Chapter 572: Kakashi Realizes the Will of Heaven
Killing purely to reduce the number of people was a method Kakashi would never accept.
Forget Kakashi—even the Senju brothers couldn't do something like that.
In fact, it could even be said that Senju Tobirama had already realized this was the only possible solution. Because he couldn't bring himself to do it, he passed the task on to Kakashi.
The core issue was that simply possessing the Will of Bullying wasn't a crime deserving death.
On top of that, there were simply too many people who possessed it.
With those two factors combined, anyone with a moral conscience couldn't bring themselves to kill, while those without a conscience would never genuinely try to solve the bullying problem.
Even taking ten thousand steps back, suppose someone really did appear who was willing to start killing.
After slaughtering so many people, they would inevitably be branded the ultimate villain.
Konoha would probably even step in to protect the people who possessed the Will of Bullying.
After waiting anxiously for half a day, Kakashi finally received a reply.
The moment he read the beginning of the letter, despair washed over him.
"So even Shiromo has no solution... It's really over now..."
Kakashi immediately ignored the only solution Shiromo had suggested.
With Kakashi's intelligence, he understood after reading it that this wasn't about deterrence at all. It was simply killing to reduce numbers.
Once it started, it could never stop.
Otherwise, everyone killed beforehand would have died for nothing.
Every person killed meant one fewer bearer of the Will of Bullying, but it couldn't stop new ones from appearing, nor could it reform those who already possessed it.
Because they simply didn't fear dying for the sake of the Will of Bullying.
It was almost as if anyone who died because of it believed they would ascend to Valhalla afterward.
Although Shiromo's only solution couldn't be used, the latter half of the letter still provided Kakashi with many new perspectives.
Only Shiromo's clear explanation of the Will of Bullying allowed Kakashi to truly understand how terrifying it was.
'Poverty cannot shake them, wealth cannot tempt them, and force cannot break them' was only part of it.
Even more frightening was the fact that the Will of Bullying had completely merged with the Will of Fire.
Those who possessed the Will of Bullying were actually considered to be on the side of "justice."
Because in Konoha, those who suffered bullying would eventually dedicate themselves to protecting the village.
Therefore, bullying others was, in essence, passing on the Will of Fire and training people who would protect the village.
After reading that, Kakashi fell completely silent.
Shiromo's words were objective and impartial, without the slightest trace of personal emotion.
Yet between every line, Kakashi could still hear an unspoken sentence.
'Why are you people such masochists?'
You get bullied and abused, yet you still insist on protecting the village.
Viewed from his old perspective, that was called being saintly, noble, and optimistic.
But now that Kakashi had changed his perspective, he realized it was called indulgence.
It was called enabling.
Kakashi suddenly remembered something Shiromo had written in the reform proposal he had once given Tsunade.
Objectively speaking, for a country, something highly counterintuitive was true.
When an ordinary person took revenge in anger, no matter who the target was—even if it was the authorities—it wasn't actually destroying stability.
It was preserving stability.
That was why revenge had naturally carried a sense of justice throughout history.
For example, if a boss who refused to pay wages was killed, it might appear that the victim had disrupted public order by not reporting it to the authorities.
But after that incident, every other employer who had been withholding wages immediately paid their workers, indirectly solving countless similar problems.
On the other hand, if everyone chose not to seek revenge and instead endlessly negotiated with their employers, it might seem peaceful on the surface.
In reality, the problem would merely be buried until it exploded all at once someday.
The same logic applied to the Will of Bullying.
Even if they temporarily ignored the fact that the Will of Bullying was unaffected by normal influences and treated it like an ordinary phenomenon, Konoha still had a massive problem.
If you were bullied, you didn't take revenge.
You didn't completely fall into darkness.
In the end, you still protected the village.
After seeing those conditions, even Kakashi himself felt tempted to bully people if his only goal was protecting Konoha.
Counterexamples?
There weren't any.
Shiromo had already explained it perfectly in his letter.
If someone thought Orochimaru, who launched the Konoha Crush, or Obito, who sought the Infinite Tsukuyomi, were counterexamples...
Then they were completely mistaken.
Didn't Orochimaru end up reforming and protecting Konoha by the time of the Boruto era?
Kabuto Yakushi was bullied by Konoha, manipulated by Danzō into personally killing his adoptive mother, and yet in the end, didn't he become the director of an orphanage and choose to protect Konoha as well?
As for Obito, there was no need to mention him.
He became the coolest guy of all.
These seemingly contradictory examples were actually supporting evidence.
What?
You say Orochimaru and the others caused countless deaths before they reformed?
Then here's the question.
From Konoha's perspective, which was more significant—the damage caused by the Konoha Crush, or the contribution of the Impure World Reincarnation Four Hokages during the Fourth Great Ninja War, along with saving the Five Kage?
For these redeemed villains, if they wanted to earn redemption, they had to accomplish something greater than the crimes they had committed.
Only then were they considered worthy of being forgiven.
For ordinary people, merit and crime couldn't cancel each other out.
But for the inheritors of the Will of Bullying, this was considered a perfectly acceptable exchange.
They had never feared death brought about by the backlash of the Will of Bullying anyway.
The casualties caused by those villains were merely necessary sacrifices.
After all, they would eventually return to protecting Konoha.
In such a twisted environment, even someone who wasn't originally an inheritor of the Will of Bullying would gradually be influenced and become one of the bullies.
After all, whether for public interests or personal benefit, there were countless advantages and not a single disadvantage.
That was where Shiromo's letter ended.
But Kakashi's thoughts continued to expand because of it.
He suddenly understood why, in the original future, the ninja world still hadn't truly changed.
Naruto's so-called ending of the cycle of hatred had actually produced the opposite effect.
Things like...
'When will revenge ever end?'
'Revenge only leaves you feeling empty.'
'So you should give up on revenge.'
They were all nonsense.
Ancient emperors had already answered that question.
'When will revenge ever end?'
Exterminate all nine generations of their family and it's over.
If that wasn't enough, wipe out ten generations.
As for the claim that revenge only left emptiness afterward—that was even more ridiculous.
If you never took revenge, you'd feel sick every time you sat down to eat.
But after revenge was complete, the sky would seem wide open.
You could truly enjoy life and calmly face everything else.
Naruto's "saintly nature", rejecting revenge and promoting forgiveness, was precisely the core reason why his daughter would later be bullied.
Why Sakura and her daughter would also be bullied after he and Sasuke were left half-dead.
He had brought it upon himself.
"No... I've got it!"
Suddenly, inspiration flashed through Kakashi's mind.
It was as though he had finally grasped the only ray of hope.
According to Shiromo, the Will of Bullying had already become something like a supernatural law of the world.
It was Heaven's Will.
It couldn't be changed.
But at the same time, Naruto was the Child of Prophecy.
He should be considered the very core of Heaven's Will.
At least before the Boruto era arrived, he was still its central figure.
Which meant...
As long as Naruto could be changed...
Then Heaven's Will itself could be changed.
And the Will of Bullying could finally be overturned!
(End of this chapter)