The next day, the Canopy Screen began playing on time.
[Early the following morning, the excitement and exhaustion of yesterday's combat "exchange" had not yet faded when Kagura gathered the six young visitors from Konoha and Kumogakure, along with Jade, in a simply furnished meeting room.]
[Sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating dust motes in the air. The mood should have been relaxed, but Kagura looked unusually grave.]
["We won't be exchanging Ninjutsu or Taijutsu techniques this morning."]
[Kagura's voice was steady but solemn. "The Mizukage hopes we can attend a special lesson together—a lesson about peace."]
["A lesson about peace?" Boruto Uzumaki's shoulders slumped at once. "What's the point? Hasn't the Shinobi World been at peace for ages?"]
[He had been born into the prosperous years after the Fourth Shinobi World War. To him, war was nothing more than faded pictures in textbooks and distant stories told by his elders—heavy, yet vague.]
[Damian curled his lip slightly. He clearly found the prospect far more boring than combat training.]
[Anya blinked her wide eyes and looked around curiously. Sarada and Mikoto Misaka sat up straight, ready to listen. Jade quieted down too.]
[Kagura offered no further explanation. He simply switched on the projector. The lights dimmed, and the screen lit up.]
[At first came historical footage in black and white or faded color: villages reduced to rubble, scorched earth, the vacant eyes of helpless refugees, the weary, wounded faces of shinobi...]
[Then the images grew more specific, more horrifying: brutal close-quarters fighting, bodies torn apart by colliding Ninjutsu, children wailing for lost loved ones, smoke and bloodstains lingering over the desolate land after battle...]
[There was no stirring music, only a calm, almost cold narration stating dates, places, and casualty figures. That made the images all the more raw and