Chapter 143: Each Other's Mistakes
Kakashi would never claim it out loud, but he considered himself a calm ninja.
Or rather, his ability to adapt to bizarre situations was far stronger than that of an ordinary shinobi. In a world like this, if your mind was not tough, you did not live long.
He had endured his years with Team Seven, the Third Shinobi World War, his father's death, his teacher's death, the Nine Tails' attack, and more tragedies than he cared to count. He knew there would be even more waiting for him in the future.
His heart had long since hardened and numbed, tempered like steel beneath a hammer. Very little could shake him anymore. Even when the Third Hokage and Orochimaru faced each other in that final master and disciple duel, Kakashi had been able to calmly hold Guy back and let them see it through.
The ending had not been ideal. In fact, it had been terrible.
But in terms of ritual, in terms of closure, it had been complete.
Kakashi Hatake once believed there was nothing left in this world that could truly shock him. No matter what he encountered, he thought he would face it with calm eyes.
Yet now, staring at the notebook in his hand, he felt as if he had wandered into a dream.
His own Mangekyou Sharingan behaved exactly as Aizen had described, exactly as in that "dream."
When he focused on it, he could feel it. The sensation of an empty, distant world quietly calling to him from the void.
This alone was not enough to prove that everything Aizen Sousuke said was true.
But it was enough to establish the simplest foundation of trust.
It meant Kakashi Hatake could at least meet him halfway.
Even knowing there was an immense gap between this world and that other one, Kakashi still felt like he was flipping through the notes of some feverish illusion.
In that world, it was as if some invisible whip had driven humanity mad.
Secret techniques were shared openly. The mysteries of chakra were dissected in broad daylight. Miraculous buildings and technologies appeared one after another.
The Hidden Cloud Village had created the legendary chakra cannon, a single blast capable of obliterating structures thousands of kilometers away.
The Hidden Sand and Hidden Stone had built miraculous industrial cities that, according to the notes, could rise from the ground and transform into battle forms.
The Hidden Leaf produced an endless stream of elite shinobi, dominating the world in both quality and quantity.
Hueco Mundo, the Army Without Borders, the Ninja World Conference.
Papers, theories, and new technologies were constantly being published.
Everywhere, shinobi learned Sage Mode. Without it, they had no hope of breaking through enemy defenses. Kunai and shuriken had given way to weapons embedded with chakra attributes and elemental inscriptions. Old style ninja tools were revived and upgraded, restoring the glory of a tool based combat era.
Machines indistinguishable from humans.
An endless army that could swallow the world.
Moon Dream, a technique that could cast all of humanity into illusion.
Crisis layered upon crisis. Disaster upon disaster.
Kakashi's hand tightened around the notebook.
If everyone possessed power that surpassed even the Eight Gates, if every shinobi could unleash such terrifying force, would a world like that not be as fragile as paper?
Perhaps that was why the Third Shinobi World War had never erupted there. Instead, the great nations began exchanging information and building structures to keep their madness in check.
"This is the theory advocated by Danzo Shimura, the founder of the Army Without Borders."
Aizen's voice drew him back.
Sitting in his chair, the man in the white stand collar coat gently blew on his freshly brewed black tea and spoke in a quiet tone.
"Great nations must hold weapons that guarantee mutual destruction," Aizen said. "The Army Without Borders operates as an independent force, with branches across the world. It intervenes in conflicts between major powers to maintain balance. It is the necessary evil of the shinobi world, the root that must lie buried for the great tree of this world to grow."
"Elder Danzo Shimura..."
Kakashi thought of the old man in his own village, with his perpetually gloomy stare, especially toward Fifth Hokage Tsunade.
It was hard to reconcile that Danzo with the Danzo in these notes, the man who had gained enlightenment in Amegakure, quelled the chaos of some "Eye of Chaos," and created a borderless army to control violence among the great nations.
Was that really the same person?
Was this Danzo truly that Danzo, the infamous Hokage fanatic of Konoha?
All of it sounded like something out of a fantasy novel.
But the most unbelievable part was not the Army Without Borders.
It was Las Noches.
Hueco Mundo.
According to Aizen, Las Noches was a world class research institution that focused primarily on research. It recruited talent from all over the shinobi world, was technically subordinate to the Land of Fire, and yet possessed remarkable autonomy.
Kakashi thought that sounded like nonsense.
When he had crossed into that world, the chakra surging inside that child version of himself was enough to rip him apart in seconds.
The monster calling himself Uchiha Madara could have shredded him without effort.
And judging from Madara's expression when Aizen appeared, Aizen himself could probably end Madara on a whim.
If you put all of them in one room and then claimed Las Noches was just a research group,
even a dog would not believe it.
"Has the war in your shinobi world narrowed your perspective, Kakashi kun?"
Seeing the subtle disbelief on Kakashi's face, Aizen shook his head, a hint of regret in his eyes.
"What matters in this world has never truly been brute force," he said.
"For myself, and for those in Hueco Mundo, combat strength is merely a byproduct of research."
"So called secret techniques, bursts of power, training methods. These are only formulas given form. Once you hold the underlying information, once you understand it, creating methods suited to yourself is only natural."
"From the outside, it may look like Hueco Mundo has a very different grasp of combat compared to ordinary researchers. That is only because our work touches the most fundamental mechanisms of the world itself. If we did not understand the flow of power, the subtle differences between chakra and spiritual energy, and the forces of nature, how could we hope to probe the depths of this shinobi world?"
"We continuously share our theories with the world in the hope that it can grow, that science and progressive thought can erase war. With courage and faith we explore the future. That is the ideal Hueco Mundo upholds."
"...It does sound very impressive," Kakashi admitted.
His counterpart in that other timeline had already accepted that world.
The Kakashi who sat here in Konoha, however, struggled to embrace it.
He remembered clearly the flash of despair on Madara Uchiha's face when Aizen appeared.
A man like that, the rival and partner of the First Hokage, a founder of Konoha itself.
If he truly was Madara, then that expression meant Aizen stood somewhere far beyond Kakashi's imagination.
"In that case," Kakashi said quietly, "you must have discovered a lot of things."
"That is not the right way to put it, Kakashi kun."
Aizen did not deny it.
"Truth exists whether anyone discovers it or not," he said. "The question is only whether there are people willing to seek it."
Seeing that Kakashi was trying to steady himself by steering the conversation, Aizen fixed his gaze on him and spoke in an even tone.
"No matter how we dress it up, no matter what excuses we create to hide from it, truth will arrive eventually. That is all. At most, we can delay it by a few years. But sooner or later, it will stand in front of everyone."
"..."
What am I supposed to say to that?
He says everything. The reassuring part and the terrifying part.
Where am I supposed to squeeze in a reply?
Kakashi stared at Aizen, who was frankly, sincerely explaining his own view of the world, and found that he could not fully believe him.
He could not picture Aizen, twenty years from now, calmly transforming himself into a machine or using some sort of contraption to cast ninjutsu.
Scientific ninjutsu.
The thought alone made his head hurt.
More than that, Kakashi no longer had the luxury of fixating on things so far removed from his reality.
He was no longer a child.
Reality was harsh.
Right now, all he could clearly see was his own village and the people around him. Anything beyond that felt like a mirage.
For a moment, he had been tempted by the world Aizen described.
But that temptation faded as quickly as it came.
Faced with the man in front of him, who was terrifying no matter how gently he smiled, Kakashi finally asked the one question that truly mattered to him.
"So," he said, "what do you think of Konoha now?"
"I am not sure," Aizen replied.
"What do you mean?"
"The literal meaning."
He lifted his black tea and met Kakashi's gaze with a gentle smile.
"If I judge that this world does not align with my ideals, I will act according to my own will," he said. "As you know, no one can stop me. At least as far as outcomes are concerned, this world has no such power."
"..."
"I am speaking to you from compassion," he continued, "not from some ridiculous exchange of political interests or philosophies."
"To me, what you pursue is meaningless. What I want is something most of you could never provide. I am simply curious about the present form of this world, and I hope you can tell me about it."
"Can you promise not to harm Konoha?" Kakashi asked.
"I cannot even promise not to harm you, Kakashi kun."
Aizen smiled as he said it, eyes lowered slightly.
The expression on his face was calm and merciful, almost like a Buddha in a temple mural.
"To me," he went on, "what proves a person is human is their willingness to move forward."
"Those who stand in the way of that progress are sometimes unnecessary."
"Just as pruning is necessary for saplings, some choices must be made if a tree is to grow well."
"I sincerely hope that even if this world fails to progress much, it will at least not regress too far. I do not wish to see everyone wallow in hatred and ignorance, killing one another like wild beasts and marking territory with corpses."
"If that happens, then all the First Hokage's intentions and sacrifices will have been in vain."
"I personally once oversaw a plan that eliminated five percent of the world's population. I do have some experience in this area."
"However, this is not my world. I do not know whether my influence would damage this world's essence. For now, I intend to adapt to circumstances and act accordingly. Are you satisfied with that?"
"..."
As expected, Aizen Sousuke was not a good person.
But as he watched Aizen smile and calmly utter such horrifying words, Kakashi felt a faint, inexplicable sense of relief.
As the leader of a massive organization, Aizen claiming to act purely for the world's sake would have been more unbelievable than anything he had just described.
No man who could make Madara Uchiha react like that, no man who wielded that kind of power, would be some naive believer in love and peace.
As he spoke about the Moon Dream operation, about the policies and measures that followed that disaster, Aizen's tone remained perfectly casual, like someone discussing what to have for breakfast.
Each action had been calculated. Each step had been a selection. An invisible hand thinning the orchard, harvesting the best fruit and discarding the rest.
Kakashi knew he had no right to judge him.
Compared to the countless lives that had been culled in Aizen's world, their Shinobi World War seemed almost crude.
A battle of masses, raging malice against raging malice.
In the end, Aizen's results were far more impressive.
To Kakashi, the Moon Dream campaign Aizen had launched and the wars waged by the Five Great Villages were not so different in essence.
And Aizen's image, in his mind, quietly shifted back toward something familiar.
Tobirama Senju.
The Second Hokage.
The master of forbidden arts, founder of Konoha's institutions, feared and revered in equal measure.
If he had to put it in his own terms, Aizen Sousuke was like an upgraded, world spanning version of Tobirama who had forced peace onto the shinobi world with his own hands.
Aizen's request, in the end, was simple.
He wanted Kakashi to let him study this world, to compare it to his own, and to find a way to freely travel between them.
There was a straightforward condition attached.
He wanted to understand the technologies of this world.
In practice, that meant traveling to the major ninja villages, observing their current state, and seeing whether any new concepts or tools might spark new ideas.
Kakashi had already confirmed two things.
First, the man in front of him was unimaginably dangerous.
Second, he had no way to oppose him.
So he sat down, accepted that reality, and began to talk.
He described, in detail, the history of a world without Aizen Sousuke.
Aizen did not take out a notebook this time. He simply listened, nodding occasionally, only interrupting to ask for dates or to clarify the more ambiguous parts.
He was, without question, a good listener.
He did not miss a single important point.
For Kakashi, the true turning point of his life was his father's death.
In Aizen's world, Sakumo had taken Kakashi as his godson. Here, there was no such thing.
In this world, Aizen Sousuke had never appeared beside Sakumo Hatake.
The turbulence outside the walls of Konoha was not suppressed by any invisible network.
Rumors and whispers grew unchecked.
Kakashi's childhood had never been what anyone would call happy.
Without any great technological leap, the Third Shinobi World War had broken out as usual.
People Kakashi knew died one after another. Every house in Konoha had worn mourning colors. Not one family was spared.
Those sacrifices had bought only a few decades of fragile peace before the cycle began again.
They were like grain thrown beneath a millstone, endlessly ground down to feed the machine.
From the first war that followed Hashirama Senju's death, every conflict since had just been an echo of that one.
Tailed beasts. Ninja alliances. Betrayals and ambushes.
The cruel, dark reality of the shinobi world had bared its teeth.
Beautiful things vanished quickly.
Death and suffering were the constant theme of their lives.
Even as he recounted it all, Kakashi found his voice turning heavy at certain moments without meaning to.
When he finally reached the end, when he had finished telling the story of Team Seven in a tone sunk with loneliness, Aizen exhaled softly and shook his head.
"So that is how it is," he said. "Minato kun is dead. Kushina as well."
"The Uchiha clan was wiped out for reasons no one seems sure of. The Hyuga are still divided between main and branch families for no good reason. The Caged Bird Seal still exists, does it not?"
"It seems that without me, this world simply continued along its natural track. No, I should say that I was the intruder. This is what your world was originally meant to be."
He swirled his teacup, watching the liquid spiral.
Then his gaze flicked back to Kakashi.
"Still," he said, "I am sorry to trouble you, but I have one more favor to ask."
"If possible, I would like you to look into Konoha's records for Orphanage Number Three. That is where I was found. So..."
"Youth needs rivals, Kakashi. I am here to challenge you again!"
"..."
That idiot obsessed with self training.
It is the middle of the night. What is he doing here?
Kakashi, who had been focused entirely on Aizen's words, snapped his head toward the window, annoyed.
He suddenly realized he had lost track of time.
The lamplight inside had made everything beyond the glass look black.
Now, a faint milky gray was seeping into the sky outside.
Dawn.
The second day was already beginning.
Soon Konoha would wake, stretching itself into another meaningless yet necessary cycle.
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