Naruto, Uzumaki Menma, just wants to conquer the world

"The bandits are the kings of the mountains. Last time they robbed a few girls, they also took away all the rice seeds in the village."

"Young people? A lot of young people have also run away, fleeing for their lives."

Menma asked, "Since they are bandits, shouldn't the government do anything about it? Shouldn't they send troops to suppress them?"

"Even if the local samurai soldiers are powerless, they can report to the capital, right? The daimyo can order ninjas to come..."

The old man didn't say anything, but just shook his head and sighed. It was unclear whether he was feeling helplessness, sadness, anger, sarcasm, or acceptance of reality. It was a complex emotion that was difficult to describe in words.

After that, Menma came to the village again, bringing a lot of things to distribute to the villagers, and of course Hongdou also followed.

Red Bean on the tree asked him, "Hey, did you come here just to share the food with these people?"

"I am a kind-hearted person and cannot bear to see suffering."

"Then you have to change your bad habits. There are so many people like you in the ninja world. It's better to get used to it and become smarter. This way you will live more comfortably."

"That's a shame. I don't want to be a smart guy, a lackey, or a slave."

"That's a harsh thing to say! Ninjas are people who can endure pain, and they will still starve to death after eating all the food you brought."

"This is like saying: People will die after decades, so why not commit suicide as soon as they are born? Rather than enduring pain, it's more like enduring one's own weakness, right?"

Hongdou's words were stuck in her throat and she was speechless. Or perhaps her brain was unable to digest what Menma said in such a short time and had gone into a state of shutdown.

Perhaps Menma didn't have that kind of self-awareness, but Hongdou, who had lived in this cruel world for more than 20 years, deeply understood how rare people like him were in this world.

No, no, this is just the naivety of a child who has not experienced anything in the world. As long as he experiences more things, his ideas will change.

Hongdou thought so, but Menma's next words shattered her lucky thoughts.

"No one can stand being criticized by others. There is no such thing as being spotless. We all absorb dust, but that doesn't stop us from doing better."

The tone and language were not suitable for a boy of his age. Every word was engraved in Hongdou's mind, as if awakening something.

After this, Menma would often come to this village, sometimes bringing rice seeds, sometimes bringing medicines, and sometimes bringing clothes.

Menma would teach them the agricultural methods of Longzhong, the water conservancy techniques for irrigating farmland, and even the militia tactics that they had never heard of...

He knew very well that all his actions would be recorded by Mitarashi Anko and reported to the Hokage, which was exactly what he needed.

This is a disguise to Konoha, this is also sincere goodwill, and this is even more hatred towards the princes and nobles!

In the ninja world, cruelty is everywhere you look, and hell is everywhere you look.

He can't see the sunshine, but that doesn't stop him from becoming the sunshine.

The more suffering he saw, the more determined he became to conquer the world.

Hongdou seemed to see through his evil intentions, "Hey, hey, let me remind you again, little brat!"

She took a bite of the meatball and began to explain: "Konoha ninjas cannot directly go to eliminate banditry. They need to accept relevant tasks from the task employment agency. This is the rule of Konoha ninjas."

"Even if you want to submit the mission yourself, you still need the official seal of the government here on the mission application form before that."

Menma understands these rules better than Anko, but when has the Land of Fire ever been a country ruled by law? When has Konoha's rules ever been seriously enforced?

He had already scouted the bandits' whereabouts and hiding places long before, so all he had to do was get rid of Hongdou.

So he sneaked into the nearby bandit lair alone and killed them all without leaving a single one alive, kill kill kill kill kill kill kill.

But during this process, Menma learned one thing: the bandits here were also refugees from other places.

But this doesn't stop him...Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill!

If we don't kill them, we will be doing a disservice to the human skins drying on the wooden poles.

If we don’t kill, we will be doing a disservice to the human livers roasted on the bonfire.

"what!"

"Have mercy! Sir!"

"You monster, you devil!"

The shrill screams, humble pleas for mercy, angry shouts, none of these could stop the boy.

At a certain moment, the boy's eyes in the darkness turned from blue to red.

My heart is as clear as a mirror, all my actions are just, and those I kill are my enemies.

The bandits in this place are refugees from other places, so what will become of the young people who flee?

When Red Bean woke up, no matter how dumb she was, her ninja instinct told her that something bad must have happened.

When she arrived at the bandits' hideout, she saw this scene: corpses were neatly lined up on the ground, covered with white cloth.

Menma was roasting a bonfire nearby. His blood-stained figure illuminated by the firelight actually made the battle-hardened Hongdou feel a little scared.

As a special jonin, Hongdou is definitely stronger than this brat. In her eyes, these bandits are nothing but a mob that is not worth mentioning.

What is this feeling? Yes, a sense of disharmony.

Before she arrived, she imagined this scene: corpses everywhere, blood flowing like a river, and the boy looking at his hands in a trance, doubting himself because it was his first time to kill someone...

All in all, it shouldn't be like this.

When Menma saw her coming, he stretched out his arms and fell backwards, "Well, I'll do it without your permission! You can send me back to the ninja school or cancel my ninja registration, I'll accept it."

Now he gives people the feeling that "Li Yunlong is admitting his mistakes". On the surface, he means "You can kill me or chop me up, it's all up to you", but in fact, he means "Do you think my head is worth much? If you have the guts, chop off my head and use it as a chamber pot."

However, his smiling face hides a dark heart:

I just want things to be the way they are supposed to be.

What? What should it look like?

The grass is green, the water is clear, no one starves to death, children do not go to war, and the woman you want to marry is no longer a local prostitute...

People are like people, and they are all kind. Powerful people are changed by weak people, not by people who are more powerful than them and bully the weak.

Calling bad habits virtues, calling lies rules, and calling wiping out one's conscience wise...

Shamelessness is called performance, impotence is called chastity, bullying the weak is called justice, and massacre is called a just act...

Everyone is like this, and I am like this too, I have to be like this.

I have lived in this Konoha Village all my life. If I believed in all those policies:

I would strongly oppose joining the alliance treaty, but I would also strongly agree to joining the alliance treaty. I would firmly believe that the ninja tool shop should be owned by the village, privately owned, and taken back by the village...

I will strongly support the retention and strongly demand the abolition of the death penalty. I will follow the will of fire of Konoha and the will of earth of Iwagakure. I will advocate the retention and abolition of ninja schools. I will be fanatical about nationalization and obsessed with privatization...

Is this Menma's idea?

Flexible? And a moral vacuum?

This is just his mask. Faced with the absurd reality, he cowardly uses madness to bury his negative and conservative heart.

Menma never believed that he could succeed.

He is an optimistic, pessimistic, defeatist. Even if there is a cliff ahead, he will walk to the end without hitting the wall or looking back, and then jump down without hesitation.

This is Menma's extremely twisted heart:

I don't want to be that kind of slave: numb, cowardly, stupid, ignorant, ungrateful, and actually treating the master's house as his own house.

I'm not smart, and I don't want to pretend to be sympathetic and say, "I think you'll be fine," and then do nothing.

The so-called smart people who are hypocritical and insidious are just high-level slaves.

My knees are bad and I can't kneel down.

I am not in the right mind and I am a fool.

I want to overthrow this world. I am incompatible with this world and I cannot coexist with this world.

Either it or I, either I or it, this is the hatred that Menma has buried deep in his heart.

Either I die in battle, or I win in battle.

You want me to surrender and accept the status quo? Then kill me.

014 Shaken: Mitarashi Anko's random thoughts

Of course, Menma was severely punished when he returned, namely: he was severely criticized by the Hokage, had to write a ten thousand word review, and had his mission reward deducted.

For ordinary ninjas, this could be considered an act of "leniency from the leader", but in Menma's eyes this was completely unacceptable.

So, in the Hokage's office, Menma simply started to throw a tantrum, "You might as well chop off my head! Look how much my head is worth, I'll give it to you in exchange!"

Ebisu, the jonin standing next to the Hokage, couldn't stand it, so he stepped forward, pointed his finger at him and scolded him: "Don't be so presumptuous, in front of the Hokage..."

Menma, who was lying on the ground like a child just now, immediately started to talk back at him: "You are a nobody! I am talking to the old Hokage, why are you barking like a dog? You are just taking advantage of the power of others!"

"You!" Ebisu wanted to continue, but the Third Hokage interrupted him, "Okay, Menma, don't go too far."

But in fact, this behavior is no different from favoring Menma. After all, Ebisu was scolded by this kid for nothing.

Menma is also enjoying the advantage of his age. If he gets older, he won't be able to say such things. If he doesn't scold me now, when will he? I'm only a 12-year-old kid (standing back with hands on hips/proud)

But to be honest, among ninjas, Ebisu's qualities are actually quite good.

If it were someone else, after being cursed like this, they would probably go and block the person in private.

Ahem, well, Ebisu has been congested before.

He was the teacher of the Sandaime Hokage's granddaughter and often had to report to the Hokage, so it was understandable that he would inevitably run into Menma in person.

Given Menma's bad mouth, it was inevitable that they would become enemies after a while.

At that time, Ebisu went to stop him and wanted to teach him a lesson, but Menma retorted with a few words.

"Go ahead and hit him, try hitting one? An adult hitting a child, a jonin hitting a ninja school student who hasn't even graduated yet, do you want to be ashamed?"

"you!"

"What do you mean by 'you'? Come on, come on, I'll let you hit me. As long as you don't kill me and I'm still breathing, I'll go and complain. Just wait for me to compile your story into a chapter and a nursery rhyme, and tell and sing it everywhere in the streets and alleys."

That night, Ebisu collapsed at home in anger and lay in bed with a wet towel on his head for several days before he recovered.

Konoha is not a big city in the capitalist industrial era with fast population mobility. If you do something shameful and move away, no one will recognize you.

The ninja village is so small, and the ninjas rely on the ninja village and the ninja clan for their livelihood. They are all clan relatives and neighbors who have lived here for decades and generations. If your reputation is bad, it is really bad...

A small matter could be talked about for a long time, or even blown out of proportion to being criticized at the family council.

But this is not all bad. Bullying is a common phenomenon in the ninja village, but it is difficult for more serious cases to occur because the moral shackles of "reputation" weigh on everyone.

Even ordinary people have a tendency to do bad things outside their hometown, let alone ninjas who live together as a clan in this small piece of land.

This also explains why the behavior of rebellious ninjas like "Konoha's Snake" and "Akasaga's Scorpion" is so bad.

Logically speaking, their behavior was not the bottom line that this cruel world could not tolerate. It was not uncommon for ninjas to burn, kill and loot outside, but the bottom line they crossed was "attacking people from their own village."

This involves a matter of principle. If the Kage, as the "tribal leader", cannot make a convincing decision on this matter, people will lose their confidence and the ninja village will begin to disintegrate.

Therefore, the Ninja Village is also a closed greenhouse that contains the warm and affectionate relationships of the feudal era: while eating people, it also cares for "its own people".

The lowest among the Beijingers are still masters, and they also enjoy the Beijingers' college entrance examination score line, which is not comparable to those from other places.

It is understandable that in such a superior environment in a peacetime, a little princess like Sakura, who is as innocent, romantic, willful and naive as an ordinary girl, could be born.

This also explains some of the behaviors of the ninjas in the ninja village: even if it is someone they hate the most, they will refuse to sell them out to the enemy.

Death is a common thing in the eyes of ninjas, but military honor and fame are what ninjas value.

After all, ninjas are not people who had no descendants, family, or hometown in a certain era and thought that being single was okay. Ninjas consider their own death, the future of their wives, children, relatives, and families well.

Therefore, many of the mistakes made by the Sandaime Hokage were not serious enough to be taken to extremes and were all tolerated. However, the act of "compensating Hyuga Hizashi's head to please Kumogakure" was a move that truly lost the support of the people and was a slide that Konoha was extremely secretive about and could not touch.

Time goes back to the present. Menma, who had just left the Hokage Building, met Sakura on the street. She heard that he had returned and came to look for him.

No one comes to see you for no reason. Menma knew that Dongxi, who treated him as a backup, came to him on his own initiative and must have been offended by Zuoyue.

In the past, I needed to maintain my dog-licking persona, and I might not have been able to endure high blood pressure and nausea to give her my shoulder to lean on, but now...

Now I just want to kick her!

The fact was just as Menma expected. Sakura complained to him about "Satsuki ignoring her" and "the pressure brought by Naruko", and was simply using him as a backup to vent her anger.

The situation was just as Sakura said. At first, she was particularly happy that Naruko was assigned to her group. She hated Menma so much that she even thought: It would be great if there was no Menma.

But one day, she suddenly realized something, that is...

Naruko was her most dangerous "enemy", someone she could never defeat.