The second official Five Kage Summit of the shinobi world—and the first one that included Kirigakure—came to a temporary close three days later.
After probing Yagura's intentions, the other four Kage understood that he had no desire to provoke another large-scale war. That alone set the tone for the future: peaceful development among the nations, mutual cooperation, and the creation of a shared destiny within the shinobi world.
Of course, this so-called peace was founded on Kirigakure's overwhelming advantage—its control over four Tailed Beasts.
Still, on one hand, it was undeniable that no single nation had the strength to challenge Kirigakure alone. Compared to Hashirama Senju's attempt to treat all nations equally, Yagura's system of peace through deterrence was, at least for now, far more stable.
On the other hand, Yagura publicly vowed that if he—or any future Mizukage—were to break the treaty, the other nations, along with the Akatsuki, who now wielded the Rinnegan, would have every right to strike back at Kirigakure.
Kirigakure was strong—very strong—but not strong enough to take on the entire world alone. Not strong enough to suffocate every other nation under its power.
It was not like Konoha under Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara in the past.
Nor was it like the original timeline's future, where Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke formed the unbeatable core of Konoha.
Having understood Yagura's plans, the remaining three Kage (Gaara not included) each harbored their own thoughts—but inwardly, they all felt some measure of relief.
They couldn't deny it—Kirigakure's power now rivaled Konoha's before the Third Great Ninja War.
The summit dispersed. The four Kage returned to their respective villages to discuss internally and plan for another Five Kage meeting at a later date.
Ōnoki, the elderly Tsuchikage, ordered Han, the jinchūriki of the Five-Tails, to carry his frail body back home. Along the way, he silently prayed that a new Dust Release user would soon appear in Iwagakure.
The Raikage, A, returned to Kumogakure accompanied by his once-lost, now-recovered brother Killer Bee—the jinchūriki of the Eight-Tails—as well as Yugito Nii, who had been forcibly separated from the Two-Tails.
Normally, losing a Tailed Beast meant certain death for the jinchūriki.
Yet Yugito, miraculously, was brought back to life thanks to the forbidden jutsu "One's Own Life Reincarnation" that Chiyo had once researched. The cost was the life of a single White Zetsu.
Yugito became the first successful test subject of the Rebirth technique.
A prime example of mutual benefit.
Though she no longer had the Two-Tails, Yugito returned to Kumogakure alive.
The Two-Tails, for now, was sealed away, waiting for Gaara to choose a suitable jinchūriki within Sunagakure.
Gaara, meanwhile, returned to Suna with new territory from the Land of Wind—and the sealed Two-Tails.
As he made his way home, the twelve-year-old Gaara, wise beyond his years, felt almost as if he were floating.
With this honor under his belt, he was now undoubtedly the greatest Kazekage in history!
...
Unlike the other Kage, who all returned with varying degrees of gain, Jiraiya returned to Konoha with nothing but a stack of signed surrender treaties—some bearing his name, others bearing the signatures of the feudal lords.
He also had to contend with the Raikage's shakedown; A had agreed to pay a generous compensation fee to Konoha.
And right now, the one thing Konoha needed most was money.
After the Land of Fire's daimyo suffered the humiliation of losing territory, paying reparations, and being forced into a submissive treaty, Jiraiya wasn't optimistic that they'd be offering Konoha any more financial support.
He was, without question, the most miserable Hokage in history.
He had to clean up the mess Danzō left behind, and now he was forced to sign a pile of unconditional surrender agreements under his own name.
Once, the name Jiraiya—the Toad Sage, the untamed wanderer—had only ever been scrawled across the author line of best-selling novels.
...
Four years later. Year 64 of Konoha's calendar.
—or rather, it was now called Year 64 of the New Era.
Konoha had fallen from grace, and even the calendar system had been reformed.
Under the leadership of the Five Great Nations, and with Akatsuki serving as the overseeing power, the Shinobi World Alliance was formed—a new international order for peace.
The mission of the Alliance was clear: peace and development.
Any nation that betrayed this peace and waged war would face sanctioned retaliation from the rest, and the offending nation's Tailed Beasts would be repossessed in the aftermath.
After the lightning-fast Fourth Great Ninja War in Year 60 of the new calendar, the Shinobi World Alliance was officially established.
Their first act, under the guidance of the Five Kage, was a joint operation between the Five Great Nations and Akatsuki to eliminate the last remnants of the White Zetsu army hiding underground.
It was the first recorded instance in history of the Five Nations uniting against a common enemy.
War could never be entirely bloodless—but it was the first time the Five Nations had formed a combined army. The first time they had fought alongside their former enemies.
They had marched together. Slept side by side.
They fought shoulder to shoulder—and that, to some extent, softened the bitterness of their former rivalries.
Uchiha Madara's legacy, the White Zetsu army, was completely wiped out. With no foreign threats left, true peace reigned in the shinobi world—for four years.
Konoha, meanwhile, received humanitarian aid from various nations and slowly began its reconstruction under the leadership of the Sixth Hokage, Jiraiya.
As for Akatsuki—Yahiko, burdened by overwork, fell gravely ill.
Yet he had lived long enough to see the peace he'd once dreamed of come to life. That alone gave him peace of mind. He stepped down to focus on his recovery.
Even in retirement, he could still be seen across the shinobi world, giving impassioned speeches about peace. According to Nagato, Yahiko had become addicted to the feeling of being on stage.
When Yagura heard this bit of gossip, he nervously asked whether Yahiko had started growing a beard.
Thankfully, the answer was no.
Nagato declined the position, so in the end, Konan succeeded Yahiko as the leader of Akatsuki.
Months after assuming leadership and stabilizing the situation, Konan did something no one had ever imagined—
She proposed that the hidden villages break away from the feudal lords. Replace them. Rule the countries themselves.
It was a bold move that flew in the face of tradition.
And she didn't stop at just talking. The day after making her speech at the Shinobi Alliance Conference, Konan signed an executive order.
Akatsuki's shinobi surrounded the daimyo.
That was when many realized something that shattered their worldview:
These feudal lords had no real power without their shinobi. They were just puffed-up parasites, good only for wagging their tongues and strutting over women.
Akatsuki, by that point, had effectively unified the Hidden Villages of the Rain, Grass, and Waterfall Countries.
Trying to manage external diplomacy among those three was already a nightmare for Yahiko.
What really exhausted him, though, were the internal conflicts between those three nations.
His collapse from overwork came largely from that chaos.
Konan had no patience for such nonsense. Within days, she had dissolved the old regime and brought the entire region under Akatsuki's control.
The daimyos of other countries watched in horror. Terrified, they ordered their hidden villages to declare war on the "traitorous" Akatsuki.
Then their worst fears came true.
The shinobi had finally realized: without them, the lords were nothing more than spineless fools—clowns who blustered on thrones and hid behind silken curtains.
The Hidden Villages across the Great Nations began following suit, dismantling their respective daimyos and placing the entire country under shinobi control.
The process was remarkably smooth—taking less than three months from start to finish.
The Kage of each Hidden Village continued to be referred to as "Kage." However, the term "Hidden Village" was phased out entirely. From now on, they would be addressed simply by their nation's name.
For example: "Mizukage" was no longer "the Mizukage of Kirigakure," but rather "the Mizukage of the Land of Water."
Karatachi Yagura had shown considerable restraint toward the old regime. The daimyo of the Land of Water, Oda, was a shrewd woman—she surrendered himself to Kirigakure even before the coup began.
And with that, the era of daimyos hiring shinobi as mercenaries came to an end.
Ninja officially became the ruling power of their respective nations, ushering in a brand new age.
That same year, two other major events rocked the shinobi world—two Kage stepped down, and two new ones rose to power.
At the start of the year, the Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, retired due to old age and passed the title to his granddaughter, Kurotsuchi.
Deidara had no interest in politics and simply wasn't leadership material. While his combat ability far surpassed Kurotsuchi's, sheer strength alone wasn't enough to be a Kage.
Kurotsuchi—spirited and sharp—proved herself as the new Fourth Tsuchikage by being the first to respond to the Akatsuki's movements and the second to dismantle her country's daimyo. She had the decisiveness and foresight needed for the role.
Among the elders, the jinchūriki of the Four-Tails and Five-Tails were still capable of fighting.
Deidara and Akatsuchi, once her squadmates, now served as Kurotsuchi's most trusted aides.
After stepping down, Ōnoki devoted all his energy to training a new student.
He was lucky—he found a child capable of inheriting the Dust Release.
At the same time, he urged Deidara to take on an apprentice of his own—someone with a passion for art—to pass down his legacy and spend his twilight years cultivating the next generation of the village.
...
Mid-year brought even more change.
The Sixth Hokage, Jiraiya, dismantled the Fire Daimyō's daimyo and, after committing one last mischievous act, announced his retirement.
In just three or four short years, Jiraiya seemed to have aged a full decade.
He had poured heart and soul into rebuilding Konoha, laboring like a worker in a blood-and-sweat factory. During that time, he also passed down the secrets of Mount Myōboku's summoning techniques to Hatake Kakashi.
Then he handed over the Hokage title to Kakashi, making him the Seventh Hokage.
As for Jiraiya himself—mission accomplished, he retired with honor and returned to his travels, back to writing books across the world.
While other villages were still under their Fourth or Fifth Kage, Konoha surged ahead, already on to its Seventh.
Hatake Kakashi wasn't overwhelming in battle nor particularly dazzling as a politician—but he held steady on both fronts.
What he offered was stability.
Among the new generation, the core strength of Konoha was clear: Nara Shikamaru led the new Ino-Shika-Chō trio, while Hyūga Neji and Aburame Shino stood as the quiet, dependable powerhouses of the village.
Even Princess Tsunade, though she had stepped down, couldn't quite sever her ties to Konoha. Soft-hearted as ever, she took on a student of her own—Haruno Sakura, the girl with monstrous strength.
Meanwhile, Nara Shikamaru became engaged to Temari, one of Sunagakure's three Sand Siblings, solidifying a political alliance through marriage.
The Fifth Kazekage, Gaara, was the youngest of the Five Kage—still younger than both the newly appointed Kurotsuchi and Kakashi.
His control over Shukaku's chakra continued to deepen and stabilize with time.
Sunagakure's puppet brigade—reconstructed under Sasori and Chiyo—also performed exceptionally well.
The village's Two-Tails jinchūriki, however, was of average talent and had shown no signs of losing control, though progress in mastering the tailed beast's power remained slow.
The fertile land recently acquired by the Land of Wind dramatically eased their long-standing shortages of food, iron, and other resources.
For the first time in living memory, the citizens of the Land of Wind truly experienced what it meant to live in prosperity.
There was no question—Gaara had become the most outstanding Kazekage in the history of the Land of Wind.