Naruto: Kage of Kages

“So there are no big wars anymore?” Nanashi naively inquired.

It reminded Shiki how, despite her life experiences, the girl remained extremely ignorant and naive of the greater truths of warfare and the nature of conflict between humans.

Though he himself did not claim to be an enlightened wiseman on the matter either.

“Right . . . I’m afraid to say you’re completely off.” The boy started.

“Wars have not disappeared, they have merely changed and, depending on how you see it, they changed for the worse.” Shiki explained.

“What do you mean by that?” Nanashi was honestly confused by the overly cryptic way he spoke.

The boy did hate when others tried to be cryptic to him but when it was his turn, he could not resist doing it as well.

‘When things that you know are hard to put into words or you just don’t know things, being a cryptic bastard allows you to pass for wise when you’re just dumb. That’s why people do it.’ Shiki came to the realization.

He shook those useless thoughts away in the next second however and tried to explain things as best he could, starting with the easier bits.

“In your time, there were frequent skirmishes all the time, constant but small wars. In present times however, things are the opposite.” The boy began.

“A couple years of relative peace, maybe even a decade or two at best, followed by a massive war and then a couple more years of peace with another war coming. That is the general trend right now.” He explained.

“There was a rather substantial period of peace after the Hidden Villages were founded that ended with what is known as the Great Shinobi War though now, people are beginning to call it the First Great Shinobi War.” Shiki continued.

“What’s the difference?” Nanashi instinctively asked though there were more important questions in her mind.

“It was called the Great Shinobi War because it was the only one of its kind but another one is about to be set off. So it is now being called the First Great Shinobi War with the coming conflict already being named as the Second Great Shinobi War.” The boy clarified.

Nanashi absently nodded but soon shook off the haze in her head and asked the most crucial question in her mind.

“You said the wars I fought were small!? Just skirmishes!?” The Uchiha offendedly questioned.

Shiki immediately raised his hands.

“In comparison. They were terrible events that led to a great deal of suffering to be sure but scalewise . . .” The boy did not complete the sentence but his meaning was clear enough.

“Can you . . . I don’t know . . . make a comparison I can understand?” Nanashi asked for clarification, clearly a bit shaken.

“Hmm . . .” Shiki fell into thought.

A mere few moments after though, he came up with a suitable one.

“Putting aside the other consequences of such a large-scale war, just in terms of shinobi killed, the First Great Shinobi War, which lasted for about 5 years, was equivalent to over fifty years worth of Warring State conflicts.” The boy explained.

Nanashi could only fall into silence at the grim comparison.

Although nowhere near comparable to the Great Wars or even the Warring States, minor conflicts and general missions did cause plenty of shinobi deaths even during the so-called “peace times” that Shiki called the inter-war periods.

So on average, the death toll for shinobi was even higher than before, the only difference was, that if you were lucky, you could spend most of your life in relative peace and not be sent to war as a child genin cannon fodder.

“You said there was peace after the villages were founded. Why did everyone start fighting again?” The girl, still unsettled, continued to ask.

“The death of Konoha’s founding leader, the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama.” Shiki directly replied.

“Why would a single person’s death make the entire world start fighting!?” Nanashi was in disbelief.

“The world only stopped fighting because Senju Hashirama forced them to. Once he was no longer around, they started again. Simple as that.” The boy clarified.

“Forced them?” The Uchiha still did not understand.

“Senju Hashirama was known across the world as the God of Shinobi, an individual so powerful that he could face down the entire world by himself at his peak and he wanted peace.” Shiki further clarified.

“Since he wanted peace and no one had the power to defy his will, peace settled across the world, just like that.” He concluded.

Now that was something Nanashi understood.

She was so powerful that, once her name spread, enemies simply gave up the moment she showed up and the fighting stopped.

The only struggle she had was imagining how powerful you had to be to do that to the entire Shinobi World simultaneously.

Shiki could read that from her expressions and emotions in her aura he could sense.

‘If used to its fullest potential, your Mangekyo Dojutsu Yachihoko could allow you to surpass that level of power, at least temporarily.’ The boy thought to himself.

He did not know the full limitation of the jutsu but with the right circumstances, a guy borrowing it managed to fight a weakened tag team of adult Naruto and Sasuke, that was enough to show how horrifying the potential was.

“Do you think there will always be war with shinobi?” Nanashi took Shiki out of his thoughts with yet another question.

The boy shook his head.

“Even without shinobi, there would still be war, conflict is a part of human nature, it can’t be suppressed nor should it be, only channeled and controlled, that’s what I think.” Shiki shared his own belief on the matter.

“What do you mean?” Nanashi inquired in response.

“Human history is the history of conflict. Ideals, resources, territory, authority, all these become reasons to fight. People can never be content with what they have, especially if they know someone has it better than them.” The boy started.

“Did that person work hard for what they have, did they earn it through effort and sacrifice? Doesn’t matter. Be it earned or received, envy will arise and people will fight, that is just the way it is.” He continued.

“But it is this drive to get more than what life grants you that creates progress, that allows humanity to climb higher and higher, to innovate and evolve, even if many disasters also come about due to it.”

“That’s why I believe conflict is important, even if care must be taken not to let it destroy us. That is just a very simplified view on the matter though.” Shiki concluded.

“So you don’t think shinobi are the problem.” Nanashi pointed out, clearly exposing her biases.

Understandable ones though, considering her life experiences.

“No I don’t. My clan, despite me being the only current bearer of the name, existed since long before shinobi as you know them ever came to be and wars still plagued the world for all that time regardless.” Shiki revealed.

“I see . . .” Perhaps due to the boy’s efforts in freeing her and explaining the current world to her, Nanashi gave a lot of weight to his words and seriously considered them despite her own prejudices.

“Then do you think wars are inevitable, no matter what?” Starting to view Shiki as some sort of wiseman, Nanashi’s questions were becoming truly endless.

Though it was not merely a desire for clarity that guided the girl.

+++++

Hey, Author here!

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