At the end of the mountain path, the wind swept up a few dry leaves and carried them past the monk's feet. He tucked both hands into the wide sleeves of his robe, his pace still neither hurried nor slow, as though this journey were no different from the countless aimless travels of the past thousand years.
Only the direction had quietly shifted toward Konoha in the Land of Fire!
And so, on this same day, the great final bosses of the present era (Shippuden) and the next era (Boruto), beings who should never have had any connection whatsoever, because of the same boy, because of the same upcoming founding assembly, both set foot upon the same road leading to Konoha in the Land of Fire, each in the guise of a monk.
One was Madara Uchiha, one of the founders who had once stood shoulder to shoulder with Hashirama Senju to bring the warring states chaos to an end and build Hidden Leaf Village, and later the darkest figure in ninja history who destroyed all of it and single-handedly orchestrated the Infinite Tsukuyomi plan.
For decades, he had lurked beneath the earth, surviving by relying on the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, having long since lost even the slightest attachment to this world.
Yet now, for the sake of a boy he had never met, for the notice that placed him shoulder to shoulder with Hashirama and clearly distinguished their merits and faults, and for that kid who dared command the Shinobi World in the name of the Sage of Six Paths, he had unprecedentedly walked out of the underground cave that had imprisoned him for half his life.
The other was the monk, whose true name had long been buried in the dust of a thousand years, and whose real identity far exceeded the imagination of anyone on this planet.
For a thousand years, he had wandered this land, aimlessly searching for the one and only existence that could pull him out of a certain death predicament.
To him, wars between mortals and slaughter between ninja villages were nothing more than ants fighting each other.
But now, even he had been drawn in by the storm stirred up by that boy and had decided to temporarily stray from the old path he had followed for a thousand years and go to Konoha to take a look.
One came full of scrutiny, wanting to personally question that boy on what grounds he dared call himself the Sage of Six Paths' successor.
The other was as indifferent as still water, treating it only as a bit of entertainment in the course of a long journey.
Two monks, one before the other, one fast and one slow, separated by an unknown expanse of mountains and fields, had nevertheless stepped onto the same road leading to Konoha, one hurrying along, the other strolling.
And the person they were going to meet was the same.
At this moment, neither of the two yet knew of the other's existence, nor did they know what sort of shock the boy far away in Konoha would feel if he learned of their arrival or even terror!
However, Shinichi knew nothing of the arrival of these two heavyweight figures at this time.
If he had known, then even knowing full well that the conditions of these two big bosses were poor at the moment, and that they each had various concerns that would keep them from acting rashly, he still would definitely have had his clone, Isshin, disguise himself as him and go on stage to give the speech on the day of the founding assembly.
At this moment, however, Shinichi was merely standing in the food research and development room, looking at a newly upgraded talent on his system panel, surprise showing on his face.
[Disguise (Green): Your acting has already become highly skilled, and you are beginning to understand how to use the environment and information to perfect your role. You can deeply understand and imitate the target's speech, behavior, habitual small movements, and even thought patterns. Even when facing experienced opponents, so long as they do not come into close contact with you or encounter sudden, unexpected circumstances, your disguise will be difficult to expose.]
Damn it.
Shinichi cursed helplessly in his heart.
This new talent had naturally been upgraded from the white talent Actor.
Although Shinichi had never deliberately tried to cultivate this type of talent, he did not even need to think much to understand why it had been upgraded.
It was nothing more than the fact that, as the matter of society gradually spread throughout the Shinobi World, more and more people came to know of his views, and at the same time, there were naturally people who sneered at them.
Some even thought Shinichi Higashino was hypocritical, putting on an act, and possessed first-rate acting skills.
Returning to one's original intention and connecting hearts, it all sounded high-minded enough, but who knew what intentions he harbored behind the scenes?
That kind of perception had continued to ferment and gather in secret, ultimately leading to the upgrade of this talent.
Shinichi even had a faint premonition that green was far from the end of this talent, and once the society was formally established and he officially announced the Rinkai City Convention, even more people would inevitably think Shinichi Higashino was a hypocritical person.
After all, the number of people you killed ranked among the highest in this war, and now you come pretending to talk about treating prisoners well and protecting civilians.
And then there was that clause, do not attack medical personnel and medical facilities? How had Village Hidden in the Cloud collapsed?
Wasn't it because you, Shinichi Higashino, wiped out their main base's logistics warehouse and medical warehouse in one sweep?
A thief crying, "Stop the thief," nothing could be more fitting.
This flood of doubts and accusations was very likely to push this talent directly to blue quality, and might even carry it a considerable distance through the blue stage.
And as he looked at the talent on the panel, Shinichi's mood became somewhat complicated.
All this time, he had been working hard to make the outside world think he was real; he had presented himself as sufficiently sincere, sufficiently open, sufficiently consistent inside and out.
And in truth, his acting really was good enough, so good that the overwhelming majority of people simply never realized he was acting at all.
This created a rather absurd paradox.
The better he acted, the less people thought he was acting, and the less likely it became for talents related to acting and disguise to be generated.
Therefore, even though for so many years he had continuously carried out what could be called textbook-level persona acting, no talent related to acting had ever been generated, but there were occasional exceptions, such as Orochimaru.
Among the Sannin, this master, who excelled most at reading human hearts, had already seen through the disguised nature beneath Shinichi's perfect shell during the northeastern front period and had even caused the white talent, Actor, to be generated as a result.