BXBX NOVEL Chapter 54 - 54. Concept Of Peace
Jiraiya felt confused, although he felt a little familiar but thought asking was better, "Hmm? Have we met before?"
Shiroken nodded, "So you don\'t remember me? I thought not many people would be able to forget someone with white hair in their life."
Just then it hit him, "OH! That pretty sister? I was so small back then."
"I AM A MAN!" Shiroken corrected him angrily.
"REALLY? I thought you were joking back then." Jiraiya thoughtfully said.
"Sorry sorry, I was just... my memories are hazy. But that was so many years ago, how do you still look nearly the same, just less girlish and more buffed?" Jiraiya asked him curiously.
Shiroken, who was smiling until now, stopped and turned serious. *SWOOO*
He vanished from the spot and appeared just beside Jiraiya, *BOOM* A punch landed on Jiraiya\'s face before he could even realise.
Jiraiya was shocked to some extent, he did not expect such sudden hostility. His body was thrown away from the main city, so no damage would come to the people.
A small line of blood appeared under his lips. Cleaning it, Jiraiya asked, "I am on a diplomatic mission, I am not here to fight or do anything bad, and if it\'s about the peeking... well... I guess I am guilty."
"You entered this country without registering your name at the border. That means you came illegally, and you were also sneaking around. How am I supposed to see you as anything other than a spy?" Shiroken questioned him.
Jiraiya\'s face twitched, he knew he messed up. Back when he was travelling, because there was a long line on the official border, he decided to just jump like a ninja and be on his way.
But, now it came back to bite him in the ass. "I did not know about the registration. But I really came here on a diplomatic mission. The Hokage has extended his hand of friendship and apologies for the past. We don\'t want any conflict with you or the Dama Country."
Jiraiya was in reality silently preparing to activate his Imperfect Toad Sage Mode, because he knew that fighting Shiroken was going to be very tough.
Shirorken flew in the air and hovered towards him, shocking Jiraiya. Jiraiya had only seen Onoki fly in the air and that was because he could control the gravity of the objects and himself. However, Shiroken seemed as if he wasn\'t even doing anything to fly.
"You shinobi are truly the most shameless people I have ever seen in the world. Know this, Jiraiya, there can never be peace between Konoha and me. Your Hokage attacked and enslaved my family, forced my people to move from their beloved home.
"Hashirama rambled so much about peace. He did all that in the name of peace, but... where is peace?" Shiroken asked him with arms widened.
Jiraiya was himself a philosophical man, he couldn\'t stay silent at this point, "I understand your grievances. But Lord First did all that for the peace. The peace did not come because of the shortsightedness of many Kages from other villages and those that came after. Instead of cooperating and growing mutually, we went after short term gains. And they lead to war, destructions.
"I believe that the day will come when people can truly understand each other. Rise above petty conflicts and this primate desire for destruction."
Shiroken came face to face close to him and replied in disdain, "You speak well, but your words are hollow. Hashirama sinned against me decades ago, and since then, there have been 3 shinobi wars, countless smaller countries devastated. Just look at the Akatsuki, that\'s the monster of your own making..."
"But these wars..." Jiraiya tried to cut him, but Shiroken raised his hand and stopped him.
"Do you want to see how great your Konoha is? Follow me." He told him and simply hovered away close to the ground. He didn\'t wait for Jiraiya to come because he had to come, or else his mission would fail.
They soon arrived inside a deeper part of the capital city. Shiroken was greeted by all the people, saluting him greeting him good morning. In return, he would wave his hand and smilingly nod.
"What do you see?" Shiroken asked.
Jiraiya looked around. He tried to see if Shiroken was asking anything cryptic. But he could not see anything out of the ordinary, "Umm... prosperity? Happiness?"
Shiroken didn\'t reply and brought him to a small market district, then he arrived in front of a shop. "What do you see in this area?"
Jiraiya looked, thought and finally noticed something, "Hmm, a lot of redheads around this part of the city."
"They are all from the Uzumaki clan. Oh, it doesn\'t exist anymore... right? Shinobi of Konoha, the closest ally village of Uzushiogakure." Shiroken said with a spiteful voice. The meaning behind his words was as clear as day.
"Old man," Shiroken called the old shopkeeper he met the first time he arrived here.
"Ah, it\'s Lord Dama. What can I do for you?" the old man asked politely.
"Can you tell our friend from Konoha why you came to this country?" Shiroken asked.
As soon as he said Konoha\'s name, the old man showed great hostility and hatred, "You, Konoha... *SPIT* Huh... so-called allies of Uzushiogakure. My brother and his whole family died that day. He had little children. We sent so many requests to Konoha for help, but your Hokage, that Monkey ignored them.
"And do you know what those villages used to destroy our village? The poor enslaved saint beasts your Hokage Hashirama caught. If it were not for Lord Dama here, all of us would have died, but here, we thrive once again. We are not Uzumaki of Uzushiogakure anymore, we are the proud Uzumaki of Dama Country. The greatest country in the world."
The words of the old man rang in Jiraiya\'s head. ~Konoha has really messed up, we have pushed such strong allies away. We could have secretly saved a lot of Uzumaki. *Sigh*~
"Come with me," Shiroken voiced and moved away.
This time he brought Jiriya to the lake where Saiken and Isobu were playing.
"Saint Sai... make me fly please." A little boy swam near Saiken and requested.
"Sure, here you goooo..." Saiken held the little boy with his arms and lifted him in the air.
"OH! It seems there is some problem in your magical flight, it\'s crashing... *SPLASH*" Saiken jokingly threw the boy in water from a safe height.
"AHAHA... Again." The boy laughed happily.
"ME TOO!" soon more children ran into the lake to swim.
"Saint Isobu... can we see underwater with you?" they inquired.
Isobu chuckled, "Why not, come with me."
Isobu made a bubble around the kids and made it follow him inside the water, showing the kids the underwater world. There were a lot of fish and the view was good since the water was crystal clear.
Shiroken stopped at a distance. Jiraiya\'s face was showing a high amount of shock, much more than any other time before. He had never expected to see a tailed beast acting like this.
"They are free, out of their Jinchuriki. Do they look like the mindless beasts you thought of them to be? Look, they are laughing, playing. They are just like us, they want friends, love and affection. For the majority of their life, they were wronged and hated by humans, and when finally they had a family, a village that loved them, Hashirama came with his damn peace.
"Jiraiya, your concept of peace is a lot different from mine. Your belief is that someday humans will miraculously wake up and realise their wrong ways and become monks. But you are ignoring the 3 wars, the 3 chances the world had to change and see, nothing changed. While I believe in actively changing the world instead of dreaming, like you. So, you better go back now, as I have nothing but contempt for Konoha, and nothing can erase that." Shiroken told him in a threatening tone of voice.
Jiraiya knew that this peace talk was going nowhere. But he gave the last try, "I was told to give this to you, as a goodwill gesture. It has locations of all the tailed beasts in the world. Even the one belonging to Konoha."
Shiroken didn\'t even open it and handed it back to Jiraiya, he scoffed, "You can not buy peace, Jiraiya. And don\'t try to sell me information that I already know."
"Even the location of Konoha\'s Jinchuriki?" Jiraiya asked nervously,
"Hah, you mean Naruto? Yes, I know him." He answered nonchalantly. Jiraiya felt as if Naruto\'s life was already in Shiroken\'s claws, it was just a matter of snapping the neck now.
"I... he... Naruto did not mean to harm your family, Lord Dama. He didn\'t want to be the Jinchuriki." Jiraiya tried to talk Shiroken out of extracting the beast, as that would mean the death of the boy.
Shiroken sneered, "Hmm, just as to you that boy is precious, to me Kurama is precious. How is it right to spare the kid and let Kurama be tormented? But, do not worry, I know a way of extracting the bijuu without killing the Jinchuriki. Their\'s are also alive."
He pointed at Saiken and Isobu. Hearing this, Jiraiya felt a little relaxed. He knew the whole village would be destroyed if they tried to protect Naruto. And high chanced were that the village would have handed him to Shiroken without fighting, after all, the safety of the village came first.
"I will come soon to take back Kurama. However, your village is really one heap of a mess. Your 4th Hokage sacrificed his life and his son for the village, and the village treated the little boy as a real demon? If you really cared about that boy, you would not have let that happen. But, it seems the concept of love and family is not very well known to you Konoha dwellers. Leave now, there is no place for you in this country." Shiroken deadpan ordered him.
"Is there no way peace can be brokered?" Jiraiya asked before leaving. He really liked Shiroken as a person as he now had an idea in his mind about him by seeing how people treated him like some kind of holy deity.
Shiroken sighed and smirkingly replied, "There is, which is that you need to reveal to the world and especially your villagers the bad deeds of your Hashirama. When even every single child of the village will know about the true Hashirama, maybe then we can have peace. Until then, you are my enemies and no Konoha ninjas are allowed in this country."
Jiraiya nodded, remembering this condition to tell Hokage Hiruzen. Then he ran away, back to Konoha.
Shiroken saw his leaving silhouette and muttered to himself, "Let\'s see if they really do it. If they don\'t... well, I\'ll start blasting."
[You can see Jiraiya on my Discord - https://discord.gg/DgHkrAn OR see them on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mister_immortal_novel]
FEED ME PREZ!
__________________
You can read 30(23 currently) advance chapters at -patreon.com/misterimmortal.
Special thanks to *Douglas Flower* *Umar Latif* *Julian Rocamora* *Darrien Steely* *Franklin Walley*
Thank you for your support!