Blood Wine Establishes the Rules

At some point, "the present is inferior to the past" had become a topic of concern among ninja.

The people of today were inferior to those of old. During the era of the first three generations of Kage, this trend had not been so apparent. After all, the Third Kage of each village belonged to the same generation. In their youth, they had lived through the Warring States Era that established the status of the Five Great Nations. Strictly speaking, the first three generations of Kage had all been figures of the same era.

But beginning with the Fourth Kage, that was no longer the case. This generation had genuinely been born after the Warring States Era, people who had grown up in an entirely different age. Their rise to power had brought this topic to the attention of the entire ninja community.

Though one could not dismiss everyone with a single stroke, the Kazekage among the Fourth Kage was undoubtedly such an example. Compared to his predecessor, he was far weaker.

There were examples like this even among the Five Kage, so it was even more obvious at the grassroots level. In fact, the problem had first emerged among the lower ranks; the accession of the Fourth Kage had merely brought it fully into the open.

Were later generations truly less talented than their predecessors? That was obviously impossible. The three Ninja World Wars alone showed as much—each had been accompanied by an explosive surge of new ninjutsu. Later generations were not lacking in promise; on the contrary, they had proven quite capable.

In truth, it all stemmed from what the six great ninja clans had done at the end of the Warring States Era. The state of affairs today was merely the seeds planted in the past breaking