_________ POV Narration _________

Ken sighed as he felt the walls of Kumogakure approaching.

The Land of Lightning was a lot harder to traverse now, as more and more surrounding lands were starting to encroach on its borders due to its lack of action as of late.

They all likely figured that the Land of Lightning was weakened after the last incident with the breakdown of the alliance, but they were all currently stuck at its borders.

Even those that had made their way there on boats were now stuck, as the Shinobi of the Cloud Village weren't at all weakened.

They had lost only a few people in that incident, so they still had a lot of troops and capable men.

It ended up being mostly a stalemate, only breaking up whenever the Jinchuriki of other nations got involved.

But B was still there to quell any attack from other Tailed Beasts. He had recently routed the Third Tail Jinchuriki back towards the sea, making them flee back to the Land of Water.

But Ken was able to slip past their warzones unnoticed regardless of the massive scale that the conflicts reached.

It was rather tragic, the loss of life in the Third Shinobi War was already wrapping up to be on par with the Second One, and that was not even counting the thousands that had died right at the beginning of the war on the failed invasion of the Uzumaki Clan.

Child soldiers were now just as commonly used as they were during the warring states period, which made the achievements of the First Hokage even more moot.

His entire purpose for establishing the hidden villages was for there to be order and peace, for children to no longer tread the battlefield and lose their short lives.

But Ken now walked past corpses that were at best the same age as him. A few of them didn't even feel like they were over 13 from the size of their bodies...

Maybe before, he wouldn't have cared much about them. As he considered all shinobi the same regardless of age in the past.

But now that he had met people like Minato and Kushina, and actually gotten to know them even on a surface level, he felt a bit conflicted.

With every corpse he passed by, he couldn't help but think. 'What if that was Minato or Kushina? Would my reaction be the same?'

And it became even worse after a while when his thoughts changed to. 'What if these were children within the Dark Brotherhood?'

That train of thought had left a really sour taste in his mouth. But right now there was nothing he could even do about it.

The entire Shinobi World was now participating in that war. Even if he somehow convinced the Raikage to not use Child Soldiers, the rest weren't going to stop out of the goodness of their own heart.

It became even worse when he thought back to villages he had killed lots of shinobi. Like the Grass Village, or some of the Smaller Villages that had participated in the Alliance against the Uzumaki.

They were likely employing the most child soldiers due to their numbers being dwindled right before the war.

It was laughable to think that somehow, he might've had a hand in children seeing the battlefield earlier than intended.

But it wasn't like Ken was blaming himself. It wasn't a direct result of his own actions. It wasn't something he had caused.

The hidden villages simply refused to stay out of conflict and rebuild slowly, they all insisted on continuing the war.

Even now that the Land of Lighting, one of their main aggressors had mostly changed their strategy into that of a turtle, they were sending shinobi to attack them and continue the war.

In the end, Ken's interference meant nothing, his presence changed nothing. It just hurried things along.

'As things stand, nothing will ever change unless someone like the First Hokage shows up again...'

It was a pretty thought. The only real period of peace was had only when there was a man strong enough to completely pacify every nation in the world.

Ken had done some more research into the man and his past after visiting Konoha and meeting the Third Hokage in person. It made him curious to find out more about the former 'God of Shinobi'.

As it turned out, Hashirama put the fear of god into the other villages, and he was therefore called the 'God of Shinobi'.

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His strength was truly godlike, there was no other way to go about it.

But Hiruzen, although said to be more powerful than the Second Hokage, was not strong enough to have the same effect on the world as Hashirama Senju.

Was there ever even going to be another man like him?

Ken maybe had hopes of growing strong to match Hashirama one day... But for now?

He had given it his all to defeat a Tailed Beast, one that was far from being the strongest, but still up there.

But Ken was still unsure if he could defeat the 9 tails even if he could give it his all.

Meanwhile, Hashirama was said to have toyed around with the tailed beasts in general.

The 9 Tails was also one of the Tailed Beasts he was said to have defeated, and he wasn't touted to have had much trouble sealing it back even after it somehow broke out one time.

Still, Ken understood that Hashirama wasn't alone in stopping the wars.

The forces he had amassed under him were also a great deterrent, same for the Tailed Beasts he decided to hand out.

But underneath Hashirama were gathered some of the strongest clans in the world.

The Uchiha and Hyuga Clans were among them as well.

Uchiha Madara was a prime example of someone almost on the level of Hashirama that still worked underneath him to bring world peace for a period, before reportedly having a fight to the death with him.

If Ken wanted to become like Konoha in the old days and put a stop to the Shinobi Wars, then he needed to have at least that much power.

If he was to do it alone, then he'd likely need as much as the two of them, Madara and Hashirama, combined. And that goal seemed a bit difficult to achieve.

But considering that he was essentially a Tailed Beast, and his strength at his current age was already vast, it was fair to say he was on the right track.

He just had to play the waiting game and keep up with his training with as little distractions as possible.

Attending a funeral was certainly not a great use of his time. But he did it anyway.

There was no need to completely burn the bridge he had built with the Raikage by refusing to attend his son's funeral.

By the time he arrived there, the scene was pretty much already set.

It was a closed casket burial, as they only really had one piece of him to bury anyway.

The hole was dug, a large stone casket was neatly placed in front of the hole, and flowers grew around it from all sides.

It stood right underneath the shadow of a large mountain peak, not that far away from the Kage building, which was still the same way Ken remembered it.

Looking like an upside-down version of the one in Konoha but much bigger and going up a mountain.

Ken wasn't stopped at any point of the way, he wore his mask as he walked through the large gates of the Cloud Village, and the shinobi at the gate just nodded towards him with appreciation.

By that point, most Cloud Shinobi and villagers considered Ken an ally. They all knew that he had greatly assisted the Raikage in many matters.

They were not all aware of the specifics, as those were classified. But the Raikage made sure to spread the news that Ken was a friend at the very least.

It was also well known that he was a blind man, so although it felt redundant since he was essentially a bloodhound that could likely smell the Raikage from Kilometers away, he was still given a guide.

Ken just figured they sent someone to make sure he kept in line and didn't do anything suspicious, like planting a reverse summoning scroll in their village.

In all honesty, Ken had already hidden one right outside their village, so he wasn't going to bother hiding one inside as well.

At the very least, he got to meet a familiar face, as his guide turned out to be none other than Mabui.

She appeared to have grown a bit during the time they hadn't 'seen' each other. She also seemed to have changed her choice of attire, from regular Jonin garb to a nice dress.

She also now wore her hair in a bun behind her head. She seemed rather classy in appearance and demeanour now.

At least Ken felt she looked nice and classy, he would much rather refrain from offering his opinion on that if asked.

Not that his opinion would count for much since he was still blind. Calling things beautiful was difficult for him since he only ever felt shapes.

And shapes, no matter how specific, always needed him to use his imagination to piece everything together which wasn't perfect.

"Mabui, it's certainly been a while..." Ken was the one to greet her first after entering the village's gates.

She seemed to have been waiting there for him, but she was also quite shocked to see him remember her.

"K-Ken... You really have grown, huh?" She scratched the back of her head and extended her hand towards him.

She blinked a few times before realising she may have done something wrong. They still didn't know how exactly Ken 'saw' the world.

She was about to apologize, but the Blind Assassin just shook her hand.

"I have grown a bit, yes. Hitting a growth sprout does that to you." Ken laughed a bit as he dropped that bombshell on her.

Mabui was flabbergasted, unsure what to say in that situation.

'Growth sprout!?'

It was strange to hear about the growth sprout of a well-known assassin that was believed to be an adult.

Ken had decided to hint at the fact that he was just young to avoid any suspicion that he could alter his own height without any form of transformation Jutsu.

Yet another cover to separate him from the 'Gray Fox' and a way for him to hide that facet of his powers.

After all, it was only a matter of time before people put the pieces together and realized his height had changed drastically over the past few years.

"S-say, how old are you exactly, sir Ken?" Mabui couldn't help but ask that question, her voice trembling a bit as Ken could feel her palm, which was still within his grasp, also becoming a bit sweaty.

"Oh, I did lose track at some point... But I should be somewhere around... Thirteen and a half? I've not reached 14 yet at the very least." Ken decided to just be upfront about that.

Keeping his age a secret at first seemed more necessary if he wanted people to take him seriously. But now?

Who in their right mind wouldn't take the man that had bisected a Tailed Beast seriously? Well, the child that had bisected a Tailed beast. But it was all the same for Ken.

"I see..." Suddenly, Mabui's eyes seemed to be filled with emotions.

Ken could sense them, he could sense her aura shifting a bit as she struggled through them. A mix of disbelief, wonder and... Pity?

The Blind Assassin decided to not think too much about it. He simply shook his head and opened his mouth to speak again.

"No need to dwell on it too much. Just take me to the funeral. I think the Raikage is waiting on us..."

The young monster's words seemed to break Mabui out of her stupor, as she stumbled an apology and quickly turned around and gestured for Ken to follow her.

She then began guiding him through the city, her mind still trying to process that information, still trying to make sense of it.

One thing was for sure...

'The Raikage must be informed about this as soon as possible...'