"Is that how you intend to justify this to yourself, Kei?" Takahashi-sensei asked. "Is genocide acceptable as long as you can associate it with a loftier goal?"
Clarity began to emerge.
"No," Kei said. "Justifications only matter to the just."
Takahashi-sensei stared as he had when Kei first used the Frozen Skein to calculate the correct pattern for the dimensional manifold of the Summoning Technique in twelve minutes instead of spending the day cross-referencing diagrams. "You intend to quote Jiraiya's A Practical Guide to Depravity as your ethical foundation?"
"Every Mori and every Nara," Kei said, "is raised with the understanding that the duty may sometimes require lesser atrocities in order to prevent greater ones. Neither the kami nor the ancestors nor the Will of Fire possess the omniscience needed to stand over us in judgement and state for a fact whether a given atrocity was truly necessary. Even history cannot judge us, for it cannot see what exponential ripples a different decision would have given rise to. As none have the power to vindicate us, we do not seek justice. We seek efficiency. Shikamaru is not tormenting himself over whether Isan's destruction was a moral act. He is tormenting himself over whether he purchased enough security for the world with those five hundred lives. If he was inefficient, if the same result could have been achieved with fewer sacrifices, or he did not achieve as much security with that number of sacrifices as he could, that is a betrayal of the fallen and our own definition of sin.
"That logic leaves only one course of action open to me now. I must ensure that Isan's sacrifice is not wasted, for if Elemental Mastery proliferates now, it will mean those five hundred deaths were for nothing.
"I can never follow Akane's path. That much should have been obvious to me from the beginning. However, she also cannot follow mine. Efficiency does not demand the capacity to love; it demands a willingness to sacrifice."
"And what is it you intend to sacrifice, Kei?" the phantom of Takahashi-sensei asked as it began to fade back into oblivion.
"Were you not listening?" Kei replied. "Whatever my duty requires."
