After Hiruzen succeeded as the Third Hokage, Kumogakure continued negotiations with Konoha and signed another ceasefire and alliance agreement.
After Tobirama killed Kinkaku, Ginkaku, and another twenty elite jonin, the shinobi of Kumo became much more polite toward Konoha.
They had always believed in strength above all else.
If I’m stronger, then bullying you is only natural.
If you’re stronger, then I’ll form an alliance with you, just don’t beat me up.
It was an old tradition of theirs.
The Third Raikage had also only just taken office and was eager to end the war and reorganize things internally.
As a result, Kumo and Konoha immediately saw eye to eye and quickly signed a ceasefire agreement.
“So Konoha didn’t ask for any war reparations at all?” Akira propped one hand against his cheek as he rested it on the table, listening to Mito tell him the story.
As nothing more than an ordinary little nobody in Konoha, Akira didn’t have many channels through which to obtain information.
Almost all the important intelligence he knew came from Mito-obasan.
For example, some time ago, when the Second Hokage and the Second Raikage were signing a ceasefire agreement, the Second Tsuchikage and Second Mizukage had tried to sneak into Konoha and attack it.
Instead, they happened to run into each other out in the wilderness.
The two of them had been enemies since the Warring States Period.
Second Tsuchikage Mu had his entire body wrapped in bandages, with hardly a patch of uninjured skin left, all thanks to Second Mizukage Hozuki Gengetsu.
The Second Mizukage himself had been seriously wounded because of it and hadn’t even managed to make it to the First Five Kage Summit in time.
This time, when the two enemies met, their hatred burned hotter than ever.
The mustached man immediately got into a fierce battle with the bandaged man, fighting until heaven and earth seemed to turn upside down.
Then they died together.
The Konoha shinobi who arrived on the scene were completely dumbfounded.
What the hell are these two trying to pull?
Did they deliberately die right outside Konoha’s gates just to scam us?
The Konoha shinobi didn’t bother overthinking it.
Since they’d found them dead right outside their front door, then they were Konoha’s spoils now.
They immediately dragged the bodies back to the Analysis Division to see whether they could dig anything valuable out of the dead men’s brains.
When Tobirama returned and learned what had happened, he simply waved his hand and had both bodies sent directly to the Technical Research Department, where they could be kept as experimental material and supplies for Edo Tensei.
Back to the matter at hand.
At the Senju compound, Uzumaki Mito smiled when she heard Akira’s question.
“Their Kage died in battle, while ours came out of it perfectly safe.
If we demanded reparations on top of that, they’d feel even more resentful, making it easy for another war to break out.” “Our Land of Fire occupies the best resources in the shinobi world, so if we can avoid starting another war, then naturally it’s better not to start one.
As long as we drag things out, our Konoha will ultimately recover faster than the other villages.” “What you’re saying makes sense, but not demanding war reparations still makes me feel like we fought this war for nothing.
So many people died for nothing.” Akira scratched his head and voiced his genuine thoughts.
There was no need to lie in front of Mito; she could see through him anyway.
Uzumaki Mito didn’t answer Akira’s question.
She merely sighed.
How could Konoha not want war reparations?
The problem was that its strength didn’t allow for it.
Although Kumo had lost Kinkaku, Ginkaku, and even its Raikage, it still possessed the ultimate weapon known as the Tailed Beasts.
And that wasn’t even counting the Mist and Stone shinobi villages watching from the sidelines.
Konoha was surrounded by enemies on all sides.
It didn’t dare casually start another war.
Seeing Mito sigh, Akira more or less guessed what she was thinking.
He followed suit and sighed.
“If only First Hokage-sama had simply unified the entire world.
Then every country would be on our side, and there would never be another war.” Mito smiled.
“Every generation has its own mission.
Hashirama already did the very best he could.
Besides, the world isn’t something that can be unified so easily, and hatred isn’t something that can simply be forgotten.” “If First Hokage-sama had joined forces with Madara, wouldn’t the two of them have had an easy time sweeping across the four great countries?” Akira asked curiously.
Mito sighed.
“Every time Hashirama used Wood Release, he consumed an enormous amount of Yang Release vitality.
Chakra is extracted from the cells within the body.
Over time, this accelerates cell division, causing a person’s lifespan to shorten.
Can you guess how Hashirama died?” Akira was slightly shocked.
“First Hokage-sama died because he’d exhausted the number of times his cells could divide?” Mito gently nodded.
“If First Hokage-sama had truly gone with Uchiha Madara to attack the four great countries, he might have exhausted his lifespan right after pacifying one or two of them.” “At that point, relying on Uchiha Madara and the others alone, there would have been no way to pacify the remaining countries.
And the countries they’d already subdued would descend into chaos again.” Akira scratched his head, picked up the tea on the table, and took a sip.
He was becoming more and more impressed by Qin Shi Huang.
If he hadn’t unified the Seven Kingdoms, the world might have remained locked in endless warfare, with battles breaking out every few days, just like this world now.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [The More You Know] Qin Shi Huang, was the ruler who unified the competing Chinese states and became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC.
He founded the Qin dynasty and introduced major reforms, including standardized writing, currency, weights, measures, and administrative systems, helping create the foundations of a centralized Chinese empire.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ “So, what level of strength would Konoha need to reach before it could unify the entire shinobi world and achieve world peace?” Akira asked another question.
The one who answered him, however, was Tobirama, who had just walked through the door.
“That isn’t a question you should be worrying about.
What you should be doing right now is mastering every ninjutsu you currently know as thoroughly as possible.
That way, if you encounter some unexpected situation in the future, you won’t end up unable to even run away and die young.” Akira turned around and glanced at Tobirama, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Wait…
was he just talking about himself?
He had Flying Thunder God, yet when it really mattered, he couldn’t even escape and ended up dying young.
Seeing Tobirama arrive, Mito immediately poured him a cup of tea.
“Since you have some free time, you can talk to this kid.
I’m only a woman, after all, and I’ve never paid much attention to matters of state.
I’m not very good at dealing with this sort of thing.
I’ll go see how Tsunade is doing with her studies.” Tobirama dropped himself onto a stool, picked up the tea his sister-in-law had poured for him, and took a sip.
His eyes shifted toward Akira.
The meaning was obvious.
Spit it out.
What do you want to talk about?
What would be a good topic?
Peace?
Hatred?
Nuclear deterrence?
Akira sighed and decided to start with something practical.
Tobirama was an extraordinarily intelligent man.
If Akira started talking about overly abstract concepts, it would probably only lower Tobirama’s opinion of him.
“Tobirama-sama, after this war, we should have more than ten years of development time.
Once the countries recover their strength after those ten-plus years, another war will break out.
And Konoha is a land beset on all sides, so we should make preparations early.” Tobirama frowned slightly, his expression becoming even more severe.
“For example?” Akira was already accustomed to Tobirama’s perpetually grim expression.
The man even wore that face when dealing with the Sage of Six Paths, let alone with a six-year-old like him.
“For example, substantially increase the budget for medical care and establish a comprehensive medical system.” “Starting with the students at the Ninja Academy, we can teach them basic first-aid knowledge.
They don’t need to be particularly proficient in Medical Ninjutsu, but they should at least be able to treat ordinary injuries themselves.” “That way, they won’t simply leave their wounds untreated until they become infected and eventually die.” Tobirama nodded.
“Anything else?” Akira spread his hands.
“I’m only six years old.
How many brilliant ideas do you think I can possibly come up with?” There were many things Akira couldn’t explain because he had no way of explaining where his information came from, so he couldn’t say them.
Tobirama fell silent for a moment, seemingly deep in thought.
“That’s a good proposal.
I’ll mention it to Monkey.” Akira frowned slightly.
Hiruzen seemed rather resistant to unfamiliar things, so the chances of this proposal being approved probably weren’t very high.
But it didn’t matter.
At worst, Akira could bring it up again after he grew up.