Whenever Dan thought about the future he intended to impose upon this world, he could not help but feel a slight sense of pity for Naruto. He could already imagine the shock, anger, and sorrow someone like him would experience, because that future would stand in complete opposition to everything Naruto believed in and to the values upon which he had built his entire life.
Naruto, who believed in dialogue, compassion, and understanding even toward his greatest enemies, and who devoted everything he had to creating a world with less suffering and greater opportunities for everyone, would one day find himself facing a reality completely different from the one he had dreamed of and struggled to achieve.
Yet despite the genuine sympathy Dan felt toward Naruto and the suffering his own plans would inevitably cause him, it did not mean, even in the slightest, that he would reconsider his path or rethink his decisions. Quite the opposite. His resolve and determination would never waver.
In truth, if the reasons behind his chosen path had to be summarized in only two words, they would be simple, direct, and completely devoid of embellishment or excuses: selfishness and strength.
Yes selfishness and strength. Dan was an extremely selfish person, and he neither denied it nor attempted to disguise it behind noble-sounding justifications. Because of that selfishness, he had no desire to place himself in danger by standing on the front lines to defend humanity directly against the Ōtsutsuki, whose inevitable arrival he believed would one day come. Such a confrontation, despite all of his current power, would still place him at risk.
That was because he still considered himself only moderately powerful when measured against whatever might exist throughout the vast universe. In his view, there had to be beings in distant reaches of the cosmos whose strength surpassed his by an enormous margin . places he had never reached and entities he had never encountered. True wisdom, to him, meant never behaving with the arrogance of someone who believed he had reached the summit while he was still climbing the mountain.
For that reason, he had no intention of exposing himself to direct conflict with an alien civilization whose true scale and hidden power remained completely unknown to him.
At the same time, however, he had no intention of standing by and doing nothing. He would help human civilization advance and evolve but in the manner he considered most appropriate. His method was to cultivate individuals strong enough to one day stand at the forefront when the great confrontation finally arrived, while he and his family remained behind the scenes, quietly pushing humanity forward from the safety of the background, far removed from the front lines.
As for the second part of the equation , strength ,although Dan did not consider himself overwhelmingly powerful on a universal scale, he knew with absolute certainty that, at least among humanity in the present era, he stood at the very top. In his eyes, that position granted him the right to impose his own philosophy regarding humanity's evolution rather than allowing someone else's philosophy to prevail.
His philosophy was founded upon a single principle: growth through hardship. According to his plan, he would allow every form of darkness, evil, suffering, corruption, madness, and horror born from humanity itself to run free. He would neither suppress nor erase them, allowing them instead to unfold naturally. Inevitably, this would plunge mankind into unimaginable disasters and suffering that would only intensify as civilization advanced and its conflicts became increasingly complex.
Yet at the same time, that accumulated pain would serve as the whetstone that continually sharpened humanity, forcing it to climb toward ever greater heights of strength, understanding, and wisdom . heights that could never be reached through comfort, safety, and the absence of genuine challenges. True strength, the kind capable of standing against a civilization like the Ōtsutsuki, could never be born within a sheltered world.
In this way, generation after generation, humanity would eventually acquire the power necessary to confront the Ōtsutsuki when the inevitable clash arrived in the distant future that Dan had been patiently preparing for.
Naturally, Dan did not claim that his method was objectively the best, nor did he believe it was the only possible path or that every alternative was necessarily wrong. There were undoubtedly other ways to elevate humanity and prepare it for what awaited it, some of which might have been far kinder and less cruel. However, he believed that his own method suited him best, matched the resources and abilities he possessed, and aligned honestly with the selfish nature he openly acknowledged within himself.
There was another reason that continually reinforced his belief that he had the right to impose this vision: a law that, in his eyes, had never been broken throughout the history of any civilization or any era . the strong possess the power to impose their vision upon the world, whether that vision is righteous or wicked. The strong have always imposed their ideas, philosophies, and convictions upon those weaker than themselves. It had been true since the dawn of history, and changing eras or civilizations would never alter that reality. Every philosophy that succeeded in shaping the world did so because power stood behind it and supporting it, enforcing it, and ensuring its survival. Without strength, philosophy remained nothing more than beautiful words with no influence over reality. Even in the world Dan had originally come from, he believed the principle had been no different.
His thoughts came to a brief halt, and a faint smile spread across his face carrying a trace of quiet self-mockery directed at himself alone.
"From the perspective of the other side... I really do look like the final villain in any story."
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