Night.
"Cheers!"
At Shinji's house, because there were too many people, Shinji moved the entire table into the small courtyard.
Accompanied by the slight coolness of autumn, Naruto and the others raised their cups and happily clinked them together.
Shinji put down his cup and looked at his seven disciples, a smile on his lips. This way, it's actually quite good.
"Arrogant Sasuke, I saw it first!"
"Loser, if your hands are slow, don't talk so much."
After saying that, Sasuke enjoyed putting the dumpling into his mouth.
What's snatched is always more delicious.
At the dinner table, everyone ignored the two bickering. Before, they would have tried to mediate. But now, it's been almost two years and they're still like this, so no one has the energy. Besides, the more they argue, the better their relationship gets.
"Sensei, please eat." Neji meticulously picked up food and placed it in Shinji's bowl, then said softly.
Shinji waved his hand, signaling Neji not to mind him.
"You two, if you keep bickering, you won't have anything left to eat." Shinji said, pointing to the food on the table that was rapidly disappearing.
Choji had been craving this for a long time.
"Hey! Choji! How did you get so sneaky?!" Naruto shouted with an expression of disbelief, then sped up his eating.
Interrupted like that, Sasuke also joined the battle for food.
Shinji shook his head at the sight, these kids were really mischievous.
"Sensei, Iwagakure probably won't be able to sit still now, right?" Shikamaru, while helping Choji put more food in his bowl, asked.
After hearing Shinji speak that afternoon, Shikamaru's review suggested that Iwagakure would most likely not ignore the alliance between Konoha and Kumogakure.
The current structure of the Ninja World was already fixed. If any one side suddenly grew stronger, the other ninja villages would not stand idly by.
"Hard to say." Shinji shook his head.
No one could predict such things.
Before returning, Hiruzen had already discussed it with Shikaku for a long time. But it all still depended on their actions.
Kumogakure probably wouldn't come over in the short term, either. After all, if Iwagakure could help them gauge Konoha's true strength, it wouldn't be bad. Perhaps they wouldn't even have to pay anything.
The dinner table fell silent for a moment.
War.
This word had always been out of their reach. The Third Great Ninja War had already ended by the time they were born.
"Sensei, when the time comes, can I apply to graduate early?" Neji, who had been silent for a while, finally spoke.
What he had to do was not easy, and sometimes in the village, status was earned through one's own efforts. Simply becoming a Jonin didn't mean much. Frankly speaking, many Jonin in the past decade had been promoted based on the number and rank of their missions. Their quality was completely different from the Second and Third Great Ninja Wars, and their fame was the same.
Whether it was Konoha's White Fang, the Sannin, or Minato, they all achieved their status at the time through military achievements.
"We'll see then. It's too early to talk about this now."
Shinji did not object to Neji's decision, as Neji was relatively more mature than Naruto and the others. However, graduating early also meant that Neji would lose his current lifestyle. Maturing too early wasn't necessarily a good thing.
The examples were right before their eyes: Kakashi, Itachi, Shisui, and others.
Which one of them didn't have somewhat extreme thoughts? And most of it was due to environmental influences.
Leaving the village too early, without having established a stable state of mind, was definitely not a good thing.
Neji nodded. He had only been thinking about this. Whether it would happen when the time came was another matter.
— — —
Rain fell as if never-ending.
The rainwater flowed into the inland lake that surrounded the entire village, making the entire village seem like it was abandoned by god.
From the outside, it seemed as if only this one place on earth was being repeatedly beaten by the rain.
Inside the village, most of the buildings were made of steel. Pedestrians moved through the rain, huddled in their soaked conical hats and straw cloaks, their steps hurried.
On a nearby window, the faint, blurry figures of one or two children were reflected.
But the next moment, they were pulled away by an adult inside the room, who also drew the curtains. The only faint warm light disappeared at that moment.
On the tallest building in the village, a platform extended outwards, where a figure stood, overlooking everything below.
A man with orange hair, wearing a black windbreaker embroidered with red clouds, and with ripples in his pupils, gazed indifferently at everything beneath his feet.
Thump-thump—
Soft footsteps approached, and the man glanced sideways.
A woman with short, straight blue-purple hair, styled into a bun, and wearing a light blue paper flower on the right side of her head, appeared behind the man, dressed in similar attire.
Akatsuki Organization, White Tiger, Konan.
Konan looked at the figure before her and spoke, "Pain, news just arrived."
"Konoha is about to form an alliance with Kumogakure, and just now, Iwagakure sent a message proposing cooperation."
Hearing this news, Pain turned his head to look at the gloomy sky. After a long pause, a low, penetrating voice, mixed with the sound of rain, emerged.
"The so-called Kage are merely prisoners who kneel to rewrite history, more nauseating than maggots."
Konan listened quietly, her gaze fixed on the figure standing in the rain.
"Notify all members to begin the Akatsuki meeting."
"Yes." Konan nodded and turned to walk inside the building.
"Five Great Nations, your roots run too deep."
— — —
In a desolate desert, a short figure walked slowly, accompanied by a young man with a ponytail.
Deidara said, "I say, Sasori, don't you think the missions have been too boring lately?"
Sasori paused, his eyes darting to the brat behind him, and he said in a hoarse voice, "Deidara, right now, we must accept any request, no matter what it is."
Hearing Sasori's response, Deidara said helplessly, "But they're all just about making money, mercenaries, wars, things like that, with no artistic value at all."
He didn't join Akatsuki to do these things.
"While I agree, they still need to be done." Sasori finished speaking, then turned, intending to continue forward.
Hmm?
Just then, the rings on both their hands reacted simultaneously.
"Eh? Sasori, what's going on?" Deidara asked with surprise.
This was the first time he'd seen the ring react like this.
"The leader is summoning us for a meeting."
Sasori finished speaking, and the steel tail behind him immediately whipped out, kicking up sand, and in an instant, both figures vanished from their original spot.
Deidara, who had kept his eyes closed for a long time, opened them to see figures standing in various positions, like illusions, ethereal and vague.
"Yo! Boss, what do you need us for?" Deidara looked at the figure standing in the very center and asked excitedly.