Main World.
Konoha Year 24, autumn.
The Pure Land.
The gray-white sky remained eternally unchanged. The Sage of Six Paths sat cross-legged on a lotus throne, the ripples in his Rinnegan slowly turning. His gaze pierced the barrier between the World of the Living and the Dead, falling upon the "nursery" he had tended for a thousand years-the Shinobi World.
A faint smile slowly curled his lips.
"Konoha... is growing weaker and weaker."
He murmured to himself.
It was not worry, but satisfaction. Konoha was too strong, so the other shinobi villages did not dare fight. If they did not dare fight, there would be fewer wars. Fewer wars meant fewer deaths. Fewer deaths meant a smaller harvest for the Pure Land. So Konoha could be neither too strong nor too weak. If it was too weak, it would be destroyed, and once it was destroyed, there would be no more war. Konoha as it stood was just right-divided, weak, constantly embroiled in infighting, but still holding on.
"But it still isn't enough."
He raised a hand. Pale golden light surged from his palm, turning into countless tiny points of light that drifted toward every corner of the Shinobi World. Those points of light were "opportunities." They would fall into the hands of those with "potential" and help them grow stronger.
Not people from Konoha.
They were from Iwagakure, Kirigakure, Amegakure, Kusagakure... the shinobi villages and shinobi who had been suppressed by Konoha for decades, nursing resentment and longing to turn their fortunes around. The stronger Konoha's enemies became, the more Konoha would need war. The more Konoha needed war, the deeper it would sink into war. The deeper it sank into war, the more people would die. The more people died, the better the Pure Land's harvest would be.