Shinobi Prosthetic

The Shinobi Prosthetic had been an important part of his combat system in his previous life.

Though some of its functions were somewhat redundant for him in this life.

This world's unique ninjutsu system could fully accomplish—even surpass—what the Ninja Tool Hand could do.

But the Shinobi Prosthetic's core grappling hook function could still significantly improve his strength.

The Shinobi Prosthetic had been his livelihood in his previous life. Although he had not participated in its manufacture, he had modified and enhanced one no fewer than eight hundred times, if not a thousand.

He was still very familiar with its structure.

All he needed to do now was reproduce it exactly as it had been.

The only problem was that he did not have a missing arm now.

So he needed a new approach: how to install a Shinobi Prosthetic on his arm without chopping off his hand, while keeping its core functions unchanged.

As for whether he had considered amputation?

His hands were quite nice, especially the original factory-issued pair. They were comfortable to use.

This D-rank Mission was fairly simple as well, just rather large in scope—pulling weeds at a farm.

But the three of them were experienced now, and unlike the first time, they did not spend two days on it.

This time, they finally completed the mission before sunset.

"My waist is broken! Carry me back!" Izuno Akigiku staggered onto a patch of open ground and flopped down with a thud.

"You should just die out here." Naruto rolled his eyes. Compared to the two half-dead people, he was still full of energy thanks to the Nine-Tails' chakra.

"Little Rai, go up there and slap him twice. He's getting way too cocky!" Izuno groaned.

"I'm dead."

"Come on, I'll treat you to a hot spring." Naruto glanced at the sky and said so.

"You should've said that sooner. Let's go!" "Coming!"

"Didn't you say you couldn't walk anymore?"

"I'm not dead yet, am I?!"

"Didn't you say you were dead, Raimon?"

"I came back to life."

"..."

Hot Spring Town.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!!" Raimon Koshireki's expression was ridiculously exaggerated.

"People who know would understand you're soaking in a hot spring. People who don't..." Naruto draped a hot towel over his forehead and mocked him.

"You don't understand. After extreme exhaustion, a hot spring can solve every problem." Raimon chuckled smugly.

"Whose life experience is that?"

As someone who had lived through it all, Naruto felt that was not something a thirteen-year-old should be saying.

"My uncle's."

"Got it."

Hot springs had countless benefits. The only thing Naruto found lacking was a pair of slender, jade-like hands to knead his tense muscles loose.

"...Naruto."

"Yeah."

"Tell me, if some form of transportation appeared in this world—something so fast that you could leave Konoha in the morning and reach the Land of Fire Capital by noon, while also transporting massive amounts of supplies—what do you think the world would become?"

"I'd still eat three bowls of rice per meal."

"...I'm serious." Raimon Koshireki pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to soothe his throbbing brain.

"Not realistic."

"Hm?"

Naruto removed the towel from his forehead. "If something like that appeared, communication between people and between regions would become closer. Economic development would flourish, and perhaps everyone would become more prosperous..."

The territory a nation could control would also become larger...

He silently added in his heart.

"Wouldn't that be great? Why do you say it isn't realistic?" Raimon asked in confusion.

"Mm." Naruto laboriously turned over. "Even if such a thing really existed, who would build it? Who would maintain it?"

"And who could guarantee that ninja from enemy nations wouldn't come sabotage it?"

Compared to the incredibly difficult construction process, destruction would be absurdly easy. A few Explosive Tags would do the job.

"Then does it really have no chance of appearing?" Raimon murmured despondently.

"It could, once the ninja world enters a period of relative peace," Naruto said.

What Raimon wanted to create looked to Naruto like a high-speed railway from another world. It was not a bad thing.

On the contrary, it was excellent—so excellent that enriching the nation and strengthening its people was no joke.

As long as Raimon designed it, and as long as that design was seen by far-sighted higher-ups, it would definitely be promoted with full force.

But the problem was, what were the defining traits of a ninja's profession?

Infiltration, assassination, sabotage.

You might have ideas for enriching the country and strengthening the military, but sometimes the obstacle to implementing such policies was not internal factors. Outside influences were just as important.

After painstakingly spending vast amounts of money and manpower to build it, enemy ninja could blow it all to pieces with a single Explosive Tag. There would not even be a place to cry.

Could Konoha defend it? Maybe it could have in the past.

But after the Third Great Ninja War, the high-end combatants were either dead or gone.

It was extremely doubtful.

Unless the situation Raimon envisioned entered a period of relative peace, it would be difficult to implement steadily.

In Naruto's view, the current ninja world was so tense that even a minor issue might trigger the Fourth Great Ninja War.

The very nature of ninja as a profession dictated that every so often, they had to cull the excess population and redistribute resources.

After all, there were only so many missions, while every village was engaged in an arms race.

Feeding people and maintaining equipment—what did not cost money?

What?

You said not to maintain them?

The other ninja villages would laugh themselves silly.

What kind of behavior was that?

A lamb placing itself before a wolf and saying, "I'm vegetarian. You should become vegetarian too."

If it did not eat you, who would it eat?

What was the best way to clear out excess population?

War!

From the First Great Ninja War to the Third Great Ninja War, the root cause had still been resource shortages.

In Naruto's view, ninja themselves, who produced nothing, were the root of the problem.

With the strange versatility of ninja and ninjutsu, if they worked in agriculture, he could not guarantee anything else, but food production in this era would definitely double.

Naruto had been thinking for a long time about how exactly the ninja system had come to be.

If one called it a sect from a fantasy novel, it interfered wildly in worldly affairs.

If one called it an army raised by the nations, the Daimyo of those nations did not necessarily have control over it.

And the most, most, most important point was that it had actually survived?!

Could you believe it?

Especially since ninja seemed to hold quite a high status...

That was terrifying.

Extraordinary, yet not removed from the mundane.

That was Naruto's assessment of this world's ninja system.

After thinking it over and over, the only reason he could come up with for why ninja had survived and even become a transcendent class was that chakra was to blame.

So, back to the original question: had the ninja world ever experienced a period of relative peace?

It had. The First Hokage's administration was one such period.

After Hashirama Senju, the God of Shinobi, used his Wood Release to grind the other ninja villages into the dirt, the ninja world became "peaceful."

The fuse that ignited the First Great Ninja War had been Hashirama Senju's death.

How could they enter a period of relative peace?

From Naruto's perspective, there were two ways:

First, ninja could use the skills they employed to cut people down to farm instead, increasing productivity. It did not seem realistic—at least, it could not be achieved by this generation of ninja, who had been raised from birth with the idea of killing.

Perhaps the next generation had hope.

Second, they could create something like the Tsar Bomba and enter an otherworldly stage of "nuclear peace."

The relative peace during Hashirama Senju's rule could, in another sense, also be called "nuclear peace." If Hashirama Senju were viewed as a Tsar Bomba, that would be fair enough, at least in terms of danger.