The battle was finished.
But so was their target.
"Shinra, you killed him directly again," Konan murmured as she descended gracefully, her paper wings folding back into her body.
This time, though, her tone was different. No accusation, no anger just a simple observation.
She could no longer muster the words to blame him.
The gift Shinra had prepared for her had struck its mark. Nothing dismantled ideals faster than reality itself. And Ando's lifeless body on the ground was far more persuasive than any argument.
Konan's voice trembled. "Why is this happening? Was our teacher's dream… really wrong?"
Her body still bore faint cracks from releasing her Paper Ninjutsu, leaving her looking like a fragile statue of ice, beautiful yet fractured.
But Shinra did not soften. After patiently holding back for days, he finally bared his fangs and unleashed the strongest Ninjutsu in existence.
Not Fire Release. Not Lightning Release.
Talk no Jutsu.
"Your ideals might be beautiful," he said, voice clear and steady, "but they're far too naive.
Mutual understanding between people only works when their positions, their struggles, and their identities are the same. That's why Akatsuki has grown so quickly in the last few years. Most of the people you've gathered were victims of war, just like you. You shared pain, so you naturally found warmth together.
But, Konan… the world isn't made up of only one kind of person."
His words cut deeper than any blade.
Konan swallowed, her voice faint. "People who live in peace while others carry the burden… You mean the Great Nations?"
Shinra shook his head with a faint smile. "You're still looking too shallowly. Don't limit your vision to just shinobi villages."
He raised three fingers.
"In my eyes, this world is divided into three classes. Nobles and merchants, shinobi, and ordinary people who live like beasts of burden.
The nobles and merchants bleed the common folk dry to build their wealth. Then, they take a slice of that wealth and hand it to the shinobi in exchange for loyalty. That's all our great ninja villages really are: hired blades.
And to maintain this system, they've spent decades hammering a single doctrine into our skulls.
You know it well The Ninja Code."
His tone turned mocking as he recited it.
"Mission first. Those who fail the mission are trash. As long as the client didn't lie, a shinobi must never, under any circumstance, harm the client.
Look at it. A perfect leash. The nobles and merchants spent years breeding us like dogs, and now shinobi can't even lift a blade against them. As long as they've got money, they can summon ninja to fight and die for them anytime, anywhere."
Shinra nudged Ando's corpse with his toe.
"This man is the proof. Even here, in the war-torn Land of Rain, he could always buy protection. When he ran out of mercenaries to hire, he turned to Iwagakure. If not them, it would've been Sunagakure. Or Konoha. Or even Kumogakure.
Why? Because that's how the system works. Shinobi fight and bleed. Employers count their coins.
We risk our lives. They count their profits."
Konan stood frozen, unable to answer.
Even without fully understanding the mechanics of Shinra's "formula," she could feel the scorn and venom dripping from every word.
And worse… she could not refute it.
What Shinra said shattered Konan's previous understanding. Compared to the hollow ideals she, Yahiko, and Nagato had inherited from Jiraiya, Shinra's words were not just a challenge
they were a dimensional strike, cutting straight through the foundation of their beliefs.
And he wasn't finished.
"As long as this world keeps running under its old rules, people like Ando will never, ever understand you.
Those with vested interests have no reason to empathize with the victims of the system. Why would they? They gain nothing from it.
And shinobi? We're trapped in this cycle of endless Great Ninja Wars because we've been so deeply indoctrinated that we've lost the ability to even question the rules.
When a village runs out of money, what do they do? They start another war, hoping to steal mission quotas from rival villages. But not once do they reflect on the truth that every commissioned mission has always been unequal, that the effort and blood we give are never equal to the rewards we're paid."
His tone sharpened as he gestured toward the corpses around them.
"Take these Iwagakure ninja, for example. They crossed thousands of miles to serve this one greedy merchant. They risked their lives, invaded another country, and what will they get in return? Maybe not even one percent of his total fortune."
Then Shinra turned to Konan, and his words became the final blow.
"So, Konan… do you understand now? This is the truth of the shinobi world!
Peace will never come from childish ideals of mutual understanding.
If you truly want peace, the only path is to break the rules and overthrow the entire old world!"
In Konan's eyes, Shinra's smile looked almost demonic, the grin of a devil tempting her to fall. She wanted to resist, to turn away yet found herself unable to.
The truth was, Shinra didn't yet harbor true ambition to overthrow the whole shinobi world. But that didn't stop him from painting the biggest vision possible.
As Lu Xun once wrote: human nature is compromise. If you ask to open a window, people will refuse. But if you demand to tear the entire roof off, suddenly opening a window sounds reasonable.
If Shinra had only said, "Your ideals are too childish," Konan would have resisted immediately. But when he set the stage with something grand, even impossible, like remaking the entire shinobi world, Konan herself would eventually arrive at the smaller conclusion that mutual understanding truly was naive.
It was time to shake this rotting system to its core.
And the cruelest irony? Most of what he said wasn't even fabricated. It was born from his real experiences these past few months. Especially the part about shinobi being bound by indoctrination Shinra had lived it, and felt the weight of those chains himself.
And at that very moment, not far from the Land of Rain border, another boy was living under that same discipline of the Ninja Code.
A white-haired prodigy was silently carrying out an infiltration mission.
Behind him, a teammate muttered angrily.
"That Kakashi is so infuriating! What does he mean, 'missions come before comrades'? Just because he became a Chunin early, he thinks he can spout that nonsense? One day, I swear, I'll knock him flat!"