Chapter 503: The Raikage's Speech
"Because..."
Fū hesitated for a while. Under everyone's curious and expectant gaze, she finally made up her mind.
Everyone here was one of her own. There was no harm in saying it.
"Back when I was still in Takigakure, I was on my way to see a friend when... that happened for the first time…"
"Since it had never happened before, I saw all that blood and thought I was dying. So I instinctively tried to block it with my hand…"
"And then... then... then..."
Fū stammered for a long time but couldn't bring herself to finish.
But at this point, she didn't need to.
Everyone already understood. They exchanged knowing smiles.
In the end...
She had stepped onto the path of no return.
Coincidentally, this Sage Mode shortcut required exactly that technique. Since practice makes perfect, Fū mastered it almost immediately.
"..."
Even Shiromo was speechless.
Fū was also a jinchūriki.
She had a cheerful, innocent personality and loved making friends.
She was basically the female version of Naruto.
What Shiromo hadn't expected was that just as Naruto could master "Thunder Fighter" without anyone teaching him, Fū had also figured out how to play "Minecraft" without needing any beginner's guide.
"...Forget it. If you've mastered it, then you've mastered it."
Shiromo waved his hand dismissively.
"No! I'm still going to train properly with everyone else."
Fū's face was bright red, but she stubbornly lifted her chin.
Unlike Naruto, she wasn't completely shameless.
With the enormous chakra reserves of a jinchūriki, she could also use the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique and rely on Naruto's original strategy of overwhelming everything with numbers to quickly enter the required state.
But she'd have to do it on the spot.
Even if she found somewhere private to hide first, it was still far too embarrassing.
The only reason Fū had used the shortcut was because she still hadn't mastered Heavy Particle Mode.
She wanted enough power to protect the friends she cared about, so she chose to strengthen herself first.
After all, no one knew when danger might appear.
Her original plan was to first master Senjutsu through the shortcut, then gradually switch back to the normal training method afterward.
"Alright. Do whatever you want. Whether you switch back to normal training or go back and continue mastering Heavy Particle Mode, it's up to you."
"Since you're all here anyway, I might as well tell everyone something."
"Sage Arts aren't limited to Naruto's method alone."
"Fū is exceptionally gifted. She had already mastered the related techniques beforehand, and she was eager to obtain the power to protect others, so she accidentally took a detour."
"For ordinary training, whether it's the Keystone I gave you, Orochimaru's genetic modification, or Naruto's shortcut, their overall efficiency is about the same, I think mine and Orochimaru's methods are even better."
Shiromo didn't dwell on the subject any further and simply explained the situation.
By "efficiency," he meant things like the time required to train, the difficulty of the training itself, and the final results—such as how quickly someone could enter Sage Mode and how powerful that Sage Mode would be.
If they had to rank them, Shiromo's method would definitely be first, Orochimaru's second, and Naruto's method after those.
The only problem was that Shiromo's and Orochimaru's methods were limited editions.
They could be mass-produced, but every single one still had to be handcrafted.
The Keystones had to be personally crafted by Shiromo.
The genetic modifications also required Orochimaru himself to perform the procedure.
The advantage of Naruto's method was that one person could teach ten, ten could teach a hundred, and it came with far fewer restrictions.
The group continued chatting.
The team led by Uchiha Hikari had already begun developing a VR game capable of absorbing chakra from the entire ninja world.
It was still quite difficult at the moment.
After all, in the original timeline, that game had only become possible during the Boruto era, after the necessary technology already existed.
By then, ordinary people already had computers, electronic games were widespread, and someone had simply taken advantage of those technologies to create it.
Right now, however, the most advanced technology in this field is all in Amegakure.
Konoha had possessed computer-like devices during Naruto Shippuden, but they were nowhere near the level of personal desktop computers.
In short, before they could finish the project, they first had to solve the hardware problem.
Fortunately, technological development in the ninja world didn't really have bottlenecks.
As long as it was peacetime and someone had inspiration, breakthroughs happened naturally.
It wasn't a particularly troublesome issue.
Shiromo himself was also enjoying a fairly relaxed period.
Right now, everything is still in the development stage.
The only reason he had decided to interfere this time was to stop the trend started by Naruto from spreading throughout the entire ninja world.
Otherwise, when Kaguya—who had originally been willing to have her arm cut off and return to the seal for his sake—was eventually unsealed and took a look, if everyone in the ninja world was either working as airline pilots or as miners, and she immediately concluded that it would be better to destroy the ninja world after all, that would be ridiculous.
Just like in the original story, after Naruto used the Reverse Harem Technique, he proudly declared, "This is the true history of ninjas!"
Shiromo had the feeling that, after hearing that sentence, Kaguya probably lost the last bit of affection she still had for the ninja world.
A world like this was really better off destroyed.
---
Several days later.
The Land of Lightning, Kumogakure Village.
Motoi had finally mastered Sage Mode.
He looked like someone suffering from severe exhaustion, dark circles under his eyes as he returned to the village.
Well...
Maybe "looked like" wasn't quite the right phrase.
The Raikage was overjoyed.
He immediately decided to hold a public announcement for the entire village.
He officially announced that Konoha had shared the Sage Mode training method with Kumogakure, and that under Motoi's guidance, the village would gradually begin training multiple people in Sage Mode.
If they wanted to spread the technique, this announcement was unavoidable.
It was much better to explain everything from the beginning than to wait until people discovered it and ask questions later.
The Raikage also invited Kakashi onto the stage to give a speech full of mostly meaningless formalities, simply confirming that someone from Konoha had indeed come.
Afterward, the Raikage thought things over.
To make sure Kakashi wouldn't change his mind, and to demonstrate that he genuinely cared about peace in the ninja world, he gave another speech.
This one was intended to ease tensions with Iwagakure.
It also served to firmly establish that Kakashi's next destination would be Iwagakure.
The Third Raikage had died because of Iwagakure.
For the Fourth Raikage, Iwagakure was the village that had killed his father.
But that didn't mean he was the only one who hated them.
When two ninja villages went to war, countless people died.
The chain of hatred had long since become impossibly tangled.
Moreover, after both Kumogakure and Iwagakure implemented the reforms Shiromo had introduced in Amegakure, the resources they could mobilize were no longer limited to their villages.
They now had the strength of their entire nations behind them.
Setting the Ōtsutsuki threat aside...
If war broke out under those circumstances, its scale would only become even greater.
It was just like when Senju Hashirama created the hidden village system.
Wars had evolved from conflicts between clans into wars between entire ninja villages.
Each step made the wars larger than before.
"My fellow people of Kumogakure, I know every one of you loves this village and loves the Land of Lightning."
"But I hope you understand one thing…"
"Patriotism isn't about seeing who hates foreigners the most."
"It's about seeing who loves their own people the most!"
As the Raikage finished his final sentence, he raised his right hand high into the air.
Thunderous applause erupted from below.
Watching from a corner in secret, Naruto looked on with envy.
That feeling of winning everyone's support and recognition...
He couldn't help imagining the day when he would stand on Konoha's platform himself, delivering a speech to the entire village.
(End of this chapter)