Visiting graves and reading books—that used to be how Kakashi spent his days off.
These days, his breaks sometimes happened in the sky.
Being forced into the role of Flying Wing test pilot had unexpectedly opened up a new side of his life. Even after he was transferred to an important position in the Joint Bureau, Kakashi never gave up this part-time job.
If he had to give a reason, it was that high above the ground, with only the roar of the wind in his ears and the world below reduced to tiny specs, that weightless feeling—cut off from everything—let him truly relax, without having to think about a thing.
Just feel the wind, control the wing, and lose himself in the endless blue.
At least, that was how it was—until today.
"Kakashi—!"
To his left, through the goggles, he caught sight of a green-clad figure rushing toward him at incredible speed.
Even though the other man was also using the latest "Asuka Type VI," heat seemed to shimmer faintly off Guy's Flying Wing.
"Today will be our eighty-seventh match!"
Guy's shout crackled through the headset as the Asuka Type VI under him flashed past Kakashi, rolling in an exaggerated barrel roll.
The dead-fish eyes under Kakashi's goggles didn't change, but his wrist shifted almost imperceptibly on the joystick. The Asuka Type VI beneath him dropped to a deeper hum, speed quietly climbing as he locked steadily onto the green trail ahead.
"The rules are simple! Whoever finishes all the test items first and lands in the designated area with the most standard posture is the winner!"
"If I lose, I'll walk a thousand laps around the village on my hands! Using only one hand!"
Guy enthusiastically raised the stakes all on his own.
Kakashi pulled up alongside him. "Then… let's begin."
In the next instant, the two of them, like true birds, dove together into the training airspace ahead, where complex terrain had been simulated.
Low-altitude penetration run, high-speed sharp-turn evasion, vertical limit climb, glide ratio test… One maneuver after another flew by, the finish line drawing closer. Kakashi was the first to enter his landing procedure, touching down smoothly and stopping dead center in the marker circle.
A second later, Guy's Flying Wing hit the ground with a blast of wind.
"My forty-fourth win." Kakashi unfastened himself from the Flying Wing and rolled his shoulders.
"Dammit! As expected of my eternal rival, Kakashi!" Might Guy clenched his fists. "Then, as a continuation of our battle in the sky, next—"
"No."
"Why? This is exactly when youth is burning hot, Kakashi!"
"Because," Kakashi said, handing the Flying Wing to a member of the technical team who had come up to take it, "I still have work. There's a troublesome meeting waiting at the bureau."
Once again, he'd been given a troublesome assignment.
This wasn't just a mission; it was the opening move in a larger strategy.
The agenda for today's meeting was "Carrying out preliminary investigations and information-gathering operations in specific gray areas outside the territories of the Five Great Nations, under the authority granted by last year's Five Kage Summit."
According to the instructions he'd received, the point of this operation wasn't to immediately produce concrete results, or to pin down the exact locations of the arenas, or even to drag out the organizers behind them.
The key was the act of moving.
Under the name of the Joint Bureau, they would officially place "investigations into potentially illegal coliseums" on the record, start the formal procedures, and make sure word spread.
First, they would send this wind toward the various Daimyō, forcing them to recognize one thing: matters involving ninja coliseums fell within the scope of shinobi world affairs. After that, they would gradually make it clear that even if the nobles and elites of each country were involved, their actions still fell into the domain jointly managed by the Five Great Ninja Villages.
Once all of that groundwork was laid, it would finally be time to turn the unspoken rules into explicit ones.
Until then, everything he did was just a cautious opening move.
Kakashi had already been briefed on the general framework of Roshi's plan. The silver-haired jōnin couldn't shake a certain uneasiness.
If things kept advancing along this trajectory, by the time those two someday patted their backsides and wandered off, what they left behind for him to deal with would be… no, not "a bit" problematic. Very problematic.
It was starting to look like he wouldn't be able to handle things by just following one village's old ways anymore.
—
Evening, inside Ichiraku Ramen.
"I'm diggin' in—!"
Hands pressed together, Naruto shouted his usual line, then immediately attacked the bowl in front of him. Piping-hot tonkotsu broth, springy noodles, thick slices of chashu—every bite made his eyes squint in pure bliss.
Beside him, Gaara ate with much smaller, careful movements. He picked up a small bundle of noodles, blew on them to cool them, then placed them in his mouth, barely making a sound.
"Hey, hey, Gaara, what're you getting for your second bowl?" Naruto had already almost finished his first and asked around with a mouthful of noodles, "I'm going to try the miso one!"
"I'll… stick with tonkotsu."
"Alright! Old man! One more tonkotsu and one miso over—"
Before he could finish, the shop's curtain lifted.
A man and a woman walked in side by side and took the empty seats at the counter.
Gaara set his chopsticks down.
"Roshi-san."
Naruto, in the middle of drinking his soup, choked as soon as he heard the name. He coughed violently, his whole face turning red, and after struggling for a moment, he finally managed to catch his breath. He whipped his head around and, sure enough, that familiar figure was there.
"Roshi-nii! You're back!"
"Just got back yesterday."
Naruto leaned toward the kunoichi sitting beside Roshi and muttered under his breath, "So today it's a short‑haired big sister..."
Samui's ears twitched almost imperceptibly, but her face stayed completely calm as she took her seat in silence.
"This is Samui-san," Roshi said. He ordered two bowls of tonkotsu ramen from Teuchi, then glanced at Naruto. "Naruto, you should have seen her before."
"Y‑yes! Hello, Samui-neesan!" Naruto straightened up at once, his tone suddenly respectful.
The kunoichi gave him a slight nod. "Hello, Naruto."
Naruto sneaked a few looks at her, then turned back to Roshi. "Can Roshi-nii come watch us train tomorrow?"
"Grandpa Third is really good too, but he won't let me use too many Shadow Clones…"
"I'm going on a business trip tomorrow."
"Eh—?!" Naruto's shoulders slumped at once. "But you just got back!"
"There are some things I have to take care of," Roshi replied. He accepted the first steaming bowl from Teuchi, took a sip of the rich broth, then looked over at the red‑haired boy. "How's your training going, Gaara?"
"The Third Hokage said that next week we can try joining the class's regular combat training," Gaara answered.
Naruto immediately launched into a stream of chatter about their exercises, talking nonstop as he shoveled ramen into his mouth.
Gaara stayed mostly quiet, only speaking up now and then to correct a detail.
Roshi ate his noodles in silence, listening to the two boys.
By the time they were done, Naruto had five empty bowls stacked in front of him, and Gaara had two.
"I'm full, I'm full…" Naruto thumped his satisfied stomach.
"Hey, hey, Roshi-nii, can you teach me a new ninjutsu next time you come back? Even though Iruka-sensei tested my chakra nature, the Wind Release ninjutsu he gave me is so boring."
Roshi set his chopsticks down.
He had finished all the noodles and drained the last of the broth. Taking a napkin, he calmly wiped his mouth, then turned to meet Naruto's eager gaze.
There was no particular emotion in his eyes, but for some reason Naruto felt a flutter of nerves.
"I'll see when I come back next time."
"If you can pass the test, I'll teach you a new ninjutsu."
—
Among the Five Great Nations, the Land of Earth was the last place Roshi had ever set foot in.
When he was still running minor missions, Iwagakure's relationship with Konoha had been openly hostile, leaving him no chance to come.
Later, even after they joined the alliance, he'd never had a specific reason to make the trip.
"I thought the Land of Earth would never end up on your itinerary."
Ōnoki's voice drifted from ahead. Right now he looked like nothing more than an ordinary old man, slowly making his way up the stone steps carved into the cliff.
"Surely you haven't come all this way just to say you agree with what I told you back then."
Roshi didn't answer. The two of them climbed in silence for another ten minutes until the stairs finally came to an end—
and the view before them suddenly opened up.
They stood atop a solitary peak.
Calling it a "peak" was generous. It was more like a colossal stone pillar thrust up from the earth, its summit shaved flat as if some impossibly sharp blade had sliced it clean.
From here, the entire southern stretch of the Land of Earth lay exposed beneath them.
Reddish-brown ridges ran across the land like the spine of a slumbering dragon, twisting and rising in jagged waves. Canyons split the terrain into countless scars—deep, shadowed chasms that looked bottomless, as if the ground itself had been torn open.
But the most striking thing was the "wall" at the very edge of their vision, spanning almost the whole horizon.
It was no man-made fortification but a true, naturally formed rock wall. Over a thousand meters tall and stretching far beyond sight, its face was marked with countless layers and striations, each line the trace of ages worn away by time.
"How is it?" Ōnoki sat down at the cliff's edge. "This is the backbone of the Land of Earth. It's also Iwagakure's natural barrier."
Roshi walked over and stood beside him, his gaze following the old man's. "It's spectacular."
In the presence of such overwhelming, almost miraculous power of nature—so far beyond human reach—any words of praise felt meaningless.
"Now that you've seen the finest scenery this country has to offer," Ōnoki went on, "it's time you stated the purpose of your visit."
Roshi still didn't answer.
He watched quietly as the last strip of golden light along the rock wall was swallowed by deepening purple dusk, and the first star flickered to life in the darkening sky. The biting wind of high altitude whipped at his bangs, carrying with it the dry, cold scent of the vast land below.
"Lord Tsuchikage," he said suddenly, "what do you think a ninja is?"
"A man like you," Ōnoki's gray eyebrows jumped, his voice laced with open mockery, "who's stirred up so much trouble in the ninja world is actually pondering a question they cover in the first class at the Ninja Academy?"
Roshi answered with a faint smile.
"Five years ago, a child asked me the same question," he said. "Back then, I told him that being a ninja is just a job."
"Last year, someone else asked me the same thing. That time, I didn't answer at all."
The Third Tsuchikage narrowed his eyes, his gray brows drawing together into deep creases across his forehead.
"Sounds like your thinking has gone through quite a few shifts these last few years." There was a hint of curiosity in his tone now. "What, even Konoha's Will of Fire couldn't resolve your doubts, so you came all the way to the Land of Earth to hear about the Will of Stone instead?"
Roshi shook his head.
It was just the opposite. He pulled his eyes away from the rock wall and finally turned to face the old man at his side.
"My thoughts have never changed," he said. "Once you strip away all the artificial, so-called noble ideals people attach to it, a ninja is just a profession—just a means to make a living."
Ōnoki let out a short, dry laugh.
He didn't say whether he agreed or not. He only watched Roshi in silence, waiting for him to go on.
Decades of sacrifice, the blood shed for the village, comrades fallen on countless battlefields, and the interests fought over at negotiating tables—everything he had lived through made it impossible for the Third Tsuchikage to accept that answer in his heart.
And yet, if those words came from Roshi, they had to mean more than what was on the surface.
"Did you come all this way just to talk to me about this?" Noki asked.
"Yes."
Roshi lowered himself to sit beside the old man, his gaze following Ōnoki's to the distant rock wall. Night was settling in; in the deep purple sky, the first star had already appeared.
"From a professional standpoint," he began slowly, "a ninja is a job that exists purely to carry out the wishes of others. It can't do anything on its own."
"The client makes a request. The ninja executes it."
"Whether it's escorting, scouting, assassination, or anything else—the ninja doesn't create the need. They're just the tool used to fulfill it."
Ōnoki's brows drew together again.
"But if that were completely true," Roshi's tone shifted, "then ninja-initiated world wars wouldn't happen."
"There wouldn't be one large-scale conflict after another, sweeping across the entire continent because of the pursuit of development, dissatisfaction with the status quo, or fear of the power and wealth gained by other villages."
He turned his head to look at Ōnoki.
Under the starlight, the old man's face was half in light, half in shadow.
"Lord Tsuchikage, ninjas are, first and foremost, human beings."
If it had been ten years ago—no, even five—Ōnoki would probably have snorted at such a claim, dismissing it as weak, naive, and out of touch with reality.
A ninja was a ninja—a weapon of the village, a tool for completing missions. In a cruel world, indulging in too much human sentiment was not only a luxury but also a danger.
But then he recalled Rōshi, the four-tails jinchuriki's stubborn back as he insisted on leaving the village to train. Deidara's almost fanatical devotion to his so‑called "Art of Explosion"...
"What exactly are you trying to say?" Onoki's voice dropped, edged with faint irritation.
That irritation wasn't necessarily aimed at Roshi but at the reality the other man had brought into focus—a reality Ōnoki himself had sensed yet never clearly sorted out.
Meeting his gaze, Roshi continued.
"What I mean is that because ninjas are human, they can't remain satisfied forever with being tools that only carry out other people's wishes."
"They'll seek meaning. They'll develop desires. They'll clash over different ideologies. And when that inner human drive combines with the mission‑execution model of the ninja profession and is locked inside a system of competition centered on the Hidden Villages, the cycle of history becomes almost inevitable."
He paused, letting the night wind scatter the last traces of his words, then spoke the most forceful conclusion of the evening:
"From a long-term perspective, shinobi—professional shinobi as we know them now, whose entire way of life revolves around taking and completing other people's missions—are destined to disappear."
"And they must disappear."
"But if these powerful individuals—these former shinobi—lose their restraints after leaving the village system, act on their own, and chase only selfish desires, the chaos and destruction they cause could be even more terrifying than wars between ninja villages."
"So the old system has to be broken… but the new path absolutely cannot be one of regression or total collapse."
"What we need is a new way of life, where 'those with power' and 'those who seek peace and development' are no longer set against each other as 'mercenaries and clients' or 'rival armed factions' but can truly merge their interests and move forward together."
"The ninja villages have to be the first ones to step out of that old cycle."
"Or rather… the entire shinobi world has to at least try to break free from it."