Chapter 34

"Hey you fucking psycho! You gonna tell us why we're here or not!?" yelled the Tsuchikage from her position on her pillar. Naruto stared over to her without saying anything. Her group consisted of only herself and her selected Jonin, a chubby man Naruto recognized from the bingo book as Akatsuchi. From the information he received on the hot-headed Kage, she was brash, vulgar, and very temperamental so he ignored her impertinent statement.

Ino however did not like that she was insulting her man. "You bitch! Don't you fucking talk to him like that!" Naruto simply put his hand up, ending the string of curse words resting on her tongue. She huffed in relent and went back to playing with Sumire, silently spitting out words of venom.

Naruto stepped back a bit and walked towards the second prize slot where Makatsuchi was chained. Her watering eyes were piercing into her friends in desperation. "I believe you are here to retrieve your prize." Naruto spoke, drawing the much more subdued looking Kage's gaze.

The Tsuchikage's tear filled gaze was piercing Naruto's eye holes with a look that promised death. "You're fucking right. And if you laid one finger on her, I swear I'll fucking kill you!" she growled out, not intimidating him in the slightest.

Naruto nodded at the statement and stepped back to the center of the platform. "I assure you, none of them have been hurt. They are merely incentives for your participation." He said walking to the very edge of the cliff and sitting down with his feet hanging over. The Kage were all visibly aggravated by the act. His casual demeanor about the whole situation infuriated them.

Tired of the procrastination, the Raikage spoke up. "The letter said we would receive more information upon our arrival." He said as if Naruto forgot or something.

Naruto looked over to him and examined his party. There was a man he assumed to be the strongest Jonin of their village, Killer Bee. Then, the blonde woman he knew to be the boy's mother. The previous Raikage was not in attendance however which Naruto found strange. He was unaware he had died. "Yes, and you will Raikage. In time. First, I'd like to explain my reasoning for this venture." He said, receiving an uproar of disgruntled protests. Naruto simply waited for them to quiet down.

"No fucking way!" yelled the Tsuchikage as she took a threatening step forward that was useless in retrospect. "I'm here for Makatsuchi! I didn't come to listen to your cracked out plan!"

"We don't want to play your games, chuckles! I want my son back!" yelled a man wearing a strange black suit with face paint standing behind the Kazekage. He was the only one accompanying him.

"As do I." the Raikage said smoothly. "We would very much rather begin whatever trial you have set up." He said looking up to his son who was looking at his mother trying to reassure him.

Naruto listened to all of their complaints impassively. He turned his head to the right and stared at the blue haired Kage looking over at his wife. His group consisting of another blue haired man with an eye patch and a bald man with two broad swords on his back. "What of you Mizukage? Do you have any complaints?" he asked for no apparent reason.

The Mizukage gazed at him in contempt and grit his teeth. "Let's just get this over with…" he growled out.

Naruto turned back to the middle, staring across the way at the one group that remained silent throughout. The biggest group of them all with three Kage level shinobi and his mother. He didn't address them directly, but he did speak towards them. "Maybe my instructions were not as complete as I had thought they would be." He said pulling four kunai from nowhere. He threw them up into the air expertly and each one landed next to one of the respective prizes with a paper bomb connected to their loops. The group of Kage remained silent, all now more fearful for what they were to say from this point on. "You do as I say, when I say and you get your prize. You don't and your prize is eliminated. Simple as that."

He let that statement hang in the air for a few seconds, watching everyone's reaction. As expected, they were all staring at him with the intent to kill. Naruto was completely unfazed and met their gazes with little effort.

"Now, to begin." He said returning to a casual demeanor. "I do not like you…" They all looked at each other finding that to be obvious. "I don't like you… I don't like what it is you represent, and I despise the people that follow you even though they do so with no fault of their own." He said.

"You have a blatant hatred for the Shinobi villages." The Kazekage said, summarizing what he was saying.

Naruto shrugged. "In a way. My 'hatred', as you called it, extends to a much broader spectrum" he said. "Hypocrisy is something I despise, and you people have it in spades."

"So, what? You hate that we're hypocrites?" The Tsuchikage asked incredulously. "That's why you're doing this?"

Naruto shook his head. "No… no-no. That is but a minor reason for today's test." He quipped rubbing at his shoulder for some reason. "Before we begin, you all must understand what it is that I propose and why I am proposing it." He said

"So this is some kind of game to you?" asked The Mizukage in a threatening way.

Naruto tilted his head in his direction. "Well, of course it is. Which is why you lot have prizes." He said as if it were obvious. "Now, to further your understanding, I must explain the roll you play in society. It is an awful thing you do, you just don't realize it."

"What are you talking about?" asked Menma, speaking up for the first time.

Naruto stared at him. "Patients Hokage. We've got all day." He said ominously. "You all are the respective keepers of order within your own villages. The pinnacle of apparent success that every wide-eyed child strives to achieve. Yet, what you're doing is far from righteous."

"Ok hold on!" Said the Tsuchikage with an arrogant smirk on her face. "I already figured it out." She said. Naruto just stared at her, awaiting whatever ridiculous set of words about to fly out of her mouth. Ridiculous they were. "You were one of these 'wide-eyed' children pining for the position of a Kage. When you didn't get it, you were thrusted into a life of hatred and self-loathing that made you hate the position and the system of the village's altogether. Now, you came up with this psychotic fuckin' plan to show everyone who's ever wronged you how stupid they were for not giving you the position." She finished crossing her arms with a smug look as if she were certain she was right on the nose.

The entire area had returned to silence, everyone pondering the possibility that she was possibly correct. A sudden outburst of untamed chuckles caught them all off guard as Ino bellowed out with a sincere laugh at the ridiculous statement. They couldn't see it, but they could just feel the smirk on the masked man's face and even noticed how his shoulders bounced slightly, indicating he was chuckling silently to himself.

The blonde with the tears of overwhelming giggles is what caught everyone's attention. "Ha-ha-ha! You-haha! You Dumb Bitch! Ha-Haa!" she yelled out through her fit of laughter.

For no true reason, the Tsuchikage was starting to feel a little embarrassment at their blatant disrespect to her knowledge. It was a sound assumption considering the things he was saying. "Sh-..Shut up! You…" she couldn't even find the words to insult the blonde woman ignoring her completely in place of belly-aching laughter.

Naruto seemed to finally calm down and raised his hand for Ino to as well. Slowly but surely her incessant laughter died out. "Interesting theory. Not correct, but interesting." He said with a hint of amusement tickling his tone. "No, Tsuchikage. In honesty, I have never truly cared for the position of a Kage until my recent despise." He admitted.

"What sparked it?" asked Minato, speaking up for the first time.

Naruto stared at him for a moment. "Literature. Believe it or not." He said pulling a book from his pouch. Everyone was surprised by that answer.

"You mean, a book told you to do all of this?" Kakashi asked the question on everyone's mind.

Naruto just shrugged. "Not necessarily. This particular book simply unchained me and allowed me to leave my cave." He said cryptically.

"Tch, figures he'd live in a cave." The Tsuchikage said under her breath.

Naruto ignored the statement and continued on. "Figuratively speaking." He said. "I believe you must hear this story to understand how it ties into you." He said. "You see… There was a man who was chained to the back of a cave, facing away from the opening… He was born within it and had never seen anything other than the shadows casted from the various creatures and people that passed by… For all his life, the only company he had was that of a man's shadow that would stop and speak with him every day and tell him of the things he was 'protecting' him from. This shadow man told him that the things he was seeing were creatures of unspeakable horror and that by being in this cave, he was safe from harm."

"I'm not seeing how this ties into us. This just seems like a fictitious story." The Mizukage said, speaking up for everyone.

Naruto continued on. "The shadow man successfully convinced the prisoner that he was doing the right thing by keeping him in there. Years later, when he was finally freed from his shackles, he remained in his position… too afraid to leave the sanctuary of his cave for fear of the creatures lurking on the outside world, unaware that they were just regular people. You Kage, are the 'shadow's' to your villages. You keep your people in ignorance with your words. I mean, it's even written in your names."

The Mizukage was the one to respond. "You're wrong." He said. "If what you are saying is true, then what are we 'protecting' them from? Monsters like you?" he asked

Naruto smiled beneath his mask. "Oh, I'm not a monster… I'm just ahead of the curve." *wink* Naruto cocked his head in amusement. "Chaos Mizukage. You lot are 'protecting' them from the joys and the serenity of chaos." He said, letting that ring in the air. "You instill order because it is a belief of yours that was inculcated by your own predecessors that chaos is bad. In this theory, it's a little paradoxical how you are both prisoners and the oppressors."

"It is bad." Minato said speaking up again. "Since you enjoy explaining things so much, allow me to teach you something." Naruto nodded his head that way gesturing for him to continue. "If you are speaking of chaos in terms of war… then you truly have no idea what you're talking about… War is a time period in which you must do anything you are forced to do for the sake of your home… It is bad…"

Naruto didn't say anything for a few seconds. He just examined the blonde man, judging his resolve. "War…" he began. "-is nothing more than the manifestation of a struggle for order. It is a manmade catastrophe that would be imprudent to blame on something other than ourselves." He said infuriating the older attendants who've seen it before. "Is it really all that bad? Being able to cut loose and become the killers we were meant to be?" he said mocking their hatred of the subject.

"We were not made to be killers…" The Kazekage said, a little ticked off by that statement. "No one is made to be a killer."

Naruto sighed. "Huh, wrong again." He said rolling his neck out as if it were just completely exhausting talking to them. "We were all meant to be killers, and I don't just mean Shinobi… I mean all of the human race. That's why we were given the ability to kill… Think about it like this, a Kunai was made for the purpose of killing and.. it does it well." He nodded vigorously as if to say he knew that all too well. "It was not made to be toilet paper so it cannot function as such. Human beings were created to kill, it is how we survive in this world, it's why we were given such intelligence to advance our tactics, it's why war was invented. We were all made to kill, but modern society tells us it's bad so at a young age we are taught that taking the life of another is wrong. This lesson is drilled into us so vigorously that once we are forced to do so, the action itself is sickening… then, you do it again and that guilt remains… a few more times and it starts become routine… until finally, you've become who you were meant to be… and you get shamed for it."

"That sounds like the making of a fucking psycho to me." The Tsuchikage chided in.

Naruto just shrugged. "If that's how you see it. But, by that logic, every shinobi that has ever taken the life of an enemy with no remorse is as psychotic as you claim. In this world of ours, there is no innocent power. Strength for us is based on our ability to take the life of another and yet you all have the audacity to stand here and claim we weren't created for such a thing… If you weren't all so crazy, I'd think you were insane."*wink*He said holding his hand up to his mouth as if he were whispering something.

The Tsuchikage's lone guest, who had been quiet up to this point, finally lost his temper. "You shut your mouth! You don't know what it's like!" he yelled out in anger. Being an older man, it was fair to assume he was around during the time of the previous war.

Naruto looked to him. "Oh, I know what it's like. Believe me, I understand." He said.

"No you don't." Minato quipped with a knowing tone. Naruto looked back to him. "No, I know for a fact that you don't." he said, raising his voice slightly to drive his point home.

Naruto grinned beneath his mask. "Is war not just a struggle between two sides to gain the upper hand, using every underhanded tactic imaginable?" Minato remained quiet, that was a pretty fair description. "War is much more than bloodshed and loss. If that's what you assumed it to be, then I assure you I've experienced that as well, in a much more grotesque manner than even you."

Minato shook his head. "You… you really don't understand."

Naruto chuckled. "Well then, Yondaime… what is war to you?"

Minato froze, noticing the stares he was receiving from the other older members of the villages. Everyone there knew of what a terror he was during the last war, but it was a different thing completely witnessing it yourself. "War is… war is complete and utter hell.. in every sense of the word… To be functional in a world of such true chaos… you've got to kill off pieces of yourself that make you human…"

Before he could continue, he heard a scoff from the one he was speaking to. Naruto noticed Minato's hesitation. "My apologies." He said bashfully. "I just found it outrageous that you actually view war as true chaos."

What was he saying? "Most people would view it as the truest meaning of the word." Minato disputed. Everyone watched the blonde woman get up from her seat and place the child she was holding into a carrier and set her down on the middle of the platform behind Naruto.

Naruto just shrugged. "Then most people would be wrong." He replied. "War is ordered chaos. Factions of methodical groups of soldiers facing off for the purpose of proving themselves. It's much more barbaric." He said as Ino plopped down next to him. "You see, true chaos is actually irrelevant to me... nonexistent in a sense."

At this statement, everyone looked at him strangely. This entire time he seemed to have been advocating for chaos, and now he was saying it didn't even exist?

"Paradoxical I know." He said putting their busy minds to rest. "Chaos is described as something that one could not possibly understand. Complete disorder and confusion. Problem is, when this comes to mind you all have a single image that you associate with the word." He said playing with the Kunai in his hands. "You picture a lawless world with people running around and killing anyone and everyone for their own motives or just no reason at all."

"Yeah, is that what you're trying to make the world become?" asked the Tsuchikage.

"Couldn't hurt." He replied. "The reason I do not believe chaos exists, is because to me, there is no confusion… You all would view a world such as that as some kind of hellish struggle of life and death, but there is much more to it than that." Every word he said was accented by the wind that was beginning to kick up and the apparent brewing storm. "While you see disorder… I see freedom… As you see illicitness, I see equality…"

"Looking at the world in a different way does not make it a better place if it's comes to what you are describing." The Kazekage argued with his ever present monotonous voice. "You are just blinding yourself from the horror of the crimes being committed."

"Ah." Naruto quipped up, he snapped his fingers and pointed in his direction. "There goes that famed hypocrisy." He replied with amusement. "You say this Kazekage, but you cast this same fate upon your people without their consent… In the world I speak of, they would be free to choose which side they wish to view."

"What of the people that would view it the way you claim we would?" The Mizukage asked. "The people who would view it as a hell and search for a better life?"

Naruto continued playing with his kunai. "Astute point Mizukage. But, there is something unique about chaos that sets it apart from its colleague." He said. "They share a lot of the same qualities and possess radical differences, but one thing that sticks out to me the most is that chaos.. is fair." *wink*

"And you believe Order is not?" the Raikage asked from his spot.

Naruto looked over to him. "Well of course not. You yourself are a testament to that Raikage." He said getting a strange look from him. "In fact most of you are." he clarified. "You all have this false belief that with a little hard work anyone with a strong enough will could climb their way up the ranks and make it to a position such as yours, yet you all neglect to see that your lives have all led you to your positions. You all held some sort of connection to your previous Kage whether it be student, child, grandchild, or just simply a blatant favorite in the case of you Mizukage."

"My position was earned fairly." Said the Raikage, receiving shouts of agreement from the other four.

Naruto nodded. "Oh, I'm sure." He said. "I am sure every other child your age had the privilege of training under the Sandaime Raikage… or the Sandaime Tsuchikage… or the Yondaime Hokage, point is, regardless of what you may believe, your position was achieved with the advantage of tutelage under a powerful shinobi. Most of the other children of your villages were probably pawned off on some ordinary Jonin who was at the least barely capable of teaching them the basics."

"There have been shinobi in the past who have achieved power without the tutelage of anyone… You would know about that, right?" Minato asked with the underlining implication that Naruto was one of these people.

"Actually, I wouldn't." Naruto replied. "If you are implying that I am self-made, then you are mistaken. Just because no one held my hand and walked me through the steps doesn't mean they didn't teach me."

"Ok, hold on." The Tsuchikage said. "What the fuck is it with you two?" she asked looking at Minato. "You've been sitting here talking to him like you know him or something! Who the fuck is he!? He's from Konoha isn't he!?" she yelled.

Minato ignored her. "If that's what this is about… please… you don't have to do all of this… just take your revenge and be done with it."

Naruto just stared at him. "You give yourself too much credit Yondaime." He said standing up and throwing the kunai over his shoulder. It landed right next to Sumire's carrier, a paper bomb attached to the ring. "I hold no anger towards you specifically. Or your wife… my goal is much more interesting than petty revenge. It's not that kind of story."

"We gonna start hun!?" Ino quipped hopping to her feet as well.

She looped Naruto's arm and followed him as they walked back to their thrones. "Yes, yes we are." When they sat down, Naruto surveyed the group of Shinobi. "Ok let's see… Why don't you pick doll face?"

Ino sat up happily. "Oh, ok! I piiiick… Iwa!... aaaand Suna!" she said happily. Naruto nodded, appraising her selection.