Chapter 571: Even Shiromo Can't Solve It
Kakashi was in agony.
Obito had fallen into darkness and suffered because, after becoming wiser, he discovered Konoha's Will of Bullying.
Kakashi, in turn, suffered because he had discovered that Obito had fallen into darkness due to the Will of Bullying.
Back then, Obito had already been a "Simpleton"—naturally a bit slow—and then Uchiha Madara had spent all that time manipulating him.
With Obito's intelligence at the time, he simply couldn't distinguish truth from lies or good from evil.
At the same time, after realizing that Konoha's bullying culture was exactly what had led Obito down this path...
Kakashi had originally planned to find an excuse to pass this mission on to someone else.
But now...
A sense of responsibility had settled over him.
He couldn't save the Obito of the past.
But he could save countless other Obitos.
Kakashi put down the novel in his hand.
He felt an unimaginably heavy burden on his shoulders.
For today, he had completely lost the mood to relax or enjoy himself.
After thinking for a while, Kakashi decided to write a letter asking Shiromo for help.
After Jiraiya, Shiromo had become Kakashi's second mentor in life.
Shiromo had taught him many important lessons.
Now, the first person Kakashi thought of—the only person he believed might have a solution—was Shiromo.
After finishing the letter and sending it away through the Flying Thunder God transmission network, Kakashi finally let out a sigh of relief.
When it came to Konoha's bullying problem, Kakashi felt no different from the "Simpleton" version of Obito.
He had absolutely no solution.
He didn't even have a single idea or clue.
If even he was like this...
Then it was perfectly understandable why someone with Obito's intelligence had completely despaired and chosen the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
The Infinite Tsukuyomi was, in essence, running away from reality and creating a brand-new false world.
Running away was shameful...
But it worked.
Unfortunately, even if the Infinite Tsukuyomi truly were as wonderful as Obito and Madara claimed, the majority of people still wouldn't choose to enter it.
First of all, when faced with the classic choice between a beautiful illusion and a cruel reality, people generally split about fifty-fifty.
Secondly, the so-called perfect Infinite Tsukuyomi—the world that grants everyone exactly what they desire—might indeed work for people burdened with regrets.
But in Konoha...
It was completely useless.
The perfect world Konoha's villagers wanted...
Was the very ninja world they already lived in, where they could freely bully other people.
Their dream had already come true.
They had no need to enter a fake world just to continue bullying others.
Rather than fulfilling their dreams, the Infinite Tsukuyomi was actually helping everyone else escape their bullying.
After all...
There was simply no way to deal with a group of people who feared neither life nor death and would rather die than give up bullying others.
So the question became—If Shiromo were given this problem… Could he come up with a perfect solution?
Obviously not.
When Shiromo received Kakashi's plea for help, he was speechless.
Why ask him about something like this?
Was Kakashi deliberately trying to torture him?
Shiromo had already told Kakashi before that the Theory of Bullying could explain countless mysteries, just like the Theory of Heavenly Fate in the New Three.
What did that mean?
It meant the "Will of Bullying" was the Heavenly Fate of the ninja world!
It was the ninja world's own bizarre, immutable law.
Why would the villagers insist on bullying others even if it meant dying?
Because the true Lord Heavenly Fate Masashi Kishimoto needed the villagers to bully people in order to build plots and shape characters.
Even more frightening...
Lord Heavenly Fate Masashi Kishimoto had himself become corrupted by the very Heavenly Fate he created.
He realized that using bullying to flesh out a character's tragic past was simply too convenient.
So he became dependent on it.
From then on...
Everyone's backstory involved being bullied.
Naruto's background, in particular, became even more problematic after being "corrected" by Heavenly Fate.
Because, honestly, if Naruto had been bullied simply because he was the Fourth Hokage's son...
That would actually have been normal.
After all, in the country where Lord Heavenly Fate Kishimoto lived, members of the royal family being bullied was a widespread tradition.
Ironically, having Naruto bullied specifically because he was the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki was actually evidence that Lord Heavenly Fate Kishimoto had himself been consumed by Heavenly Fate.
After all...
In Lord Heavenly Fate's country, nobody bullied overweight people or little boys.
They even chose to deal with dangerous bears by stabbing them with spears that had no spearheads.
Their logic was: "If you stab a bear with a real spear and only wound it instead of killing it, you'll only make it more vicious."
"So you mustn't hurt the bear."
That theory was about as absurd as those who argued that the death penalty should be abolished so criminals would stop killing their victims.
Following that same logic...
Forget the fact that Naruto had never killed anyone as the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki.
Even if he had been like Gaara next door and killed someone every few days...
The villagers should still have happily worshipped Naruto the same way Lord Heavenly Fate's world treated dangerous bears.
But what actually happened?
Naruto experienced exactly the same childhood as every other bullied ninja in Konoha.
Not a single exception.
So what solution was Shiromo supposed to give?
Harsh laws were completely useless.
The people of Konoha were the very definition of: "Poverty cannot shake them. Wealth cannot tempt them. Force cannot break them."
They would never give up bullying simply because they themselves were weak.
Even if they couldn't afford food...
They would still spend money on eggs and fresh vegetables just so they could throw them at someone.
Nor would they stop bullying someone because that person was powerful, influential, or wealthy.
Just as Shiromo had said—If Naruto had been bullied because he was the Fourth Hokage's son, that would actually have made perfect sense.
'Boruto' had already demonstrated exactly that.
Himawari, the Hokage's daughter, was bullied.
Sakura and her daughter, members of Konoha's upper ranks, were bullied.
Denki Kaminarimon, the son of Konoha's richest man, was cornered and bullied into paying protection money.
Some people claimed that after Kawaki and Boruto swapped identities, the villagers subconsciously didn't want to bully Kawaki, which allowed them to see through Omnipotence and realize Kawaki wasn't really the Hokage's son.
That interpretation was wrong.
Because Konoha's villagers had never changed their Will of Bullying based on a person's identity.
Their bullying wasn't about picking on the weak.
Nor was it about challenging authority.
Their bullying treated "all living beings equally".
In the original Boruto story, Kawaki had been bullied and beaten since childhood.
He had suffered domestic abuse from his father.
After joining Kara, he endured constant torture and suppression.
When he finally arrived in Konoha, the villagers still whispered behind his back about his connection to a criminal organization, giving him the cold shoulder and socially isolating him.
That was bullying too.
But for Kawaki...
Konoha's equal-opportunity bullying was actually far too mild.
Combined with the love he received from his adoptive father Naruto...
He found life there surprisingly comfortable.
It wasn't that Konoha didn't bully Kawaki.
It was simply that, after becoming accustomed to brutal beatings, Konoha's style of bullying almost felt pleasant to him.
Faced with a situation like this...
What possible solution could Shiromo offer Kakashi?
Well...
There actually was one.
Konoha's Will of Bullying had already become like cancer.
At this point, ordinary methods no longer worked.
Shiromo picked up his pen and wrote only a short reply, explaining the solution he proposed to Kakashi.
The method was simple.
It was still "killing".
But this "killing" was completely different from the killing used to enforce laws during the reforms.
The killing under the law existed to deter people.
This kind of killing...
Was simply killing.
Because Konoha's villagers could not be subdued by force.
Even if you truly killed people, they still wouldn't abandon bullying out of fear of death.
The only purpose of killing...
Was to reduce the number of people left to inherit the Will of Bullying.
(End of this chapter)