>>5936545“Hmm.” He says, sitting down on a stump, seemingly giving up on practicing taijutsu right away. “It’s not exciting news. After the party, I asked him what he thought. He gave me a piece of his mind and let me know that he thinks the lifestyle of a ninja is depraved. He specifically called it ‘A charnel circle of pointless violence.’, after which I told him there was nothing I could do about it, and furthermore the only reason he pretended to have the moral high ground was because he was helpless. Not that I hate peace, but I do hate empty, self-serving platitudes. He’s upset with his own powerlessness, so he’s blaming it on some moral failure of mine rather than the fact that he’s just weak. And you know what, I also told him I thought that if civilians like him could work hard and attain the power of force like we have, the world would probably be even shittier because once all these weak, ‘peaceful’ people can get their way through violence, they’d find that all of a sudden they found the same violence they always bitched about all too justifiable. In other words, they don’t hate violence, they just hate that they can’t wield it for themselves. Anyway… You can imagine that we’re not super happy with each other right now.”
“Is he wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, your argument is that you can’t do anything about it, which you used to wash your hands of the whole issue, and then you just characterized him in the worst possible light to put him down instead of actually considering his point.”
“What do you mean?” He says, standing up, emphasizing himself with striking hand gestures. “He didn’t make a point. He just told me that my lifestyle is depraved, and then got upset that I’m not a ghoul who just agrees with him and does it anyway! I became a ninja because I wanted to make a difference on behalf of our village, a positive one at that, so what right does he or anyone else have to imply that I’m just some kind of roving killer? Why the fuck are YOU a ninja? Did you just wake up and decide it’d be great to participate in endless, meaningless violence? For fun?”
“No. I mean, obviously, no. It’s just that, sometimes I have trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel myself. Take this mission for example. We have rebels who hate ninja, presumably because they see us as killers who have insidiously taken control of their government and maintain hegemony through violence. And our response is that, of course, we’ll kill them. To what end? To prove them right? What future are we even fighting for? What’s the goal of it? And once they’re dead, it’ll never be over. We’ll go home for a couple short weeks and then what? Just a question of who’s next. And if everyone is thinking like that, eventually it’ll be ninja from some other village killing us because WE’RE next. And the wheel just keeps on turning.”
