After a full two hours, the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi's opening ceremony speech finally concluded.
Shiraishi's legs ached from standing, but he patiently took notes on Hiruzen Sarutobi's speech.
As a 'traitor,' he absolutely couldn't show any dissatisfaction or oddities before his betrayal.
In other words, what the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi said would likely be tested in school.
Although the Third Hokage's speech was even cheaper than the inspirational articles he'd read in his previous life.
After the speech, the students exited in an orderly fashion, returning to their respective classrooms.
The teachers, however, had a meeting to attend.
Shiraishi's assigned class was Year 1, Class A.
The entire classroom was arranged in a tiered fashion, with each desk long enough to accommodate three people, meaning three shared one desk.
Shiraishi found his name, 'Chiba Shiraishi,' written in bold at the middle seat of the second to last row by the window.
When he found his seat, someone was already sitting at the innermost seat by the window.
It was a girl with long black hair, about the same age as Shiraishi, around five or six years old.
She rested her chin on one hand, quietly gazing out at the playground, an aura of inaccessibility surrounding her.
"Hello, my name is Chiba Shiraishi. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Try not to attract attention, but also don't appear too reclusive—this was the position Shiraishi had set for himself.
So, when he sat down next to the girl, Shiraishi introduced himself first.
The other person turned her head slightly, removing her hand from her chin. On her delicate and cute face, her expression was somewhat cold and aloof. Her dark pupils shone with a pure and icy aura like snowflakes, and she spoke to Shiraishi in a condescending tone:
"Uchiha Ruri."
What a cold, long-haired loli.
After the girl named Uchiha Ruri finished speaking, Shiraishi felt the surrounding temperature suddenly drop significantly.
After that, Shiraishi had no intention of talking to Uchiha Ruri again.
He quietly sat in his seat, flipping through the textbooks already prepared on the desk.
There was a decent variety of textbooks, including "Chronicles of Konoha Village," "Collection of Hokage Sayings," and "First Hokage and the Will of Fire"... with "First Hokage and the Will of Fire" placed on top.
Shiraishi read very seriously, as this was an important way to gather information.
Because of the Third Hokage's opening ceremony speech earlier, Shiraishi only had a partial understanding of the 'Will of Fire' promoted by Konoha Village, and there might still be some omissions.
Now he needed to delve deeper into what this so-called 'Will of Fire' was all about.
He wanted to understand more deeply whether this so-called ninja school was truly a brainwashing institution.
Although Shiraishi no longer held any illusions about this village called Konoha.
The opening words of "First Hokage and the Will of Fire"—
Where tree leaves dance, fire also burns. The firelight will continue to illuminate the village and make new leaves sprout.
The meaning of this sentence is easy to understand.
Young people are the future hope of the village; the older generation must trust young people and protect them.
The sacrifices of the older generation are not without value; rather, they encourage young people to become pillars capable of bearing the future of the village.
The burning leaves are a metaphor for the heroic sacrifices of the older generation, and the new leaves represent the young people.
A cycle of reincarnation.
This is the core essence of the Will of Fire.
At first glance, it seems pretty good and quite reasonable.
But then he thought about the children under ten who were sent to the battlefield... Hmm... This seems to be using the sacrifices of young people to illuminate the older generation... So, this kind of will is both false and empty.
At least, that's what Shiraishi thought.
Why hadn't others in Konoha Village noticed such an obvious flaw?
Shiraishi continued to read, unaware of the passage of time around him, but as he turned page after page, Shiraishi felt his lips dry and large beads of cold sweat seeped from his forehead.
The contents of this book were utterly devoid of substance, a complete discourse on worthless, idealistic fantasies.
Is this the will passed down by the God of Shinobi?
Did he even read books?
Where are the guiding principles in the Will of Fire?
What about the ideological program?
What about the detailed criteria and standards?
Shiraishi found the content of the book "First Hokage and the Will of Fire" extremely jarring.
The entire book talked about the First Hokage's ideals: family, peace, protecting children... but there were no concrete plans.
Moreover, the promise to protect children didn't seem to be upheld either.
Currently, large numbers of children under ten in Konoha were being sent to the battlefield, sacrificed as cannon fodder.
Thus, Shiraishi finally discovered a fact: on every crooked page of this book, the words 'Will of Fire' were written.
But through the back of these countless 'Will of Fire' characters, Shiraishi realized the content between the lines—pyramid scheme.
Konoha Village is a terrorist organization.
The Ninja Academy is a pyramid scheme brainwashing institution.
What's even more terrifying is that such books openly appear in the Ninja Academy. What does this imply?
It means that the village's upper echelons have already brainwashed all the adults in the village, and now it's the turn of the new generation of children.
Unfortunately, Shiraishi himself would also be one of the members to be brainwashed by this so-called 'Will of Fire.'
It wasn't until a soft voice reached his ears that Shiraishi awoke as if from a dream.
"Um, are you okay? You're sweating a lot. Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"
"Huh?"
Shiraishi turned his head and saw a cute girl with long black hair, just like Uchiha Ruri. Compared to the icy expression on Uchiha Ruri's face, the girl's pure eyes held a clear, gentle color; she seemed like someone easy to get along with.
Her eyes, however, were very strange.
They were a pure white color, without any impurities.
Cataracts?
"Are you okay? You have a lot of sweat on your face."
The other person continued to ask about Shiraishi with gentle concern.
Shiraishi then touched his face, feeling a lot of cold sweat. He shook his head dryly and said, "I'm fine, I might have accidentally drunk expired milk last night, my stomach feels a bit uncomfortable."
"Is that so?"
The other person looked at him with a questioning gaze.
"Sorry for making you worry. I'm Chiba Shiraishi, and you are?"
"Hyuga Ayane, please to meet you."
The other person smiled gently and gracefully. Shiraishi was also infected by this pure smile, and he nodded with a sigh of relief.
On the other side, Uchiha Ruri glanced thoughtfully at the book Shiraishi had been reading. Her intuition told her that Shiraishi was sweating cold because of the book in his hand, and his eyes showed clear signs of confusion and fear.
This made Ruri very curious.
It's just a book, could it really be so terrifying?
Her deskmate was truly a strange fellow.