Gift Seal

The Five Kage—never mind how exhausting the position itself was—were absolutely famous throughout the ninja world. Otherwise, the elite jonin would not have used "Kage-level" to describe the very best among them.

But perhaps their fame was simply too great. Very few ninja who truly became Kage seemed to meet a good end. At least, of the Kage Qi knew, they had either already been killed, would be killed in the future, or had nearly been killed. In short, the timing was not important. What mattered was that nine times out of ten, becoming a Kage meant someone would happily treat you as an experience boss or a reputation-grinding target and farm you, usually in the most miserable way possible. It fully demonstrated that being a ninja was truly not a profession suited to showing one's face in public...

A profession clearly unsuited to showing one's face in public had somehow become a nation's official military force. Other than "miserable," Qi could not think of any word to describe it. Of course, what he found most miserable was that he himself was also a ninja.

Actually, Qi had always privately called the Five Kage the Five Miserables...

The entire ninja world seemed like one huge misery fest to him. Want to become awesome? Easy—just have a tragically miserable childhood. The less loved you were by your grandparents, the less your parents cared about you, the more likely you were not even sure who your parents were, the more ridiculously awesome you would become after growing up. As the saying went: miserable people were not necessarily awesome, but awesome people had definitely suffered misery.

Thinking of this, Qi looked at Sasori across from him and suddenly felt fortunate. Luckily, Kakashi's father had not butchered Sasori's whole family back then. Otherwise, who