planning on adding some more people with them?"

Kaida understood that Minoru was talking about those three more missions he had to complete.

"Maybe that will depend on the crimes they would have committed till then. If the crimes are at the same level as this, then they will face the same punishment," Kaida said, pointing towards the dead body of the bandit leader.

"Okay, so until then, we should leave them here. After you complete your missions and finalize the number of bandits you want to give a second chance, I will arrange their living and earning place," Minoru said.

Kaida found the sentence quite sarcastic, as a single person deciding whether a person would live or not was unimaginable in his previous world, but here it was considered normal.

Just to satisfy his curiosity, Kaida asked, "Grandpa, don't you think it is quite absurd how a teen boy can decide whether a person would live or not?"

Minoru looked toward Kaida for 2 seconds before he started speaking. "Kaida, we live in a world where the strong get to decide the fate of the weaker person.

These bandits were stronger than normal people, so they killed them and looted their belongings. Similarly, you are stronger than them, so you could do whatever you want to them. This is how our world works.

There is nothing right or wrong about this, but there are still some strong people in our world who believe in things like equality and safety of the weak, that's why there is a little amount of order maintained in our world," Minoru said.

Kaida nodded his head in understanding, then Minoru continued, "Also, these bandits are not normal people in my eyes; they are just beasts who should be killed. So if you decide to give some of them a second chance, it is their good luck. If I had taken those missions, all of them would have lost their lives by now."

'Being a ninja for so long will change the mentality of a person completely, for sure. Even me, who has become a ninja for just a couple of years, had killed more than 50 people.

So, Grandpa, with decades of experience, should have killed many more than me. Also, he must have participated in the 3rd great ninja war, maybe even the 2nd one too.

So it is understandable why he thinks killing these bandits is the best choice. Even I think the same, but that will be such a waste and will not change a f**king thing.

But if my plan gets executed perfectly, then the families of those who suffered from the wrongdoings of these bandits will have a little easier life, and since it will not cost me anything, let's go with this plan,' Kaida was thinking these things when Minoru spoke once again.

"Let's go, boy. You don't have much time."

"Okay, Grandpa," Kaida said, then locked those former bandits inside a house 'for their safety' and closed the door while also applying many seals so that they could not run away.

After which they went to all the other three bandit bases, where similar events happened. First, Kaida used bandits for his chakra scalpel fight training, then genjutsu training, and at last, medical jutsu training. After that, he read each bandit's memory and decided whether they should be given a second chance or not.

At the end of the day, Kaida had selected a total of 40 bandits who were going to live a second life, helping the families of those people they had harmed during their life as bandits. Rest of them including leader of each base died after suffering under genjutsu for hours.

Though some arrangements were made for this, like switching the bandit's victim details with each other in their minds , so that those victims didn't have to see the faces of bandits that turned their lives miserable. Like if a bandit killed the only son of a family, other bandits would take his place and take care of that family for the rest of his life.

Though in the grand scheme of things, this small act would not change anything, thinking about the lives of those 40 families which would become a little easier now, Kaida felt a sense of accomplishment.