Akimichi Choza nodded and flashed Mingye a broad, confident grin. "Don't worry, Teacher Wu! I'll definitely give it everything I've got!"
Looking at the supremely confident Akimichi Choza before him, Mingye suddenly lost all interest in staying. The fury in his heart kept rising. It isn't that I don't know how to cherish things—it's that I can never obtain this so-called cherishing. If this were a character in a manga, perhaps I should feel my heart turning toward goodness because of this child's words. But unfortunately, this has never been some manga world! Everything they call cherishing is built upon the pain of my brother and me. Why must they treat us this way? All their affection and intimacy are like blades endlessly carving my flesh. Every bit of happiness in Konoha is the greatest humiliation to me! What we want is treated as trash, while the things that truly are trash are cherished. Otsutsuki Hagoromo, I will repay every ounce of this pain and boundless rage upon you! I definitely will!
Autumn came and went again. When the red leaves that heralded autumn drifted down, Mingye felt time passed terribly, terribly slowly. Yet when he saw another autumn arrive in the blink of an eye, he suddenly realized that time passed with astonishing speed. Like a breeze brushing past him, he reached out to grasp it, but when he opened his clenched fist, there was nothing there.
The current of time could not be stopped. It was merciless, yet it was also memory. After roughly three and a half years of war, the five great shinobi nations seemed like balloons that had been completely deflated. They no longer burst with explosive violence, instead growing calmer. A new Five Kage Summit began, and every nation tacitly chose to cease hostilities