Three Rules atop the Tower! Kamizuki Yu: I'll Provide the Money and Guns, You Provide the People to Build New Homes

Rain pattered down, washing away the bloodstains atop the tower.

Kamizuki Yu's words were like a stone cast into a lake, stirring ripples in the hearts of Yahiko and the other two.

"Peace..."

Yahiko repeated the word under his breath, his throat somewhat dry.

He raised his head and looked directly into Kamizuki Yu's eyes, which seemed to hold a sea of stars.

"The goal we have always fought for was peace. But Hanzo's betrayal left us..."

His words carried lingering pain and confusion. They had walked this path far too bitterly.

Kamizuki Yu turned to face them.

"I understand your ideals. Trying to move this war-torn world through love and sacrifice is admirable."

He paused, but his tone held no praise.

"Yet it is also naive."

"Naive?" Yahiko's voice rose slightly. Clearly, he could not immediately accept that judgment.

"Our ideals are not wrong! The world is what's wrong!"

Konan lightly tugged at Yahiko's sleeve, signaling for him to calm down.

Nagato remained silent. His Rinnegan still retained traces of agitation, making him inexplicably more inclined to trust Kamizuki Yu's words.

"Perhaps ideals themselves are neither absolutely right nor wrong," Kamizuki Yu replied calmly. "But what difference is an ideal without the strength to protect it from a castle in the air?"

He raised a hand and pointed toward the Hidden Rain Village below, ravaged by war.

"Look at the land beneath your feet. Hanzo ruled with an iron fist for decades. What was his ideal? Fear. Oppression. And you tried to dismantle it with ideals. What was the result?"

Yahiko's fists clenched of their own accord.

The result had been the blood of their companions, the destruction of their organization, and their ideals being ruthlessly crushed.

"Before I arrived, you had nearly lost everything," Kamizuki Yu continued. "And I merely killed one Hanzo."

His tone was casual, as though he were stating something utterly insignificant.

"The old order has begun to collapse with Hanzo's death. A new order now has the chance to rise from these ruins. That is the most direct effect of power."

Kamizuki Yu turned his gaze toward Nagato.

"Your eyes, the Rinnegan. In your hands, they seem to have brought nothing but pain, hatred, and the destruction wrought by that Demonic Statue of the Outer Path."

Nagato's body trembled slightly.

Kamizuki Yu's words precisely pierced the deepest despair in his heart.

Other than endless battles and loss, what had the Rinnegan ever given him?

"But these eyes are not merely tools of destruction."

Kamizuki Yu's voice carried a strange, guiding force.

"The Rinnegan were the eyes with which the Sage of Six Paths founded the Ninja Sect and brought peace. They possess supreme power over creation and destruction, the power to guide change. The key lies in the will of the one who wields them."

"Will..." Nagato murmured, the purple ripples in his eyes flickering faintly.

"Close your eyes, Nagato. Feel the power deep within them with your heart. Not anger, not sorrow, but something more fundamental."

Kamizuki Yu's voice was not loud, yet it reached Nagato's ears with perfect clarity.

Following his words, Nagato slowly closed his eyes.

At first, his mind still held scenes of war, blood, and Yahiko on the brink of death.

But under Kamizuki Yu's guidance, he tried to settle those chaotic thoughts.

A power unlike the violent force he had felt when using the [Demonic Statue of the Outer Path], something gentler yet vastly more boundless, slowly began to emerge within his consciousness.

Was that... vitality?

The potential to control life and death, perhaps even reverse yin and yang.

It was not mere destruction, but a power containing the possibility of creation.

Nagato abruptly opened his eyes. Amid the complex emotions in his ripple-patterned Rinnegan was a glimmer unlike any he had ever known before.

"I... I felt it..."

He was almost incoherent, but that entirely new sensation made his whole body tremble.

Kamizuki Yu's understanding of the Rinnegan actually surpassed that of its very owner!

It was simply inconceivable!

Kamizuki Yu nodded slightly. Nagato's talent was not lacking; he had merely been blinded by hatred for far too long.

"See? It does not only bring despair."

At the side, Yahiko and Konan could clearly feel the change in Nagato's aura.

It was no longer pure gloom and heaviness. There was an indescribable... vitality to it.

"But..." Konan's cool voice broke the brief silence.

She looked at Kamizuki Yu with scrutiny in her eyes.

"Wouldn't peace maintained through absolute power become another form of oppressive rule? Just like Hanzo?"

Her question was sharp and direct.

This was what they had always guarded against and resisted.

Yahiko also looked at Kamizuki Yu. This was a doubt in his heart as well.

Kamizuki Yu did not become angry. Instead, a faint smile appeared on his face.

"Power is the foundation of peace, not all of it."

"The true core of peace is the establishment of order, the prosperity of people's livelihoods, and giving the people hope for the future. Those things require wisdom to build and time to cultivate."

He raised a hand and pressed it down lightly.

"What I can do is provide you with an environment free from interference by external powers. A testing ground, where you can put a new, sustainable model of peace into practice."

"The Hidden Rain Village will be the starting point of that testing ground."

Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan were deeply shaken.

Kamizuki Yu's words painted a future they had never imagined.

An environment free from the interference of powerful forces...

A chance to practice a new model of peace...

Could... could such a thing be possible?

In the past, even surviving had been incredibly difficult for them, let alone building a village according to their own wishes.

Yet the man before them possessed the strength to make them believe that all of it was possible.

Yahiko's chest heaved violently.

He recalled his past stubbornness. Those impractical fantasies now seemed so pale before the absolute strength and far-reaching insight Kamizuki Yu had displayed.

Perhaps he truly had been wrong.

Peace was not shouted into existence. It had to be fought for, and even more so, built.

The light in Nagato's eyes grew increasingly brilliant.

His new understanding of the Rinnegan, along with Kamizuki Yu's guidance, allowed him to see for the first time a meaning for these eyes beyond revenge.

Creation... guiding change...

Konan's formerly tense body gradually relaxed as well.

She could not sense in Kamizuki Yu's words the naked desire for control that Hanzo had possessed. Instead, there was something on a higher level... expectation?

True hope quietly sprouted in her heart.

"Then we..." Yahiko spoke, his voice somewhat hoarse but carrying a new strength.

Kamizuki Yu's gaze swept over the three of them.

"The old Akatsuki ended with Hanzo's downfall."

"Now, I propose rebuilding Akatsuki around new ideals."

He extended his hand.

"An organization devoted to uniting all weak forces, sheltering war orphans, and spreading the true ideals of peace."

"Of course, all of this will proceed under the protection of my power, until you possess enough strength to independently safeguard that peace."

Yahiko looked at Kamizuki Yu's outstretched hand, then at Nagato and Konan beside him.

Purple light flowed in Nagato's eyes as he nodded firmly.

Konan pursed her lips, and a faint, heartfelt smile appeared on her face for the first time in a long while.

Yahiko took a deep breath, then solemnly extended his hand and clasped Kamizuki Yu's.

"We are willing!"

Nagato and Konan extended their hands as well, and the three of their hands stacked atop Kamizuki Yu's.

The rain continued to fall.

But the gloom shrouding the Hidden Rain Village seemed, at that very moment, to be torn open by a crack leading toward the light.

Akatsuki was reborn.

Kamizuki Yu withdrew his hand and looked at them calmly.

"Very good. From today onward, the Hidden Rain Village will be under your management."