"You people could never understand… what it feels like to have an endless mountain, one you can never climb over, pressing on your heart for a lifetime… just how suffocating, how despairing that truly is.
I've been crushed beneath that mountain for my entire life. Since I chose to live again, I refuse to let myself be weighed down by your fists like I was in the past era.
To spend my whole life in your shadow, I've had enough of that."
Byakuren murmured.
This was the sorrow of being born in the Warring States era alongside Garp.
Even someone as gifted as the First Mizukage, someone capable enough to earn another life, had been suppressed by that iron fist his entire existence.
A lifetime of trying, yet never surpassing it.
In the end, all he could do was die in frustration.
Byakuren was like this, the same fate befell the other First-Generation Kage.
A, the First Raikage, Reto, the First Kazekage, and Ishikawa, the First Tsuchikage.
Even the so-called God of the Shinobi and the strongest Uchiha in history, were no exception.
"So then I'll die."
Faced with Byakuren's bitterness, Garp's expression didn't shift in the slightest.
"Then die. If you can't climb over that mountain, then what meaning does a second life even have?"
Byakuren's voice grew louder, but the light in his eyes dimmed. His trembling eyelids could no longer support themselves and slowly began to fall.
"That's why this time, unlike before, I didn't let you tuck your tail and flee back to the Land of Water. I chose to send you straight to the Pure Land."
Leaving those words behind, Garp walked away without a backward glance. For Byakuren, the most brilliant Mizukage in the history of Kirigakure, he didn't spare even half a step.
"Hahahaha… Garp….Garp… why must you exist in both eras? Why must there be someone like you?"
Byakuren let out a bleak laugh, small at first, then growing, spreading across the battlefield, echoing far into the distance.
That laughter was steeped in despair, unwillingness, and sorrow.
Whether it was Tsunade and the Konoha shinobi, or Yagura and the Kirigakure ninja, every one of them felt a strong surge of emotion.
They were all children of the Hidden Village era.
But figures like Orochimaru, Tsunade, Fugaku, Shisui, and Yagura, these geniuses of their generation, couldn't help but resonate with that laughter.
In that moment, they truly felt the suffocating sorrow and pent-up frustration of the shinobi and samurai who lived during that era.
It wasn't a lack of talent. Nor was it laziness. Nor was it a lack of aptitude, skill, or lineage.
Even setting aside the other shinobi and samurai, just look at the First Five Kage, each of them was a once in a century prodigy.
In any era without the Iron Fist, they would've been the ones carrying their era forward.
But the mountain named the Strongest of the Shinobi World was simply too tall, too steep.
Even an entire lifetime, Byakuren's two lifetimes, weren't enough to reach the top, let alone surpass it.
To be born in the same era as the Iron Fist… truly misfortune. Truly sorrowful.
"Even a First-Generation Mizukage… that man kills them like it's nothing."
Orochimaru watched Garp walk toward them. His mind replayed the earlier clash, no, it wasn't even a fight; it was a one-sided execution. He let out a sigh.
"So this is what Uchiha Madara must have felt back then."
Fugaku stared at Garp's white shirt, still pristine, unstained, not a single wrinkle or tear on it, even after killing the First Mizukage. Shock rippled through him.
Even Byakuren, unwilling to accept defeat after living again, used his second life to challenge Garp the moment he was revived.
So what about the proud Uchiha?
Back then, even Madara wasn't even worthy of a silver medal.
With Madara's pride, failing to win silver was already disgraceful. And getting bronze… that would have been a fate worse than death.
"No wonder even my grandpa, who was always bold and straightforward, couldn't help showing bitterness whenever he mentioned uncle Garp…"
Tsunade stared at Garp, who stood like an undefeated war god. Suddenly, everything made sense.
The leader of the First-Generation Kage, one of the Three Legends of the Warring States, while not as miserable as Byakuren, who didn't even get a medal, was, in the end, merely a silver medalist of that era.
"Uncle Garp, the First Mizukage… I think he really died."
Kushina, hearing Byakuren's sorrowful laughter abruptly stop, couldn't help speaking.
"Then so be it. Dying by my hand is already the best ending he could ask for. Besides, I already said I'd send him to the Pure Land, so I had to follow through."
Garp chuckled casually.
He was the only one present completely unmoved by the First Mizukage's death.
After all, to the shinobi of the Hidden Village era, the First-Generation Kage were mythic figures, heroes of stories and legends.
Watching someone like that die right before their eyes naturally shook them.
But to him, Byakuren was nothing special.
Just like the already-dead Rasa, or the son of the Tsuchikage, and so on.
Back in the Warring States era, there were countless shinobi like Byakuren, people who couldn't even qualify as bronze medalists before him.
If he mourned each one he killed, he'd have spent his whole life lamenting from morning to night.
"Only you could say something like that with a straight face."
Kushina shook her head with a helpless smile.
Now she finally understood why Byakuren, even after reincarnating, was still tormented by his loss.
To be one of the First-Generation Kage, yet never once be acknowledged by Garp…
That feeling must have been worse, far worse, than being looked down on by an Uchiha's Sharingan.
Because no matter how condescending the Uchiha gaze was, it was still better than being ignored altogether.
.........
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