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[— Manga Scene —]
Gaara stood in the middle of the room, a twisted smile on his face.
"Six years ago, right when I turned six…"
"My real father tried to assassinate me — several times!!"
"Huh?"
Naruto took a step back, his throat gone dry.
"!"
Shikamaru's eyes widened.
"Huh? But you said he spoiled you…"
"What do you mean?"
"…"
"At my birth, because of that technique, my mind was disturbed…"
Gaara continued in a voice that never changed.
"The fools in the village finally realized that my emotions were unstable…"
"That technique was far too powerful — so it came to contain fear."
"To my father the Kazekage, I was the trump card… but…"
"At the same time, I was a danger…"
"After I turned six, I was classified as a dangerous individual."
"I was a dangerous tool for the village. To be used with caution."
Then Gaara turned his face toward his own shadow, stretched across the tiles.
"So I'm nothing but a trace of the past — and they want it erased."
"So then, why was I born, and why do I live?"
"I've asked myself that, but I cannot find the answer."
"Yet I need that reason to keep on living. Without it… I might as well be dead."
"What is he talking about?"
Shikamaru whispered.
"I…"
"…understand."
'He's… exactly like me…'
"And this is what I concluded…"
Gaara went on, his smile widening.
"I exist to kill every person other than myself… by killing the killer… I realized the reason for my life."
"I found comfort inside the fear of being killed at any moment."
"I fight only for myself, and I love only myself. And as long as I believe that others exist so that I can feel that way, the world is a wonderful place."
"As long as there are people to kill in this world, to increase my pleasure in living…"
"My existence will remain."
"What is this kid…"
Shikamaru broke out in a cold sweat.
"He's genuinely dangerous…"
But Naruto did not move.
'I was alone too… I didn't know the reason for my existence or my suffering, but because Iruka-sensei taught me the meaning of my existence…'
'I was finally able to feel that I was alive…'
'But… he…'
'This boy is still alone… and he believes he exists to kill others…'
"Is there really a person like this…?"
"The world we live in is completely different…!!"
[— End Scene —]
…
Konohagakure:
In the reading hall, no one moved.
Some of the readers had opened their mouths to say something, then closed them again without a sound coming out.
And in the quiet corner, Kushina Uzumaki sat motionless, the volume open on her knees.
She had read that one line three times.
I was a dangerous tool for the village. To be used with caution.
'…'
Without warning, the girl found herself thinking about a file whose location she did not know: some sheet of paper, in some archive, somewhere beneath the Hokage's building, with her name and her classification written on it.
And she did not know what was written inside it.
'Am I one too…?'
Then she lifted her eyes from the page and looked around her, without meaning to.
Minato beside her, absorbed in his page. An old man in the front row explaining something to his grandson while pointing at a drawing. Two children fighting over a single volume. The owner of the ramen shop who knew her order without her having to say it.
And something very heavy came loose in her chest.
'The difference between him and me isn't the seal.'
'…It's that I was never alone. Not for a single day.'
At the head of the hall, Uzumaki Mito noticed the girl looking around, and said nothing.
For she knew that look very well.
'The three of us carried the same thing.'
'I had Hashirama. And she has these people.'
'And that child in the sands…'
The lady returned to the page, to the boy whose shadow stretched alone across the tiles.
'…had no one.'
'And that is the whole difference. Not the beast, not the technique, not the village.'
…
A few seats away, Minato was reading another line over and over.
By killing the killer… I realized the reason for my life.
'A seal stops the beast from getting out.'
'It doesn't stop the host from becoming one.'
The boy looked at the page, at the six-year-old child whose own father had tried to kill him.
'Whoever designed Shukaku's seal… mastered the technical half of his work perfectly.'
'Then he left the harder half to someone else — and no one ever did it.'
…
And at the head of the hall, Hiruzen Sarutobi was reading a single name in those pages — a name he had never expected to find in such a place.
Iruka-sensei.
'An Academy instructor.'
'Not a Hokage, not a Sannin, not some great clan.'
'Just a teacher who told a child: you exist.'
The old man let his smoke out slowly.
'Three generations of planning to protect the village… and the most valuable thing we did in all those pages was done by a man who grades children's papers.'
…
But in his seat, Shimura Danzo was reading the very same thing and arriving at an entirely different conclusion.
'Suna's mistake was not cruelty.'
'Their mistake was hesitation.'
'They built a tool, then feared it. They tried to kill it, then kept it. They classified it as dangerous, then sent it out on a mission.'
'Anyone who builds a weapon of that scale must settle the matter from day one: either bind it to something that makes it obey… or never build it at all.'
Then the man stopped at the teacher's name.
'And Konoha, in those pages… never settled the matter either.'
'Its weapon survived by chance. Because an Academy instructor happened to be a decent man.'
Danzo turned the page.
'Chance is not a policy.'
…
Sunagakure:
In Suna's hall, no one was reading about a stranger.
They were reading an official report about their own village.
A dangerous tool for the village. To be used with caution.
Every jonin in that hall recognized the phrasing. They wrote lines like it every month, in their own reports — about weapons, about regions, about persons of interest.
None of them had ever imagined it being written about a six-year-old.
And in his seat, Rasa was staring at a single line he could not get past.
My real father tried to assassinate me several times.
He read it once. Then again.
'Times.'
'Not once, in a moment of rage. Not a decision taken in an emergency council.'
'Times. Meaning he failed, and thought it over, and tried again.'
The young man felt something tighten in his stomach, and did not understand why he felt personally insulted by it.
So he closed the volume, set it on his knee, and did not open it again until the session ended.
…
Kumogakure:
In Kumo, there were a few seats closer to silence than the rest.
Killer Bee read every one of those pages without rapping a single line.
And in his depths, the Hachibi was fully awake.
"Shukaku."
'Your brother?'
"The youngest of us. The loudest of us. And the least patient."
the ox rumbled slowly.
"He was never the most dangerous among us, boy. He was only the maddest — because he never sleeps."
The Hachibi paused.
"And they put him inside a newborn… then left that newborn all alone."
'…'
"Do you know what Shukaku does to a host who never sleeps and has no one to talk to?"
'I think I'm reading it right now.'
"No. You're only reading the beginning."
As for the Third Raikage, he closed his volume before everyone else, gave his two sons a long look, and said a single sentence before returning to his reading:
"In this village, no one sits alone."
…
Iwagakure:
In Iwa, Ōnoki did not comment on the tragedy.
He commented on the arithmetic.
"A weapon that loves nothing but itself is not a weapon, Kitsuchi."
The old man blew out his pipe smoke.
"A weapon gets aimed. That thing doesn't get aimed — it gets left wherever you want it to disappear."
"So Suna, in those pages…"
"…planted a landmine in the middle of its own house, and named it the Kazekage's heir."
Ōnoki tapped his pipe.
"And when they walk it into Konoha in that war… it won't be a danger to Konoha alone."
…
Kirigakure:
And in Kiri — the village that taught entire generations that hearts are tools — a seven-year-old boy sat beside his father, reading about a child who had been made into a tool.
Little Zabuza read the pages slowly, his lips moving along with the words.
Then he said, without lifting his head:
"Dad."
"Yes?"
"He didn't choose anyone."
Momochi Genma stopped.
"…"
"You told me: when you become strong, choose for yourself who you protect."
The child finally raised his head, and in his eyes was a question he did not want answered.
"And he didn't choose anyone. So he turned out like this."
"…Yes."
"So if I hadn't chosen…"
"Zabuza."
"…would I have become like him?"
Genma did not answer right away.
He looked at his son for a long moment, then reached out and placed his hand on the boy's head — heavier than usual.
"That is exactly why I told you what I told you."
And outside, the mist coiled around the walls of the store, the way it always did.
But the child, for the first time, did not look at it.
…
And in the five halls, every reader reached the same line at nearly the same moment.
The world we live in is completely different…!!
Then the eyes, in all five halls, moved on to the next page.
While Naruto was drowning in tension — because of the thought that had somehow burrowed its way into his mind, that he could never win against a monster like Gaara — Maito Guy appeared, and stopped the fight that had been on the verge of erupting.
The final exam, it seemed, was right at the door.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 217: This Is My Ninja Way!
Chapter 218: The Main Event Begins!
Chapter 219: Neji vs. Naruto! (End of Volume 11)
Chapter 220: Between the Two Volumes
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