Chapter 111 - 111. FEAR

Shiroken had already caught Roshi and was on his way back to the village. But when he was nearby he saw someone flying in the air. It interested him so he went to check what it was.

At the same time, seeing the many explosions in the village, he sent 5 clones of himself to handle the situation.

When one of the clones arrived near Tsunade, he chuckled, "How is the new Hokage doing? I see you're injured. Let me help you."

Shiroken without a second thought went to her and put his hand on her cheek, immediately healing her face. Next, he put his palm on her right arm, healing it too. Tsunade was taken aback by this level of closeness, but she lashed out instead, "You said you would stand by the village."

He shrugged, "And I did. Nobody has died, while you learnt your lesson."

"What lesson?" She asked.

"That you people are weak and anybody can stomp on you all. There is a quote, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. Your village is a weird one that although always went through hard times, never was able to create good times.

"Want to know why? Because your strong men kept on making new enemies and killing their fellow good strong men of the village. Anyway, I shall deal with these two now." Shiroken scolded her and faced Konan and Deidara.

Shiroken saw the blonde boy, "You... you seem very young. How old are you?"

Deidara looked left and right, then pointed at himself, "Me? I'm mighty 19. Why?"

Shiroken sighed and shook his head, "Such a tender age and yet have taken such a wrong path. What are your motivations? Why did you join Akatsuki?"

"Because I love my art, and I lost to Itachi... Argh... I will one day prove my art is greater than his." Deidara cursed.

"Hmm, so you have Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder," Shiroken muttered. Then he faced the blue-haired girl. "Child, you look old enough to be wise. Why do such things? What's in killing innocents?"

Konan stared at Shiroken, seemingly reminiscing about another white-haired man who had entered her and her friend's life when they were small. The one who showed them kindness.

"Those innocents have blood on their hands. They scream murder only when they are on the receiving end, when it's someone else, they spit on their name." Konan replied.

Well, Shiroken couldn't really deny what she was saying, but what he needed was to stop them. "And what do you expect to achieve by destroying this village?"

"Peace... from our life, we have learned that only those who know the pain understand the value of peace. Without pain, there can be no peace, without darkness, there can be no light. Hence, for peace, we shall bring pain first. Not just this village, but in every single village." Konan said, passionately, completely in the belief of her words.

"And how will you do that?" Shiroken asked her.

"By catching all tailed beasts and using them." She answered.

Now, talking about catching or enslaving the tailed beasts was like stepping on Shiroken's Achilles heel. He felt annoyed with the obsession of the world with them yet none of the people took time to understand them.

*WOOSH*

Shiroken disappeared from his place and in an instant appeared beside Deidara. "Then your plan is doomed to be nothing but a failure."

*SLAP*

He slapped Deidara so hard he was thrown to the ground from the sky. He immediately fell unconscious after this. Next, he appeared right in front of Konan. "What's your name, child?"

Konan was truly shocked by his quick attack. She didn't even see him coming and this made it clear how far the difference in their strength was.

"K-Konan..." She replied, prepared to receive any attack.

*Sigh*

"Come with me if you want to see how wrong your ways are." He muttered and flew down.

Konan was taken aback and it took her a few seconds to realise he didn't mean to harm her. Knowing that even if she fought him she can't win, she followed him.

On the ground, Shiroken went inside a building and brought Roshi with him. "With me, put your hand on Roshi's head, you can do it too, Tsunade."

The two women followed his lead and touched, and in a split second their vision changed as they found themselves standing in front of a red ape-like giant beast. He looked magnificent with bulging muscles on his arms.

Shiroken walked to Son Goku and stood by his side, facing Tsunade and Konan. "Meet Son Goku aka King of the Sage Monkeys, Handsome Monkey King, Great Sage Equalling Heaven and you people call him the four-tail beast. From your expressions, I can see it. You two never thought that the tailed beasts had names, right?"

"Huh, they think we are not living beings but non-living items, meant to be their weapons." Son Goku scoffed.

"Konan, who you call the Tailed Beasts are centuries-old beings, who were here before there was any country or even a Shinobi. Like you and me, they are also living beings, just with too much strength. They have their fears, happiness, likes and dislikes.

"They have feelings, they feel sorrow, anger and sadness when something bad happens. They were originally kind to humans, but when they saw how humans tried to continuously enslave them for their power, they started fighting back. From there, people started calling them demons.

"Centuries ago, when I was a small baby, these nine amazing beings came together and made sure that I lived safely. They are my parents, and I am their child. They have suffered enough already under Hashirama's forced-sealing them. I know you must have had some sad past, and if I was there I would have helped you one hundred per cent. But I was not present in this world at that time due to the mess created by Hashirama and an alien. So, you tell me, Konan. Do they not have any right to live? To be happy? And the bigger question is..."

He slightly raised his voice and asked again, "SHOULD I SPARE ANYONE WHO DARES TOUCH MY FAMILY?"

Konan already knew the answer, she would have done anything to save her parents from dying in the Second Shinobi World War. But, she was a powerless child at that point.

"No, you should save your family." She muttered. Honestly, she had no idea about the tailed beasts being such an advanced species. To her, they were like tigers and lions.

"Good girl," Son Goku commented.

Shiroken patted Konan's shoulder, "I am trying to create a world where the tailed beasts are accepted as they are. A world where war does not exist, a world where there is no difference between a shinobi or an ordinary human. For that, I have already achieved the majority of my goals. I have three of the Five Great Shinobi Countries already under my total control, including their Shinobi villages.

"The remaining ones are Iwagakure and Kumogakure, I shall have them soon. Our goals are similar. But my way involves no killing, prosperity and happiness. Your way involves death, suffering, misery, disease and sadness of countless orphans that you will cause in your path of destruction."

When Shiroken talked about orphans, his words pierced her mind. And that was when she started to have second thoughts about even if what they were doing was right.

...

Jiraiya was injured and tired. However, thankfully the 5 clones of Yahiko had stopped for some reason, and fighting Sasori and his 3rd Kazekage puppet was hard in itself. (A/N: Pain needs to stop his control over them in order to use Shinra Tensei.)

But Shiroken's clone came to help him at the right time. "Haha... Jiraiya, it seems you still have a lot to learn, boy. Stop being a pervert all the time and train for your own sake."

Jiraiya finally took a sigh of relief, "Better late than never, ha?"

Shiroken looked at Sasori, "Boy, I'm taking you back to your grandma, then you will be brought to justice. Death is inevitable, but at least it will happen in front of her eyes."

Sasori tried to attack Shiroken, but his puppets were ineffective as Shiroken broke his chakra strings fairly easily by diluting them. Rendering the puppets useless, Sasori didn't have many options left. One chop to his neck and he fell unconscious.

...

In the sky at the same time,

"Go on, give it another try. Maybe then it will work. Let me see how you show them 'Pain'"

Pain left all his planning and faced Shiroken. A fight was inevitable today, the fact that Shiroken was back here was proof enough that their mission had failed.

"Don't tell me you have admitted defeat. You were so pompously going to show them pain? To understand the value of peace they must feel the pain first? I do understand and agree with your ideas to a level but I do not agree with what you consider pain.

"You think pain is something physical, which you can give them by killing them. But what that will garner is not pain, but hatred against you." Shiroken mocked Pain.

Pain replied back. "You are too strong to understand the pain of a normal human. Have you ever lost someone? So close to yourself that you want to destroy the world? I did... yet, I want peace, because that person desired peace. It was his dream that the world shall have no wars. So I am... taking away their ability to wage wars."

Shiroken scoffed, "I have... felt pain... I did want to destroy the world once. Do you really think your plan will work? It will fail miserably. Why? Because I have seen how humans lived before the formation of the five great shinobi nations and the hidden villages. They lived as warring clans. After you destroy all the villages, they shall once again go back to being warring clans, wreaking more havoc than before. Boy, when you think about humans... do you only think about Shinobi?

"What about those people who have no Chakra and just want to live in peace?"

Nagato stopped to think about it. "They too... shall live in peace with no wars."

"But the warring clans will become lawless then. Without oversight of a Kage, they shall do as they please, they will exploit and kill weak humans. I have seen it happen before. Women would sell themselves and their daughters for the mercy of shinobi. Shinobi would steal food and money from them.

"By your concept, should I kill all Shinobi in the world?" Shiroken asked him.

Some pictures resurfaced in his mind. Yes... he had seen this happening before. He had personally seen the conditions of some of these neglected human villages.

"Then what is your concept of peace?" Pain inquired.

Shiroken showed a fist, "Fear."

Pain was taken aback by this. He was expecting some pompous words that it's love and friendship that can bring true peace. Yet, he was proven wrong, and it intrigued him. "What do you mean?"

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