But this is peace.
What Jiraiya, Madara, and the others pursue is solving all the conflicts in the world—that is, the conflicts of the human heart. That is the true curse of the Ninja World.
It is simply impossible to succeed!
As long as there are people, there are grudges; where there are grudges, there is the Jianghu. People are the Jianghu.
Madara's plan is to let everyone enter a beautiful dream, so that everyone's wishes can be realized and everyone's desires can be satisfied.
Jiraiya's method is to understand each other's pain through dialogue, thereby building a world without conflict.
If someone inflicts pain upon you, do not blame them. They hurt you because of some pain of their own; you must also try to understand their pain.
Influence them, pass your love to them! Put down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha on the spot!
Jiraiya's method is too soft; it ignores the greed in the human heart.
Madara's method is too extreme; the genjutsu world he creates is equivalent to denying everything about humanity.
Men will not have children with women, society will not advance, and life will not move.
He is essentially killing everyone to solve all conflicts.
When no one is left, conflicts and grudges vanish.
Only those who have completely lost hope in the world can agree with him.
Nagato didn't agree with it that much either.
It was only because Yahiko died and Jiraiya's method of mutual understanding failed that he wanted to try Madara's path.
After all, Madara has the Rinnegan; he is the savior who brings change to the entire Ninja World.
If Madara didn't have the Rinnegan, Nagato would have had his own method—to end war through fear.
If everyone feared the immense pain brought by war, then there would be no war.
Just like the Divine Punishment that attacked the Land of Rain.
Feel the pain, experience the pain, and once they understand how much pain hurts, they will no longer speak of war so lightly.
As for Ryou—
Ryou was peeking at Tsunade's chest.
Ryou didn't feel much about Yahiko's death; he had seen too many people die while at the Konoha Hospital.
War is a dirty game, and he couldn't care about emotions like Konan and Nagato did.
He could only do his best to be a dirty player.
It's just as well that Yahiko died; in death, there is no more pain.
With him dead, the entanglement with Konan was severed. Nagato was an introvert, timid and completely lacking his own opinions.
Wouldn't Konan belong to him in the future?
Thinking of this, Ryou wanted to laugh, but he couldn't.
Ryou thought through all the worst things that had happened in his life, but he still wanted to laugh.
What to do?
Ryou gave his balls a hard squeeze, and a mask of pain instantly appeared on his face. His sorrow seemed even deeper than Nagato's and Konan's.
Ryou directly hugged Yahiko's tombstone: "Yahiko! You died such a miserable death—!"
Konan and Nagato were surprised; Ryou's expression didn't look fake... Konan and Nagato entered the training hut by the nearby lake. There were three small wooden plaques inside, with the names of Konan's trio written below each.
The one on the far right was Konan's, the middle was Yahiko's, and the far left was Nagato's.
One side was red, the other was white.
These were Return Boards; flipping to white meant being out, and flipping to red represented returning home.
Konan flipped Yahiko's plaque over, as if to tell herself in this way that Yahiko had returned to this place.
Then, she and Nagato walked out of the hut and toward Ryou's location.
Yahiko was dead, forced to his death by Hanzo and Danzo, and also dead under his naive dreams.
The death of one person is nothing more than an extra grave to this world, but for Konan and Nagato, who depended on each other for survival, it was as if the entire world had been buried by that grave.
This wasn't a rainstorm, but a lifetime of dampness.
But life had to go on.
Does the Ninja World stop turning just because someone dies?
Konan and Nagato had to carry on Yahiko's will and continue working for peace in the Ninja World.
But when Konan thought of Madara's notorious reputation and then looked at Uchiha Ryou, this evil Uchiha...
She couldn't help but feel that he and Nagato weren't working for peace, but had instead become members of a terrorist organization that would bring pain to the world.
Ryou gave Tsunade instructions: "Tsunade, I've placed a large number of Exploding Tags inside your body."
"Go back to Konoha now. When the time comes, blow yourself up at the Five Kage Summit and send all our enemies flying into the sky."
This is getting more and more terrifying! Konan thought to herself.
"You bastard!"
Tsunade reached out and pinched Ryou's ear.
Kiyomi watched the two of them bickering from the side, finding it amusing. She thought they were interesting; despite their age, they still liked to play around like children.
On the way to Amegakure.
Tsunade crossed her arms and looked at Konan and Nagato with some emotion.
"You two, in the blink of an eye, so many years have passed, and you've grown so big!"
Konan looked at Tsunade with some envy: "Lady Tsunade, after all these years, you actually look younger."
"Really?"
Tsunade touched her face, feeling a bit shy.
Speaking of which, ever since Ryou planted that thing called a spore inside her, her body felt warm all the time, as if a small sun in her abdomen was providing her with energy at any moment.
Tsunade had no Chakra and couldn't use the Yin Seal to maintain her appearance, but that life spore seemed to have the function of restoring youth and keeping her young forever.
Despite being a prisoner, Tsunade's physical condition had always been very healthy.
Then, Konan and Nagato told Tsunade about their experiences over the years.
Tsunade felt emotional after hearing it: "Jiraiya actually hid such a major matter? He really—"
Tsunade didn't know what to say.
Jiraiya would definitely receive a major demerit.
Hiding the matter of the Rinnegan was already a violation of Konoha Ninja regulations. Now that Madara had reclaimed the Rinnegan, he had completely become a blade hanging over the heads of the Five Great Nations.
The fact that Jiraiya had hidden the Rinnegan would also be completely magnified.
Nagato lowered his head: "I wonder how Master Jiraiya is doing?"
"Jiraiya? Even if he recovers, so what? With his personality, he'll definitely come to stop Uchiha Madara, and then—"
Tsunade also sighed, then in a fit of anger, bit Ryou's arm.
"It's all because you, this naturally evil Uchiha, resurrected Uchiha Madara!"
"Are you ever going to stop? Give you a little freedom and you climb all over me."
Ryou used Wood Release to directly bind Tsunade and then threw her onto his back.
Tsunade shouted angrily: "Damned Uchiha, the Eye of the Moon Plan is against the entire Ninja World. You won't succeed."
While Ryou and Tsunade were bickering, Nagato noticed Kiyomi. They both had red hair and seemed to share a resonance in their bloodlines.
"And you are?"
Kiyomi said: "Lord Nagato, my name is Kiyomi, and I am from Kusagakure."
Kiyomi didn't place herself on the same level as Nagato and Konan; even with Ryou's protection, she knew her place.
She was just a somewhat special woman; she didn't even dare to bear the surname Uzumaki.
She only hoped her world would remain ordinary forever and that her child could grow up safely.
Nagato then asked: "Are you a member of the Uzumaki Clan?"
Nagato knew he was an Uzumaki; Jiraiya had told him.
It's just that Nagato wasn't a pure-blooded Uzumaki; his mother was an Uzumaki, but his father was just an ordinary doctor.
Like Naruto, he was a mixed-blood Uzumaki!
Nagato didn't have such deep feelings for the Uzumaki Clan; after all, he was raised by his parents and hadn't experienced the tragic destruction of his clan and nation.
But toward his mother's kin, he still felt a sliver of kinship; he wasn't completely alone.
"The Uzumaki Clan?"
Kiyomi's expression was somewhat emotional. Kiyomi was the same age as Uzumaki Kiyomi and had grown up in Uzushiogakure since childhood.
She wasn't as lucky as Kushina; Kushina, after all, could receive Konoha's protection and was taken to Konoha before the Land of Whirlpools was destroyed.
But Kiyomi was someone who had lost her country and home.
If she hadn't been taken in by Kusagakure because of the Uzumaki Clan's special constitution, her end might have been that of an unnamed skeleton in a mass grave.