Kakashi was obviously never going to accept a solution that amounted to killing people purely to reduce their numbers.
Forget Kakashi—even the Senju brothers would never go that far.
In fact, it was entirely possible Tobirama had already arrived at the same conclusion: there was only one absolute solution, but it was one he himself could never carry out.
That was precisely why he had handed the problem to Kakashi.
The core issue was simple.
Possessing the Will of Bullying was not, by itself, a crime worthy of death.
And there were far too many people who possessed it.
Put those two facts together, and anyone with a moral bottom line could not bring themselves to start killing.
Meanwhile, anyone without a moral bottom line probably wouldn't care enough about justice to solve bullying in the first place.
Even if, by some miracle, someone appeared who was willing to slaughter their way through the problem, killing that many people would inevitably get them branded as a major villain.
Konoha itself would probably end up having to protect the people carrying the Will of Bullying from them.
After waiting anxiously for half a day, Kakashi finally received Makoto's reply.
The moment he read the opening section, despair washed over him.
"Even Makoto doesn't have an answer…"
Kakashi slumped.
"We're finished."
He selectively ignored the one "solution" Makoto had proposed.
With Kakashi's intelligence, he understood immediately that Makoto was not talking about deterrence.
It was simply killing people to reduce the number of carriers.
And once you started using that method, you could never stop.
Otherwise, everyone you had already killed would have died for nothing.
Kill ten people, and there were ten fewer carriers of the Will of Bullying.
That was all.
It did nothing to stop new carriers from appearing.
It did nothing to reform the people who already possessed it.
Because none of them would ever fear dying for the Will of Bullying.
It was almost as if anyone who died while faithfully carrying out the Will of Bullying expected to wake up in Valhalla afterward.
Makoto's only absolute solution was unusable.
But the rest of the letter still gave Kakashi plenty of useful directions to think about.
More importantly, Makoto's clear description of the Will of Bullying finally made Kakashi understand just how terrifying it really was.
Being unmoved by poverty, untempted by wealth, and unbent by force was only part of the problem.
The truly horrifying part was this:
The Will of Bullying had already fused completely with the Will of Fire.
Those who carried the Will of Bullying could even see themselves as standing on the side of justice.
Because in Konoha, people who were bullied almost always ended up protecting the village with everything they had.
Therefore, from a certain twisted perspective, bullying someone was effectively helping transmit the Will of Fire.
You bullied them.
They suffered.
They grew stronger.
Then they dedicated themselves to protecting Konoha.
After reading that section, Kakashi fell completely silent.
Makoto's wording was calm, objective, and free of personal emotion.
Yet somehow, between the lines, Kakashi could practically read one unspoken sentence:
What is wrong with you people?
You get bullied half to death—
And you still insist on defending the village responsible for it?
Viewed through the old lens, that was called saintly.
Noble.
Optimistic.
But from Kakashi's new perspective?
It was enabling them.
It was allowing the cycle to continue.
Kakashi suddenly remembered something from the reform proposal Makoto had previously written for Tsunade.
Objectively speaking, for a nation, one of the most counterintuitive truths was that personal revenge—even revenge directed against authority itself—did not necessarily undermine social stability.
Sometimes it preserved it.
There was a reason revenge had carried an instinctive sense of justice throughout human history.
Suppose an employer withheld wages and was killed by the worker.
On the surface, refusing to rely on official channels looked like a breakdown of order.
But once news spread, every other employer who had been withholding wages might immediately pay up.
One act of revenge could indirectly solve countless similar disputes.
By contrast, if everyone refused to retaliate and instead spent years negotiating politely with abusive employers, things might appear stable on the surface.
In reality, resentment would simply accumulate until it eventually exploded all at once.
The same logic applied to the Will of Bullying.
Even if they temporarily ignored the bizarre supernatural property that made the Will of Bullying resistant to ordinary deterrence and treated it like a normal social problem, Konoha still had an enormous structural flaw.
You got bullied.
You did not take revenge.
You did not completely fall into darkness.
And eventually, you still chose to protect the village.
…
Looking at those conditions alone, Kakashi himself could almost understand why people kept bullying others.
If the only goal was to produce shinobi who would protect Konoha, the system practically rewarded it.
Counterexamples?
There were none.
Makoto had written that very clearly.
If someone thought Orochimaru launching the Konoha Crush, or Obito pursuing Infinite Tsukuyomi, counted as proof that bullying could produce enemies of the village…
They were wrong.
By the Boruto era, hadn't Orochimaru effectively been rehabilitated and become someone who protected Konoha?
Kabuto had been bullied by Konoha, manipulated by Danzō, and even forced into killing his own adoptive mother.
Yet in the end, he became the director of an orphanage and chose to protect Konoha too.
Obito needed even less explanation.
He eventually became the "coolest guy," after all.
These people looked like counterexamples.
In reality, they were positive examples.
What?
They caused enormous casualties before being redeemed?
Then here was the question.
From Konoha's perspective, which mattered more?
The damage caused during the Konoha Crush—
Or Orochimaru later resurrecting Konoha's previous Hokage during the Fourth Shinobi World War and helping save the Five Kage?
For villains to be redeemed in the first place, they generally needed to perform some enormous deed that outweighed what they had done wrong.
For normal people, good deeds and crimes could not simply cancel each other out.
But for inheritors of the Will of Bullying?
It was a perfectly acceptable transaction.
They were already people who would not stop bullying just because retaliation might get them killed.
So the casualties caused by these villains could simply be treated as necessary sacrifices.
After all, those villains would eventually turn around and protect Konoha again anyway.
In an environment this distorted, even someone who did not originally possess the Will of Bullying would gradually be influenced and become a bully themselves.
Because from both a public and private perspective, the system seemed to offer benefits with almost no downside.
That was where Makoto's letter ended.
Kakashi's thoughts, however, continued racing.
And suddenly, he understood why the shinobi world of the original future had never truly changed.
Naruto's supposed goal of "breaking the cycle of hatred" had fundamentally produced negative consequences.
"What does revenge ever solve?"
"Revenge only creates more revenge."
"After taking revenge, you'll only feel empty."
"So just forgive and let go."
Bullshit.
Ancient emperors had already answered the question of endless revenge long ago.
When would revenge end?
Easy.
Wipe out the entire clan.
If that still wasn't enough, add another branch of the family tree.
As for the claim that revenge only left emptiness behind?
That was even more ridiculous.
If you never took revenge, you might spend the rest of your life feeling sick every time you sat down to eat.
Once revenge was finished, however, the sky opened up.
You could finally enjoy your life.
You could let go.
You could look at everything else with a calm heart.
Naruto's excessively saintly tendency to oppose revenge and preach forgiveness was exactly what had eventually created a world where even his own daughter could be bullied.
Then, after Naruto and Sasuke were both left barely functioning, Sakura and Sarada were bullied too.
You reap what you sow.
"There!"
Kakashi suddenly shot upright.
A flash of inspiration appeared in his mind.
Makoto had said the Will of Bullying had effectively become one of the world's supernatural rules.
Heaven's Will.
Something that could not be changed through ordinary means.
But at the same time—Naruto was the Child of Prophecy.
Which meant he should count as one of the central anchors of Heaven's Will.
At least until the Boruto era arrived, Naruto was still the core around which destiny revolved.
Therefore…
If Kakashi could change Naruto—
Then he could change Heaven's Will itself.
And if Heaven's Will changed—The Will of Bullying could be overturned!