A MYTHICAL AND RELIGIOUS ANALYSIS

NARUTO

Third Edition

MYTHICAL

AND

RELIGIOUS

ANALYSIS

“It’s time to show them that all the myths were real” - Kabuto

The following work is a non-proﬁt, educational material published in

the public domain, whereby the Author holds no copyright in regards

to the material discussed.

Third edition

Contents

Author’s Note

1 Land of Waves

2 Sasuke’s Rebirth

3 Bushy Brows

4 Hinata vs Neji

5 Naruto vs Neji

6 Sasuke vs Gaara, then Naruto vs Gaara

7 Sannin Showdown

8 Sasuke leaves the village

103

9 Naruto vs Sasuke

117

-------------------- Shippuden: Pre-War -----------------

10 Kazekage Rescue Mission

131

11 Team 7-ish

144

12 Culmination of the Uchiha

157

13 The loss of a teacher

177

14 Pain

189

15 Danzo does it

214

16 The Taka

233

----------------------- Shippuden: War ---------------------

17 A turtle, an octopus and a waterfall

242

18 Tests of character

257

19 Madara enters the war

268

20 The dawn of Ten-Tails

278

21 Brothers between battle

291

22 What is a village?

308

23 Squad 7 Reunited

326

24 Endgame

345

25 The ﬁnal, ﬁnal, ﬁnal battle - I swear!

365

Appendix 1: ‘Naruto is the worst character in Naruto’

376

Sources

382

Bibliography

420

Index

434

Author’s Note

The aim of this work will be to serve two primary purposes: ﬁrst, to bring

forth the multitude of mythical and religious references that have been

incorporated into this manga to light, and second, to illustrate with a

side-by-side commentary how signiﬁcantly they shape the characters, arcs

and overall narrative. Ultimately this cannot be taken as an authoritative

text however, since I own no copyright or bear any involvement into the

development of Naruto itself, so no matter the number of sources or

cross-references I have delineated for the following sections, please take

them with at least a single grain of salt.

Added Note for the third edition:

With fewer chapters and more organised reference tables, this edition

hopes to serve its original purpose, making it an apt manual for curious

readers.

Land of Waves

The tale of Naruto is one of a rambunctious child who, due to the demon he

harbours, has been ostracised by his village and lives the ﬂeeting existence

of an outcast. Like most Shonen Jump manga, the protagonist is pitted

against a rival - the yin to his yang - in the form of Sasuke Uchiha, a child

who is supremely gifted and sits at the top of his class in every subject.

Contrast this with Naruto, who’s failed his graduation exam for the third

time as he’s yet to perform a perfect clone jutsu.

Mizuki sees a disheartened Naruto walking home, and out of the goodness

of his heart tells him a secret that will guarantee his promotion! In actuality,

he tricked Naruto into setting o a village-wide search for he has stolen the

“sacred manuscript”, and if it gets into the wrong hands it could jeopardise

the village. The boy is now a threat, which is what he wanted to

exacerbate

[1]

. But his malice towards Naruto isn’t peculiar to him, as it

seems to represent the views of the average villager

[2]

, their hatred always

staying hidden until now.

We see the revelation of the decree happen in the forest which has usually

been a literary tool to express an environment of disorientation and

dissolution of identity, yet here it is seen as a pivotal moment of clarity, for

the cloud that surrounded Naruto his entire life has been lifted. It all ﬁts,

that nobody talks to him and everyone seems to despise him, and since he

was born it’s been that way. But Iruka doesn’t want Naruto to live in all that

despair and hopes he can ﬁnd it in his heart to forgive people like him, and

martyrs himself to protect the boy: “If I’d been a better teacher… a better

self, maybe neither of us would have come to this”

[3]

. A better self is a

unique turn of phrase and is the literalised translation, as this speaks to his

mistake in seeing Naruto partly as a beast and didn’t consider what eect

the decree would have on his “self”. He knew that he wasn’t the fox, and its

evil being sealed away was something he happened to be born into;

however, he prioritised his role as a teacher and as a Shinobi, which is why

I'm not surprised that Naruto ran away from Iruka for being a

co-conspirator for so long. He chose to keep the secret away from him

because he was assured it was in the village’s best interest and opted for the

collective over the individual, despite being the only person who could lend

a hand.

But this sacriﬁce signiﬁes Iruka’s shift to realising that the individual isn’t

helped at the expense of the societal code, instead it is reiﬁed when the

togetherness of people exists on a one-to-one level. The Othering which

had been pernicious until now had Naruto excluded from the usual modes

of conversation that alleviates conﬂict, boxing him in as the image of a

monster. Interestingly, Mizuki has a perverse liking for this representation

and hopes that he too is perceived in the same way - “Naruto and I are two

of a kind. I can use that scroll to achieve the same kind of limitless

power!”

[4]

. He wants to be feared and despised as he could attain the

strength to preside over an entire village, which ﬁlls his malevolent

fantasies with glee. It is around this point that the Anime Proﬁle for him

states “Mizuki’s dark ambition bares its fangs”

[5]

, as he tries to wear the

cunning and imposing symbology of the fox itself, though to no avail,

because he doesn’t have its bite…

By using the logic he applied to himself, he is almost horriﬁed that Naruto

exists for he “understands” that he must be manipulating others too as they

are “the same”. Both Iruka and Mizuki make the claim they are mirror

images of Naruto, but using two dierent frameworks: Iruka is trying to

connect to his heart, this unfathomable collective which cannot be singled

out, whereas Mizuki tries to reason with a single aspect, the blade, that

Naruto can impress onto the world. I say heart(心) and blade(刃) as these

are the two aspects of the Kanji for Ninja(忍), with the literal meaning of

"heart under blade". It is these two opposing forces which when balanced

create a noble warrior. Whilst making the claim they were equals, Mizuki

launched a shuriken at Naruto with the intent to kill. Does this mean he

would apply such violence to himself? Of course not, for he has

distinguished himself as master of evil, wit and charm - everyone else are

mere pawns. Consequently he will never “peer behind the curtain” so to

speak into the character of another person, and till the day he dies he won’t

see anybody else as really Real - a phenomena that’s walled o when one

doesn’t sacriﬁce themselves.

Now it’s all well and good that I can pick apart Mizuki, but how does

Naruto know for certain that Iruka isn’t just like everyone else, a master

manipulator perhaps? He listens in on the two of them arguing about who

and what he is whilst tucked behind a tree, which Kishimoto uses as a motif

to symbolise genuine insights into another person’s character. He tears up

when Iruka calls him "a citizen of Konohagakure, Naruto Uzumaki"

[6]

. He is

dissuaded of any doubts that he doesn’t belong, as he’s not only been

acknowledged as an individual, but welcomed into the village with open

arms just by being himself. This moment is when he sees Iruka's sentiment

to be true and jumps in to save him.

Bell training

Sasuke watches Naruto fall into each and every trap and this soothes his ego

as he could never have fallen for such basic trickery. Naruto acts without

any virtue at all, with little respect for his reputation or pride as there really

isn't any: no Uchiha heritage, no discernible destiny he must fulﬁl; whereas

Sasuke cannot aord to look like an idiot for he is the noble knight who

shall slay Itachi Uchiha, restore the clan and rewrite history. Kakashi

acknowledges he’s dierent, seeing the arrogance in him that he used to

have too.

During the training exercise we see Sakura starting to think this task is

unreachable (literally): "Even if we couldn't’ manage it this time, I’m sure

next time if we give it our all…"

[7]

. Come back next year? This rustles the

spirit of the avenger in Sasuke, for he never feels he has enough time - to

come back next year is out of the question. His purpose is threatened, and

he falls back to why he is here in the ﬁrst place: “Only I can kill him. He

made me cry… My only goal is to have my revenge. I have to become

stronger than he is… Now”

[8]

. With that odd, fragmented armation he

continues, while Sakura thinks he must mean the Sensei.

After many more failed attempts, Kakashi grills each of them for being too

individualistic and not working cohesively as a squad. He squashes Sasuke

like a bug, trying to convey to him the importance of keeping the team

intact, as it is their combined abilities and group strategy which gets the

work done. Whilst it is certainly the brilliance of a few individuals in key

moments, consistent progress is made together, thus fostering more

chances for individuals to shine

[9]

. Sasuke hus in a lowered, accepting tone

that this does have some importance and he combines this idea with the

necessary progress of destroying his brother. "We’ll all need our strength if

we’re going to work together to get those bells. You’re no good to me if

you’re just going to be a liability"

[10]

. He convinces the other team members

to fully accept companionship - though only he comprehends it, admittedly

through a rather morbid lens. Sasuke will do whatever it takes, including

being there for Naruto.

Kakashi said “A true Shinobi seeks for the hidden meanings within hidden

meanings”

[11]

so let’s recap on this exercise to try and ﬁnd those out. The

recurring theme that he set for each of Squad 7 were traps and illusions that

he wanted them to sni out and subvert, but they fell into all of them.

Naruto just assumed Kakashi dropped one of the bells out in the open and

went to grab it, setting o the rope trap and getting tied up. So, there was

an initial hidden meaning behind the innocuous placement of the bell, but

then what is the hidden meaning behind that? To isolate him. To prevent

him from helping his teammates, thereby nullifying potential teamwork

and there goes the only chance at succeeding. To immobilise Sasuke in the

ground prevents him assisting, and putting Sakura under genjutsu was the

quickest way to render her immobile. He showed o all three types of jutsu,

whilst also illustrating their biggest weakness.

In addition to this, Kakashi made them more impulsive by not letting them

have breakfast. By making them hungrier, it’s more likely they’ll prioritise

the food and delay helping their comrade. A good Shinobi may be able to

evade the traps that Kakashi set, which is useful when going out on

missions, but would they have understood the intention of those traps? We

can accept plenty of skillful Shinobi who care about themselves and have no

interest in working collaboratively, but that would ruin many missions and

eventually the village itself. This is the reasoning behind his central

philosophy: ”Those who violate the rules and fail to follow orders are lower

than garbage. However, those who do not care for and support their

comrades are even lower than that!”

[12]

The Warrior Code

The previous two volumes whereby we were introduced to the

‘Honourable Grandson’ Konohamaru and subsequent Bell Exercise have

laid the groundwork for how Kishimoto wants to deﬁne his version of

Shinobi, with their own unique philosophy, values and system.

Naruto is a world that borrows heavily from the Edo time

period(1603-1867), which is after the Warring States of many diuse clans.

Here Ninja go from being in the thick of war to subsidiary agents for the

Shogunate and their respective Feudal Lords, with work centring on

espionage, assassination and so forth. Likewise, the once central role of the

Samurai in keeping law and order within communities dissipated, and their

unrivalled status came into question. With a number of sweeping reforms,

economically powerful commoners could purchase Samurai privileges, like

the right to wear swords

[13]

which muddled the distinction between classes.

Thus began the task of theorists like Yamaga Sokō(1622–1685) to ﬁnd a

path forward for the Samurai, using Confucianism to answer this quandary.

Essentially he theorised that the Samurai, due to the money they received in

stipends, had more time to focus on ethical behaviour than the average

person who is mired in daily labour, and could therefore serve as the moral

bastions of society - directly in the image of the Chinese Confucian

gentleman

[14]

This is why Ebisu takes himself to be the perfect person to get Konohamaru

to the Hokage position, since neither of them have to concern themselves

with everyday matters, allowing more time to learn about leadership. We

know that he uses Confucianism as well based on his perfect recital of their

primary virtues: “the revered Lord Hokage knows and understands the

eight principles that are the cornerstone of all knowledge of the Shinobi:

virtue, justice, ceremony, wisdom, loyalty, faithfulness, prudence and ﬁlial

piety”

[15]

; however, as Kishimoto illustrates, he has become ignorant of the

primal urges not transcendent of them and gets completely incapacitated by

the wiley Fox’s harem jutsu

This proclivity for Naruto to shapeshift into a woman is taken from the folklore of Tamamo-no

Mae, a folktale about a nine-tailed fox who tricked Emperor Toba into being his concubine, but was

eventually found out

[16]

Given a few years of multi-faceted research and academic writing, the

umbrella term for which all of the Samurai ethical codes of honour and

chivalry came to be assorted under would be Bushido, which translates to

“The Way of the Warrior”. Not so much an ancient term, as its ﬁrst

instance can be found in the Kōyō gunkan

[17]

, which is a 17th century

manuscript detailing the exploits of war of the Takeda family. Prior to its

use we saw more speciﬁc bushi activities, using terms such as kyūba no michi

(the way of horseback archery) and yumiya toru mi no narai (customs for

those who draw the bow). The reason that Bushido was more fragmented

reﬂected the state of the times, and the leading theory as to why there

wasn’t a “Grand Uniﬁed Bushido” was because Samurai were too busy with

war and practical matters to do it

[18]

, but each clan had their own set of

maxims

[19]

which became assimilated to form a broader social order.

But Bushido would come to evolve almost as quickly as it could be deﬁned,

as the coming of the Meiji Period(1868-1912) saw a radical reinterpretation,

with values of obligation to one’s sovereign taking precedence. The reason

being is that heads of state began to worry about the looming threat of

Western Expansionism, and needed a citizenry that would ostracise the

foreigner whilst heightening the image of the Emperor. Just a book came to

be pulled from the annals of history, Hagakure, with its message aligning

perfectly with said requirements. You may have noticed that the Japanese

name for the Leaf is Kono-hagakure, which is a play on words for

representing their home as the quintessence of the warrior. This has and

will become one of the primary virtues of a Shinobi depicted in the Land of

Waves arc, which illustrates the relatively modern strain of Bushido that

Kishimoto has elected to describe his characters.

What followed historically is a partial integration of Western values as

Japanese people began to change their diet, behaviour and clothing - an

uptake that was fastest amongst the upper classes

[20]

; however the pearl of

individualism was met with scepticism and unease, and a prioritisation of

nationalistic-confucian values began to mount as primary

[21]

. Naruto as the

blonde, blue-eyed Ninja is meant to evoke this very same symbiosis, and his

message of radical individualism comes across as equally weird.

There was somebody though that shared many of Naruto’s core beliefs, and

that man’s name was Fukuzawa Yukichi(1835-1901). Contrary to many of

his contemporaries, he saw the xenophobia of the Imperial Loyalists as bad

for development because it would mean the rejection of bonds with other

lands; it would hinder the ability to incorporate Western technology and

science, of which he believed it would beneﬁt society. Fukuzawa’s Bushido

went against the grain of unconditional loyalty to the Emperor, not just

articulating an individual’s sense of freedom

[22]

, but even egalitarianism to

the point of abolishing the class system.

Whilst this resembles much of what Naruto advocates for, let’s not forget

he is still a ninja. Moreover, there’s no formal explanation of “Bushido” in

Naruto as the closest we get are mentions of “Nindō”, or Ninja Way. Now

we have to understand whether this is a repackaging of the Samurai

tradition or whether the Ninja have their own sort of ethical structure. To

answer the latter, we can peer at some historical records.

Unlike their brothers in arms, the ninja have never been tied to the

Bureaucratic and Aristocratic structures of society, with the majority of

them coming from the working classes

[23]

and living separate lives from the

Samurai both socially and consequently ethically. The average person felt

their contempt at being a lesser citizen, so their disdain for all things

chivalric was described as ‘legendary’

[24]

; their refusal to abide by the same

code wasn’t just a militaristic move, but something that carried over from

their normal lives.

There was deﬁnitely no “creed” or “agreement” that Ninja had between each

other or anyone on the battleﬁeld: whatever Ninjutsu (techniques used by

Nin) worked, would be implemented. There was no attempt to square up to

their opponents and declare a duel, and if any chance could be taken to get

them without a fair challenge, the better

[25]

As you can imagine, the Japanese government didn’t want to highlight the

role that Ninja played during the Sengoku period and tried to restrict

knowledge of them in favour of the gentlemanly, upright Samurai. Take for

example the Ehon Toyotomi Kunki, which was about the life of the Daimyo

Hideyoshi, where only a single page covers the ninja

[26]

. During the austerity

measures around the late Edo period, productions of prints were limited to

works designed to improve morality and reduce extravagance and thus

there was no media on things like ninja assassinations until the Meiji

period

[27]

This image was hidden from Naruto too, as when he left the village to go

on his ﬁrst mission, he still had the ideals of himself vanquishing enemies

with nothing but sheer brilliance; but what he learned is that there are no

rules beyond Konoha’s borders. His ﬁrst adversaries typiﬁed this as they

were the demon brothers Gōzu and Meizu

[28]

, taken from the two

characters with the same name that guard the underworld in Shinto

Mythology. They speciﬁcally stand at the rear gates to stop souls from

escaping once they’ve gone down into Hell, in this case to stop Naruto

going back home.

As it stands, Naruto doesn’t coincide with the combative arts of the ninja

beyond just street smarts, as he wants to use the Way of the Shinobi to get

respected, and all the jutsu he performs reﬂects his playful childishness; he

doesn't really want to kill or be killed as that is still too far away, but now he

has seen how intense a mission is up close. Naruto will need to admire the

art form and immerse himself but he needs a reason to do so. The Land of

Waves arc establishes this motivation and makes a Ninja out of him in the

end. When he’s at the grave of Zabuza and Haku he realises the pain in the

life of a Ninja, and is adamant that he will forge his own dō, but there is no

mention of any ethics attached to it

[29]

in true Ninja fashion - only the

anime slides in the added caveats of it being “good and true”. Primarily it is

a Way out of this dark fate and what is good will be what his individuality

interacts with - for now.

Just as Naruto is both a Samurai and a Ninja, and neither at the same time,

Naruto as a universe isn’t ﬁrmly set in either the Edo or Meiji periods, but

relies on key elements of both to construct its narrative. The Edo is the

time of the military dictatorship and the transition of Samurai and Ninja

out of the times of war, which is where our characters are at the moment;

but in terms of values and major themes, the latter is the one that has the

Japanese citizen struggling between the worth of the individual, and the

individual’s relation to society and God

[30]

The Land of Waves

On the boat towards home, Tazuna reveals the true diculties of the

mission and the destitution they are about to see. His land was once a proud

and noble people, who have been reduced to homeless desperates

dependent on drugs that Gato has imported

[31]

. The international billionaire

businessman has destroyed local forms of government, accruing too much

wealth and power making him unaccountable and thus free to exploit the

poorest members of the populace. If only these plotlines had some real

world relevance!

In the anime they mentioned "he casts a long and deadly shadow"

[32]

and in

previous episodes we learnt that Kage means "shadow" which may imply

here that the monstrously rich and powerful can balloon into governments

of their own. Back in the time of Edo, Lords(Daimyo) would often hire

mercenaries to do the dirty work of espionage and assassination, as they

didn’t want to have their Samurai’s reputation soiled by engaging in such

things. This is where we would see the birth of the dark-cloaked and

elusive symbol of the ninja take root

[33]

Ninja almost exclusively comprised the role of mercenary work, and as we

see in the next arc, Zabuza was hired to do Gato’s bidding for pay.

Kishimoto plainly illustrates that businessmen have become the new lords

of our time, but without departing from many of the ways of old.

Interestingly, when power was consolidated under a single Shogun it was

still allowed for Daimyo to have Shinobi as an army if their income was at

10,000 Koku or above

[34]

. Zabuza’s presence shows the collapse of the ideal

of the Shinobi as a self-righteous individual who does what needs to be

done, to being someone who can sit in the shadows for pennies to kill

people who’re declared obstacles.

It’s thanks to these thugs that Gato’s business has swelled, keeping the

people in perpetual fear of punishment so they don't leave their jobs,

protest or react to the widespread destruction: control of the masses has

been achieved. It takes someone like Kaiza - who is Inari's stepfather - to

ﬁght on despite all this and stare death in the face. The scars on his body are

testament to his philosophy.

We learn that Tazuna is the man who will construct the one and only thing

that will release his otherwise iron grip, which is the bridge to allow trade

with nations outside of marine transport

[35]

. This will allow smaller,

independent businesses to trade without having to go through his shipping

network which always had the last say on all things that left the land. The

demand for his shipping networks will plummet and people will have a

degree of autonomy - we can't have that!

They get o the boat and make their way to Tazuna’s residence where

Kakashi, again, is the only one able to detect the subtle trap Zabuza laid out.

A white-hare isn’t supposed to have that colour pelt, meaning it has been

kept indoors - now it’s being used as a decoy to see whether they fall for it.

Zabuza swings down and stands on the handle of his sword, blade jutted

into the trunk of a tree. Naruto wants to prove himself and is about to run

straight in, but this guy is in a completely dierent league. It’s time to

unveil the eye which can “penetrate and see the reality behind any illusion

or spell”

[36]

- the Sharingan.

The “Mirror Wheel Eye” is a form of Dojutsu (ocular ninjutsu) which is

capable of seeing chakra (though not as clearly as the Byakugan, nor over

long distances either), but due to its acuteness someone like Kakashi can

deduce the secrets of a technique quickly and even replicate it himself. This

greater level of detail is what makes the Sharingan capable of seeing things

like genjutsu and reﬂecting them back at the caster, which Itachi is famous

for.

This could be a real nuisance, and Zabuza has just the antidote - the Hidden

Mist Jutsu. A technique which layers the battleﬁeld in thick fog which

makes seeing anything beyond an arm’s stretch impossible. A couple

chapters ago, at the start of the Bell exercise, Kakashi said: “The basis of all

Shinobi arts is to become invisible… eradicate yourself”

[37]

, meaning that

you must get rid of your scent, your footsteps, anything which would

identify you. Such skill in the fundamentals will translate to mastery of

Shinobi arts, and he has become the master of silent killing; combine this

with the Sharingan which represents the ability to parse through illusions

and we have our ﬁrst symbolic battle.

Zabuza lets the suspense build and build, driving them all insane. Even our

cool-headed Sasuke is sweating knowing that any small movement will give

away his position and he’ll die, it’s almost too much to bear. Zabuza swoops

down right in the centre of their manji formation and Kakashi just about

gets the clone, “tricking” Zabuza with a clone of his own. But this Zabuza is

also a water clone

[38]

! He kicks Kakashi into the river and traps him inside a

water prison. He’s played this perfectly, and now his clone is going to clear

up the rest of them; however, if they just run then the clone cannot follow

them past a ﬁxed distance

[39]

, the bridge builder will be safe.

Naruto thinks that’s pretty sound advice and is ready to go, but in

stumbling back he feels the pain of his left hand. The promise he made, “to

never run away again” is irrevocably tied to his journey as a Ninja, and he

runs toward Zabuza to grab his fallen headband. He stands out in front and

exempliﬁes the hard-nosed sakigake of the Samurai, which is an ideal that

basically demands a warrior to stand without fear, to not merely be present

but eager to engage the enemy

[40]

Zabuza chuckles… these runts think they’re tough? Back when he was their

age he had already dyed his hands in enemy blood. The graduation exam in

the Hidden Mist wasn’t so concerned with teamwork as the Leaf, in fact it

was the opposite: the very comrades who you shared your dreams with, you

had to kill - or be killed in the frenzy

[41]

. In fact, this barbaric practice that

was designed to instil fearlessness and killer-instinct had to be reigned in

because of one speciﬁc student. A ﬁend, who hadn’t even graduated,

butchered over a hundred members of that year’s graduating class,

terrifying even the proctors that instantiated the rule. That child was

Zabuza Momochi.

No knowledge of teamwork, no knowledge of comradery, just a ﬁght to the

death and the line between killing in the name of Shinobi and ceaseless

murder was lost in this blood. Shinobi look upon this in fear that it may be

the way to ﬁnd and foster the strongest Ninja capable of completing

missions without wavering. This is the ideal which people like Danzo took

and directly incorporated into his own model called the Foundation (or the

Root in the original manga). More on that in subsequent chapters.

This battle between him and Kakashi seems to be an adaptation of a

legendary duel between two famous Japanese swordsmen, namely

Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro. The latter was famous for ﬁghting

with an oversized nodachi, a type of long sword colloquially called a

"laundry-drying pole" but here we see Zabuza’s sword spans around a foot

wide as well, hyperbolised to make him more intimidating. Kojirō was also

given the nickname "The Demon of the Western Provinces''

[42]

, to which

Zabuza was coincidentally named "The Demon of the Hidden Mist".

Kojirō would come to ﬁght his toughest duel against Musashi who was

undefeated - and would die never losing a single duel either. Whilst I don't

think Kakashi resembles much of Musashi outside of having the "lightning

blade" technique (and thus it loosely being a duel of swordsmen), he

repeatedly taunted Zabuza - something Musashi does in his own duels. In

his ﬁght against Kojiro he annoyed him by turning up hours late for their

duel, which is actually a trait Kakashi has when meeting Team 7.

Musashi would go on to write one of the most famous books in Japanese

martial arts and strategy, The Book of Five Rings, which I theorise had a few

of its teachings spill over into this match. For example, whenever your

opponent plans to strike, you have to grasp the ﬁrst few letters - “stri” - and

be there ﬁrst, stopping him from completing his striking movement

[43]

. It

requires a predictive prowess which Kakashi was able to induce when he

fooled Zabuza into thinking he was a psychic, completing his sentences and

performing the jutsu he was about to use. Likewise, at the start of the ﬁght

Zabuza had already been infusing his chakra into the lake before making his

ﬁrst move, which is how he set up the water prison whilst Kakashi was

thinking of a ground based assault. This ties into another tidbit of

Musashi’s philosophy in regards to thinking about the sea whenever your

opponent has their mind set on the mountain

[44]

. And lastly, Zabuza’s art of

silent killing requires him to reign in his desire to rampage and butcher, for

he has to strike exactly at the point his opponent does not expect it

[45]

But just as the tables have turned and the demon is about to be slain, we are

introduced to the mysterious boy in the mask who ﬂies down gracefully

from the trees and kills him with two perfectly placed needles to the neck.

We later learn this is Haku, currently the greatest child prodigy in the

series. Naruto is incandescent with rage as he can see this kid is no bigger

than him, yet took him down “like it was nothing! What, do we suck or

something? What’s up with that?!”

[46]

. It cuts to Sasuke scowling as he also

compares himself, probably imagining how much he could've progressed if

he had such ability too. Ironically, Haku has merely cast this illusion of

brilliance, mastering the art of theatre: the swiftness of the kill, the mystery

of the mask and the believable story of being a tracker all go hand in hand

to compliment each other - illuminating the stage, inciting trust and

integrity. He is no more than a lucid caricature, these abilities springing up

from his own lack of identity - making it easier to swim from one character

to the next.

At Tazuna's home Team 7 realise that Haku wasn't in fact part of the Mist

tracking squad and there’ll most likely be another run-in with the Demon.

Naruto is elated at the opportunity for a second chance, though this sparks

an embittered Inari to speak up: “Hero’? You’re dumb! There’s no such

thing"

[47]

. Obviously if Naruto had believed such a thing he wouldn't have

gotten to where he is now, rightfully rejecting such pessimism.

The name of this little man is taken from the Shinto God of Agriculture,

often drawn and aliated with rice due to its prevalence in Japanese

history - the name itself means “carrying rice”

[48]

. The relationship with

Inari therefore correlates to the wealth of the harvest, the fertility of the

lands and consequently the state of hunger, or lack thereof. The boy then is

representative of the poverty-stricken Land of Waves, as Inari himself is

lost, devoid of hope and weak.

But funnily enough, the shrines of the Agricultural God often feature a

protector, an overseer of the rice ﬁelds, which usually takes the form of

stone statues of foxes

[49]

. Across the thousands of temples of Inari that

populate Japan, the kitsune serve as guides and messengers to the people

that come to pay respect. One of the reasons being is that the fox symbol

became a metaphor for individuality due to its shapeshifting abilities, and

people would imagine that they too could change their circumstances

despite restricted social mobility

[50]

The symbol of the fox in Naruto is probably undergirding the nindo he

shall declare later - to walk his own path and ﬁnd the answer himself.

Indeed, if Inari can come to this realisation too, then collectively the

villagers will start to break free from Gato’s iron clutches; Inari (the Shinto

God) is meant to symbolise change in the face of continuity in the ﬁrst

place

[51]

, and so the ﬁrst presumption that needs to topple is that there are

no heroes...

This is also why Inari temples, whilst all under the same name, have a range

of other agricultural deities incorporated, with slightly dierent practices

for people to show reverence

[52]

; it is another way of saying that what

composes the individual is a vast pantheon of expression indebted to all

kinds of things, as that milieu clariﬁes who and what they are. This is

exactly the kind of unusual hero Naruto wants to be: one that never forgets

the tireless work and sacriﬁce of his friends in tandem with his own

accomplishments.

The history of Inari started with her being associated with rice, crop

fertility and the protection of ﬁelds in general

[53]

, which continued in its

pure form until roughly the late Heian period(late 10th century)

[54]

. This is

when we can say kitsune started to get incorporated, but it may be even

earlier

[55]

. The ﬁnal iteration came around the sixteenth century, as the God

had become the protector of warriors

[56]

, but this image would wane with

the drop in warfare that was existing at the time. If the historical

side-by-side isn’t leaping out at you already, this mirrors the timeline of the

Inari that we see: he went from connections just to the agricultural land, to

his meeting with Naruto and forming a connection with him, to being on

the frontlines of battle against Gato’s goons in the end.

We see this ﬁrst transition when he goes from scolding Naruto to watching

him in the woods doing his tree-climbing training

[57]

. It’s because he ﬁnally

sees another person embody some courage and grit, qualities which Tazuna

mentions his people had lost: "Our people - and especially little Inari were

robbed of the very meaning of courage"

[58]

. With all the mythological

journeying we've done we can see the double-meaning of Inari, as child and

agricultural god: the symbiosis of people and spirit is broken.

Later in the story, we see that Inari watched the murder of his father,

publicly, as it was Gato’s way of discouraging any other resistors to the

regime. In the manga he actually gets cruciﬁed “to ensure that such an awful

thing will never disturb any of us ever again”

[59]

and is textbook “dictator

for the people”. Such brutal sights stamped on him the way of the world:

the strong would play with its prey and humiliate the weak, change was a

fantasy and heroes were idiots who purposefully stuck their necks under

the guillotine. That's how reality was written, for the boy who now only

saw and felt pain. I'm sure seeing Naruto reminded him of his father, and

his outbursts were merely etched into him by his past - he thought he

foresaw history about to repeat itself.

The overarching theme, from Iruka, to Kakashi, to Kaiza to Haku, shows

that no matter what, you have to protect that which you hold precious,

otherwise it shall be taken. The story of Kaiza holding the Land of Waves

precious to him, meant he would do anything no matter the tiny chances of

defeating someone like Gato. He had to try, and he knew that he may fail,

but what was equally important is not letting the next generation be born

without a ﬂame in their bellies. Kakashi holds his comrades as truly

precious, he didn’t consider his own life when taken in by the Water

Prison, he wanted them to escape if they had the chance. Haku holds

Zabuza as that which is most precious to him, sacriﬁcing his life without a

ﬂicker of hesitation; however, deep in the depths of all this passion is an

issue: we may create future enemies by drawing the line so ﬁrmly on what

we protect and what we don’t. But it seems we must, so is it also inevitable

that conﬂict will always exist? How will we achieve peace and

understanding? This void is embodied in Haku even after he has found

something to protect and he forces Zabuza to become the friend, the

father-ﬁgure and community. By doing this he doesn't have to worry about

any possible conﬂicts that would arise with anyone else.

Additionally, arming our need to protect puts an incredible amount of

pressure on individuals to act and imposes an ultimatum on them, most

notably when Inari could only watch in fear as his mother was taken by

Gato's bandits

[60]

. He is just a child who cannot compete with armed

swordsmen, and this well-entrenched desire to protect is obliterated in

front of him, doing much unnecessary psychological damage as he is forced

to admit his own inadequacy. He shouldn't put all the pressure on himself

to do so, and life shows us time and again there are people who we may

consider strangers but consider us family, helping to protect his mother as

if she were their own. Naruto stuck his neck out to save her, which was

able to relight the belief within Inari's heart to trust in others, to ﬁght once

more for what his father believed in. He soon raced around trying to rally

support in the village - the ﬂame slowly spreading from house to house.

This goes back to what I was saying earlier that lines of trust are too sharp,

but the method of establishing a “social membrane” of what to let in versus

keep out is still unclear. Inari is about eight years old here, and is still much

in the phase of imitating others and ﬁnding himself through constant

interaction with the outside world. But not everything will resonate as

profoundly as Kaiza’s message or Naruto’s actions. Why? Because they

speak to his spirit and regardless of how he chooses to grow up and apply

himself, he shall do it with the passion that they’ve shown.

Naruto beats up the goons and commends Inari for being brave, and takes a

moment to apologise for calling him a baby. “You’re a big strong boy”

[61]

the encouragement he wanted to hear and he begins to tear up. Fearing he

may get made fun of again, Naruto reassures him - “Nothing wrong with

crying when you’re happy!”

[62]

as he remembers how he cried when Iruka

called him “Naruto Uzumaki of the Leaf”

[63]

. He knows the strength that

abounds from being accepted as yourself, but it’s even more than that. The

praise isn’t literally true, he isn’t big nor strong but it’s a potential which he

wants to leap into - it’s part of the fuel that keeps those ﬂames alive and if

tempered carefully, will see him grow into a ﬁne young man.

But not everybody is as fortunate as Inari to have these kinds of role

models, as we look at Haku when he was a child when he faced a similar

ultimatum - but here his mother was killed and he was next. Only by

succumbing entirely to the powers which lay dormant was he able to

overcome certain death. But what he ﬁnds after that is sparse,

soul-destroying nothingness. Nagato is another character we see, this time

in Shippuden, who was just a child when he could only watch in horror at

his parents being murdered in front of him, trying their best to oer him

time to escape. Again, only by losing himself completely and relying on his

untrained Rinnegan did he survive. The dierence between Nagato and

Haku were the mentors they had: Yahiko seeking peace and cooperation,

Zabuza seeking vengeance, destruction and takeover.

The fact that Haku was attacked by this tribalistic domination and won

however meant the concept of overwhelming power was inscribed into

him, more speciﬁcally the utilisation of his Kekkei Genki and the ability to

act without the help of others. Zabuza concretised this idea by exemplifying

the dominator image further and pretty much negated any chance of Haku

returning to the notions of community or knowing the strength that comes

through cooperation. He wanted him to act as the unconscious warrior

once again, only this time to be the demon under his control.

Naruto catches up to the rest of Team 7 at the bridge, where he has to ﬁght

the masked man from before. A particularly vexing jutsu, an Ice-Style

technique, made by combining Water and Wind-Style chakra - hence it is

something Kakashi cannot copy. How the Ice-Mirror technique works is

that he pours himself into one, and that image is reﬂected onto all other

mirrors, so any attack he throws becomes very dicult to identify at its

source. It’s even harder to see when there are hundreds of needles ﬂying

from everywhere, as he combines this with the teleportation technique

[64]

Whilst it may not be immediately obvious, this jutsu is psychologically very

apt at expressing Haku’s identity as someone who relies on images rather

than physical form as he took up the costume of the assailant, the boy

gathering herbs and in the end the martyr. Intuitively it looks like a

dimensionality reduction from his complex three-dimensional self, to a

simpliﬁed two-dimensional representation used solely for the purpose of

ﬁghting.

Haku has accepted that role as a tool and made his dream the same as

Zabuza’s, helping in any way he could to accomplish it. He made the dream

“his own” but gave up on himself ﬁrst, as he says: “I shall kill my own heart

with my blade - just as the word ‘Shinobi’ was originally the words ‘heart’

and ‘blade’ - and act as a full-ﬂedged Shinobi would”

[65]

. It’s sad that he has

to pierce his own heart to have the ice in his veins to take another person’s

life. That the Hidden Mist cultivates this mentality makes their Shinobi

strong enough to do what’s necessary - making the battleﬁeld an abattoir

for unconﬁdent ninja. As the demon says, “you don’t live with death or

grow up needing to kill to ensure your own survival. In you those skills -

and the mindset they require - die stillborn!”

[66]

Since the day Zabuza found Haku in the middle of nowhere, with nothing

at all and barely able to survive in the cold, he took him in and instilled

these ﬁghting instincts into him. But no matter how hard or how long he

kept trying to turn him into a machine, it was only because Haku wanted to

repay Zabuza for adopting him that he could kill others. But his nature

struggled against this image even when trying to be for his master. Haku

wasn’t a machine, and remains human.

Sasuke is straining his eyes trying to keep track of him and he is still able to

move out of the way of fatal Senbon shots, slowly getting better - and he’s

starting to see through the illusion, dodging an almost impossible shot. The

only way he could do that is by predicting Haku’s movements… and lo and

behold, the Sharingan has awakened

[67]

! But he may not live to see them

come into bloom, as can hardly move now with all the needles that’ve

bombarded his neck, arms and legs. Naruto thought he blocked them, but

his comrade has a real chance of dying in front of him. Why would he do

such a thing? Sasuke has no idea why he moved, he just did

[68]

, but Haku

knows the reason: “in order to protect someone he cared about, he threw

himself headlong into what he knew full well was a trap”

[69]

. This seems to

be one of the things that come with making something precious enough

that you protect it, as his commitment probably stemmed from the fact he

had already lost so much - he couldn’t take losing his teammates.

Naruto’s rage bubbles to the surface and he screams that he will never

forgive him for this

[70]

. Kakashi was worried that the pair of them would

lose because they don’t have the same killer instinct as Mist Shinobi, but

even Haku cannot believe the bloodthirsty shift manifesting before him. He

shatters all his mirrors with just the physicalisation of his chakra and

delivers one heavy punch to the face, splitting the mask.

Despite his eyes red with blood lust, he can’t kill this person now he knows

it was the kid from before, as he thought they could’ve been friends. Haku is

disgusted by this “mercy” and claims it isn’t kind nor right to leave him alive

as he killed his beloved friend

[71]

. In fact, we know he didn’t, but since he

failed he wanted to use that to spur Naruto to hate.

Haku says nonchalantly that “Master Zabuza has no use for a weak Shinobi.

You’ve taken away my reason for living”

[72]

and wants to be killed for he no

longer has a purpose. He considers himself to be a disgraced Shinobi and

qualiﬁes as a Rōnin - a wandering Ninja. Ro(浪) also has the meaning of

"waves" and in this context refers to a ninja that has gone "adrift" from

their obligations, and you don’t have to stretch the deﬁnition far to see the

application toward the villagers of the Land of Waves either.

This Samurai terminology has also been adapted into the workplace, as it

can refer to someone that has been made jobless, and so the symbology of

obligation to their Lord has been carried over to his or her employer.

Fortunately there isn't an analogue to this ritualistic self-sacriﬁce yet, which

can be demanded the moment one falls short of their duty. In the time of

Edo, it wasn’t uncommon for a Samurai to perform this act as it was

supposedly better to cut open your stomach then live in depression,

according to a cheerful excerpt from Hagakure

[73]

. Due to this defeat Haku

welcomes death, but obviously this implies throughout his whole life he

would have to go undefeated.

Naruto hears of his past and how he felt totally unwanted, unloved and

shunned from the world - but this is precisely why it hurts him to see

someone resolve themselves to an object! But even a cursory look at his

past illustrates why he can do this to himself, as Haku thought his father

loved him but then he found out about his “barbaric” blood and decided to

kill him

[74]

. His father’s love was conditional and so that’s been carried over

into how he forms a bond with Zabuza. In meeting someone who loved the

parts of himself everyone had hated, he presumed he must’ve loved the

totality of his person, but this doesn’t have to be the case, in fact it looks like

just the other side of the coin.

Just as Naruto ﬁnds it within himself to attack for the last time, Haku stops

him - as he has sensed he may still have a shred of use left after all.

His body lays cold, motionless on the bridge just as Gato and his bumbling

idiots come sauntering up - with the boss taking great pleasure in kicking

the dead child who nearly broke his arm. Zabuza and Kakashi are able to

stomach this heinously immoral, truly evil act without ﬂickering probably

due to the countless missions that had some of the same gut-wrenching

inﬂiction. What’s interesting is that the manga showed Gato kicking his

face with enough force that blood ﬂew out, but in the anime this is cut and

we don't see anything which is an allusion to our own impressionability,

our own unwillingness to stomach such things too.

Deep down this wasn’t the loss of a mere tool, as Zabuza’s attacks have now

become sloppy, maniacal and inaccurate, with Kakashi slapping him away

easily. No longer can his mind be devoid of thoughts or impulses

[75]

, as

whether he likes it or not emotions are bubbling up to the surface.

Now that he’s no longer in Gato’s employ he has no need to ﬁght, and he

and Kakashi agree to stop. I imagine they just shrug shoulders and head

home, it’s just business, and Gato says he employs people like him as

nobody cares what happens to renegades, it’s just economical

[76]

. All of

them seem to be skirting around the humanity of it all, but Naruto doesn’t

buy it and keeps shouting at Zabuza to recognise what Haku meant to him.

He made the ultimate sacriﬁce and asked for nothing, he threw away the

chance to have a dream of his own and never wavered once. Can Zabuza

still stand here and say that he liked Haku just because of his gifts?

The armour ﬁnally cracks and he begins to shed tears. He opens up about

just how much he cherished the boy in all his quirks, and recognises the

love he received. It is at this point he truly despairs. He admits that Shinobi

can say and do what they will, but in the end they are still human and may

not be able to escape that fact

[77]

. Shinobi are trying to cut through their

own heart with a blade, as Haku said, but the only way he managed to do it

was by standing in the way of Kakashi, making a sacriﬁce for what he

believed was right, in true Shinobi fashion.

It is here, standing with absolutely nothing, that Zabuza decides his ﬁnal

moments will be in taking down Gato. He takes one of Naruto’s kunai in

his mouth and charges, with this “demonic phantasm”

[78]

being eerily

similar to the manifestation of the Nine-Tails that spawned when Naruto

held an unconscious Sasuke. In both cases, they got riled up enough to give

everything in their heart to strike, so only by loving did Zabuza actually

become a demon.

Gato actually gets beheaded in the manga as Zabuza stares into his soul and

says “I’m taking you with me to Hell”

[79]

and watches his head roll into the

mob. The main head of hydra goes down, but now all the thugs he hired

aren’t going to get paid - so they decide to loot any and all things from the

village. It’s too tall an order for Kakashi and even Naruto doesn’t have

enough chakra for all of them. But not all heroes wear capes (or

headbands), some wear makeshift helmets and carry wooden crossbows.

Inari has managed to gather everyone in the village to protect their

homeland

[80]

and they come together to confront the sprawling remainder

of Gato’s men.

With that battle over, the Land of Waves is ﬁnally liberated! Inari seems

revitalised and his happy childish self, which will surely reﬂect on the

prosperity of the land and people. A job well done indeed for Team 7.

Next we see them gathered around the graves of the boy and his master,

questioning what it really means to be a Shinobi. Kakashi, being a man who

stands by the traditional warrior mentality, says it isn't up to him to

question things

[81]

. He instils his faith into the Hokage and focuses on the

mission. Naruto cannot accept this as an answer after seeing what Zabuza

was deep down. His compassion went the extra mile, but in the same vein

he also said “He’s still my enemy”

[82]

- so would we say Naruto’s nindo

overreaches beyond the spheres of a Shinobi?

Well, he wants to supersede the prevailing ideology of people being tools

for people being people, but ironically the former is vital to wage wars

against others. Should he succeed, Shinobi as such will no longer be

necessary. Now that is in the spirit of self-sacriﬁce.

Naruto knows what saved him from the darkness were the bridges he built

with people and seeing them go out of their way to help him beyond the

standard deﬁnition of a Shinobi. “Naruto built the bridge that eventually

carried us all to hope and courage [...] our bridge will become super-famous

the world over, as a symbol of triumph and endurance”

[83]

- Tazuna. Naruto

needs to take this metaphor and extend his relations far and wide, if he

truly wishes to change the Ninja world. On the bridge is where Naruto ﬁrst

employed the Talk No Jutsu, which will come to be a valuable tool in his

arsenal as that authenticity and emotion from him is what makes his

inquiry so genuine.

Sasuke's rebirth

Naruto is said to be a coming-of-age story where the young protagonist

goes on a journey of self-discovery, and nowhere is the transition of boys to

men more poignant than in the gruelling, sanguinary Chuunin exams. I

won’t spend much time analysing the written portion, as this just

showcases the classic foolhardiness of Naruto and the ingenuity of other

ninjas to attain information covertly. The meat and potatoes of this arc will

be in the Forest, as it’s where Kishimoto places the spotlight on Sasuke’s

development to come up to par with Naruto’s recent successes.

How this is done is with a tried-and-tested method known colloquially as

“The Hero’s Journey”, popularised by Joseph Campbell(1904-1987). In his

book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, it articulates the fundamental

similarities in the narratives of the Hero ﬁgure, and how trials and obstacles

have been structured much the same way throughout time. So far we’ve

seen the initial stages in Naruto, by accepting The Call to Adventure,

surmounting The Refusal of the Call, and enacting Supernatural aid during his

ﬁght against Haku in the form of the Nine-Tails. Despite Sasuke being the

one who went head on in his ﬁght against the demon brothers, he still

needs to have his moment of abject despair against an opponent, for that

will have to be transcended if he wants sustained conviction in his goals.

Also, his Sharingan is an heirloom from his clan and doesn’t qualify as

“supernatural” in the Campbellian sense as the aid must be given from a

more spiritual source

[1]

Other parts of the journey that get exempliﬁed over this arc are more

tangential to character development, as there is a subsection termed The

Belly of the Whale, whereby we could make parallels to the moment Naruto

is swallowed up by the large summoning snake

[2]

, but the entrapment is

really meant for self-reﬂection, whereas Naruto bursts out almost

immediately.

Whilst the Hero’s Journey does a good job at providing the blueprint for

storytelling, it needs to be coupled with some ﬁner-grained tools for how

characters will be depicted. In the Land of Waves we had a lot of symbolism

from Shinto mythology and Samurai history to steer Zabuza, Haku and

Inari a certain way, but here we will have a radically dierent instrument -

Kabuki.

It’s just pretend!

One of Japan’s most recognisable cultural exports, Kabuki theatre started at

the turn of the seventeenth century and has remained in the cultural

zeitgeist ever since. At the time of its inception, kabuku meant something

along the lines of “eccentric dancing”, but the Kanji which make up Kabuki

nowadays is composed of “song”(ka/歌), “dance”(bu/舞) and “skill”(ki/伎).

Additionally, the kanji which makes up “drama”(geki 劇) consists of three

parts: the abbreviations for “tiger”(虎), “wild boar”(猪) and “sword”(刀). It’s

meant to encapsulate the back-and-forth battle between two equal forces,

using their tusks and claws like swords

[3]

. What we see is that Kabuki is a

ﬁerce art form, but the drama doesn’t get going until Sasuke accepts the

challenge.

Things had started quite innocuously as their ﬁrst opponent made a poor

replication of Naruto’s appearance, missing many crucial details like the

shuriken holster on the wrong leg, missing the cut on his face and so on

[4]

;

but when Orochimaru makes his grand entrance, between the explosions

and gusts of wind, they can’t tell whether this serpentine look is a costume

or whether he truly is a freak of nature.

The peculiarity of him being in the body of a woman is confusing until you

realise the role of the onnagata(player of women's roles) in Kabuki theatre.

Due to the prohibition on actresses to get involved, men had to learn how

to embody the nature of a woman, and the audience would be titillated if

they could question their disbelief

[5]

. Sakura cannot ﬁgure out whether

Orochimaru is truly a snake or not, and is repulsed when she sees him do

things like swallow the entire scroll before ﬁghting them

[6]

So far, Sasuke has managed to keep his cool, but when he's suddenly met

with those iconic snake eyes, it triggers a wicked hallucination that makes

him believe he is witnessing his own death. He’s terriﬁed for the ﬁrst time

since “that day” and cannot compose himself to ﬁght the opponent in front

of him. The edgy and stoic demeanour he uses as a wall against his past

shatters, and he is now the seven year old boy who has lost everything. His

paralysis mirrors Naruto during the Land of Waves when the two Hidden

Mist ninja attacked them at the start of their mission - Naruto hadn't even

remotely considered the possibility, and hence he froze sti; Sasuke just

about gathers the courage to snap himself out of it by stabbing himself in

the leg and carries a petriﬁed Sakura out of the battleﬁeld.

Orochimaru’s glare was typical of a mie, which is a technique that can be

thought of as analogous to dramatic pauses. Here the actor has to freeze in

position and allow the stance to exemplify the emotion he wishes to

portray; some examples listed include sticking out the tongue, ﬂashing

pronounced grimaces and so forth

[7]

, all favourites of our current villain

[8]

As he ascends the tree in search of his prey

[9]

, it resembles the nature of the

snake in Michelangelo's Temptation and Expulsion, one of the classic

paintings in the Sistine Chapel denoting paradise on the left-side and hell

on the right. You can see that Eve and the demon touch, whereas in the

painting of Adam and God in the Creation of Adam, they don't. I believe it

signiﬁes our current disconnect from the divine and our domain is instead

in the deep, dark forest. Many times Orochimaru tries to make contact with

Sasuke but Naruto continues to get in the way. He is appalled by his

teammate’s behaviour and calls him a "big chicken", another callback to the

Land of Waves, with the roles staying reversed: those of the courageous

Ninja and the coward alternating depending on their ability to face death.

As soon as they entered the forest they needed a password to discern the

real from the fake, and Naruto half-jokingly said that the kid standing in

front of him is the real fraud

[10]

Seeing this, Sasuke probably thinks he's useless and needs more power; in

truth Naruto is only managing to serve as the avenger with the subsidies

granted by the Nine-Tails. In time, when he’s bestowed his own wellspring

of strength (which we shall see shortly) he was able to protect his friends

too - so only incarnates of power can do the role it seems. This

interpretation is a little low resolution though, as it’s incarnates who have

the power under their control, directing it toward their goals. As Orochimaru

notes: “After being trapped within him for a dozen years, the demon fox

and Naruto’s native chakra and psyche have apparently gone from enmity

and opposition to coexistence… and are on the very brink of symbiosis!”

[11]

Orochimaru shackles away Naruto’s powers with another seal and throws

him to one side - now for the prize! Sakura manages to stop his fall and

scolds Sasuke for freezing up and being a coward - at least Naruto’s trying!

With all defences down, she triggers the memories of Itachi: “Hate me and

Kishimoto leaned heavily into reﬂecting Orochimaru as he would’ve been in the play The Tale of the

Gallant Jiraiya by having him use antiquated vocabulary, as Kabuki actors were known to do in their

lines

[12]

live. Like the coward you are! Cling to life… without honour!”

[13]

. Those

close to him are being picked o, and he’s doing nothing to prevent their

deaths… like last time. Has it all been for nothing, will he fail in his

vendetta?! “No!” he bellows

[14]

In an attempt to take control of the situation, a panicked Sasuke had tried

to think rationally and oer the scroll to Orochimaru, believing that they

were playing the same game; but now he accepts that he can no longer be a

dispassionate spectator and must leap into drama. In the book Kabuki,

Baroque fusion of the arts, Kawatake Toshio mentions this ensnaring quality

as one of it’s greatest strengths, as the essence of theatre isn’t to allow an

audience to process a play by reason and deduction, but rather to have them

caught in a shared rapture

[15]

. This was Sasuke’s last logical attempt at

interacting with Orochimaru before having to succumb to the fact that he

has to build a narrative himself - he is the Avenger.

His sight is sharp once again, and one thing worth noting is that when the

summoning snake is released and the smoke covers his eyes, he doesn't

blink or waver, for they have set their target

[16]

. I guess it’s no coincidence

that Kabuki is said to be the theatre of the eye

[17]

, with one stare countering

another, and red is reserved for the upright hero

[18]

, with red makeup going

on the corner of the eyes to denote bravery and righteousness.

He runs head-ﬁrst into certain death, but Orochimaru isn't going to kill

him, he wants to play and ﬁnd the scope of his abilities. This is where we

see Sasuke shine and his ability to anticipate his opponent's moves and

strategize is back. The anime does a much better job than the manga in

illustrating the fact that Sasuke was able to deceive Orochimaru, as in the

latter he uses a simple blu, whereas in the former he played dead and got

Orochimaru to walk right into position.

Seeing that we was able to trick the snake of all snakes, he is ingratiated

into the deeper circles of hell. He says his name is Orochimaru, whereby

Orochi translates to ‘Large Snake’, but speciﬁcally of monstrous

proportions, and Maru is a standard male sux; however, if you were to

literalise all the Kanji in his name: large(大), snake(蛇) and circle(丸) you

could make the connection to the Ouroboros, the eternally renewing

serpent.

It's interesting how this particular conclusion skews the age-old Christian

myth of Adam and Eve, as Sasuke wasn't tempted to partake in the “fruit” -

rather in this myth the fruit was stamped onto him; the snake took it upon

itself to force the subject to ingest it which paints an altogether dierent

picture and should mean Sasuke is exempt from Original Sin. He didn't

have the choice and thus shouldn't be ostracised and thrown into chaos;

however, the curse mark has the Logos of the Devil, it warns us that the

snake lurks in the shadow of any individual possessing it and thus a

perception of darkness shrouds them. It will thus become an uphill battle to

maintain the bonds between family, friends and teachers - the last couple of

threads keeping Sasuke bound to the village.

I think some other points worth pondering in the creation myth is that

neither Adam or Eve died from eating the fruit itself, but died from being

banished. The curse mark could have and has killed people who tried to

harness it in fairness, and it was said the fruit would kill those who tried;

but I think it's more correct to say that the fruit induces a trip to the

underworld whereby recognition of one's mortality, oneself as naked, are

the case for those that manage to come back.

As Sasuke lies unconscious from the battle, we get glimpses into his psyche,

where he's seeing his younger self and his trauma is being recited, but this

time it’s weaponised by this power-hungry personality. This is the bridge

which connects to the darkness of Pure Hatred, which may have been

recycled when Naruto went to the Waterfall of Truth. The younger self also

performs the same act as Orochimaru of "pulling away the skin" to reveal

the snake's eye

[19]

, which serves to hint at a greater power: the dream

conveys the message that this is where progress lies. It sheds the ﬁrst layer

much like the snake sheds its skin in an act of rebirth, giving the chance for

Sasuke to be reborn in the image of the Avenger. But once again, the

actions aren’t just symbolic but constitutive of Kabuki dynamics, as a

change in personality of the character is often shown by dierences in

costume

[20]

; removal of the outer layer tries to exemplify a facet of their

“true nature”, and alarmingly Sasuke’s self is seen as getting in the way.

Orochimaru is the ticket out of despair, despite being seen as the dark and

reprehensible force of evil a few moments ago. He is the announcer of

adventure, the initiator of the heroic path, but such a herald can often be

viewed as evil by the world

[21]

. What’s more, the herald often appears in

dreams for the hero that needs a new world-orientation

[22]

, and at the dawn

of this new stance, what was considered valuable yesterday can become

empty by sunrise.

The herald can be considered a ﬁgure of evil because of their ability to

separate the hero from the standard modes of culture, governance and so

forth, thus being a force of negation it can put them in the same class as

demons. Orochimaru doesn’t enact this change hoping that Sasuke will

come to transcend the previous epoch of values and improve upon them,

but rather to have him solely for his own beneﬁt.

There is a saying among Kabuki actors that one has to enter the mould,

then destroy it

[23]

. What this means is that you have to delve deep into the

traditional displays and performances of your part, and whence you have

understood all the idiosyncrasies you may be able to expand beyond it. This

envelopment is a critical moment for Sasuke, since he has just taken up the

mantle of the character of the Avenger and aliation to Orochimaru, as it’s

what constitutes something real, but there is no talk of breaking free...

As he begins to scrap with Zaku, Orochimaru's theme is playing and we see

images of him ﬂash in the minds of both Sakura and the Sound ninja, as

they see the comparison is startling

[24]

. He is beginning to toy with his prey

and takes pleasure in torturing them, a level of sadism seen only in the most

malevolent characters in the series. He has a massive grin on his face as he

remarks that Zaku seems “quite attached” to his arms, and proceeds to rip

them o their joints.

"I understand now. I am an avenger. On the path I walk, I have to do

whatever it takes to gain power … even if it means selling my ﬂesh to the

devil"

[25]

. That articulate armation of his is much clearer than the

bumbling drivel he said during the bell exercise, and every aspect that

Orochimaru wanted to achieve he has accomplished: To establish a

relationship with Sasuke, to solve his psychological pain and to make him

stronger.

Dosu ponders at the end, "You ordered us to murder Sasuke, but you got to

him ﬁrst! And instead of killing him, you marked him with that curse.

What’s your game?"

[26]

. The answer is simple, Orochimaru wanted to test

whether the seedling was worth any value, to force the curse mark into

activation and measure their compatibility. But beyond the biological sense,

this energy syncs with his spirit - “Orochimaru’s curse mark is all too

compatible with Sasuke’s wicked thirst for revenge”

[27]

One stark dierence between Sasuke and Naruto’s maximising of their

respective dark energies is that Sasuke’s transformation was cut short by

Sakura, whereas Naruto had the ability to restrain himself when he saw

Haku, so does it mean Sasuke will continue to rampage without someone to

interject? As he comes out of the curse mark's eects, he seems to be

puzzled and shaken - staring at his hands saying "what happened to me"

[28]

as if another person had just puppeted him. That brief moment of certainty

is gone and now he's back to his old self where everything is unclear.

The beginning of myth

I want to recap what we’ve seen so far, but with our mythological glasses

on, keeping note of the themes which crop up. Now the ﬁrst myth I shall

cover is also the oldest we have records of - dated to around 2000 BC - and

that is the Mesopotamian story of The Epic of Gilgamesh. To be clear,

Kishimoto hasn’t used this as source material, it’s just incredible that the

number of repeated motifs hasn’t changed after all this time.

Gilgamesh, the reigning Emperor of Uruk is the protagonist who is

representative of Sasuke and his friend Enkidu is symbolised in Naruto.

The ﬁrst time they meet, they brawl and the result is the same as our

protagonists’ ﬁrst meeting as children; afterwards, they manage to cultivate

a strong bond and become good friends

[29]

. As a side note, it is peculiar that

Gilgamesh as the reigning emperor enjoyed the beneﬁt of droit du

seigneur(“The Lord’s Right”, to sleep with a man’s wife) and Sasuke seems to

have the attention of all the girls his age; likewise Enkidu is the primitive

man on the outskirts of society, and when Naruto was ﬁrst being

introduced he was seen performing the harem jutsu, and Enkidu was

ingratiated into society by a temple-prostitute called Shamhat

[30]

The two make preparations to head for the Cedar Forest, where the

protector Humbaba lives as they want to slay him and take some of the

wood home. Initially it is Gilgamesh who is the strong-willed and calls out

Enkidu for being the weakling

[31]

, for he has the courage to ride a road he

knows not, face a battle he knows not and plunge into the depths; since

Enkidu has been living in the wild he shall be their guide, but some wise

words before they set o: “'Do not rely, O Gilgamesh, on your strength

alone, look long and hard, land a blow you can count on! ‘Who goes in

front will save his comrade, who knows the road shall [guard] his

friend’”

[32]

As they make their way to the Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh has a series of

terrifying oracular visions, though Enkidu manages to interpret them all

positively and keeps him moving forward. For Sasuke, when meeting

Orochimaru he had the experience of seeing his very own death which

petriﬁed him, but Naruto still wanted him to ﬁght and avoid surrendering.

Here we see our ﬁrst inversion, as Humbaba adorned an intimidating mask

which caused Gilgamesh to run and hide

[33]

, whereas it was the removal of

Orochimaru’s face, to reveal his eyes and more, which caused Sasuke to

cower. Enkidu manages to revive his warrior spirit and they slay the beast

and return home with the Cedar wood.

From here on, the Mesopotamian myth and our tale diverges, but by the

end Gilgamesh knows of the meaning of fate and the reason death has been

placed upon man. Sasuke would come to accept a similar thing as he found

the meaning of his existence and felt his calling as an avenger, no longer

afraid of death or uncertainty.

The ﬁrst surviving version of the text has the Babylonian title “He who saw

the Deep”, or “He who saw the Abyss/Unknown” and the moment he

opened his eyes Sasuke took that leap as well, when he decided to walk in

front and protect his comrades.

Out of the woods

We see Team 7 walk into the central tower to be briefed by Iruka on the

true purpose of the task, which was merely to test “the applicants’ basic

Chuunin abilities”

[34]

. That some students have probably had to dig into the

depths of their souls just to survive and take massive risks for success - and

to be told it was just an assessment of their ability to handle a single

mission must be hard to swallow. Will it take this level of resolve for every

mission? This is what separates the boys from the men. Just how well they

can get up and ﬁght the next day, with another test of character just around

the corner as the preliminaries start.

If this wasn't already a blunt enough realisation that the way of the Ninja is

brutal, the Hokage illustrates to them clearly that the reason they're here in

the ﬁrst place is to be a representative of their nation; to be assessed on how

well they can be used, and whether such prowess is convincing enough to

reward them with contracts(missions). He goes on to say that the exam's

true purpose isn't just to maintain friendships with allies, though honestly I

have no idea how this would be as you kill o their Ninja on your own soil,

and if your village is stronger you take away work from them. A host

nation has a clear incentive to interfere and kill o other candidates as it

means they won't get missions in future, but I digress. He dubs the exams "a

war in miniature between all of our allied lands''

[35]

: all the untalented

pawns cancel each other out and what we want to see is who has the most

gifted and remarkable Shinobi: the judges have their eyes on those with

Kekkei Genki, multiple changes in chakra nature and so forth.

There is one such candidate of particular interest, being the pride of the

Uchiha and all, but his curse mark threatens to end his journey right here

and now as it's ﬂaring up, and Sakura wishes to report it for his own health.

Sasuke says "it’s my decision … and it’s none of your business"

[36]

which is

total nonsense, she has helped him survive and been there on each of the

critical junctures of his path. He seems to have forgotten the meaning of

being in a team and the lessons which Kakashi instilled, allowing the curse

mark to be something which can sit in between his teammates and lessen

their inﬂuence, as Orochimaru hoped it would.

With this ﬁght with Yaroi, he realised that he can’t use his sharingan, nor

the curse mark and barely any chakra - which sounds like the initial

conditions of another ninja which beat him…

At one point the curse mark starts ﬂaring up, and since Sasuke is physically

and mentally drained it almost completely takes over, with a watchful

Orochimaru salivating: the seedling is so close to being consumed! But he

manages to claw back control, and this only makes Orochimaru grow in his

obsession for him as he pulls away from his personal gift. He obviously

liked the look in his eye when they ﬁrst met and the Sharingan is the cherry

on top.

After the match he is quickly escorted out and Kakashi performs the sealing

jutsu, though it isn't much of a seal as it relies on the person's Will to keep

the curse mark in check; if Sasuke so wishes, the curse mark will ﬂare up

and the seal won't do much to get in the way. This may be what

Orochimaru realised when he went snooping, as he wanted to see if this

would actually pose a threat to his plans. Evidently not. He knows Sasuke

will begin to romanticise the eects of the curse mark and will long for the

beneﬁts of it in battle. The true seal, the meta-seal if you will, are the

friends and teachers, the village and his teammates which he needs to

immerse himself in whilst slowly gaining control over it. He needs to

incorporate the seal where possible, not solely relying on it over the strength

in his team. But again, as we know, Sasuke's mission has no room for

another.

Bushy Brows

After all that talk of myth and the divine, demons and snakes and whatnot,

it's time to get back to some grass-roots stu: to one boy who possessed

none of the intrinsic qualities of being a superstar ninja. Rock Lee is a

character who Kishimoto had in mind to portray the image of human

weakness

[1]

, and how someone with eectively no bloodline traits, no

ninjutsu, just their raw “humanness” would fare. It’s due to this that we can

easily relate to Lee and there is a direct route to inspiration, through him

we see things are possible. When Naruto saves the world with his

summoning jutsu, shadow clones and other such magic it can leave

someone like us bereft as we're saddened by the fact we may need this level

of strength to save the day. Lee says we can survive without such things

and even compete against other ninja.

To be clear, Lee isn't the main protagonist and isn't the "best character" for

Naruto as many people think he is, as he represents someone who is trying

to vanquish enemies (no matter how honourably) and would've killed

people that Naruto could manage to help. The truer message of the series is

that we can for the majority of enemies see the human in them, dialogue

with them and avoid furthering the cycle of hatred. Lee is embedded within

the Shinobi system but he is deﬁnitely an exemplary warrior since he has

clear self-rule and uses appropriate force against opponents. Clear

inspirations for the creation of Rock Lee was Bruce Lee as he inherits the

same hairstyle, incredible physicality and unwavering philosophy. The

self-rule, incredible strictness of training and the sheer number of

repetitions he does, it's not uncommon to hear Lee shouting numbers

above 500 when doing any particular exercise. "I fear not the man who has

practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick

10,000 times " - Bruce Lee.

In addition to this resemblance there is another man, someone who

completely embodied Lee's philosophy which is the American boxer Rocky

Marciano. Born in 1923, with his professional career starting in 1948, he

had none of the attributes that mark a world champion: average height,

small reach, small hands, no technique or natural aptitude… But he had one

thing that kept him apart from everybody else: sheer determination and

never ever giving up. He simply refused to be knocked down and never lost

a ﬁght in his entire heavyweight career. Marciano had the ﬂame sparked

during his childhood as he watched his father toil away endlessly at a job he

hated and vowed to liberate him one day.

He trained levels beyond the competition, with a specialised punching bag

four times the weight of a regular. He went on runs longer than anybody

else and cultivated a superhuman endurance. During ﬁghts with Marciano

his opponents would contract unheard of injuries: nerve damage in the arm

from a single punch, teeth getting crushed into their gums and so on. But

with his brute-force and war-like approach to combat he suered his fair

share of injuries too. In his ﬁght against Ezzard Charles in 1954 he

sustained a nose cut so bloody that his trainer said at the end of the seventh

round "If you don't get him in the next you'll bleed to death". Rocky got the

victory in the eighth round of the match.

These scars of war, the consequences of being human, are something that

each man (ﬁctional or not) can attest to as being the result of their

unwillingness to surrender in the face of pain and hardship. The ﬁrst time

we saw Lee he showed o his unparalleled physicality by blocking both

kicks from Sasuke and Kotetsu when he was on the way to handing in his

Chuunin application form

[2]

. He seemingly managed to deceive the eyes of

Sasuke as he remarked "he stopped my kick with his arm, no human alive

can do that"

[3]

. Now, Taijutsu is essentially martial arts, which relies on

one's physical energy and can be combined with chakra like the Gentle Fist

Taijutsu; however, the remark is made to highlight the fact that Lee's ability

is practically superhuman as anyone else would’ve needed chakra to bolster

their grip. It may also have to do with Sasuke not really pushing his body as

hard as Lee, due to relying on ninjutsu, and doesn’t know of anyone that

could possess such capability. He goes on to ﬁght Lee and gets schooled

because he hasn't trained to a point where he can reap the full rewards of

his Sharingan. His confusion stems from the fact that he can't ﬁgure out

what "magic" (his words in the dubbed anime) is responsible for Lee's kicks

landing. He charges in for another shot and gets caught with the now

classic picture of the kick to the face

[4]

. Straight martial arts, no trickery,

just superhuman speed. As Lee says: "Even if you can perfectly perceive and

understand my movements, you lack the speed and strength to counter

them. You haven’t had the physical training necessary to keep up with

me!"

[5]

Lee is beginning to revel in being right, he senses that all his hard work has

actually paid o. In this moment of ecstasy he begins to waver in his sense

of appropriate force as the bandages around his arms unfurl to set up the

Hidden Lotus. "Now I will prove my point. That hard work beats out

natural talent"

[6]

. No sooner than that does Guy burst forth from the clouds

and literally hit some sense into him. Lee starts jabbering some excuses for

why he lost his head, but that in itself is worthy of punishment as a Ninja

must stay cool in the heat of battle.

Sasuke is left to ponder how the hell he lost to someone so eccentric and

growls in frustration. Lee later discloses that he wasn’t the one he wanted

to prove himself against - his truest test is Neji. So he's been called out as

weak and as a mere punching bag, on top of that he's only second on his list

of interests. The loss is actually good for him as by the end he has a ﬁre in

his belly to work hard and maximise his potential, but I don't think Sasuke

ever comes close to incorporating Lee's routine into his own training.

Could you imagine if Sasuke tried to do Lee's daily workout? He would get

to about 100 push ups and shout "Ugh, I'm such a loser... Why can I only do

100??" then go on an existential tirade followed by bouts of depression and

rage. Jokes aside, it takes serious mental control to focus one's attention on

the exercise one is performing day in and day out, which is why the mental

beneﬁts of exercise resemble those gained from meditation: being in the

moment. Lee veered from principles he knows he shouldn't violate, which

is the same as letting his mind wander. That would’ve never gotten him to

where he is now, so Guy basically beats it out of him and gets him to do

laps, to be focused once again.

Interestingly, before he engaged with Sasuke he said: “I’m sorry Master Guy

… I may have to break the big rule! I might need that move!”

[7]

. He did it

because he wanted to get the proof “you require Master Guy”

[8]

which is

bizarre as he isn’t the one who needs proof, it’s Lee who wants to conﬁrm

he is on the right path. He always feels that he has to compare himself, and

he’s willing to throw away everything that got him here in the ﬁrst place to

beat Neji.

This leads us to a point of inquiry - how should a martial artist incorporate

rules into their development? Well, individual schools will ask all their

students to adopt principles and speciﬁc practices, because teachers want to

bring them into the Way of martial arts, but not all students may resonate

with those techniques - hopefully they don’t mistake it for the entire Way

of martial arts itself. The best students will get the gist of the Path with

almost no eort needed to convince them as it ﬂows as part of their own,

but it is very unlikely that your way of martial arts will sit squarely with the

entirety of a given school. And so, unless Lee is just like Guy which - no

matter how hard he tries - he is not, then he will have to eventually ﬁnd a

style which best expresses himself.

There is a great passage in The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War by

famed swordsmen and combative master Yagyū Munenori which speaks to

this eect, essentially rejecting the need for any martial artist to hold any

creed or principle as universal. The heart must be kept empty not only to

allow new ideas to come in, but Munenori states you have to let go of the

idea of martial arts, and until that happens you will not be a maestro. If you

are so intent on winning that you cannot let it go, it is a sure sign you will

lose. In fact he goes so far as to call this attitude a sickness

[9]

. For archers in

particular, gripping too tightly causes an overload of tension, leading to

inaccuracy. As Bruce Lee often said, “Be like water”.

However, just as water can take the shape of the cup, the bottle, the teapot,

what’s stopping Lee from now whimsically taking up any particular form?

If we look at the “geniuses” for a moment we see they relate to the Way of

the Shinobi quite dierently as it is one method of expressing something

deeper about their character. For example, Sasuke wants to get stronger so

he can kill his brother, Neji is getting stronger because deep down he wants

to be free and acknowledged as an equal to the Head Family, Naruto’s

getting stronger because he wants to be respected among all the villagers

and so on and so forth. By having something preceding the Shinobi, the

way “Shinobi-hood” shapes itself is totally unique to the individual.

Going back to Lee’s graduation from the academy, Guy asked each of them

what their goals were, to which he said: “I want to prove that even a person

who can’t use Ninjutsu or Genjutsu can still become a splendid Ninja! It’s

my only goal!!”

[10]

. I wonder why Kishimoto stressed the last part. My

suspicion is that he’s trying to illustrate that this obsession to compare

himself with Neji isn’t his primary purpose, and he uses those battles to

conﬁrm his fundamental driving philosophy. It’s reminiscent of when Haku

found Naruto in the woods and asked him: “Are you doing this for the sake

of that person… or for your own satisfaction?”

[11]

, but Lee has added so

many caveats onto his goals like self-rules, no trickery and deception

[12]

that

it’s impossible to tell what point he’s trying to prove. Naruto actually beat

Neji by using trickery and became the exemplary ninja that Lee could’ve

been if he introduced some mischievousness and cheekiness into his game.

I won’t be too hard on Lee though as he’s still young, and he’s constantly

making improvements. Take the Forest of Death for example where he

ﬁnds a moment to do another one of his challenges, this time he will try to

catch all the leaves before they fall to the ground. He’s grabbed all but one

leaf, but he sees a squirrel about to get caught in a paper-bomb, which does

he choose? He bets that if he could catch each one it's a step closer to Sakura

falling in love with him, but here he chose to save the Squirrel and forgo

his own training. Guy probably didn’t lecture him on the prioritisation of

squirrels but about general moral principles, which he chooses to apply to

anyone in danger. The creature is saved

[13]

and we pan over to see the last

leaf on the ﬂoor. Lee's priority is people, which is why he jumps in to save

Sakura from the Sound Ninja ambush. In particular, she is "very precious"

to him which is why the rule for the Hidden Lotus is met.

The Forest of Death is a process by which villages of every nation

voluntarily subject their Ninja to Darwinian-style elimination as they try

and gauge which of their own has the abilities to survive in such an

environment. Lee completely bypasses the cutthroat idiosyncrasies of

nature and chooses to put himself in jeopardy for love. Lee's actions cause

the otherwise opportunistic and tentative Team 10(Team Asuma) to step in.

Without Lee's courage I doubt they'd have acted. All because of one man

trying to save his crush. Even when he is nearly unconscious from the

beat-down and disoriented, he manages to run over and throw a kick

towards Dosu but fails

[14]

. We herald Lee as brave and trying to overcome

the disadvantage he’s at for not having any special weapons like the Sound

Ninja; Sakura instead of rising to the occasion and helping Lee, sat back and

let him handle it

[15]

. Eventually, after every single option is exhausted she

ﬁnds the courage to follow the examples of Naruto, Sasuke and Lee. She

cuts o her hair

[16]

which in Japanese society marks the end of an era - it

was tradition that a Samurai cut their top-knot to show the end of their

tenure; however, here Sakura cuts her hair to show the end of her life as a

child and the start of responsibility.

After all is settled she says "Lee… Thank you. Thanks to your help, I’ve

made some kind of breakthrough. My skills have been taken to a whole

new level”

[17]

. Both characters were designed by Kishimoto to illustrate the

complexities of being human and how often we make mistakes and stumble

through life, and here there is an exploration into addressing those

weaknesses.

The Forest of Death: The demon is home sweet home

Now for the total opposite of morality and kindness. Meet Gaara, a

murderous psychopath who killed a couple of mist ninja because they

looked at him the wrong way

[18]

. In that clash Gaara toyed with his prey not

just because of a degree of sadistic enjoyment like Orochimaru but partly

boredom. He didn't care to ask which scroll they had, killing them was like

scratching an itch. The way he crushes them and makes it rain with their

disintegrated ﬂesh is morbidly beautiful and in the spirit of a God to play

and tease mortals. This is probably why Hinata, Kiba and Shino went from

idle spectators to running for their lives; Gaara isn't solely torturous though

as he says himself - "I used far more force than was necessary"

[19]

. It was

painless and his death was a kind of ritual feeding the chaos within. Having

this careless attitude of death is in stark contrast to any other Ninja as he

himself knows that nobody here could kill him and waltzes through the

forest in a staggering 97 minutes.

The preliminaries: Bushy Brows versus No eyebrows

As the names are selected you can tell they are both eager to ﬁght, Gaara

prematurely goes to the battleground despite his name not even showing

up. Lee is his opponent and he proceeds to do something which I don't

think his character ever does again: impulsively throwing the stopper of his

gourd at Lee's face

[20]

… you get the sense the addict is ready for his ﬁll.

Lee starts o by ﬁghting Gaara much the same way I would, just swing

some punches and kicks to see what happens. We can all see ourselves in

that ring, we follow Lee's progression throughout the match and we're

lifted into the realm of the "supernaturally achievable": leg weights are tools

some of us have at home and Lee inspires us to perform the exact same

training, though I won't be quite as fast. We don't need some inexplicable,

convoluted magic but the things I have scattered in my room to ﬁght this

demon. The leg weights plummeting into the ground is without a shadow

of a doubt one of the most memorable moments in all of Naruto as it

illustrates pure, unfettered wonder; the sand is no longer an adequate shield

and he’s outside the protection of his mother for the ﬁrst time, seeming

well and truly spooked.

Gaara had "never been hurt", neither had he been beaten in training and

destroyed his muscles from overwork, grinding himself to the bone for that

extra one percent improvement. Gaara has no idea the resolve it took Lee

to master this level of martial arts and he no longer has the smugness to just

stand there. You would think that never feeling any pain would be

heavenly, and all of Lee’s exhausting regiments would be hell, but it seems

the opposite is true. Gaara has to start defending himself and come up with

a strategy pronto! The next couple sequences highlight the shifting tide,

where Lee was the human and Gaara the supernatural force, but by the end

of the last punch

[21]

we can feel the roles have been reversed. Gaara begins

to feel ﬂustered as he's thrown to the ground, forcing the sand armour to

save him.

After seeing that the damage was negligible, Lee decides to up the force

massively but if he'd just kept to his principles of patience and consistency

Gaara wouldn't have been able to maintain that suit of armour for long -

though he couldn't have known this in the heat of battle. Behind the

armour he saw the demon grinning maniacally and got a shiver

[22]

, which

probably shook him into using a more powerful technique like the lotus.

He decides to go straight for it just like the ﬁght against the Sound Ninja

and puts all his faith into such a double-edged technique that can leave

himself seriously vulnerable if it fails. The same technique ﬂopped against

those three because he hadn't tested the scope of their abilities and he

presumes the only thing Gaara is going to do is hurl sand at him and stand

there, so he bets on it.

Strategy is of such importance and it's an aspect of combat that Lee needs to

work on. People cushioning their falls was in the end the same refutation

[23]

which highlights an awareness that Lee doesn't have. Making the same

mistakes over and over is another common human weakness. When he was

setting up the lotus, the series of kicks needed caused him to wince in pain

for just a moment

[23]

and he shut his eyes. It’s amazing that Munenori’s

book has a quip for such a moment, as he says that if you delay a strike for

the time it takes to blink an eye, you will have already lost

[24]

...

It’s at this point in Lee’s struggle that the anime takes us brieﬂy outside the

ﬁght and into Lee's upbringing, and a look behind the scenes for what made

him the man he is today. After being picked on and slated for being weak,

Lee sticks around after school and continues to work long after everyone

else would've been asleep, the sheer tolerance for pain is staggering and it's

probably why he doesn't mind using the lotus so early on. In fact, the only

thing which breaks him and drops him to his knees during training was the

weakening of his own convictions. He was starting to question the point

behind it all in light of so many failures. If he's only going to get beaten by

Neji, why does he spend all this time practising? Lee crumbles in front of

him one evening and confesses: "I’ve wondered if it was possible for hard

work alone to be rewarded… So I’ve kept challenging Neji but the results

have always been the same. And even now, on missions, my legs still

tremble in fear, fear that no matter how hard I work I’ll never get

stronger…. I don’t know what to do”

[25]

"All your hard work will prove worthless … unless you believe in

yourself"

[26]

. If you don't believe then all this is just wasted energy as you're

acting on behalf of some image of a person that's not you, the one that in

moments you needed it most will dissolve as it wasn’t your innermost

conviction. It seemed to be after this point that Lee began to imitate his

sensei even more, as he wanted to use the character to ﬁnd out who he was

and what resonated with him. Turns out, they share an awful lot in

common and they’re practically father and son, but if Lee wants to be a

truly splendid Shinobi he has to ﬁnd his own style.

If he’s facing the same result every time, then dare I say it you may need to

ﬁnd more than one teacher to train you. All the Shinobi who became truly

great had many mentors to guide them: Sasuke had Kakashi and

Orochimaru, Naruto had Kakashi, Jiraiya, Lord Fukasaku and so on. This

goes back to the aforementioned segment on schools. Lee is a genius of

hard work

[27]

after all so I have no doubt he could eat up whatever

regiments his teachers set for him.

Back to the ﬁght. Seeing as the ﬁrst lotus failed it’s time now to stake

absolutely everything - opening all the way up to the ﬁfth gate. A technique

which removes the normal regulations on the body, chakra delimiters are

opened allowing huge spikes in energy to ﬁll the user at the cost of severe

bodily strain. He becomes a fully-ﬂedged demon of his own, as I like to

think the red represents rage in that cliche poetic way. If he wasn’t fast

enough before, now he’s travelling at speeds which only the visionary gods

can perceive, transforming into a performance ﬂeeting from ordinary eyes -

only Kakashi's Sharingan and Neji's Byakugan can really tell what's going

on.

It is at this point Lee becomes symbolic, rising from being a particular case

to a guiding principle for how we can achieve such strength ourselves.

There’s only one problem: Lee remains human and as such the demands of

being a God shreds his body apart and his muscles are splintering like an

old rope bridge as he delivers the ﬁnal sequence. Gaara was struggling

before and got backed into a corner, keeping to his sand armour but now

it’s crumbling away, and he even questions whether Lee is human

[28]

. Gaara

is in a vacuum of beatdowns, a moment consisting of only suering by a

force totally outside of his ability to inﬂuence, only stopping due to its own

circumstances. Here the demon understands what Hell feels like instead of

imparting it on others for once.

There are so many opposing dynamics in this ﬁght that it’s almost

impossible to count, but I shall go through some of the main ones. One of

them being that Gaara is ﬁghting for a village which hates him, which

wants nothing to do with him and yet uses him as a bastion of their

strength. This is only due to his raw power, but what’s funny is that a large

percentage of the villagers probably hope he doesn't come back, just as his

father thought he had gone past his sell-by date; conversely, Lee is the

symbol that the average Leaf village Shinobi can look up to but he won’t be

the bastion of the Leaf as that role is for the freak-shows like Neji and

Sasuke.

Contrasting battle styles, Gaara's way of ﬁghting is so impersonal and

distant, he doesn’t even touch you, he just watches you get crushed.

Whereas Lee’s ﬁghting style is literally up close and personal and his

knuckles are the ones doing damage. Gaara is a child that has been born

with the abilities he bears, and hasn’t had to train a day in his life though

Lee has had to work everyday without the notion of a break to carve out a

semblance of Shinobi.

Gaara carved the word ‘love’ into his forehead as he believes himself to be

truly alone, though he is constantly within the protection of his mother and

within the powers of the sand spirit; Lee however is only ﬁghting with his

own Will, his own experience and abilities but never considers himself

isolated, nor does he feel that his Sensei is absent from his side. This feeling

manifests as Guy has to eventually step in before Lee is unduly killed.

Gaara sees his lifeless body get stretchered out and he's in disbelief as to

why someone who lost has any value attached to them at all. This is more

exemplary of Gaara's own feelings of utility and he's probably projecting

trauma from his childhood. When the image of being a protector was no

longer warranted there was an eort to assassinate him, so he has learnt to

evaluate other people in the same way. Guy gives him the answer, that Lee

is unquestionably, regardless of any result, deeply precious to him

[29]

. This

notion has long been repressed in Gaara and through this hard fought

battle we feel that his mental stability has begun to wobble and images from

deep within resurface. He grows increasingly unstable due to the nature of

the ﬁght and the message that someone can be precious "no matter what".

The doctors bring Guy to one side and tell him that due to the severe

injuries on his right arm and leg he will never be a Shinobi again

[30]

. Yet

another pertinent human weakness, which is reeling from the

consequences of our actions long after we’ve performed them. He was

willing to ﬁght whilst completely unconscious, not going to stop until his

body physically couldn’t send the electrical signals for movement. If that’s

your ﬁght plan, then you have to accept the sheer amount of pain and

suering that comes with it.

A lot of viewers were disheartened at the result as we embodied ourselves

in Lee the entire ﬁght and to see our exemplary Shinobi get beaten in battle

cuts deep. Gaara is using the "gifts" bequeathed to him to walk away

victorious but I argue that Lee is still not using his incredible endurance

and consistency in the right way. I mentioned that what he really needed to

do was keep Gaara under high pressure with fast bombardments of Taijutsu

as he can keep that pace up for hours, Lee wins any war of attrition. He is

currently ﬁghting almost against his gift as he uses techniques which render

his body unable to stay in it for the long haul.

Nevertheless, I implore everyone to take the story of Rock Lee into their

hearts, but know that he is actually the mastery of one half of the Martial

Artist: the rock that is the routine, that is toughness and unmoved

determination; the other being the spiritual, the nature of water that makes

the entire person adaptable.

Hinata vs Neji : Staring contest

Naruto comes o of a win against Kiba, and Hinata though too shy to speak

hands him some ointment for the cuts and bruises he’s covered in - and just

across is a scowling Neji who seems to have a problem with her kindness:

“Well, aren’t you looking carefree Lady Hinata”

[1]

. Neji is scarred by the loss

of his father, and seeing Hinata is the representative of the main branch,

she is the symbol of the people who made that decision and thus this charity

only masks the depths of her cruelty. He has no intention of holding back,

which is exactly what Kiba mentions to her right before the ﬁght starts: "if

they pair you o against that sand ninja… withdraw immediately! The same

thing goes for Neji. If you have to face him, don’t ﬁght. Forfeit. He’s so cruel

to you … you’d be torn to pieces”

[2]

. This little wrinkle is often forgotten but

he incites fear into her just moments before the names are called out and

shakes her belief that her Will can aect the outcome of the battle and so

there's no point trying.

Now feeling even more apprehensive than normal, her lack of conﬁdence is

taken by Neji to mean she knows she'll lose, she isn't ﬁt to be a ninja and

she shouldn’t be taking the exams. Hinata rebukes his theory and says she

took them to see if she could change

[3]

: could she embody what it means to

be a Shinobi? Not only is it a personal test, but it’s acting in direct

opposition to Neji’s metaphysical beliefs - for whom Hinata’s eorts are a

futile illusion that she isn't willing to let go of. She’s going through

self-experimentation and doesn't yet know the answer which is why Neji's

psychological breakdown is all the more damaging: "Lady Hinata … you’re

the sheltered little baby of the main branch, aren't you? A failure always

fails. And a weak personality won’t become strong"

[4]

. Somewhere amongst

the rambling he adorns the robes of the oracle and articulates the meaning

behind all her actions: "This courage you’re displaying is just a blu! In the

truest, deepest part of your heart you’re desperate to run away from here

right now”

[5]

. He takes this opportunity to spout his nonsense as Hinata not

only lacks the physical strength to stop him but also the philosophical

verbiage to throw counters. It's like when people torture and abuse people

to get confessions out of them as he doesn't care if the confession has

nothing to do with reality, his primary concern is getting her to admit she's

useless: "The way you’re touching your lip, it’s another of those tender,

intimate behaviours that expresses the agitation in your heart … it’s a

defensive reﬂex"

[6]

In the ﬁght the two seem to be playing a game of Chess in that they try to

land a decisive blow by predicting the moves of the other. Hinata is clearly a

level below and makes moves which Neji can easily predict and lures her

into traps. He's incredibly sly and doesn't outright "refute" them, but

continues to lead Hinata into thinking she's landing successful hits - in

reality she doesn't have much chakra at all coming out of her arm as the

network has been shattered. She only realises this in their mutual exchange

when Neji lands cleanly and Hinata doesn't do any damage.

Neji is shocked that this is the extent of the main branch’s strength - I’m

subservient to these people? But this is it, destiny smiles favourably on Neji

outside of his initial misfortune as he’s the clan prodigy, a genius and where

"the blood of the Hyūga ﬂows strongest in him". He can boast to people like

Lee that "No matter how hard you try, you can’t hope to beat me"

[7]

. But I

wonder if he realises that kind of dynamic isn’t destiny, as it isn't about

general rules like 'Neji always beats Lee', because there may be some chain

of events which leads to his defeat and that would sit perfectly ﬁne within a

deterministic universe. He’s trying to impose his own Will and assurance

onto the future, which goes against the idea of letting things unfurl as and

how it will.

There is an idea by the German philosopher Heidegger which is that of

"Thrownness": that we cannot control the initial conditions of existence

and we feel as if we have been "thrown" into the world and how this

deﬁnes the state of our being. Neji has landed in unfortunate circumstances

and lives enslaved under the seal of the main branch. What Neji won't

accept however is that everyone else is thrown into whatever circumstances

they cannot control as well and feels bitter towards people like Hinata. You

could make an argument that she is enslaved, just to a dierent type of

obligation. The Heir to the clan is their jewel, so Hinata must train to

symbolise the clan's strength, study to symbolise the clan's intelligence and

so on. The amount of pressure on people like her by her father can become

overbearing, and she may be within a stronger cage as the elders worry

about the ramiﬁcations of her actions more; if it's a deviant from the

branch family, they were already deemed second rate, but if the main

branch lets down the Hyūga it smears inadequacy across their best and

brightest.

Hinata’s getting ﬂattened - badly - and has to pick herself up o the ground

each time, testing her conviction, and just because they’re ﬁghting doesn’t

mean Neji’s stopped peppering her with demoralising words. Naruto ﬁnally

had enough and pipes up, "You can’t just arbitrarily decide these things

about other people, you fool! Show him, Hinata! Beat up this idiot!”

[8]

Naruto continuously shouts as this battle is just as important for him

(philosophically) as it is for Hinata. But there’s absolutely no chance of

winning and the probability is practically zero, so how does he square this

with his theory of belief?

When you go into a ﬁght it is a battle of what has been learnt by both sides

and the mindset which orchestrates how you use those experiences. This

latter part is what you can change during a match but what you haven't

experienced can't be, which Naruto is conﬂating with his ideas of belief as

guaranteeing a change in the outcome of the match. Belief is certainly

important, and Naruto turns to Lee as proof of this sentiment, but this is

only partially correct as Lee worked incredibly hard to get to where he is

now, whereas Hinata is only just ﬁnding her conﬁdence to commit. Lee

even had an extra year to make sure he could go toe to toe with the best. He

was given direction and a path to follow which he jumped into with both

feet. Hard work and guts means nothing if you don’t have direction as

you’re just aimlessly rushing to dierent goals and you don’t develop.

Hinata sure as hell worked hard here, but this is the ﬁrst step.

She also doesn’t beneﬁt from the same fast recovery times as Naruto, and he

seems to put on the backburner the very real threat that she could die. In

fact, she is seen coughing blood a month afterwards when spectating the

Naruto versus Neji match, unconscious after having received medical

treatment when Naruto managed to get the victory

[9]

. It’s extremely careless

to push someone about their mindset when they may not get a chance to

reap the rewards of mental fortitude. Hinata doesn’t know her limits as she

hasn’t given it her all before. After the second knockdown is when the ﬁght

was going to end but Naruto urges her on. Her only game plan was the

gentle ﬁst which has been negated by Neji’s surgical attacks on her arms.

There is no other plan or ounce of trickery to try, it’s over.

Hinata came into this trying to ﬁnd her mindset, her way of the Shinobi, as

she has been paying close attention to Naruto - "Naruto! I’ve been watching

… I’ve watched you for years. I don’t know what it is, but when I watch

Naruto … I feel a wellspring of courage bubbling up inside me. I feel like if I

just do my best, then even I am worth something"

[10]

. Pulling all of her

teachings together for this moment, she is starting to cultivate mental

toughness and the sides of her personality she wished she had. This ﬁght is

the start of a long and painful transformation but she found her answer, she

can indeed change, the old her would've given up.

Unknowingly, her ability to change and deviate from what Neji thinks is an

essential, immutable part of her being aggravates him and she is aware of

his pain: "I can see it now … that even more than me… it’s you who are torn

and suering. Caught between the destinies of the main branch and the

side branch of our clan"

[11]

. She has been able to parse that if the clan did

break up he would lose everything, crushing his notions of destiny, of

eternal servitude and of an “inner nature” that has a task assigned to it at

birth and so forth. The sacriﬁce of his father would be for nothing as well.

The fact she understands and is able to put aside everything to consider his

feelings grates against the ideas of a main branch that cares nothing of the

side branch and uses them as pawns. Have they changed? No. Never. He

lashes out and makes one last dash to get her for good when the Jonin jump

in to stop the match.

Naruto and the Pervy Shaman

Moving outside of the preliminaries now, it’s time to see the brief piece of

training that Naruto underwent with Jiraiya.

I use the term shaman as Jiraiya fulﬁls many of the aspects of one, with

Naruto as his ﬂedgling student into the psychedelic realm. Obviously he

isn't perfect, as he gawks at women, drinks and gambles but he does have a

good heart and we come to learn further down in the series the degrees to

which he will go to help the village. A shaman has many dierent

interpretations but it tends to revolve around the idea of having access to

the world of spirits, other-worldly entities and being a guide through

multiple realms.

Another function of the shaman is the ability to heal as one has a deep and

intuitive understanding of the mind and body, thereby sensing

irregularities in others; when Jiraiya started teaching Naruto he soon

picked up on the fact that the seal placed on him by Orochimaru was

hindering his ability to walk on water and was able to correct him.

Immediately we see the dierence as now Naruto can do it without much

attention at all, a sign of balance.

Look at the dierence in agency for the two main characters: that Sasuke’s

curse mark was immediately sealed away whereas Naruto had his seal by

Orochimaru revoked and allowed the beast to come right up into purview,

getting through to the next stage soon enough. In fairness, the nature of the

two are dierent and they are at dierent stages of integration: Naruto has

had around twelve years for his body to adapt to the tailed beast whereas

Sasuke has only had his mark for a couple months and it’s far more

deleterious - taking over the body and brain with each use. Remember that

the curse mark is essentially a group of Jugo’s cells and some of

Orochimaru’s senjutsu chakra which rewrites Sasuke’s DNA to gain the

functionality of passively absorbing senjutsu chakra. Changing the DNA of

too many cells at once can hamper the body’s ability to repair and maintain

critical systems, essentially killing him, so for now he has to allow the curse

mark to propagate slowly. The only problem being, this is also the time

Sasuke wants to use his mark the most. He feels time is against him to

prove himself against opponents like Gaara, Naruto and ﬁnally Itachi.

There is no time like the present and this desire to keep pace contrasts with

the village hampering his development by introducing the seal. Naruto on

the other hand has everything coming together and a teacher who is

showing him how to navigate this world. As we shall see shortly, Sasuke

cannot handle the feeling that he is being left behind.

The next task after walking on water is to try some summonings. This

"pre-training" (before he summons Gammabunta) is a type of cleansing,

which people in shamanic ceremonies typically do so that they can

communicate with themselves and other beings more clearly. Jiraiya

explicitly wants Naruto to drain himself of all his standard chakra (a kind of

chakra purging), which gives him a better chance of using “the red chakra”.

If I were to extend this idea possibly too far it would be that when Naruto

was ﬁghting all his clones to drain his energy, he was truly beating and

berating himself, which corresponds to real-world ceremonies as people

wade through trauma, feel sad, sick and light-headed before meeting an

entity. Having an understanding of the threads which constitute the self

allows one to radically change their mindset, and thus how they act in the

world, opening up a new domain of how one Wills.

Naruto is still summoning Tadpoles as he isn't quite emotionally charged,

certainly not at the level he was when he fought Haku and the Nine-Tails

chakra seemed to react only during those high-intensity moments. Seeing

the poor boy struggling to summon a frog Jiraiya decides to push him o a

cli, not because he's useless of course, just that a life or death situation can

force a spiritual integration.

Now is the time to activate that primal energy and sure enough he starts to

peer into the eerie mental labyrinths. Before he could only watch as the red

chakra ﬂowed through him and he neither knew nor cared for where and

how it arose but now he sees the source of this energy and he will begin

dialoguing with this demon. Naruto puts on his tough guy appearance and

tries to remain calm in front of the fox, the one who’s responsible for

having him ostracised all these years, but before we can have a full therapy

session he is bequeathed a large amount of red chakra, a gift from the

underworld "for making it this far"

[12]

. This release of energy facilitates the

summoning of the almighty Chief Toad! This encounter is remarkable

because the entity is truly surprised to see Naruto and has no idea how such

a child is conversing with him, bombarding him with questions. Both start

interrogating each other, which is similar to the recorded experiences in

DMT trips, where the entity a person sees can be dumbfounded that they

were able to meet, let alone converse, but before Naruto reaches the top of

the cli he has already passed out

[13]

, so they’ll have to chat some other time.

Good gourd, there’s a sand spirit!!

You would've thought beating someone to the edges of their life would

count as enough of a victory but for Gaara it's the same as if he was

standing there untouched. Like a ghoul in the night he glides amongst the

shadowy hospital corridors until he gets to Lee's room. This Gaara that

watches over Lee isn't the calm and collected one we saw, as he’s shaken

with memories of aeons ago that have risen up to the surface after a long

period of repression. Just as much as the sand breaks from his gourd so too

do these memories spill over, slowly but surely his childhood is beckoning

to be integrated into this caricature of an adult.

Lee was saved by his sensei for being precious to him, despite the fact he

had “failed" which means he should be of no utility, which means he may as

well not exist - the chain of reasoning found in suicidal people that are

overly critical of the manner in which they live. Seeing Lee be saved and

cherished for what he is, caused ﬂashes of his mother to appear after Guy

saved him from the sand. This type of care is, quintessentially, a mother’s

love.

There is probably no better psychologist to reference if you need a strong

understanding of the symbolisms of the unconscious than Carl Jung and it

didn't take much time until I gleaned sections closely tied to Gaara's

particular dilemmas. In Psychology and Alchemy, part of the book illustrates a

series of dreams had by some of his clients, with one centring on the role of

parents. Jung notes that a childish consciousness is never by itself

[14]

, for it

is by deﬁnition linked to the mother and father as survival is impossible

without them. This passage just jumps out of the page as Gaara is forever

tied to his mother as she lives and cares for him through the sand he

carries. His father may not be there in the physical sense, but his dominion

has never allowed him to blossom on his own, in fact it was his father who

authorised uncountably many attempts to kill him as he mentions in the

hospital.

Despite the range of dierent intentions, this has all but secured his total

solitude and seclusion. Jung goes on to note that as years go by, the newly

discovered world forces them to grow up, which leaves a wealth of

unresolved psychological material behind. The subject becomes distant

from it, which will include all the aspects of their personality that they had

detached from as well. In time, when memories ﬂood back, they cling and

evoke the nostalgia of earlier times

[14]

. This harsh demeanour that he

projects is the boundary between him and his past, but all the other

candidates thought of him as the strongest because he assumed the role of

adult the quickest. Over time however other people will catch up and they

will have a wealth of dierent experiences, self-knowledge and self-worth

that Gaara doesn’t.

In a weird way, he is attacking himself through Lee as he strives to bury this

content, the part of his life that has caused him pain, trying to shove it all

back into the unconscious. Just as he gets the chance he's stopped by Naruto

and Shikamaru who question him. They surmise that he wants to kill Lee,

unsurprisingly, but conversation begins to turn toward his birth, and it's

sad to see how he has rendered the entirety of his childhood in such

darkness. Naruto's rattled as he can't believe the similarity, thanks to Iruka

he didn't have to stare into the abyss for too long but he'll never forget what

that isolation felt like. When Shikamaru says "what kind of parent does a

thing like that [sealing Shukaku within a newborn]? What twisted love"

[15]

it must also sting for Naruto as he hasn't spoken to his father, whoever he

is, and I presume he has so many questions about his own circumstances.

All he knows at the moment is that he carries around a demon which was

sealed after it attacked the village and killed his parents.

Gaara is an embodiment of what you can become when you lose faith in

family, siblings, and village. When he says "My father tried to destroy me

more times than I can count"

[16]

it reminds me of when Zabuza said -

"When you hover between life and death so many times it doesn't faze you,

then you may be called a ninja"

[17]

. In truth it's correct to say you may be

called a demon.

He explains that the demon was sealed inside a tea-kettle

[18]

, which is

directly inspired from the stories of Bunbuku Chagama, a Japanese folktale

about a Tanuki (raccoon dog) on whom Shukaku is based o of. There are

two popular interpretations/translations, the ﬁrst being that a Priest by the

name of Shukaku (who was a Tanuki himself) would pour tea for the

monks in the monastery, and the teapot had an inexhaustible amount of hot

water - a thousand priests could be served tea, and it was said this was due

to the eight virtues it held

[19]

The second is a British interpretation

[20]

where the tea-kettle is a Tanuki

called Bunbuku. He gets picked up from a second-hand store and taken to

live with a monk. Just as he falls asleep the Tanuki springs its tail and

stretches its legs, to which three other people in the home spot him! They

shriek, waking up the monk. When he puts it on the stove, sure enough the

kettle cries “Hot, hot!” before jumping o. One of them grabbed a stick and

started hitting it, but all they got were metal clangs. Just as the monk was

debating on what to do, a tinsman came to the door and happily bought the

kettle for a few coppers. Soon enough the same appearance of tails and legs

popped out, with a similar reaction … but Bunbuku says to not be

frightened, as he brings good luck to any good retainer

[21]

. He goes on to say

that he doesn’t like being beaten and just wants the same ol’ things that

anybody does - good food, good wine and so on. The two started going

round the country performing, and with his shapeshifting abilities he soon

wooed the nation, with the tinsman retiring a wealthy man. In the end the

tea-kettle was brought back to Morinji Temple and lived out its days as a

precious treasure. The story highlights some of the character dynamics that

Gaara has, for his character is being tested and scrutinised, but all he really

wants is what any normal person desires.

In the darkness, this stage is beginning to feel like an eternity so Gaara tries

to veer from hope and live without the prayers that someone like the

tinsman will come and save him. I have mentioned in earlier sections that

the Kitsune were known for shape shifting and chaotic naughtiness but

Tanuki are also Yokai with the same transforming ability. Both creatures

were feared and scalded for being the root cause of bad luck, disease,

insanity - anything malign essentially. In 702 CE, in Section VII of the

Zokutō Ritsu (賊盗律 Laws Concerning Robbers), the emperor at the time,

Emperor Mommu, had to explicitly stop people from smoking their

burrows because people were that eager to see them dead. The two were so

commonly demonised, that the word Kori(狐狸) came into use, which is

the combined Kanji of kitsune(狐) and tanuki(狸) - it isn’t just a

coincidence that these two were hated but the result of a long held

disdain…

What’s more, it was believed people could be possessed by either a Kitsune

or Tanuki; in the case of Tanuki possession (Tanuki-tsuki), the victim is

said to overeat until their belly swells, which will cause death unless

exorcised

[22]

. The emergence of morbid addictions exempliﬁes itself in

Gaara, where he has to kill to show that he exists, once thought as a token

of his self-interest, could be the result of deep-seeded Tanuki possession.

Contrastingly, he may not be possessed at all but because the village has

shown him no love whatsoever he uses this rage to kill in the image of

what possession would look like, but caused by the villages’ coldness.

The spirits that these two harbour would be further developed in

Shippuden into nine tailed beasts, of whom a person that keeps one or

more inside of themselves known as a “Jinchuriki“, translating to “Power of

human sacriﬁce”. It’s close to the idea of jintsuriki which is “God-reaching

power”, which is self-evidently the case it terms of what it aords the

bearer, as the scale of the ﬁrst ﬁght between them was beyond anything

we’d seen previously - but it also hints at the fact that human sacriﬁce, of

oneself and not others I hope, leads to strength. Gaara has chosen to

interpret it in the most malign way, oering up oers for his ambition, but

in the end he was the ultimate sacriﬁce.

Additionally, this was around the time we got introduced to the art of

summoning as well, called Kuchiyose, meaning “drawing in to speak”, which

is in reference to the idea of possession with certain Yokai. Naruto used it

to collaborate with Gammabunta, and he served not just as the medium

from the spiritual realm to the physical, but as an extension of what he does

with other people, which is to talk with them and through dialogue avoid

some of the more dire straits that Gaara is in.

Naruto vs Neji : Death by a thousand

pokes

They square up and Neji is feeling quite chipper seeing as he has just beaten

the heir to the Hyūga, proving his own abilities and taking out some of his

anger toward the main household. That she tried to go against her nature

of being weak-willed and a coward, but this is meant to be something

fundamental that cannot change, which is why he can coin terms like “elite

and failure”

[1]

. But in equal measure we must accept Hinata as possessing the

fundamental quality to become heir, as she was born to the leader of the

clan, something which also cannot change. In fact, if we do some digging

into what her name actually means, it should be self-evident that she’s right

for the job!

The name “Hyūga” translates to “place in the sun”/“toward the sun” which I

believe is used as a designation for the Japanese people themselves since the

Kanji for Japan (日本) approximates to “sun origin” - making them the

descendents of it. To be clear, the aliation is with the Shinto Sun Goddess

Amaterasu, who’s bloodline was said to have eventually led to the birth of

Japan’s ﬁrst emperor, Emperor Jimmu

[2]

; this has connotations with the

Hyūga having an ancestral lineage that began with Hamura Otsutsuki, who

is a member of the “Gods” in this anime. Hinata’s ﬁrst name can be

translated as “toward the sun”, which is one translation of the word “Hyūga”

as well. They are equivalent for the reason that she is nothing other than

the Clan Identity, and having such a name tries to represent her as the

embodiment of her ancestry - at least in theory. As we see that whilst her

name represents the complete alignment with her people, it’s actually Neji

that could do a better job, which could be a jab at the accuracy and ability to

name somebody and expect their nature to follow that name/role

This is a clan obsessed with roles, rituals and the like and take them as some

kind of law of reality, as they have existed almost as long as the Byakugan

itself. The reason for this severity probably has to do with their name, as

Amaterasu is also the leader of Takamagahara, the Shinto equivalent of

heaven, thus being derived from her implies they inherit her divine

authority. Well, one branch of the clan does whilst the rest have to live

under a dierent set of rules, as Lee says during Neji’s match with Hinata:

“The ﬁrst generation of the Hyūga clan made all sorts of rules and decrees

that favoured the main branch of the family, in order to preserve the family

line and retain the purity of their blood”

[3]

The ties between brethren

The notoriously strict and dogmatic way of the Hyūga has not been

universal throughout history when we look to actual Japanese clans; during

the Heian period for example, it was noted that such a main and branch

distinction existed, but the heir of the clan would keep a minimal right over

the aairs of his brothers and sisters

[4]

. In clans that became bilateral, by

which a side branch would inherit the same governance power as the

former main household, there was usually peaceful recognition of shared

lineage, rather than constant inﬁghting

[4]

Zooming in on one of the main Houses extant in the Heian, namely the

Kusakabe of Hyūga, we see a peaceful transition of power even outside of

the usual procedure of primogeniture. This is where the eldest child

ordinarily becomes the inheritor of the entire estate, but in one case the

The rectiﬁcation of names is a Confucian idea that social categories can be clearly deﬁned and once

so, harmony should result.

second-born son was chosen for headship, out of his display of greater

competence

[5]

. Thus the position of heir could be said to be one of choice,

not of birth. How this serves as one of the rebuttals to Neji’s nihilism is that

some of the aspects of fate in which he ardently believes to be concrete may

be more malleable than he thought.

Although I try to paint an idyllic picture, things began to worsen during the

advent of the Kamakura period. Two principal reasons were the Mongol

invasions(1274 & 1281) and the beginnings of the Shogunate governmental

structure

[6]

. They passed laws over every clan in hopes of constructing a

more well-prepared nation to rebu the invaders

[7]

, but a consequence of

this was the ramped up tensions within families. The very same House I

referenced for its exemplary conduct became rife with internal issues

[8]

with the clan partitioning into separate vassals soon after.

Societally, things never really returned to the lucidity and relative

peacefulness of the Heian until the Edo, and the Shogunate continued to

pass draconian legislation. One pertinent example being the four main

social classes of Samurai, Farmer, Artisan and Merchant being locked in,

and social mobility getting outright banned

[9]

- exemplifying Neji’s current

woes. What’s more, there is another example which speaks to the

stultiﬁcation between classes as well, highlighted in the book Tour of Duty:

Samurai, Military Service in Edo, and the Culture of Early Modern Japan. After

the decisive win of Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600,

many of the most powerful Daimyo thought it best to oer close kin to the

Shogun as guarantees of good behaviour

[10]

, and thus began a kind of

hostage system. Initially founded on the goodwill between all parties, by

1635 it became compulsory.

Cases like these completely remove the gesture and place it in the realm of

any other protocol, with grace and manners fading with each passing

swiftness of altruism into law. Applying this to Neji, what could’ve been a

clan of brotherhood has been scrapped and the side branch must look after

the head family, and the curse mark he has makes this so.

That mark on his forehead is probably the most harrowing and immoral of

all the dierent variants of prohibitive markings we've seen from Sasuke's,

to Sai's mark on the tongue and so on. It can be used whenever the elders

deem it necessary, and due to it not being self-referential he can only live in

fear, hoping they possess mercy. Sasuke's mark could act up if he allows the

energy to course through him, and Sai’s mark will only act up if he tries to

speak of Danzo, yet there is nothing beyond a single hand sign that would

prevent his brain from being assaulted. Despite it being almost acausal, he

knows that outside of the particular reason, it will always be because he was

born as a branch family member.

Kishimoto’s inspiration for the mark I believe is from the golden headband

that was placed on Sun Wukong

[11]

, a central character in the book Journey

to the West, where he accompanies a monk called Tripitaka to retrieve the

sacred Buddhist texts in hopes of enlightenment. The headband was used as

a method of controlling him and containing his outbursts. They were also

used more generally to contain any monster, such that they could be

converted and persuaded to become a fellow disciple

[11]

By the end of the book the headband actually dissolves as Sun Wukong had

found inner peace, freedom and learnt self-control, as Guan Yin’s original

purpose for handing them to Tripitaka was for anybody to transcend their

monkey-minded addictions; however, the way the Head Family of the

Hyūga uses them is for a closed loop of subjugation. Freedom would mean a

separation from their responsibilities, and thus they have sneakily managed

to equate human freedom as being a monstrous assertion of rebellion

against their values.

This is why Neji makes the point to Naruto that not just anyone can

become Hokage, as everyone bears circumstances which narrow their fate

to a single trajectory. Just how many people have ever had the chance,

despite all their hard work and determination

[12]

? Especially Naruto, as he’s

seen as the emblematic ﬁgure of failure: he gets the worst grades in class, he

constantly gets into trouble and hasn’t shown many of the attributes of a

good Hokage.

Whilst Neji makes some good points, Naruto rebukes it in his standard

boisterous fashion and doesn’t care what he thinks - he’ll ﬁnd a way! He

launches a fresh set of shadow clones after him

[13]

, but they’re all summarily

negated by his Palm Rotation and before he can catch a breath Neji opens

up the stance for the 64-palms, forcefully putting his chakra network into

shutdown. This is peculiar, as we wouldn’t expect a side-branch member to

have learnt such things - a technique which is only taught between the clan

leader and the heir

[14]

Looking at the history of these techniques also reveals a similar pattern of

secrecy, as they come from the aptly named school of Neijia - based on

practices seen in the Daoist temples of the Wudang Mountains

[15]

. Its

primary focus is for the individual to master their own body, and control

their weight and inﬂection whenever they perform a technique

[15]

, with

Neji illustrating his mastery of such things perfectly as he can emit chakra

from any point in the body. What’s more, their classic move of “pushing

hands” has also been inverted by Kishimoto to “Gentle Fist".

The origins of the word Neijia is contentious, and comes from the words

Nei, for internal, and Jia, for school, house, home - but it's unclear in what

sense the original combination was intended. There are schools of martial

arts, but as one theory suggests: "Another proposed etymology for the

terms “neijia” and “waijia” is that some martial arts were taught exclusively

to those inside one’s family, whereas instruction in other martial arts, such

as Changquan, was available to all, i.e. those outside one’s family"

[16]

. Thus

this ties in with his uncle's astonishment.

The Monkey King

Now we can go a little more in depth into the book that has been highly

inﬂuential in Naruto, with some of the battles inﬂuencing this match as you

shall see. The ﬁrst chapter sets the stage for his journey, as he has spent

around three-hundred years living a content albeit boring life - and though

he can live for hundreds more he will eventually die… is this all there is?

His reﬂection leads to a desire for immortality, and he travels for a decade

in search of an immortal who can teach him. Eventually, he meets a man

called Subodhi who agrees to have him learn amongst his students. He asks

for his name, but Sun as yet has no name, no parents - he just remembers

that one day he hatched from an egg. Upon hearing this, he is given the

moniker “Sun Wukong”: Sun-who-has-awoken-to-emptiness

[17]

. Poetic,

and also reminiscent of the initial conditions of another protagonist

Sun is delighted with his new name, and trains diligently until the master

asks in what direction he would like to take his tutelage now - in terms of

learning from a particular Taoist school. Sun’s goal was always immortality,

and despite all the oerings of myriad other denominations, if the teachings

aren’t relevant he refuses to dedicate himself. The other students are

appalled at his rudeness, but both Subodhi and Sun knew this was a test to

see if he could stick to his guns on what brought him here, and he’s

signalled to come back at midnight for teachings in the Way.

But despite being blessed with sacred knowledge, he continues to play the

class clown and redirects his prowess into comical endeavours

[18]

. Subodhi

caught wind of this and was outraged at the use of his gifts and sent him

back to Water-Curtain cave, the Land of Monkeys.

Upon returning, he sees that a demon had terrorised his people and chases

after him - this is where we see his ability to take his hairs, chew a few of

them in his mouth, spit them out and yell “change!” to spawn additional

monkeys which has a functional similarity to the shadow-clone jutsu,

though this doesn’t seem to be the main inspiration

[19]

, it’s probably closer

to Deidara’s ability.

To celebrate his victory, they have a banquet where he spills the fact that he

had been taught under Subodhi, something he promised not to do. He went

against his word, and “A monkey stands and falls by his word”

[20]

thought. It seems this identity of his is slipping the more he enters into

hedonic waters. He goes on to steal weapons from other lands

, and even

into heaven to take their elixir, wine and peaches.

Word of his misdeeds gets to the Jade Emperor of heaven, and the

organised assault just about manages to pin down Monkey. But due to his

immortality being supplemented by the Heavenly consumables, ordinary

swords and strikes won’t suce. It is Laozi(the man who formulated

Taoism) that says he should be cooked in the brazier of eight trigrams to

weaken him enough to be slain

[21]

; this treatment corresponds to how Neji

tries to beat Naruto by using said jutsu to weaken him enough for the

ﬁnishing blow - if he isn’t dead already. Smoke billowed inside the cauldron

leaving his eyes red and inﬂamed, but just as the heat made Monkey

stronger it also caused Naruto to dig deeper and use the power of the fox,

his eyes ﬂaring red as well

It’s a funny coincidence that both the fox and the monkey, whilst we think are mythically diuse,

have a convergent symbology in Chinese myth for Buddhist religious life and asceticism

[22]

One of the weapons Sun Wukong gets is the iron-pillar, capable of changing form, which is the

transformation of Monkey King Enma that Hiruzen uses.

Some time later, Tripitaka is selected to go on the pilgrimage which was set

to last around three years

[23]

, which is coincidentally the same amount of

time that Naruto would take studying under Jiraiya. Over the course of his

journey he will meet many friends and foes, and he’d learn the secret to

surmounting each obstacle would be to almost always try and

reason/befriend them, as he’ll see they’re on the same path.

The ﬁrst major example is when he’s ﬁghting a rowdy character called Pigsy

who’d wasted all his youth doing pointless activities, and like Sun would

encounter the teachings of an immortal before causing calamity; despite his

best eorts for upwards reincarnation, he’d ended up being reborn as a

hog

[24]

. During their ﬁght Pigsy says Guan Yin persuaded him to convert to

Buddhism from Taoism to aid in the scripture seeking to the West. That’s

when they realise they have the same goal, and join back up with Tripitaka

to head out. In the very next chapter, the same theme shows itself, as the

three of them need to cross the river - but there’s a horrible monster that’s

making things dicult… Not to worry, says Sun, who recommends using

force to get him to take Tripitaka across the river, and then they’ll deal with

him later

[25]

. All he needs to realise is if he just tells his “enemies” the

pilgrimage he’s on, then they would be familiar with the orders of Guan

Yin and know to aid the monk. They fought the beast in the same way

three times before they tried something new, and once they had said their

mission the monster acquiesced.

Journey to the West sets a blueprint for the style of confrontation, manner of

villainy and resolve in Naruto, but this series takes it to another level. Often

there are demons that Sun will have to ﬁght and there are plenty that don’t

see a version of TnJ - but this is the exception in Naruto. In addition there is

also the introduction of a type of villain that forms their own ideas of good

and evil, which leads to conﬂict. The reason for this is the introduction of

Humanism in tandem with the divine, which shows the consequences of

heightened human agency to postulate on Good and Evil, on Destiny and

the way of things. Naruto wants to ﬁnd an analogue to the grace of heaven

by using the bonds that exist between people as they join his path for a

collaborative Shinobi creed.

Part of his answer to Neji is that this power can serve to change the destiny

of people despite their fate. Iruka freed Naruto from being someone who

was the jinchuriki and alone, with the latter being what really crushed his

spirits. By uniting with others you can steer your ﬂight path away from

terrible outcomes, and even now we see a small example. When Naruto

was on his way to the ﬁnal rounds, he was feeling anxious and inadequate

after that run-in with Gaara at the hospital. But on his way there he bumps

into Hinata, and her surreptitious words actually resonate with him,

rekindling the vigour he normally has. Neji was able to sense this with his

Byakugan, when he tried to play fortune-teller once again: “He has absolute

faith in himself, as if he hasn’t got a single doubt”

[26]

. Kishimoto has this be

one of the crucial parts of the puzzle, that the encouragement we get from

those around us inspires us to Will, to try.

Acceptance of Taoism

The contentious point of Neji’s arguments rests with his ability to use the

techniques which his destiny wasn’t meant to allow him access, and the

history of things like the Eight-Trigrams reﬂects his interpretations of

reality. Based on the use of Yin-Yang hexagrams and trigrams in a Book

called the I Ching (or Yijing), it uses geometric displays to represent

concepts like heaven, earth, water, ﬁre and so forth. People used them to

explain “quintessential thingness” as described by the dynamics of yin and

yang

[27]

The doctrine of strict interpretation lasted for a while until one

commentary on the I Ching by a young man called Wang Bi(226–249) called

for a more ﬂexible reading, and to interpret each as a ﬁeld of action, an

arena, whereby dierent forces and players can interact

[28]

. As per the

Stanford Encyclopaedia entry on the I Ching, it mentions that a hexagram

symbolises a web of relations that governs the possible actions and

interactions between players, and what they can do to advance their

interests

[28]

Neji has too strict an interpretation of roles, which maps to the traditional

way of seeing Hexagrams as perfect representations of things, but hopefully

he can grasp what Wang Bi illustrates: that it’s most important if we

recognise these as dynamic and incorporate them into our own Way. One

of the great Chinese sages, Laozi, saw that such strictness would precipitate

future chaos, grinding against the unfurling of the self, leading to rigidity

and thus a kind of death, citing that the tree with the hardest wood will be

cut down

[29]

Wang Bi used the principles of Taoism to challenge the consequences of

governmental Confucianism, and its ability to lock people into rituals

which were no longer meaningful. Just as one of the foundational rules of

the Way is its transcendental nature and ability to elude categorisation, the

same is true for the Path of any given individual. To be clear, he didn’t

reject Confucian virtues and practices outright, but noted that one has to

back them up with his or her own thoughts and feelings, otherwise they are

“shells of virtue”

[30]

, and he uses the Analects itself to show that merely

behaving morally is insucient.

The birdcage creaks open

All in all though, it’s very easy for me to say that Neji needs to break out of

this performative allegiance to the main branch, as even tiptoeing along

that direction can get him punished. When he was young and still had the

bandages from the curse mark ritual, he was sitting watching Hinata and

Hiashi train, and as his father went to strike he saw the horror that awaited

him. I think the reason Hiashi did this was to show his son the true nature

of these people, and that Neji had been all smiles when he accepted his

fate

[31]

, but he wanted him to know there was more to life than that. As a

father it probably angered him to see the genius of the clan relegated in

such a way.

Neji has had to swallow the loss that the main household inﬂicted whilst

also trying to ﬁnd it in himself to serve, hence why he adopted the concept

of destiny, as it allowed him to move forward by expressing grief whilst

abiding by his duties. But Naruto as yet doesn’t see the underlying reason

for his anger, his belligerent scrutiny of others, as he’s still the enemy - “you

mocked Hinata… calling her a failure and claiming you could see her fate…

‘Main branch’, ‘Side branch’ … I don’t know anything about that stu, but I

could never forgive a jerk who goes around calling people failures!”

[32]

Thus begins the Naruto-style of psychotherapy, as he gets the client to open

up and reveal what really hangs on their mind. He gets Neji to talk about

“the hateful legacy”

[33]

of the Hyūga and the speciﬁc details of the curse mark

on his forehead. It is the symbol of a bird locked in its cage, "proof that

some people are bound to destinies from which they cannot escape”

[34]

His father was the one who informed him that his destiny would be to

protect Lady Hinata

[35]

, "To serve and shield the main branch… and never

disobey them and to eternally protect the Byakugan, the bloodline trait of

the Hyūga clan”

[36]

. But then the incident occurred, in which his father was

murdered by the main branch. He believes it was done in order to spare the

village from war, and recounts the story of the Cloud ninja coming into the

village to sign a peace agreement. Every clan was there, except one. The

Hyūga didn’t attend because it was Lady Hinata’s third birthday

[37]

. To really

get across how massive a sucker punch this is, the Hyūga chose their own

daughter’s birthday over the celebration of peace for both villages, implying

that their daughter’s happiness is worth more than the treaty itself and the

lives of those lost in war.

Naruto listens to his entire story and never interrupts him, trying to take in

this wealth of history alongside Neji’s own troubles. He asks questions that

seem to come from the heart and shares his frustration

[38]

. I’m sure this

attentiveness was in part due to his own childhood of just wanting

someone to listen to him, and he doesn’t allow his previous bouts of anger

and annoyance at Neji get in the way of empathising with him.

This kind of approach seems inspired by the methods of renowned

American psychologist Carl Rogers, whose psychotherapeutic advice was

centred on providing relationships with his clients that could give them the

capacity for personal development to occur

[39]

. Naruto doesn’t politely say

“Oh, how terrible” to try and cover his discomfort, but actually repeats back

what he hears

[40]

, and even pokes and prods when he feels that Neji makes

bizarre conclusions

[41]

. As Rogers mentions, the more genuine he can be in

the relationship that he cultivates, the more fruitful it will be. But this

involves having to be aware of one’s own feelings so that you can escape the

presentation of a facade and voice your own thoughts

[42]

. He explicitly uses

the word reality when talking about where he wants to steer the

conversation, and says establishing that is a necessary ﬁrst condition to

getting better. How many times have we seen Neji say “this is reality”

[43]

something to that eect, since he’s not only trying to serve his clan but

resolve the tension in his heart. He assures all his opponents that he’s got it

all ﬁgured out, but I think even his eyes have missed something.

He has always seen the power that someone has as being directly correlated

to their blood, their tutors, their village. But whilst that makes someone

strong, it doesn’t answer why they want to become strong in the ﬁrst place.

Haku had incredible genetic gifts, a master tutor in Zabuza but only by

having love as the kindling to become a Shinobi did it materialise. It is a

force that keeps cropping up in both the ﬁrst series and Shippuden, so

forgive me for bouncing around a little bit. For Lee, his goal of being a

splendid ninja using just Taijutsu is exempliﬁed in Guy at the end of the

series, and do we remember what the self-rule was for opening the Eighth

Gate? “To protect something precious enough to give your life for”

[44]

. Neji’s

father sacriﬁced himself for this very reason, for the love he had for his

family, not out of a compulsion of his or out of the duty beﬁtting a branch

member.

After the match, his uncle walks in thinking it’s ﬁnally the right time to tell

Neji about that day

[45]

. He stresses that he was fully prepared to die in order

to stop another potential war, but one of the elders said Hizashi’s body

should be used as the sacriﬁce, as “that is why we have the cadet branch”

[46]

which was a retort from his father! He says that one must possess a heart of

iron as it comes with the responsibilities of being the head of the

household, but I don’t remember treating people as tools as part of the job

description. It also presumes Hizashi couldn’t understand what’s going on,

but he’d already made up his mind, because he ﬁnally gets to leave this

insane tradition behind. He knows had he been spared, it wouldn’t have

been because he was precious, but merely because a dierent solution had

been selected.

Ordinarily, a branch family member is only loved on the condition they are

obedient, silent and expedient, and the elders would be right to suspect that

people would abdicate if allowed free reign, because they are blind to the

true binding agent. “Please convey to Neji [...] that I freely chose to die… in

order to protect Neji, my siblings, the clan and the entire village”

[47]

. For

Gaara, when he could understand love, he could comprehend being one

with the Sand and take on the responsibility of being its Kazekage. Once

Neji had understood the priority it played, he would no longer hold hatred

in his heart, and in the end the distinction between head and branch had

ceased

[48]

With everything that has happened, his uncle relays his father’s wishes not

as the head of the main branch, but as Hizashi’s older brother. Now it seems

that long-standing scars may ﬁnally come to heal: "Father … I still can’t be

entirely certain whether people’s fates simply coast along like the clouds in

the sky or if each person can choose his own path to follow. But when you

decide to follow your own path, you can strive to achieve your own dreams.

And in my match today, I ﬁnally learned that people with dreams are the

ones who are truly strong. To become stronger right now, I want to

become so strong I will never lose to anyone again. Father… there are so

many birds in the sky today …ﬂying free”

[49]

Hypocrisy at work?

This ﬁght had a sizable number of people dislike the message at the end of

this match, despite resonating with Naruto’s philosophy in previous arcs.

One reason being is that he used the Nine-Tails, a power which he cannot

change, to achieve victory whilst lecturing on “this destiny stu”. In

fairness, Naruto doesn’t challenge his points about Hokage, or of people

being born with things they cannot control, he has a much larger problem

with the conclusions that Neji draws on himself and inﬂicts on others.

Moreover, what seems to happen during their penultimate strike is that

their innate gifts cancel each other out, with the only thing that sets them

apart being that one chooses to believe it is foretold, standing

magnanimously, whilst the other starts digging hoping he can win. That is

the conviction that saw him edge past Neji. The reason he doesn’t feel

empowered to do the same is because Neji’s accomplishments are always

clouded by the dominion of the main household, as a victory doesn’t feel

great when it’s hard to believe it’s yours. Nevertheless, the two of them

stand as an admixture of other people’s decisions and their own agency.

Naruto doesn’t represent freedom in its entirety, and neither does Neji for

fate, but viewers hope that this ﬁght will have all the answers in regards to

these categories, when the entire series is an answer to our struggling

protagonists.

The accusations of hypocrisy seem to mount against Naruto when he enters

Shippuden, as now he has been labelled the reincarnation of Ashura. His

interaction with the divine is presumed to exempt him from the problems

which plague ordinary people, and him and Sasuke being “the children of

destiny” seems to extol Neji’s language as fundamental. What this had

attempted to show was that no matter the degree to which your past has

been preordained, you can still make meaningful changes to your life by

using what freedom you have. The Path is narrow but never closed.

Additionally, the fact he is a reincarnate is separate from Hagoromo’s

bestowal of power, as all the term refers to is the perennial ﬁght between

darkness and light, negation and union and so forth. Naruto was the ﬁrst

Shinobi to ever resolve it because he accepted his destiny as not being solely

Ashura’s

[50]

, and worked to understand Sasuke, with his words becoming a

way of breaking that curse.

Sasuke vs Gaara, then Naruto vs

Gaara

The ﬁght we and the spectators were being teased with for so long has

begun! What I noticed initially was that Gaara had to wait an equally long

amount of time just as he did in the preliminaries, and the fact there was a

high chance he wouldn't even get to ﬁght Sasuke should've made him more

erratic then before. But here he was calm, patient and unwavering in his

assurance that Sasuke would show up

[1]

. Why? He said it himself, they're

made of the same darkness and the same need to prove themselves.

Their brief encounter in the mountains conﬁrmed this, as he wasn't

checking Sasuke to gain some kind of competitive advantage, he wanted to

see if he was a man looking to ﬁnd and arm his purpose: "What is your

motive? Why do you seek strength?"

[2]

. Sasuke tries to rebu him and keep

up the mysterious tough-guy persona, but their stare down reveals

everything he wanted to know: "You’ve got eyes just like mine. Eyes full

and spilling over with hatred and intent to kill… you’re like me”

[3]

. Gaara

goes on to say he recognises the loneliness in Sasuke’s eyes as they have a

vengeance in them to see all who caused him pain to die - it cuts to Itachi

and he’s surprised Gaara could know all this.

Kakashi however isn’t as impressed: “I don’t know how you think you

know all about Sasuke, but you shouldn’t talk like you’ve seen him through

entirely”

[4]

. I don’t know whether Kakashi is truly ignorant of his nature or

presumes Sasuke knows better, but every single one of Gaara’s comments

are on point both for the ﬁrst season and Shippuden, as ideologically they’re

in the same position just at dierent times. "A battle is a gamble, where one

pits one’s existence against another’s [...] where only the victor gets to

savour the worth of his existence. Uchiha. I know, you actually desire it too

… deep inside your heart, you want to conﬁrm the worth of your existence.

You’re wondering ‘Am I really as strong as I thought’?”

[5]

. It reminds me of

when Sasuke was standing in line at the Chuunin preliminaries when he

said he couldn’t care less about passing, what matters is whether he can beat

the strongest.

This section will mark a change in Sasuke’s relationship to evil, as he’ll be

facing its incarnation head on in a moment. He is only just beginning to

rely solely on hatred to kill; he has actually used the bonds he has with

friends and teammates to spur him to act, like when he threw himself in

front of Naruto to stop Haku's needles or when he defended Sakura in the

Forest of Death.

Our resolute psychopath steps onto the stage ready to kill, but the theatrical

performance is beginning to get unstable - "Please … don’t be so angry ...

mother"

[6]

. The reason this outburst emerges is because he had failed to

oer a sacriﬁce in the last ritual, the "addiction" for taking the lives of

others is seen as an oering much like the Aztecs used to sacriﬁce people,

sometimes in their thousands, to please their Gods. He has been outside of

his mother's protection and feels her value since being vulnerable in her

absence. If he doesn’t sacriﬁce someone soon, will his mother cease to

protect him? This is why this oering is all the more important, as he

doesn’t believe in the unconditional love of his mother just yet - he believes

it exists only on a sacriﬁcial basis. In truth, he made an oering when those

two guys approached him in the tunnel to the arena, but this sacriﬁce was

oering “bad blood”

[7]

as he later says himself. It looks now to be an act of

desperation rather than one of revelling in murder.

Someone that doesn’t see Gaara’s weakness however, is Naruto. When he

listened to him at the hospital, the talk of “my purpose lies in the killing of

others” caused him to truly believe that Gaara was an entity that existed

purely for his own beneﬁt. Because Naruto believes Kurama’s strength is his

own, he presumes that the demon of Shukaku is wielded by Gaara’s Will

also; moreover, he strongly believes in the power of one’s mindset so seeing

this conviction resonated with him, as by his own criteria this must equate

to serious power. He didn’t believe in the strength of Neji and other

opponents as they gave o the impression that their philosophy and actions

diered - hence why he cheered for Hinata. Here however he is terriﬁed for

Sasuke and actually wants the match to get called o: “He’s completely

dierent from the rest of us! He’s not normal!”

[8]

But Sasuke doesn’t intend to make this a dog-ﬁght, as he’s been thoroughly

briefed on the demon’s abilities based on what Kakashi saw against Lee.

The speed that Sasuke employs is practically equal to his and we move past

the sand-armour stage toward the next level of defence: a completely

encompassing sand sphere that reacts to any assault autonomously; because

it’s from all sides Gaara doesn't have to concern himself with watching the

match and can safely perform his ritual of pulling the Shukaku into form.

Many people note that the ﬁght between him and Sasuke isn’t as explosive

and ﬂashy as the one versus Lee but this is because of their relative styles.

Sasuke has the Chidori which is a calculated, precise jab compared to Lee’s

explosive, high-pace Taijutsu. Also, as soon as Gaara noted he was fast “just

like that other one”

[9]

he didn’t want to get smashed in mid-air again so

opted for the absolute defence. Lastly, he isn’t in the mental state to risk

another close-combat ﬁght so withdraws quickly. One of the axioms that

deﬁnes his mental stability is being able to use the Shukaku as a means of

killing people when he consciously cannot - he doesn't care if he falls asleep

as long as those sacriﬁces go to his mother, fulﬁlling his purpose in one way

or another. He freely succumbs to the powers that be which is interesting as

he said in the hospital "my existence lies in the killing of others'' but really

we know that he is willing to dissolve himself if it means victory, until he is

just the demon in the end

[10]

. Gaara as we come to know had many painful

experiences as a child and the more he interacts with people, as the

Chuunin exams naturally progress, the more he will be reliving those

moments. For all these reasons, he goes for the transformation much earlier

than anticipated which goes against the Sand's plan of a coordinated

ambush against the Leaf.

This moment is also a perfect time for Sasuke to prepare his new technique

as well, and boy does it pack a punch, literally. He ducks and dives, swerving

through all the defences and breaks right through the psyche causing the

ﬁrst bloodshed that Gaara has experienced. I wouldn't say the ﬁrst injury as

Gaara got beaten up against Lee, but here this illusive substance called

blood that he could never quite understand has spilled out. His body has

never really been injured and I'm sure the body's response is poor,

hyperactive as it's working to ﬁnd out what the hell happened.

Gaara gets carried out of the arena by Temari but as soon as he wakes up he

hits her to one side knocking her out: "Just hurry up and get out of here!

You’re in the way"

[11]

. This uncompromising self-interest is how Sasuke

would think coming into Shippuden around the time he ﬁghts Danzo and

kills him, sacriﬁcing his own team members to arm his purpose. "You

who are strong … who are called Uchiha … who have friends… and have a

purpose just like me. By killing you I’ll erase all of that and then I will truly

exist and I can feel alive!"

[12]

. Sounds tough, but this is actually the more

desperate purpose.

I look at Gaara’s metamorphoses as a caustic and painful one as whenever it

intensiﬁes he struggles to stay awake like it wants to dominate his entire

mind, lurching forth and manifesting across his right-side. Already he's

superhuman with insane speed, strength, resilience and Sasuke is starting to

feel the pressure. Maybe this is the way forward. But what he isn't seeing is

each moment Gaara's sanity wanes with heavy ﬂashbacks.

He begins to taunt Sasuke, mocking him for being scared: “Well, what’s the

matter ?! Are you afraid of me? Have both your hatred and intent to kill

wavered because of your fear? Is this the pitiful extent of your

existence?”

[13]

. Itachi probably would’ve thought this was great for Sasuke

seeing as he wanted him to maximise this power, and speaking of which,

his image ﬂoats up and ignites his own trauma: “I was left alive …

intentionally, all by myself … For what reason? No, I know the reason. He

left me alive so he wouldn’t be tormented by the guilt of annihilating the

entire clan. Itachi chose me as his avenger, as the one who will eventually

destroy him!”

[14]

. They enter a cycle whereby Sasuke gets taunted and loads

up the Chidori, Gaara revels in having been stung and eggs him on again

like a true masochist.

He grows another “sand limb” and ups the speed and ferocity of his attacks,

smashing Sasuke into a tree. "Your hatred will never match mine, do you

understand me"

[15]

. Loneliness isn’t the only reason he talks like this, as he

was abandoned, threatened with death and had every thread of love ripped

away from him; thus he berates people that can live their life without the

barrage of threats against it. They don’t respect the miracle of existence

enough as they have never had to justify it. He hates their naivety and has

built up a vengeance against all the people that bludgeoned him with

solitude, giving him the intent to kill. He explains that by making this his

existence, in any battle to the death he will overcome his opponent for he is

that very incarnation. It mirrors what Sasuke felt when he used the curse

mark for the ﬁrst time. To keep pace, he lets himself use it so he has the

chakra necessary to ﬁre o a third Chidori, but that same senjutsu chakra is

the only thing keeping him alive now, so he can't recede the mark

otherwise he'll die. He too is becoming dependent on hate.

My demon would kick your demon’s ass!

Naruto and Sakura fortuitously jump in and Sakura immediately notices the

curse mark: “I thought Kakashi sensei said this was nothing to worry

about”

[16]

. He’s trying to have the best of both worlds by using the curse

mark and having Kakashi’s tutelage, sticking with the Leaf and Team 7

whilst also plotting revenge against Itachi. Soon an ultimatum will be

forced upon him and he’ll scrap all these dicult “tightrope” social

relations. Kakashi said he wouldn’t train him if he used the curse mark in

battle and that “you’ll never beat Itachi”

[17]

ﬁghting this way. In truth, after

the Chidori and the basics of the Sharingan have been taught, Orochimaru

stands to teach him more.

Naruto freezes at the sight of Gaara again and cannot take over the role of

avenger so smoothly: “Let’s run … C’mon!”

[18]

. Speaking of that arc, when

Sasuke saw Orochimaru he lost his wits and didn’t notice the massive snake

right behind him, likewise here Naruto doesn’t even notice Gaara charging

for his comrades; interestingly enough Sakura is the only one who can

stand boldly to defend him, which invokes the concept of "being precious"

once again… time for another ﬂashback!

We revert to when he was very young, sitting on the swing near some kids

playing football. He saw one of them boot it up on the mountainside and

kindly used the sand to help it down. The problem is, Gaara is so crippled

with loneliness that he has become hypersensitive to any form of

interaction and sees this as his chance to ﬁnally meet someone; we would

usually just pass the ball back to them as it’s not ours to continue the game,

the act remains in the land of gesture where it should be and the interaction

is over. But Gaara wanted this moment to be special, he doesn’t have a

constant stream of interactions which numb him enough to understand the

laws of sociability. He holds onto the ball for too long as if he owns it,

confusing the kids who think of him as the monster which has now claimed

ownership of their ball. Gaara needs to recognise his initial position as an

outsider and until he can at least give the illusion that he is sociable, he will

continue to make those sorts of blunders. He doesn’t know how he portrays

himself to others, or what images he invokes, because nobody speaks to

him. Things begin to break down and the kids try to run. Knowing how

close he was breaks his heart and he ignores all the rules and grabs them

with his sand. To the child this is the touch of the monster and each

interaction like this is training them to be scared of him. It takes his

guardian Yashamaru to break it up, “Lord Gaara please calm yourself”

[19]

which means this isn’t play, this is scaring those kids.

After injuring Yashamaru, they arrive back home where Gaara is trying to

stab himself in the hand to understand what pain feels like, not just for his

own awareness but to try and relate to people. "Yashamaru, what does it

mean to be hurt?"

[20]

. Whilst he may accrue anecdotes, information and

perspectives, I could try telling a blind person exactly how the eye takes

light, how it gets interpreted by the visual cortex to build a picture of

various hues etc - but that goes none of the way in explaining how that

person would feel when they see colour for the ﬁrst time. Philosophical

indeed, and there is the case for such things never being able to substitute

for qualia, which is the phenomenon felt by oneself coinciding with any

particular event. Yashamaru describes pain as deeply uncomfortable which

one should try to avoid, and this deﬁnition actually helps as he realises the

feeling in his heart can be considered pain. Maybe he can relate to people!

Naturally the second question arises: how do I get rid of it? Yashamaru

describes the dierence between an ordinary injury, where blood and

immune cells rush to the scene and start doing their work, with a wound to

the heart. In this case, “It’s a bothersome cure… for you can only receive it

from another”

[21]

: love is bestowed upon us by those who desire to care for

and protect us. It’s an interesting deﬁnition as it says love is passed to us

through this eort, but who knows whether the person themself (the

sender) feels love. It seems it’s the only emotion that we have to at least

pretend to embody when giving to another person. Love that cannot be

reciprocated or understood can be irksome and Gaara has never met his

mother, so he is subject to a constant love he ﬁnds hard to channel back.

This is also why Yashamaru’s answer about him already receiving love

doesn’t ﬁx him, as he wants someone with whom he can forge a friendship

with and establish interpersonal ties. He only regresses to worshipping his

mother the way he does due to the combination of loneliness and the fact

she is the last person with any concern for him.

Another question… “Yashamaru, do you … hate me?”

[22]

. Do you wish to

ostracise me as well? Anyone he has ever inﬂicted pain upon seems to run

away, so he presumes it’ll be the same with his guardian too, but Yashamaru

responds with something uplifting: “Humans live their lives hurting others

and being hurt in return. But even despite all that, people still love more

than they hate”

[23]

. These answers inspire Gaara to try one more time in

helping other people in the village and he rushes to one of the kid’s houses

to donate some ointment. He’s promptly told to go away and called a freak

as the door closes.

I don’t think Naruto has ever tried this sort of thing, he just went about his

own antics and training, but I think that’s because he had a much stronger

seal put in place and never had to contend with Kurama at all; on the other

hand, Gaara had such a weak seal to the point where he couldn’t sleep as his

psyche was being berated down every day. He isn’t born a bad person, but

after killing someone you have to work much harder to win back the trust

of the village. In the very ﬁrst chapter Naruto was gratiing the faces of the

Hokage, which can be literally and metaphorically washed away but the loss

of a life will persist.

Met with yet another rejection, Gaara sits on the rooftop and wonders

what it is he must do, if acceptance is even possible, and in his weakest

moment he gets attacked. If there was any hope of him calming down and

trying again that’s out the window. He quickly kills the assailant only to ﬁnd

out that it was his last ray of sunshine, dropping down from the heavens to

smite him. Instead of telling him honestly what his reasons were,

Yashamaru callously drip-feeds Gaara the answer and twists his soul at

every possible turn for maximum hurt

[24]

. He wants to crush this already

cracked heart into dust.

Biblical trauma

This point in Gaara’s life is very reminiscent of the story of Cain and Abel,

who are the children of Adam and Eve as described in the Old Testament.

They are the ﬁrst people who have to work to survive, in addition to

providing sacriﬁces to God. The Bible remarks of Cain’s sacriﬁce that it was

an oering of “the fruit of the ground”

[25]

, but this makes no sense. There

are no fruits of the ground, only vegetables. It speaks to the mind of

someone in two places.

The oerings we make will reﬂect the person that makes them, with Abel

the Shepherd giving his healthiest, well-fed lamb to God. Such a thing is

the crown-jewel of his labour, which signiﬁes his oering as his Being to

The Lord, which is the only type of sacriﬁce we can make if we sincerely

oer love. The passage emphasises the nature of Abel’s sacriﬁces which

leads us to think Cain must’ve kept the best results for himself.

For whatever reason, Cain refrained from being the equally symbolic

representative of the Farmer, but became angry for being ignored. God is

the highest Good, and so demands an equal sacriﬁce, yet Cain’s highest

good is himself. It’s for this reason that God warns him, “sin is lurking at

the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it”

[26]

. Use of hate leads

to death and misfortune, to which Cain takes it and murders Abel,

becoming the ﬁrst murderer in the Bible. “And now you are cursed from

the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood

from your hand”

[27]

. The ground resembles Gaara’s sand, for the spirit of his

mother is constantly fed the blood of his victims, whereby the phrase

“Mother Earth” springs to mind.

Cain, like Gaara, has allowed the Will to Murder to take over, and whilst

the former received a mark from God - to prevent others from killing him

in turn - the latter was marked by himself with the character for love. It

seems that God still loved Cain and that’s why he marked him instead of

allowing him to be killed, but nobody loved Gaara and so the mark comes

from the love he’s bestowed himself. This is the crucial bifurcation of the

two stories, as one is rejected on the basis that their character could

improve, whereas the other is rejected on the basis that it can’t.

Poor Gaara made an oering to the child he attacked earlier and was

rejected, which pierces down to his very being as inadequate. His sacriﬁce

was appropriate, for healing ordinary wounds, but how to ﬁx a wounded

heart? How did Naruto confront all that Pain?

There is another biblical story that is arguably more important here, which

is the one of Job. A tale of one man who was well liked, had many friends, a

family and enough wealth to live well. In the Ketuvim Hebrew Bible where

this story originates, God points him out to "Hassatan"('the Satan') as an

exemplary man, but the devil is not convinced as he doesn't believe in

genuine human piety

[28]

. It is here that God permits Satan to test Job and

take away his wealth, kill his children, cripple him with disease and see

whether he will curse God and turn his back on faith. This is in equal

measure what Rasa wanted to test in Gaara and issues the same ultimatum:

“I have placed value on many things. But his worth, I have not yet decided.

Tell him about his mother. Test him emotionally. If he doesn’t go berserk, I

won’t kill him [...] He can’t be jinchuriki if he can’t maintain calm under

emotional duress”

[29]

. But this test of character had started before Gaara had

felt love, had friends and with no prior reference that benevolence exists, it

will invariably make things worse as he admits when he was revived:

“Everything I did was a mistake. I burdened you unnecessarily. I felt that

you had no value [...] I destroyed your ability to love or even know of

others [...] in the end, I only gave you one thing. I gave you a broken

heart”

[30]

. Kishimoto doesn’t allow the buildup of understanding to be

introduced to combat the ceaseless and unnecessary suering, but takes

every possible scenario to its worst case to see whether there is any

mechanism which can pull someone out of that Hell.

In time he managed to ﬁnd some peace as he forged this idea of “Gaara” the

self-referential, self-concerned demon and his ﬂashback ends unlike all the

others as he comes out of it arming his purpose and being sure of himself.

Naruto is also piecing together his own resolve and comes up with a plan.

He uses his clones to smash the sand armour at the base of the tail, which is

a good trick, but Sasuke wants to take back control of the match: “Rescue

Sakura, no matter what! I trust you to be able to do it and then once you

free her, take her and get the heck out of here. Even in this state I can at

least delay him a little. I’ve already lost everything once before … I don’t

ever want to watch my precious comrades die in front of me again”

[31]

Naruto has just been acknowledged, and we see Sasuke’s priorities. He will

push himself even when he has nothing, echoing Kakashi’s sentiment: “I

won’t allow my comrades to die, that is absolute”. Naruto has come to

understand his opponent, but it wasn’t until Sasuke voluntarily sacriﬁced

himself that he truly sees why his friends make him strong. Sasuke has

nothing left to give and yet he gives everything, even his life.

Coincidentally this is another quote that gets used to describe love - “Love

has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you

are expecting to give - which is everything”

[32]

. Naruto sees how people

become truly strong, and he thought Gaara possessed strength because he

didn’t rely on anyone else, now he sees that is his weakness.

Emotionally charged, he releases a massive amount of chakra - Sasuke was

just planning to act as a shield, but now he sees what reserves Naruto had

and I think he questions how strong he really is, “This is Naruto?!”

[33]

During the ﬁght, Sasuke was calculated and precise as he combined the

Sharingan and the Chidori whilst avoiding being hit himself and this sort

of tactical ability and combative prowess is exactly what will beat Itachi -

not continuous, animalistic bursts of force like the current Gaara is doing.

But since he pretty much battered him to his wits end, Sasuke probably had

it ingrained in him that this was the stronger method. He said during their

ﬁght "his strength is o the charts” and noticed his speed was approaching

his own.

It’s funny as you’d think he’d understand why this route must be rejected,

especially with Naruto speaking of all its ﬂaws

[34]

, yet Sasuke still couldn't

accept it, because of something that I will always accuse Naruto of doing:

the use of inexplicable, almost magical abilities that renders all other people

stupeﬁed. His friend cannot fathom how some knuckle-head whom he was

greatly superior to has come to take the role of the avenger. Besides, it was

Gaara who truly spoke to him up on the mountains and pierced into his

psyche, with notions of hate that have been infused since the massacre

[35]

Gaara can’t understand how the tables have turned either: “What is he… All

of a sudden. I will not lose to someone like you!”

[36]

. His existence is

threatened and so it’s time to “show you the true strength of the sand

spirit”

[37]

. The battle enters a completely dierent scale to what we’ve seen

previously, with two towering goliaths changing the landscape around

them.

To undo the jutsu Gaara used will require waking him up and Naruto aims

to be that alarm clock, if he can just get a good position. Gamabunta needs

claws if he’s ever to hold on long enough for Naruto to punch him. This is

where he takes the image of the beast he saw deep within his psyche and

channels it. Using the Nine-Tails to his advantage is a big improvement and

little by little his understanding of him grows. First he learns about the

physiology, then the Fox’s personality and so on. Each of these single

relations have to be waded through before we can understand another on a

self-to-self basis. At some point there will emerge the understanding of

who Kurama is, but for now Naruto is taking aspects of him into battle.

Fox vs Tanuki!

I have covered the joint hatred that Tanuki and Kitsune faced from the

backlash of a folklore which expressed them as the cause of disease,

possession, seduction, but there is a fair amount of ﬁghting that goes on

between the two of them as well. The most famous example would

probably be the tale of Danzaburō-danuki, a shapeshifting-tanuki

(bakedanuki) who lived on Sado island and brought tanuki pups there to

live away from kitsune and dogs. A few times foxes would attempt to make

it on the island, but they would be out-smarted

[38]

. Slightly closer to the

battle we have here is the ﬁght between the Flying-Dragon Tanuki vs

Nine-Tailed White Fox

[39]

which was a Kami-Shibai(Paper-play) production

which ran for 21-instalments. Our two representative ﬁghters are

continuing in lockstep with their lore, with Naruto using transformation

magic - keeping up with the Tanuki this time - and Shukaku ﬁring

wind-style bombs at Gamabunta by patting his belly, which is a nod to the

belly-drumming of the Tanuki

[40]

Why is he so strong?

They are both totally exhausted, and they crash into the trees as their

avatars dispel. Gaara gave everything he had in this ﬁght, not even his sand

is here to protect him now, and he has to throw his ﬁrst punch.

As Naruto drags his body closer to him, Gaara barks at him to stay away. He

became the demon despite wanting to avoid it, and now he’s showing the

same reluctance and fear that was conferred upon him. “I won’t cease to

exist… I won’t!!”

[41]

. The way he says it, it's as if he doesn’t care about killing

but prioritises existing. The episode cuts back to the ﬁght between

Orochimaru and the Third Hokage and it illustrates the message that Gaara

realises: that although Hiruzen is about to die, he won’t cease to exist, he is

loved dearly by the people of his village and will be remembered in their

hearts and minds. He sacriﬁced himself for the budding ﬂowers of the Leaf,

and they kept him ﬁghting long after ordinary Shinobi would’ve exhausted

themselves. Naruto was able to endure by holding onto love as well, but

now that he’s part of a group he accepts the fact he could kill Gaara if

necessary

[42]

, and the fox’s eye takes the place of his own.

Both of them remember being young and having no answer to the constant

scorn and vitriol that was hurled at them every day, and it was easy for the

villagers to assemble into an unconscious mob exhibiting the worst aspects

of the group. There is a book called Others, which is a collection of short

stories of dierent people reeling from the damage that mobs and groups

can do - centred on race, religion, whichever it may be. There is a chapter

called Original Sin which seems appropriate, and designates it as the

monkey-minded instinct to feel threatened when the group identity is

threatened, go on the attack when the group does and so on. The reason

such tribalism is a problem is due to it being the progenitor of all

large-scale conﬂicts

[43]

; however, there is a degree of respite, as the author

speaks to the eect that shared stories are like prayer

[44]

because they open

up one’s perspectives to all sides, but we could argue the same can be said

for impassioned dialogue.

It’s fair to say Gaara has stopped believing, but Naruto wants to show him

that someone with a similar upbringing can change, and oers his

friendship. Gaara is appalled and demands an answer for love, and why he

should care about others

[45]

; the thought of being given unconditional love is

unbearable for someone self-critical as there has to be a reason. In time he

will come to truly understand and accept his mother Karura’s love, and

Naruto says he couldn’t live without his friends for how much they’ve

helped him, as they help channel the emotions that he would’ve had to hold

onto himself

[46]

. Gaara begins to see what Yashamaru meant, to which his

previous image is completely negated. By seeing a thought die which

should’ve taken you with it also rearms his approach to all future insights:

that he won’t fade away. By killing others he perpetuated his own

emptiness, by being full of himself. Love makes no such compromise. His

heart was ﬁlled when he recognised Naruto as someone just like him,

whilst also being an “Other” outside of himself.

Sannin Showdown

Pretty much as soon as Gaara gets the boot, Naruto is on the road looking

to do some training whilst Jiraiya ﬁnds Tsunade. Meanwhile, Sasuke walks

in on a comatose Kakashi and demands to know who put him in such a

state, just as Aoba swings by and blurts out that Itachi is in the village

looking for Naruto

[1]

. Oopsie. His life’s mission has just come strolling in

and he has the chance to not only kill him but restore his role as protector

and avenger of the Uchiha; but there’s also the very real feeling that he has

to look after his comrade: “If he gets ahold of him… Naruto’s ﬁnished!! I

won’t let that happen!”

[2]

; when he was running to the hotel he recounted

the day of the massacre, seeing all of his fellow Uchiha dead in the streets,

sprinting to see the same end had befallen his parents. He doesn’t want that

to happen to Naruto, so whilst he knows deep down that he may not be

able to beat his brother, he has to try. The manga does a good job of

weaving this ﬂashback amongst Sasuke’s search, highlighting that day as

sculpting his life all the way up to now.

He manages to ﬁnd Itachi and walks down the corridor with no weapons,

no use of stealth, no smoke bombs and says “I will kill you!!”

[3]

before

charging. It’s reminiscent of a moment in the Chuunin exams where

Kabuto stopped Naruto from opening the scroll prematurely and after some

light conversation Sasuke ﬁnds out he has both a heaven and an earth scroll;

he says "I’ll ﬁght you for it"

[4]

, but Kabuto questioned his reasoning as a real

ninja wouldn’t declare that they’re attacking, as soon as his back was turned

he should’ve struck. This is due to the fact that Sasuke is a man of honour

and wants to beat all his opponents fairly so he can see whether he’s good

enough to do so without any lingering excuses. He does the same with

Itachi and aims to slay him in a glorious, righteous fashion after what he

said all those years ago about “clinging to life without honour”

[5]

He’s taken back to those days when he was innocent and asked him who

could’ve done such a horrible thing, and Itachi shows him exactly what

happened

[6]

. With Tsukuyomi he can repeat the murder over and over,

until his mind is torn apart, as nobody can stomach the weight of the loss of

their entire clan. Sasuke keeps asking why, but Itachi says it was merely a

test. Obviously with the beneﬁt of hindsight we know that’s farcical but

even so, many people didn’t buy it as an authentic excuse the ﬁrst time they

heard it either. The native Japanese viewers might’ve been able to write it

o under the banner of Tsujigiri

[7]

, which is where a Samurai (in very rare

cases) would test out a new sword on indiscriminate members of the public.

By the time of the Edo government this had been explicitly outlawed with

punishment of death, with only one documented case of mass murder

throughout the period in 1696.

As we would come to know later, Itachi was actually quite pleased to see

Sasuke despite keeping his face hidden beneath his Akatsuki cloak. After all,

the reason he came to the Leaf so quickly after its devastation wasn't

primarily to get the Jinchuriki, but to check up on the village and see

whether Hiruzen had kept up his end of the bargain

[8]

. He planned to leak

all the intelligence he had on the Leaf if Danzo did anything, and his visit

reminded the elders he was alive and well, though that message has trickled

down to his brother who stands before him.

The ﬁght is over before it even started, as his wrist is broken which means

no more hand signs, but he doesn’t want anyone to butt in - this means

everything to him. He is trying to overcome the torture of that day as his

screams of pain as a child have become roars of thunder now

[9]

, but Itachi

knows he doesn’t have enough hate to surpass everything he experienced.

He casts another Tsukuyomi on his brother which was universally derided

as cruel, but I hope you can at least understand the reason behind it. Sasuke

still does not possess the mental ability to break out of the Tsukuyomi, and

it is one of the major hurdles he needs to address before he can truly face

his brother, so essentially it’s the most perverse form of training to

condition him to never waver in his goal for revenge. Seeing that Sasuke

tracked him down the ﬁrst time he raised his head above the parapet shows

an incredibly one-track mind, and with Itachi having such an inﬂuence, he

tries to focus all his hatred on him. The world becomes a rerun of the

murder for twenty-four hours, but mentally this will feel like an eternity;

there is a distressing line in the manga novel Akatsuki Hiden which brieﬂy

comments on the nature of the Tsukuyomi as "it breaks the soul by means

of a genjutsu"

[10]

, so it’s used purely to break any psychic resistance to

accepting his destiny.

This eort to encourage "the demon within" is really just forcing Sasuke to

rely on the curse mark more for future ﬁghts as this is the only source he

can rely on. There's a high chance it'll just be the curse mark devouring his

identity and the darkness won’t make Itachi its sole target. If this is all he is,

what does it spell for everyone else once the goal is complete? Itachi likely

presumed Sasuke would mirror the same martyrdom as he, regressing into

solitude and seclusion after completing his mission; that, or be welcomed

by the village as the hero who slayed the awful genocidal maniac. But all the

expertise he fostered with people like Shisui during his childhood has been

stripped away from Sasuke and replaced with loss, abuse and ostracisation;

additionally, Itachi had the choice and took it upon himself to kill his own

clan whereas Sasuke has been expected to walk this path.

He has come at a time when Sasuke had been questioning who he was the

most and felt the air of superiority slip against Naruto. Watching him face

o against Gaara, he couldn’t believe the meteoric rate of improvement:

“When I watch him up close, I can tell … he’s got some massive power

hidden inside him. Sometimes … I even feel afraid”

[11]

. He tried doing what

his comrade had done countless times, interjecting and saving the day as

the hero, but failed spectacularly: "What have I been doing… all this time?!

What .. in the world…"

[12]

. This is pretty much the last straw, his purpose is

clearly years away from succeeding, drastic action is needed and on top of

that he wasn’t even the main interest, again. If hope comes from

Orochimaru, so be it.

Three-Way Deadlock

Whenever we meet any of the Sannin it’s always in a somewhat immoral

setting: we saw Jiraiya eyeing up women in the bathhouse, Orochimaru was

in the forest biting children and Tsunade was gambling and drinking. After

the attack on the village, the Leaf is in desperate need of a new Hokage and

Jiraiya has promised to ﬁnd Tsunade, otherwise it’ll have to be him.

Sherlock Holmes and Watson stop in a little village to gather what

information they can, which amounts to Jiraiya sitting in a brothel and

Naruto gorging on street food. They end up in a skirmish against what I

choose to believe is the local pimp and the Rasengan is ﬁnally debuted! It’s

an A-rank Ninjutsu which took the Fourth Hokage three years to learn;

however, he was having to ﬁgure out everything himself as he took the idea

from the tailed beast bomb. Jiraiya wants Naruto to undergo the same sort

of discovery process, giving him little hints here and there to speed things

up but not to deprive him of understanding: “You have to master this

exercise on your own. You have the potential to achieve the level of the

fourth hokage … So go for it”

[13]

. He spends the next couple weeks, day and

night, trying through sheer brute-force to progress through each stage.

Meanwhile, the “Legendary loser”(manga nickname) has probably the

greatest run of her life, the best one we ever see anyway. “I can’t believe I

got a line of sevens. This just doesn’t feel right…”

[14]

. She feels like there’s an

ominous foreboding as she doesn’t really gamble to win, she gambles for

the thrill and for the fact it stops her mind thinking about the ones she lost

in war. Once they’ve cashed the winnings it’s time to head o… but not

before seeing an old friend.

Snakes crash through the castle, and the withered genius steps down to

greet her. Everything Orochimaru does is masterfully orchestrated to pull

Tsunade into his sphere of inﬂuence: the blunt way he says he murders the

Third Hokage is meant to destabilise and catch her o guard, so that the

second punch - the mention of her lost beloveds - is more emotional. The

pain rises to the surface and when he oers to bring them back to life she is

more likely to accept. Being impulsive and thinking in the short-term as

well, combined with her genuine love and unresolved trauma makes this

oer incredibly tempting. Just to add the sadistic cherry on top, he bites his

ﬁnger until it bleeds to trigger her haemophobia (fear of blood).

She wanders o to a random bar to drink her sorrows away, but

miraculously comes face to face with Jiraiya and Naruto. From being

ensconced in total evil to now having warmer nostalgia of the village, she

gets the news that she has been made Fifth Hokage stacked on top. She

declines for a few reasons: ﬁrst is probably genuine reticence to assume

such a responsibility, even though she may love the village just as Jiraiya

does; and second is the possibility that she mulls over Orochimaru’s oer

and needs to accept the village’s fate if it means she gets Don and Nawaki

back.

“The title of Hokage’s a joke. Only a fool would take it”

[15]

. In the anime

they’re seen playing some kind of poker spino and they have ﬁve cards

each. She drops the hand as it was about to be a royal ﬂush, but she doesn’t

have the King. Forgive me for possibly reading into the moment too much,

but the reason the King isn’t there may be because of what Asuma said

regarding Shogi pieces: the King isn’t really the most important, it’s the

combined eorts of the Rooks and Knights, the Bishops and Pawns and so

on that ﬁght for those who shall carry Konoha on their shoulders. The

King may not be present in her hand because she isn’t ﬁt to be leader,

seeing that she scos at the sacriﬁces of the Fourth, “Sacriﬁcing his life for

the sake of the village … Life is not like money. To risk and throw it away so

easily, is a fool’s errand”

[16]

. She mocks the Third for trying to be a hero at

his ripe old age, choosing to ignore his eorts as the village is “no safer than

it ever was”

[17]

She jabs at a village that took her two sources of happiness, so why would

she be Hokage? Maybe if the village dissolves it would be a kind of

liberation, as nobody else has to sacriﬁce their beloveds either. But this

darn kid seems to be quite touchy about mocking her predecessors. The

short-tempered pair head outside and the ﬁght goes about as well as you’d

expect for Naruto. She enquires about his fascination and he manages to

quip the exact line that Don and Nawaki used: “To be Hokage is my

dream”

[18]

. Even if the subsequent bet wasn’t arranged I don’t think Tsunade

would’ve healed Orochimaru’s arms as the child resembles the continuation

of their ambition, the dream which she longed to strive for too

[19]

. This is

why she bets the symbol of the village on Naruto: if he can complete the

Rasengan in a week then she can see there is still a reason to sacriﬁce what

you have for what you dream. Both the bet and Orochimaru’s oer are to

have their ultimatum in a week’s time, so she can see which force to believe

in.

Seven days later, Naruto has made little progress. He collapses out in the

forest to which Shizune carries him back to the hotel where Tsunade is to

have him checked. She guesses that “he won’t wake up until the day after

tomorrow”

[20]

, which is her way of saying the bet is already over, dreams

don’t come true and she is siding with Orochimaru. In truth, she has

thought over the conditions and doesn’t want the village to die, but she also

suspects he won’t be truthful about refraining from attacking the village

either, so the counter-oer is o too. In this resolve she realises she will

protect the village by killing Orochimaru once and for all. She unleashes her

monster strength and keeps Kabuto on his toes, but just as he gains the

upper hand Jiraiya, Naruto and Shizune jump in. It goes right down to the

wire where Naruto is in a life or death situation, with one leg fractured he

can’t run at him with the Rasengan. Kabuto makes one last charge to ﬁnish

it, when Naruto allows the Kunai to pierce through his hand so he can hold

onto him and with his clone, he generates the necessary power to ﬁnally

land the Rasengan

[21]

But his death isn’t out of the question. Kabuto severed the chakra network

in his heart so he couldn’t receive any help from the Fox, but this time

Tsunade is able to heal Naruto as the cycles of losing those with the dream

of being Hokage seems to end. She passes him the necklace, stating that he

will be the one that symbolises the village from now on. And so, in

protecting the village she will do everything she can to protect him. Asuma

would be proud.

The reason Naruto survives with the necklace, and the fact he lives in

general, is because he embodies the Village Identity - the hopes and dreams,

the universal challenges and triumphs that attest to village life, similar to

how Hinata was named to symbolise her clan. Tsunade hands the necklace

over to the village itself and in doing so performs an identity operation,

saying the village stays true to itself by having Naruto at its helm. At the

realisation that he is saved, her fear of blood also vanishes. She steps into

the present as someone reborn, ready to assume the role of Hokage.

100

History repeats itself

The rest of the Sannin summon their signature beasts and this is where I

shall hop into the main mythological reference of this section. There is a

Japanese novel called Katakiuchi Kidan Jiraiya Monogatari, or The tale of

Jiraiya the gallant, which was released in 43 instalments over a period of

almost 30 years, detailing the journey of the Toad Mountain sage. As you

can imagine there’s quite a lot to parse through, with many dierent

interpretations, but there is one story that covers the battle between Jiraiya,

Tsunade and Orochimaru, and thus of frog, slug and snake magic

[22]

The story starts with Jiraiya who, through loss and hardship, became the

head of a band of robbers. One day he tried to rob the home of a young

woman but just as he was about to slice her she transformed into an old

man, a sage called Senso Dojin who pardons him and teaches him toad

magic. He goes on to have a Robin Hood/vigilante personality, stealing

from the rich to give to the poor and defending the honest and true.

Around the same time, a young maiden called Tsunade was being tutored

by an old man in the mountains in the art of slug magic. She knew that if

she paired with another who knew the art of the toads they could overcome

the robber Orochimaru, who was half-man half-serpent. There are

variations to the origins of Orochimaru with some saying he was actually a

follower of Jiraiya in the same hoard of bandits, with his original name

being Yashagoro

[23]

- until a snake put a spell on him and bestowed great

powers, whereby he changed his name.

The story continues with the outbreak of war, where Orochimaru manages

to poison the two of them whilst they rested from battle in a monastery.

The only known cure is far away on the mountains in India, luckily a

student of theirs can ﬂy and get the elixir, delivering the antidote just in

time. Jumping back into Naruto, it is Tsunade who deals the ﬁnishing blows

101

- the ﬁrst on Manda, driving the sword through the snake’s mouth, and the

second is the knockout punch on Orochimaru, symbolising the superiority

of slug magic over snake.

It also exempliﬁes her act of vanquishing evil to protect the village and to

remove the snake’s inﬂuence from the Garden as it were. In addition to the

story about Jiraiya and Tsunade battling it out with him, there is another

story in the Tale of Jiraiya the Gallant which talks about a giant snake

attacking Echigo province - the land where Jiraiya resides

[24]

. One day, the

lord Gunryô Miyukinosuke, who was Tsukikage - the Moon Shadow of

Echigo - got appointed as Regent of the Shogunate. On his way to take up

oce he was attacked by a giant snake. Luckily, a boy named Orochimaru

managed to slay the creature. The lord was so impressed by the child’s

ability and bravery that he adopted him as his own son and had him by his

side. The only problem was, this was what the snake planned all along and

had the child possessed as his puppet. The lord soon became paranoid that

his other children were planning to overthrow him, and the strategic words

of Orochimaru ensured he was the only successor. In addition, he used the

lord to feed ideas to the Shogunate that other clans were planning to

overthrow the government. It is only because of the combined eorts of

Jiraiya and Tsunade, with the words of Senso Dojin, that manages to rescue

Echigo from his clutches.

Now, why have I told you this story? Well, Kishimoto has incorporated the

dynamics of this folk tale into the idea behind the Konoha Crush arc - the

attack on the Leaf by the Sand and Sound villages. Orochimaru ingratiated

himself with the Kazekage and spoke of the alliance being too favourable

for Konoha and with a bit of his help they could overthrow them. In reality,

Orochimaru acted as the same crafty double-agent that ended up killing the

Kazekage and assuming his position.

102

Sasuke leaves the village

Tsunade makes her way back to the village and Naruto is certain she’ll be

able to ﬁx all the village’s woes, as he’s beaming from the victory against

Kabuto and his mastery of the Rasengan. To top it all o he’s been

bequeathed a jewel worth no less than three mountains - think of the

ramen!

She heals Sasuke and he awakens out of his catatonic state with Sakura

crying tears of relief all over him

[1]

. Lee meanwhile has a much more

saddening prognosis. Tsunade says that despite all his hard work and the

cocktail of medicines he’s been taking there are “numerous bone fragments

lodged deep inside his vital nerves”

[2]

. The surgery would be an incredibly

delicate operation which only she could attempt, with the odds of success

being 50-50 at best, and should it fail… he’ll die

[3]

. It’s best for him to give

up being a Shinobi as even if it works out it might not be sucient to go on

missions. Lee limps out of the waiting room in silence with sweat dripping

down his face, and Guy berates her for telling him all that. She says it’s for

the best, that “whatever his wish may be… it’s better for him to give up

being a Shinobi”

[4]

Tsunade challenged Naruto’s dream of becoming Hokage, betting the

symbol of the village that he couldn’t master the Rasengan, but this time it

isn’t about eort; his life rests solely in her hands and the chances of getting

through are no greater than a coin ﬂip. In the anime there is an additional

meetup between Naruto and Lee which really highlights this crossroads

[5]

“So did Grandma Tsunade check you out already? What did she say?”; he

looks dejected and stares at the ﬂoor to which he carries on: “It’s a good

103

thing she came, because you know the village is in trouble don’t you?!

We’re gonna need every ninja we’ve got”. “Yes … you are right”, he mutters.

“You better get back to full ﬁghting strength as soon as you can”. He’s

usually quite perceptive, but he’s probably still on cloud nine. It’s similar to

when Sakura spoke about Naruto being careless and annoying because he

didn’t have parents - to Sasuke.

Speaking of which, he is still in the hospital replaying Naruto’s match

against Gaara

[6]

. It only angers him more and more, especially with his

second humiliating defeat where he was told the same thing: he doesn’t

have enough hate. He chalks up both of these major losses to that

insuciency, and his last spectacular victory was when he was enveloped in

all that malicious energy, not hobbling away like he did against Yaroi. Since

then it’s been downhill. The tricky thing is that Gaara demands he let go of

the one thing Sasuke wants to hold on to: honour. Gaara would kill anyone

for any reason - if they were annoying that suced. Sasuke cannot function

this way for the sake of his clan’s legacy, but maybe it’s time for a

revaluation. He slaps the plate of apples out of Sakura’s hand and glares at

her, with his stare aligning perfectly with Orochimaru’s as he sits smirking

on his throne

[7]

; he can tell his new disciple is ready! It is now that he sends

the sound ninja four.

Sasuke has the urge to ﬁght Naruto more than ever

[8]

, as he must validate

his existence. In the same way that he has gravitated toward the sleepless

demon, Naruto has been looking a lot like Lee too: he was out in the woods

training every day until he dropped, with his hands burning up from

concentrating so much chakra. It’s reminiscent of when he noticed Lee’s

bruised and beaten hands when the bandages came o during his attempt at

the Lotus, prior to the Chuunin exams

[9]

. His philosophy has resonated with

him, as we also saw his image crop up when Naruto got knocked down

during the Neji match

[10]

. But Naruto doesn’t just work hard on his ninja

104

skills, he puts just as much eort if not more into his comrades, which is

why it’s no surprise that he would accept this challenge so readily. He’s led

up the stairs in silence as they begin their ﬁght on the roof.

“To think… I can ﬁnally beat you!”

[11]

is indeed a very real possibility, and

Sasuke hurls insult after insult to steady himself, talking at crosshairs over

every little thing. Naruto waits for him to put on his headband, but Sasuke

no longer cares for it. Now he hates all this high and mighty talk, the Way

of the Shinobi - it’s all pretentious nonsense!

They don’t speak at all during the match and it escalates quickly with

Naruto unveiling the Rasengan, which if it lands will put Sasuke back in the

hospital for sure. It didn’t seem to be Naruto’s plan to engage in dialogue

during the ﬁght like he always does, going headstrong and matching his

aggressiveness to be the best. Ironically he vacates the meaning of wearing

the Shinobi headband he was so proud of, causing a critical misalignment

between his words and actions. Kakashi rightly noted that he won’t tolerate

Sasuke’s cheap provocations

[12]

, but is he willing to go this far to win? Can

he continue to see Sasuke as both his friend and rival? This dichotomy is

tearing their friendship apart.

Both of them snap out of their hotheadedness moments before colliding,

but it’s too late

[13]

; fortunately, Kakashi jumps in and throws the two of

them into the water tankers. Sasuke looks over and is very happy to see

water rushing from his one, whilst Naruto has practically nothing. He

ignores Kakashi’s scolding and jumps down to see the complete and utter

disparity in their strengths. Naruto’s had completely exploded

[14]

which

explains why nothing leaked out. It’s a beautiful, simple demonstration of

how if Sasuke looks a little deeper he sees that Naruto has simply overtaken

him. This ﬁght hasn’t armed anything, in fact it’s made everything much

worse.

105

Kakashi catches up with him and ties Sasuke up before giving his

mini-lecture

[15]

. He tells him that he should forget about revenge. But

advice like this often fails, as the person retorts that they know nothing,

this time is dierent and they wouldn’t understand anything about their

circumstances. Right now things are deeply personal and he’ll need words

that sit at this level if he’s going to have a constructive conversation: “I

could kill the person most precious to you! Then you’d know just how

wrong you are about me”

[16]

. Kakashi says go ahead, because everyone that

is most precious to him has already been killed. He explains that neither of

them can be called lucky, but they’re also not the most unfortunate ones

either. “You and I have both found precious friends, haven’t we?”

[17]

and the

smiles of Naruto and Sakura rest in the background. He calms down and

understands part of what Kakashi’s saying, and for the rest of the day into

nightfall he sits under the tree debating which path to take.

The ﬁrst is the realm of the Leaf with his comrades doing missions, having

Naruto be his rival and he improves that way; letting go of hatred and this

vendetta against Itachi being his life’s mission. Living this way would mean

forging bonds with people for who they are and not having to do it all

alone. It would mean a major restructuring of himself. On the other hand,

there is the realm of Orochimaru’s catacombs and endless testing facilities,

abandoning everyone and taking the image of the avenger to heart. Never

loving anyone and bonds are forged as a means for killing Itachi. When he

sacriﬁced himself for his comrades you could say it was out of love, but at

the same time argue that he did it to keep moving forward; moreover, you

could make a strong case for “both Sasuke’s”, but after this point there shall

only be one (for a very very long time).

Finding the decision for yourself is dicult - it would be much easier if

someone could just give us an answer and o we go. The sound ninja see

this as their moment to cure his distress. After a brief scrap, Sakon can’t see

106

what’s so impressive about the kid - “Kimimaro would’ve been better”

[18]

. “If

you stay in this stupid little village, you’ll remain human. You won’t get any

stronger. You’ll just keep rotting away playing ninja with your friends

here”

[19]

. Lord Orochimaru oers you power!

What Sasuke prioritises isn’t knowing himself, but to keep moving forward.

Moreover, knowing others is no longer necessary either, for it’s all about

the goal. This oer will take him out of his rut and onto the next series of

improvements. They tell him not to forget his purpose three times

[20]

before vanishing. He sits back down and holds a leaf in his hands, often

representing the Leaf village, and crushes it with eyes infernal.

Gazing into the abyss

Not far away is a child equally troubled by his future, but this obstacle may

be too great. For Lee this isn’t resolved by simply working down a fork in

the road, for either one seems to be the end of his time as a Shinobi. Even if

the surgery goes well he may never get back to his old self and challenge the

likes of Neji, Sasuke, Naruto… is this where his example of being a splendid

ninja ends? He sits down in the very place he was made Genin,

remembering one of Guy and Kakashi’s challenges where they played a

game of rock paper scissors (Roshambo). His mentor wasn’t fully on board

as there was no threat of exhaustion, starvation or muscular meltdown, but

Kakashi reassures him - “you know they say luck’s part of skill”

[21]

and teases

him into playing. Guy makes the promise that should he lose he’ll do

ﬁve-hundred laps around the village, on his hands too.

Just as he’s getting to the result, Guy shows up and they begin reminiscing.

He says if Lee dares give up on his dream he will suer far more than he

does now

[22]

, he’ll only burn up inside from resisting the surgery. Even so,

107

does he have the courage to throw everything into the arms of luck? One

can’t gamble their life the same way we play games!

In the silence of night Guy continued to sweat and crawl through lap after

lap without a soul to watch him, except Lee. He walks into view and asks

why is he doing all this work, and what is the meaning behind the insane

self-rules all the time? Guy says he uses them as fuel to make him more

competitive for the next showdown: “instead of thinking you just have to

do ‘500 laps if I lose at roshambo’ think of it as ‘if I do 500 laps, I will

deﬁnitely beat Kakashi the next time’”

[23]

. He always tries to cultivate his

own luck as he will have grown and grown for whatever the future

challenge happens to be; now is the time to trust in all the investments he

has made in himself. There’s nothing left to say other than “get the

operation”

[24]

, but nobody will fault him if he doesn’t want to jump.

For this crisis, there is a very relevant passage in Nietzsche’s iconic work

Beyond Good and Evil: “Whoever ﬁghts monsters should see to it that he

does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss

looks into you”. I feel that the ﬁrst half of this passage is applicable to

Sasuke, for he is rapidly becoming the dispenser of violence and hatred that

he wants to kill in his brother, whilst Lee is the one becoming depressed as

he sees no light at the end of the tunnel.

Another man who spent the majority of his life in this void was Kimimaro,

as he grew up isolated in prison and feared by his own clan, having the

darkness as his only companion until Orochimaru entered his life. That

sweet smiling snake oered him the rope that would get him out, and for

Kimimaro it didn’t matter that he wasn’t an angel of moral perfection. Now

he had someone, and died never having gone outside that leash. Darkness is

something he wanted to get away from to experience childhood, for his life

was completely empty; in a way it seems confrontation with the void is the

108

last challenge for the living, and to be avoided by one who knows they have

aliated with it.

The Pharaoh has left the building

Sasuke sets o, and he is walking through the village for the last time when

he is stopped by Sakura. She pleads with him to stay and she’ll do her best to

make it worthwhile, she even oers to help him take revenge. All these

things which would make her happy, but nobody can understand him,

certainly not now. He shall never waver again, for ”I’m on a dierent path

from the rest of you. Yeah, we all worked for a while. Sometimes I told

myself our paths all led to the same place. Maybe we were a team, once. But

now, I choose revenge”

[25]

. He says thank you for the times they had in

Team 7, but now it’s time to go.

The tour guides of the underworld are waiting with an unnerving

politeness now that he has left, as their orders are to treat him as the boss

during their route back

[26]

. News quickly reaches the Hokage and she is

aware that Sasuke is in the clutches of Orochimaru for what reason “it’s a

waste of time to speculate”

[27]

. Is this such a shock to everybody? Admittedly

Tsunade only just got to the village and has no connection with Sasuke at

all, but Shikamaru’s genius could’ve put two and two together. After some

thinking, his plan is “to persuade him with force”

[28]

which is an oxymoron

and shows the village doesn’t possess any way to reason with someone that

could part with the Village Identity.

Sasuke makes it beyond Konoha’s borders and they briskly stop, for now is

the time to perform a controlled incubation into Hell. A state of half-death,

as he will take some supplements to open up the curse mark and awaken

the next stage of its development

[29]

; if they don’t rein in the eects he will

die in minutes as it’ll eat away at him completely, so he’s quickly sealed into

109

the con

[30]

and placed into a coma once again… but this time when he

awakens, he shall be born anew!

The reason I have chosen to label him a Pharaoh is because he exhibits the

mythical stories of the Egyptian King of the Underworld Osiris, as well as

the good and bad aspects of his brother Set. Originally the latter was a

beneﬁcial force who assisted in the stability of the Old Kingdom(2600-2100

BC), as he helped Ra in the nightly battle against the serpentine God

Apophis. He was the only one who didn't get hypnotised by his stare

[31]

which is akin to when Sasuke was able to look at Orochimaru in the forest

and still move to avoid his Kunai

[32]

With Set being the God of storms, disorder and foreigners it’s ﬁtting that

he had the chaotic powers to rival the monster, but this involves employing

the right amount of disharmony to keep society from stultifying. However,

his viliﬁcation by the Egyptians came during the time they got invaded by

the Kushite and Persian empires; due to them being foreigners it was seen

as Set ebbing from his duty of managing chaos and failing.

Prior to the dissolution, the Pharaoh who ruled the Kingdom of the living

was Osiris, but his brother was eager to usurp him, so he devised a cunning

plan. He crafted a con that was made to ﬁt his measurements perfectly,

and once he could get Osiris inside he could dispense with him. The only

question now was how to trick him. He threw a banquet where the King

was the guest of honour, and they danced and sang all night. But for the

ﬁnal game, he brought out the con. Set boldly announced that the person

who could ﬁt inside perfectly would be allowed to keep it, and everyone

tried their luck. Unsurprisingly only Osiris was able to do it, but as soon as

he lay down Set slammed the lid shut and with his friends took the chest

down to the Nile and dumped it in

[33][34]

. Comparing this to our narrative,

Orochimaru and his sound ninja actually wanted to aid Osiris into the

110

underworld instead of throwing him down there to deliberately kill him.

Both he and the Egyptian God were enticed into their bespoke con,

though it’s harder to say whether the former was tricked as well.

Gaara vs Kimimaro

Each of the members in Shikamaru’s squad have sacriﬁced themselves for

Naruto to go one step further. They’re dropping like ﬂies, but what’s worse

is another unaccounted variable has manifested. Just as Shikamaru and

Naruto get Osiris’ con out of the hands of the demons, Kimimaro ﬂies

down and perches himself on it without making a sound.

He takes the con of “Orochimaru’s dream vessel”

[35]

and says that he is

only able to move by sheer Willpower and transcends the prison of the

ﬂesh; in reality he is only pushing past the agonising suering due to the

plethora of Kabuto’s painkillers. He was the one who told Kimimaro of

Orochimaru’s rapidly deteriorating condition, and he would need a vessel

soon otherwise he’d have to transfer into a temporary body. He didn’t force

him or even ask, Kimimaro was itching to prove he had some sort of

purpose and wanted to die yielding something of value to his Lord

[37]

Shikamaru takes Tayuya and allows Naruto to chase after him, which

means this is the last hurdle to getting Sasuke back. The fox chakra is

surging through him as his emotions skyrocket. They get to an open

clearing and he manages to get Kimimaro to drop the con. He demands to

know what Orochimaru wants with Sasuke, and he explains the details of

what the transference jutsu entails and why the Uchiha is of particular

interest

[38]

. Seeing that Orochimaru is a descendent of man he cannot be

truly immortal, so to stop his ﬂesh decaying he wears people like suits so he

can continue conducting experiments.

111

He also takes this moment to unveil his unique Kekkei Genki, the

Shikotsumyaku (屍骨脈, Dead Bone Pulse), whereby he can rip bones out

of his body and use them as weapons, ﬁre them or harden them as a

defensive measure. In the anime its display is quite tame but in the manga

you see his skin and muscles break apart to allow the bone to pop

through

[39]

. This is probably why he has so many health issues as the

multitude of open wounds get infected, regardless if he patches himself up

after.

As the last of the shadow clones fall, the con ﬁnally opens and out comes

the newly anointed King of the Underworld. What Sasuke must be feeling

is unlike any strength he has had before, only conﬁrming his decision was

the right one. He sprints o to complete the rest of the journey on his own,

and at the shock of seeing his friend leave Naruto lets down his guard, with

Kimimaro almost getting the chance to behead him.

But a familiar voice hangs on the wind and delivers a signature kick just in

time. It’s a surprise to all that Lee is out of the hospital, but he’ll get back

into action no matter what! He is much like Kimimaro in that respect as he

should really be lying down, but he cannot spare a second to jump in. He

starts with his standard direct approach and even in the heat of battle he

remembers to take his medicine. The only problem is, this is a dierent

kind of tonic. The drunken ﬁst emerges, and the inebriated God of Taijutsu

has awoken with attack patterns so eccentric and unconventional that it

manages to make a signiﬁcant strike

[40]

Kimimaro uses his clear analytical mind to try and deduce the kind of

medicine Lee has taken

[41]

, but this was just a case of mistaken bottles. He

wants to believe everything has an expressive and meaningful raison d’etre,

which is reminiscent of the old Neji as they both had a leaning toward

destiny. The reason he allowed Lee to take his medicine in the ﬁrst place is

112

because he regards himself as a man of high morals, and his character is in

fact modelled after tenth century aristocrats that lived during the Heian

period, as it’s where the two dots on his forehead come from.

But why would someone like him become so close to Orochimaru? Well,

it’s a combination of extreme loyalty for the man who helped him and

disgust for those that cannot fulﬁl their duty, as the only reason he doesn’t

kill Tayuya is that she may live to fulﬁl her mission

[42]

. It would be shameful

and gravely immoral to not serve someone like this, though can he get past

the reverence he has for an individual to see the broader picture? Ironically,

Orochimaru actually doesn’t like him being respectful of other Shinobi, as

he scolds Sasuke in Shippuden for not using lethal force against the people

he had him train against

[43]

Lee shares the same mutual respect for his opponent, but he will not serve

anyone who isn’t dedicated to the village and strives for ridiculous goals like

immortality. He fought a similar self-interested demon in Gaara, and

speaking of the (former) devil, he has interjected to save the saviour! He

may be following orders, but as he says himself he “owes the Leaf a great

debt”

[44]

He tries to use the sand burial once but sees that Kimimaro can harden his

bones to prevent it being fatal. He tries again with more sand and more

pressure forcing Kimimaro into second state; they have a brief back and

forth to test each other out, but it becomes clear who has the ultimate

defence. “My body is ravaged with illness… my days on Earth are numbered.

And yet I will not be extinguished, for I am not alone. I am an arm of Lord

Orochimaru’s ambition. I carried out my part. For that, I shall remain

forever in his heart”

[45]

. To which Gaara scos, he knows that he will be

thrown aside in an instant. “Orochimaru brainwashed you, how sad”

[46]

113

Kimimaro accuses him of knowing nothing about him, he couldn’t possibly

understand what Orochimaru has done for him and yet this reminds me of

albeit a very odd but poignant story. In the book Talking to Strangers by

Malcom Gladwell he tells a story before World War Two, about Neville

Chamberlain going to see Hitler to try and resolve the rising tensions

between the two nations

[47]

. In actuality the Germans were already in the

armament phase and their prospects of war ﬁrmly entrenched, it was only a

matter of time. Chamberlain met him and took his word that his interests

were solely with the Sudetenland, completely convinced that he knew

exactly what was going on and the other world leaders wouldn’t have to

worry. The MPs at home, notably Winston Churchill, could see through it

because they never had the opportunity to be sweet-talked; they could see

the direction Hitler was heading by scrutinising his actions.

You see, Gaara is a former demon and knows that they only consider

themselves in possession of value, and anybody else is just a set of relations

and utilities with which to feed upon; on account of their utility being

maximised or expired, it’s onto the next thing. A demon has to work to

grind the person down, to get them to negate and ignore themselves so that

they think in terms of the attributes they possess, and their thoughts will

begin to shift as well. By making the self insigniﬁcant, what is good and bad

merely becomes a matter of congruence between parts, rather than

dialogues between entities. Likewise, they’ll begin to think that their

oerings to the world shall be based on mere parts. With a child like

Kimimaro, where most of this decomposition is already done, being abused

merely for what he had been dealt, he was the perfect target.

Gaara sees all of this playing out, as he had said he would “never disappear”

as long as there were people to kill, desperately looking to be eternally

self-consistent too. Come to think of it, the legacy Kimimaro wants to leave

in the heart of another sounds awfully similar to Hiruzen’s legacy. But what

114

is the dierence? Direction. If the sacriﬁce isn’t bidirectional then there is

no retention. The Hokage gives everything for the people and they in turn

believe that the village can condense down into one, with that marriage

spawning the Will of Fire.

It is with this very strength that Gaara buries Kimimaro two hundred

metres below ground in the ultimate tomb. Just as one vessel has emerged

out of the underworld it seems the last generation is going down, but he

isn’t the only one who can change the landscape around here! Kimimaro

directs all his remaining energy to set the forest ablaze with bones, and he

can seemingly traverse to any point, which is poignant as it shows he has

ossiﬁed to the same level: he has become the medium, for no other form is

left standing but sheer Will. In his very last moments he mirrors when Lee

stood up unconsciously with absolutely nothing else but the need to prove

himself. He attacks from behind with blood pouring down his mouth, just

having the strength to utter “I’m not brainwashed, he’s the only one who

truly understands. You know nothing!”

[48]

. Orochimaru’s dismissal of him is

brutally captured on the very same page: “He’s nothing to me now”

[49]

With the ﬁght now over, Gaara reﬂects on his opponent and recognises

how Kimimaro’s felt “the honour of his idol was under scrutiny”

[50]

, which

was like his own honour being attacked, just like Lee with Guy. “The more

precious your idol is to you, the harder you ﬁght for him”

[51]

. He even

manages to identify the dangerous ramiﬁcations, that your worship has

nothing to do with whether the idol is good or bad: “Even if you know he’s

evil, you just can’t overcome your own solitude”

[52]

. We can be alone for a

long time and be our own company which doesn’t bother us, but solitude is

a state where we have tried to forge ties with others and been unsuccessful.

Gaara sees the love-for-another in Lee, but he also sees how equally

dangerous it can be. It’s incredible how he has just come to recognise this

115

power and yet he already sees how it can be manipulated - that I guess

comes from his darker days.

It's funny, when Neji lost he didn’t just clear away the idea that he couldn’t

say things like "you can never beat me" to Lee but threw out destiny

altogether. He didn't do as Kimimaro would when his destiny of "being the

vessel" turned out to be wrong, he just changed it to "my destiny was to ﬁnd

the vessel"

[53]

. Neji could have made the exact same slight shift - "my destiny

was to lose here", so why is it that he questioned the notion and Kimimaro

didn't? There are a multitude of answers and I shall start with the cold and

pragmatic. Kimimaro was dying and on the verge of collapsing, he was

moving based o of Willpower and wanted to make Orochimaru proud -

for his own legacy and the legacy of his Lord. He needs destiny to sort of

enshrine him and sanctify his eorts, so this life wasn’t a failure and the

tool he was served some purpose; contrastingly, Neji beneﬁts from

considering himself free as he hopes by walking through his own Path he

can resolve the issues within his clan and beyond it.

116

Naruto vs Sasuke

“Hey, screw-up”

[1]

. Osiris has been taken into the underworld, and the old

Sasuke has died to Set’s hand. But his son, Horus, is the one who grows

strong and does battle with Set, costing him his left eye

[2]

. As Sasuke turns

to him, his left eye too is still in the darkness

[3]

, the eye which sees only into

the past. There is another signiﬁcant usage, which is where Horus goes into

the underworld and bequeaths it to the dead Osiris, to rejuvenate him and

deliver the power to govern as the Underworld King

[4]

, as part of the Eye’s

power is to do with Wisdom

[5]

; it seems in this case though that Horus has

given it to Apophis in search of greater strength, and this is where the

symbolism becomes inverted.

The wings of Horus are typically representative of freedom, but now we see

he’s racing to his own capture and imprisonment: “I have my own path. I

have no obligation… to you or anyone”

[6]

. When people like Sasuke say they

have cut ties thinking they must be free, it tends to only centralise needs into

fewer and fewer ends, making him more dependent and more likely to have

to manipulate people in future.

For Naruto, he remembers all the times Sasuke has been there for him

[7]

during missions, training and the moments he has given his all to save him;

it seems such a radical change of heart that it must’ve been inﬂuenced by

Orochimaru and Itachi. He cannot accept such a path exists and looks to

external forces as the predominant cause. But is it not so that Naruto has

had equally profound, spontaneous moments and from then on lived a very

dierent life? Take his ﬁrst mission, after Team 7 got ambushed and he felt

powerless, he made the decision to stab himself in the hand and from that

117

moment forth try and live by his new nindo, which continued to be

rearmed by the end of the arc; but when it comes to power, neither of

them have seen the truly dark and evil side in the other. Sasuke was

unconscious when Naruto’s fox chakra ﬁrst started to envelop him and

obliterate Haku’s mirrors; and in turn, Naruto lay unconscious when

Sasuke’s curse mark started to facilitate his own evil. Further down the line

like in the Gaara match, Naruto was none the wiser to Sasuke’s use of the

curse mark and in turn he has no idea how Naruto could summon

something like Gammabunta. Only Sasuke saw the mask of Orochimaru fall

o, whereas Naruto saw the mask of Haku fall o, which formed the basis

of the connections that formed in their heart and drove their philosophies.

“Does Konoha mean nothing to you?!”

[8]

he asks. For a time it did, right up

to when he left the village, despite Naruto thinking his mind had been

shattered because of Itachi’s jutsu. Nevertheless he has made the steadfast

decision with Orochimaru making sure to reward him immediately with a

couple breadcrumbs to entice him the rest of the way. The snake holds the

keys to the next levels of progression, but ironically this demon wants the

body itself and not the soul. Speaking of which, Naruto informs him that

he’s going to be used as a host body and he won’t get power for free. He has

no faith in Orochimaru keeping his end of the bargain whatsoever and

believes as soon as Sasuke steps into the underworld he’ll be swallowed up.

We have this suspicion based on what Orochimaru had said to Hiruzen

about making him the new host body

[9]

, but he did mention that “I plan on

grooming Sasuke a bit more to my taste before possessing him”

[10]

, so there

may still be time.

The village has made Sasuke strong, but to ﬁgure out what Konoha really

meant to him it’s worth seeing his ﬂashbacks, with the entirety of his early

childhood shown to us over the course of the ﬁght. “My dream is rooted

only in the past”

[11]

to which it shows him smiling as he’s piggy-backed

118

home by Itachi. He had been watching his brother in awe as he managed to

throw a Kunai into every target, even the one in the blindspot behind the

rock. Inspired, Sasuke tried to imitate him but twisted his ankle. I think

seeing Naruto be hot-headed, prone to mistakes and looking the dunce

reminds him of this younger, more carefree version of himself and by

constantly calling him a loser he wants to distance himself from his prior

innocence.

He’s excited to be starting at the academy, where “Father will recognise my

ability. He’ll respect me as much as he respects my big brother”

[12]

. It sounds

like a familial relationship which has regressed into a formal, merit-based

dynamic - as that’s how it feels to him. Until he can start to rival his

brother’s abilities he won’t be given attention, praise or tutelage. This is

why he never gives compliments or attention to other people unless they

have clear worth. Fugaku doesn’t mean it, but he has put extra time and

energy into Itachi for he’s getting the chance to join the ranks of the Anbu

Black Ops, which will be incredibly important for the entire clan

[13]

. In

comparison this talk of some entrance ceremony is so low down on the list

it doesn’t even get picked up. Only because Itachi threatened not to go on

the mission did Fugaku glumly resign himself into attending

[14]

, which isn’t

the most encouraging thing for his child to see. I think because Fugaku

forgets he is a father as well as the head of the clan, moments like these

which resonate for Sasuke Uchiha, but not all Uchiha, do not ﬁnd their way

to his attention.

They go to the Ninja Academy and bump into one of Sasuke’s prospective

teachers, and they have a ﬂurry of small talk before he says “I expect great

things of you, Sasuke”

[15]

which is usually complimentary, but he knows this

is only because of the standard set by Itachi. “Follow your big brother’s

example and become a good Shinobi”

[15]

. It seems whoever, and whatever

he is, as long as it rivals his brother he shall be accepted. He gets his report

119

card for the semester and he’s the best in every topic, across all classes.

That’s worthy of getting individual praise is it not? “Keep this up, and you’ll

be amazing, just like your brother”

[16]

Over time, the toll of having to be an Anbu member, a spy for the Uchiha

and a double-agent for the Leaf causes Itachi to lash out at the police

ocers who questioned him over the death of his best friend Shisui. He

riles his father and their relationship sours, but one thing that has come out

of it is that Fugaku will spend more time helping Sasuke train. They go to

the same place where he taught his eldest son the ﬁreball jutsu but Sasuke

can’t master it ﬁrst time. He says the crushing line “Thought so… Not quite

like it was with Itachi”

[17]

. To me, the ﬁrst bit is actually more damning as it

was his preconception that Sasuke was going to fail, nevermind the

comparison. But this failure doesn’t mean he’s without potential, in fact it

takes him just a week to master that jutsu, which puts him a step closer to

being a full-ﬂedged Uchiha member. This is the ﬁrst time that he notably

gets praise from his father: “That’s my boy”

[18]

and he’s also told not to walk

in the footsteps of his brother anymore. This may be why he doesn’t kill

Naruto in the end, as he’s avenging his clan after all, and would prioritise

the words of his father.

After the massacre, he goes back to the lake where he was acknowledged

and thinks about his next steps. Jumping in he makes the following resolve:

“Big brother … no matter how dark the path, I will forge ahead in order to

kill you! No matter what, I will gain the power”

[19]

. The darkness of the lake

is an analogue to the notion of the abyss, and as the ﬂashback fades we see

Naruto emerging from the water, like he has escaped the darkness.

Upon resurfacing, he moves from questioning his ties to the village to their

own friendship. He asks if all they’ve been through means nothing to

him

[20]

, to which he is surprised that the answer is no. Unlike his response

120

with Konoha, he says that it wasn’t insigniﬁcant, and in fact - “you’re my

closest friend”

[21]

. But, just as he has had to decide whether he wants the

bonds for themselves, or the bonds between people as a means, behind him

are Itachi’s words about achieving the Mangekyo Sharingan - it requires the

life of your best friend. Is he only saying that this bond still exists for that

potentiality? You have to remember that Sasuke actually doesn't care

whether it’s goodness, or darkness - it is whatever gives him the most

power. If love had seemed to be the greater strength and one that he could

tap into, he would’ve prioritised that.

They load up their main weapons and charge, but Naruto cannot bring

himself to commit and the shockwaves emitting from both sides are about

equal. He cannot believe that he is coming with the intent to kill: “Right

now, that’s all he can think about, all his energy, all his mind focused on

how to kill me”

[22]

. Naruto sheds tears for the foolishness of his friend.

“When two Shinobi are of a high enough level, they can read each other’s

thoughts through no more than a trade of blows. They don’t need to say a

word. So tell me. Do you know my thoughts? Can you tell me … what’s on

my mind?”

[23]

. Indeed, when it comes to grasping the last couple days and

months, nobody has a clue what is on Sasuke’s mind, but each of them have

come close: Kakashi understands why he would want revenge, Naruto

understands Sasuke in terms of their rivalry, the eects of loneliness, Gaara

understands him in regards to pure hatred and so forth; but nobody has

managed to consolidate everything. From the village, to his clan, to his

teammates there is no answer.

All of them have hovered over his identity and seen the Uchiha in him,

brother of Itachi, the rival for Naruto, the interest of Sakura and so forth.

This lack of synthesis is what prevents Sasuke from seeing why love is the

strongest force of all. In fairness, after the massacre he hid absolutely

121

everything about his feelings, as happens with such devastating trauma,

which is why it’s so hard to help, but now he can say he no longer cares

about being understood or loved.

Naruto is now going through the same self-reﬂection as Sasuke, wondering

whether this friendship was real or whether he was just deluding

himself

[24]

. Maybe he was foolish to look up to him, as Sasuke spears the

lightning blade through his chest in the name of friendship. He aims for the

heart but Naruto manages to deﬂect it; no worries, he still has him by the

throat - but now the ominous wave of red chakra shows itself, emanating

from the permission that Naruto’s rage has given it. “Sasuke! Orochimaru

can’t have you! I’m gonna bring you home safe if I have to break every bone

in your body!!”

[25]

. He demands to know who or what is before him, to

which Naruto replies “your friend”

[26]

Just as Sasuke claims that nobody understands him, a friend will sometimes

act to stop you despite you being certain they’re the awful one. Indeed, it

seems he’s willing to drag Sasuke back by force without having to converse

or understand him - the very thing which he himself would’ve rejected if

Iruka tried the same. This solution mirrors something that Naruto would

say to Nagato(Pain) a couple years later, as he wanted to kill him and

restore peace, but then someone would’ve just returned generations later

and decimated their village again; in turn, he might stop Sasuke now but he

will try again and again, for the village still has no answers. Is he willing to

use force every single time? Then he has abandoned his nindo. He said

earlier he doesn’t want a thug like Orochimaru having him

[27]

, but the latter

is increasingly viewed as the source of agency.

Besides, “You were alone to begin with! What can you know about me?!

This pain is born from my family bonds! How could you ever know what it

means to lose anything!”

[28]

. It’s true, but whilst he may have started with

122

nothing, being around Sasuke “I imagine … maybe that’s what it’s like to

have a brother”

[29]

and being around Iruka, “I imagine he’s kind of like a

father”

[30]

. Naruto, in just recently coming into bonds, is still in the

“honeymoon” phase of having a quasi-adoptive family unit, and all he sees

and remembers are the best parts. But in reality there are often bitter ﬁghts

between family members, which is one of the points of Sasuke’s ﬂashback.

All Naruto has seen and chosen to perceive are the good aspects which is

why Sasuke’s behaviour is such a shock. Naruto coming into a family of his

own sees why it's so great, and instinctually wants to include him too; as of

yet he doesn’t realise its darker side or the fact Sasuke has never

experienced being born into nothing, such loneliness shall feel like a respite

from the pain of nostalgia. Naruto wanting him to come back after all these

ﬂashbacks then is of the deepest oence and shows he hasn’t been there to

see what family can really do.

The memories of Naruto that we see are just him reliving the moments that

made Sasuke feel like a brother to him, like the ﬁrst time he saw him at the

academy

[31]

. Ultimately, it will only be in their ﬁnal exchange that they

would see each other’s masks come o and what lies beneath, and the

extent of their own evil in full bloom too.

Both of them remember a moment where Naruto was walking home and

passing by Sasuke sitting at the river, and from Naruto’s perspective he

makes a face - one of turning his nose up and being silly but smiling

afterwards

[32]

; the memory popped up when Naruto admitted that he

wanted to protect him because “you were part of my family”

[33]

and now we

see their past interaction from Sasuke’s perspective, where he smiled as

well

[34]

; Sasuke becomes aware he reciprocates that feeling of kinship, so

much so that upon these words the third and ﬁnal tomoe of his Sharingan

awakens, no doubt because he realises that he does have a new family - and

now, having to ﬁnd it within himself to separate from them once again.

123

When he was with Naruto ﬁghting Haku and his Sharingan ﬁrst awakened,

even though his eyes were the ticket to killing his brother he sacriﬁced

himself immediately

[35]

. Now we see of his most profound psychological

shifts as he will let Naruto die for his eyes.

Both Sasuke and Kimimaro stressed the particularity of their pain, which is

what happens when one engages in solitude. But why doesn’t he accept that

Naruto can pull the same card? Well, he actually does. It's just he doesn’t

care to understand Naruto and wants to distance himself enough so he can

have the strength to kill him, but not distance himself so far that he doesn’t

feel pain over his loss.

He holds Naruto’s ignorance over his head in contempt, when all he wanted

to do was oer a hand and help him get through it. “Do not worry that other

people do not know you. But be concerned that you do not know them”-

Confucius. Instead of playing games we need to recognise where synthesis

can occur, but nobody grows in their own understanding without continual

participation and reciprocal opening between others. If you don’t have a

friend that can allow you to make mistakes during your journey of

introspection, you will end up as one of these two. Ultimately it’s hard to

say whether Naruto is ready for the possibility of hurt that having a

friendship can bring, and would rather not understand his feelings.

This may be why he never gave Talk no Jutsu much thought, as right from

the start we see him jumping over from his statue to Sasuke’s, showing us

that mediation is over

[36]

. Every "villain", or person in need of

individuation, that Naruto has faced has almost always had a desire for

bonds deep in their heart and it was up to him to ﬁnd their commonalities

and merge sort of like a Venn Diagram. Now that they’re psychologically

separate he will have to construct new pathways and go beyond moments of

mutual acknowledgement separate from one another.

124

This ﬁght actually highlights the dynamics of TnJ quite clearly, despite its

repeated failure, because Naruto thinks his words get people to change

rather than what actually happens, which is where the person considers his

thoughts and has to do the work to “meet him in the middle” in their own

time. This is why he says “Nothing I say is gonna sway you, is it…

Sasuke”

[37]

as he thinks it is up to him to induce a change. Moreover, he still

sees it as a subset of power and thinks talking with people only voices his

emotions, instead of realising it is one of the few things which exists that

can stop the cycle of hatred, as it voices his heart. What he believes about

Talk no jutsu is the same reason he allows Kurama to rise to the surface, as

he wants to make Sasuke skew to his way of thinking. His TnJ is known to

overstep the grounds of the Shinobi, but he has completely crossed the

line(river) and invaded Sasuke’s position for himself.

In the very ﬁrst chapter when he was accepted by Iruka, it was as the boy

and not the fox

[38]

, which was the village providing a kind of secular

baptism for the boy, pretending that they could in fact separate the light

from the darkness. Here was the teaching that if Naruto could just get

Sasuke back into the Leaf he could try and perform the same distinction

and remove his need to rely on snakes. The Leaf is precisely the walled

garden which keeps out evil as Hiruzen expounds during the Sand's

invasion: “In Konoha every year new Shinobi are born and raised. They

live, ﬁght and die in order to protect the village, and those within its walls.

Everyone in the village, even though we are not connected by blood, is

precious to me… they are my family!”

[39]

. Here he is ﬁghting the snake in

Orochimaru in the same way that Naruto is ﬁghting the “snake-iﬁed”

Sasuke. It is this nuance which Hiruzen found so dicult to parse, since he

had to come to terms with the fact that Orochimaru threatened the village

but was also the student he had raised. In the end, when he had the chance

to kill him decades ago, he couldn't do it

[40]

. "Pupils who concealed malice

and ambition. I had picked up that you had such foundations in you. I

125

knew, and yet pretended I hadn’t noticed [...] I had hoped you would inherit

my Will and strength, that's what I wished"

[41]

. He optimistically believed he

would renounce it and ignored the darkness that lurked in the beginning.

The asymmetry at play

Now I want to introduce a rather unconventional route for literary analysis,

which will involve some neuroscience this time. Kicking o with a study

that investigated the main ways that people can increase personal power

and meaning in life, to which “virtue and hate are alternative levers”, and “if

you have one, you feel less need for the other”

[42]

. It seems so interesting

that the exact same nature of our protagonists is also backed by this pair of

motivating factors; doing some digging, what precipitated the claim that

hatred can spur action is the intriguing paper Hate and meaning in life: How

collective, but not personal, hate quells threat and spurs meaning in life

[43]

, which

you would think is inapplicable, but the reason collective hate works is due

to it being aliated with signiﬁcant purpose, whereas on the individual level

it often succumbs to “meaning-dampening negative feelings”

[44]

. Ordinarily

this is the case but in exceptional circumstances like the ones we have here,

personal hatred can facilitate crude forms of meaning. He was close to

staying with Team 7, which speaks to the above clause, but now he has

burned down every bridge as well - except one.

Furthermore there are hemispheric dierences between them, speciﬁcally

in the way their brains perceive the world as they emphasise one side over

the other. Using Iain McGilchrist’s work The Master and His Emissary you’ll

be able to see the left hemisphere embodied in Sasuke, and the right in

Naruto.

There is note of the slight dierence in the left to code for non-living

things, whilst the Right aptly comprehends the living as an individual

[45]

126

What’s more, the term ‘prey thing’ is used by McGilchrist to describe the

way the Left sees as it has a higher proclivity to instrumentalise and put

things to use

[45]

. This expresses Sasuke’s decision well, since he has

capitalised on Itachi as the “prey” for which the Horus myth takes on new

meaning. The loss of the left eye that connects to the right-hemisphere

shows a dearth in the way of thinking of people as such but prioritises a

local, narrowly focused attention

[46]

. Sasuke has restricted his life down to a

single goal, but that also means he is going to stop generating possibilities,

as he says in Shippuden “I shut my eyes a long time ago… the things I seek

lie only in the darkness”

[47]

. You could make the case that the Sharingan

itself demands someone inherit a strong left-hemisphere complex as one

must continually narrow themselves down into hating others with the

primary perception of utility to awaken further powers.

Indeed, body parts are the domain of the left, but the body is the domain of

the right

[48]

, and the Egyptian myths continues to provide insight as when

Osiris was torn up into pieces it was Isis that found the phallus and

impregnated herself with it, which is analogous to the low-resolution

equivalent to intercourse, thus she gave birth to a son of equal speciﬁcity.

When the left hemisphere becomes severed from the connections to the

right in a procedure called a callosotomy, an interesting phenomena occurs

as it abjectly refuses to accept self-evident truths or ﬁnd new ways of seeing

the world, whereas the right hemisphere continues to call for new, more

ﬂexible interpretations. Naruto would try to integrate the pain, anomalies

and qualms that Sasuke currently battles with, and in dealing with that he’d

attempt to replace the current left-hemispheric supremacy with a more

robust worldview. But where he fails to do so is precisely in relation to his

own demon who he treats exactly as someone of Sasuke’s disposition

would. Moreover, he cannot provide an answer that will dissuade him from

following this path as he has one foot in it himself.

127

Another point of contention between them is their dierences over the

term “friend”. Sasuke sees it as just a word which is satisﬁed when you train

together, ﬁght and die as brothers and so on; but Naruto sees it as a symbol

which struggles to be deﬁned explicitly, and even by the end he doesn’t

really know how to explain it, which is another textbook dynamic between

the hemispheres

[49]

; to be clear, it’s not that either side is solely mechanistic

or symbolic, but have a greater proclivity toward that manner of work.

This impacts on other ﬁelds like art, with the left hemisphere being

relatively emotionally neutral it bears an anity for abstract paintings

compared to still-life or portraits

[50]

. We see this in the most utilitarian

persona of all in Sai at the beginning of Shippuden, who would always sit

down and sketch thousands of abstract pieces, but could never think of a

title or associate any emotional connection to them.

Farewell, my one and only friend.

Sasuke’s leap in visual prowess to anticipate every move has changed the

game, causing Naruto to take larger and larger loans from the bank of

darkness. The cloak begins to envelop him, providing a seamless

combination of oence and defence, much like Gaara’s autonomous shield.

Instead of the demon falling in line with Naruto’s Will however, one end of

the seesaw is getting heavier, as he has found it within himself to condone

violence, which gives much creative licence for Kurama to attack as he

pleases

[53]

. Jiraiya seems to have gotten him into the habit of relying on the

fox in life or death situations and he’s setting a dangerous precedent over

his last few ﬁghts, regressing to the hateful, unstable version of Gaara.

When Naruto spoke with him after they both crashed to the ﬂoor during

their ﬁght he chastised him for ﬁghting for himself, but he didn’t abandon

the idea that he shouldn’t use the demon altogether, just that he should do it

for his friends.

128

From Sasuke’s perspective, this is reminiscent of every other villain

attacking for their own cause, it’s just that this one has laced it with a

heightened interest in his wellbeing apparently. Each time he has faced a

demon he has had to descend into Hatred a little more, accumulating each

new instance and particularity; the opposite is true for Naruto, for he has

only been exposed to the highest quantisation of hate over and over again,

which is the demon itself - as Kurama said, “I am hatred”

[52]

. There has been

no loss of clan, family or friends for there was only Absence itself until

recently. Shippuden will spend a lot of time highlighting the opposite

journey, that Naruto has to handle each kind of loss, where Sasuke is having

to resist the pain of sheer Absence.

Just as Sasuke thought this would be a simple win, he sees that he has to

play his last resort move: to up the curse mark into its second state; Naruto

has ironically gotten him to ingest more of Orochimaru’s senjutsu chakra

than ever, sculpting him into the man he wanted him to be furthest away

from. They ﬁnally see the evil that is within both their hearts, no longer

anything left to hide, the mask and the face sit side by side, and one can see

what they truly accepted in the other. Sasuke refrains from slicing through

the heart again, choosing to punch him instead

[53]

as somewhere in that

moment he had a change of heart, and though he had no better chance than

this, he can’t get himself to kill his brother and listen to Itachi: “I will not

lose control to you! I’ll ﬁnd my own path to power! I will be a better man

than you!”

[54]

Next steps

The volume ends with Shikamaru understanding what it means to be a

Shinobi: it is one who endures. But a moment later, we see Jiraiya saying to

Naruto that he should stop chasing after Sasuke and forget all about him.

The dierence being is that a Shinobi ﬁghts for the village and will take the

129

heaviest weight they can muster if it can beneﬁt the people. This journey

for Sasuke is foolish as look at what this “friend” inﬂicted on him. Well, to

save Sasuke will be the journey in understanding how to save anyone, as by

then he will have traversed every corner of hell. To redeem such a

meta-individual will provide him the ability to converse with any member

of the village.

Jiraiya says that he went there of his own free will so there is no stopping

such a person, but this conﬂates their simultaneous freedom and

damnation: if he is free to choose Orochimaru, then he’s free to come back

to the Leaf. If he’s going to be scalded for his persistence, then he shall

remain a fool his entire life! “You are a certain kind of fool… that is true.

And a fool as great as you are may well be able to handle this”

[55]

Sasuke makes it to Orochimaru’s hideout, where the bandaged Mummy

congratulates him on being the chosen one. His response? “I don’t care. Just

give me the power”

[56]

. Kabuto tells him he should consider changing his

tone, to which the same serpent-esque glare hits him. Orochimaru is

delighted that he has the same temperament and disgust for other people’s

opinions as he does.

Meanwhile, Sakura heads into Tsunade’s oce and demands that she

undergo her own tutelage too. So it’s ocial, all three of them are now

students under the Legendary Sannin, now we leave it to Shippuden to tell

us how much they’ve grown!

130

Kazekage rescue mission

Naruto returns to the village and meets his older, slightly taller comrades.

The concepts of maturity, learnedness come up and we're led to think he’s

gained some wisdom, if only a little bit. We're anticipating a whole swathe

of new jutsu courtesy of his resident Shaman. As a reader I'm excited to see

Naruto in action and no sooner does the thought pop into my mind do we

reset to an old classic: the bell challenge. Kakashi activates his Sharingan as

he knows it won’t be as easy as last time. He doesn’t attempt to read

through his new novel either - he has to play defence. The ﬁght leads to a

stalemate and it drags on into the night when Naruto realises Kakashi’s

greatest weakness isn’t physical, it’s mental. He takes advantage of the

Sharingan and starts spoiling the ending of Make-Out Tactics, forcing him

to close his eyes, only for them to open to the sound of sweet bell chimes.

What a splendid result, the next mission should be a piece of cake!

Naruto asks what happened to Gaara in the last two and a half years and it's

nothing short of astonishing that the man who least wanted to become

Kage not too long ago now holds the lives of an entire village in his hands.

People often like to repeat the Itachi quote about having to be

acknowledged as primary ad nauseam, but Gaara plans to illustrate his

compassion despite the village not being on his side. Now, this is obviously

due to the anachronistic political system that the higher-ups delegate the

role based on heredity, but this is a case where they got lucky by putting

someone in charge who genuinely cares for each villager. Rasa’s clan was

known to have high political status within the Sand, much the same as how

Tutankhamun in Egypt was made Pharoah at just nine years old, Gaara

131

being just ﬁfteen doesn’t mean anything to them, regardless he is by far the

strongest in the village.

But beyond ordinary might is a leader who has thrown his reliance on

Shukaku away to accept complete responsibility, and with that the fallacy of

trying to compromise with hatred as well; this is in stark contrast to

Kurama who rarely converses with Naruto directly so he can keep up an

image of helpfulness, and almost indierence, to allow him to syphon o

energy without thinking about it. There is a tale in the book Samurai

Wisdom stories

[1]

called “The Samurai and the Zen cat” which I think

exempliﬁes this dynamic. Essentially, a samurai is having rat problems in

his home and heads to a monastery for advice. The monks give him their

cat to help sort the problem out; however, he seems way too relaxed and all

he does is lay next to the ﬁre, sleep and poop. The rat sees the cat is

practically a stued animal, getting more and more comfortable until his

carelessness has him within clawing distance - getting snatched in an

instant. Oftentimes we see Kurama just sleeping, or pretending to, so

Naruto is concerned less and less about him, until he gets within snatching

distance as well.

Fortunately for Gaara, Shukaku is incredibly blunt and he hasn’t had to peel

o many layers of nuance to know what his demon wants, and ﬁghting

such a force has developed his character more quickly than Naruto.

Remember that Gaara has been weighted down by the same collective hate

as he, in addition to the treatment by family, and the inversion of Iruka in

Yashamaru, which mirrors the particular nature of hate in Sasuke. This is

why there’s nobody remotely close to understanding the worst side of

people in Suna than him. He has his pulse on the problems, which is far

more useful than a man who has been sheltered from all things egregious,

and so given the ﬁrst chance at capitalising on immorality he may quickly

do so.

132

Naruto pushed him to redeﬁne those ties, which prior to him only brought

about pain and sorrow: "I want to work hard… and become someone others

acknowledge and respect. That’s what I decided after watching Naruto

Uzumaki [...] He’s experienced pain as I have. But he never let it beat him.

His example has shown me… I can change my life… my destiny"

[2]

. This

sentiment is what underlies the Gaara versus Deidara ﬁght as it’s pushing

the strengths of those ties to their absolute limit: just how far will you go to

save the villagers at the expense of yourself?

He’s managing to use the Sand Spirit to protect them, but it’s taking quite a

toll on him and Deidara knows it, directing all the force which could've

been used for oence and defence. The ultimate test of character is now, for

Deidara drops a massive C3 bomb which will take out thousands if

unanswered. The old him would’ve been completely baed that mid-ﬁght

an opponent would decide to waste the very last of their chakra on an

attack that didn’t even target him; he would’ve called him a fool and

proceeded to kill him without a sweat, at the expense of all those innocent

people.

Deidara represents the shroud and incredibly crafty Ninja, using any

advantage in order to take out his enemies, like using bystanders as a

distraction to get his smaller bombs to explode right by Gaara's face. He

knew that only the chakra-infused sand would be fast enough to block that

explosion, but this is the same sand that’s infected with tiny nano-bombs.

Quite ingenious. You would think intuitively that it being Gaara’s best

terrain it would provide a clear advantage, but he can’t just do a sweeping

sand tsunami like his match versus Kimimaro.

Back in Konoha, Naruto hears the news of Gaara's kidnapping and feels the

blood rush to his head, but he considers it justiﬁed as all this talk of

measured action, pacing themselves along the journey and sticking to

133

formation is seen as a lack of concern for Gaara's welfare. “Both Gaara and

me… we’re carrying monsters inside our bodies… and that’s what they

want! Our monsters! They only see us as monsters!”

[3]

. Just as he has broken

free and started to realise his dream of living harmoniously with the village,

this happens. Naruto cannot bear the thought that he should die, or should

he live and fall into despair again. Temari is probably thinking that Naruto

is more of a sibling than either of them are, as Kakashi highlights: "Naruto

understands Gaara better than anyone of the Sand ever could. When it

comes to how Jinchuriki have been treated all the villages are pretty much

the same"

[4]

Gaara held ﬁrm when reality was telling him to stick to his old ways - if he

did he’d have survived. Naruto is having the same test of conviction, for

everything is telling him to be his impulsive self and run ahead, to lash out

and he accepts the devilish red chakra as much as possible, but will he learn

to refrain in the same way?

In making their way to Suna, Sakura discloses her awareness that Itachi

Uchiha is not only a member of the Akatsuki but also the man designated to

hunt after Naruto - knowledge she garnered by sneakily reading documents

from the Hokage's library

[5]

; she’s also aware that Orochimaru is the one

giving Sasuke power to kill Itachi, and they only have a couple months left

to intervene before he’s the new host body. She has begun to morph into

the same independent detective I jokingly called Naruto, but this has greatly

improved her understanding of both her teammates.

During the ﬁrst bell challenge I highlighted how completely unaware

Sakura was of what Sasuke is going through and when he says "I am the

only one who can destroy that person", she initially baulked and said "Who

are you going to destroy? The Sensei?" but now she gets it. Kishimoto pulls

134

back one of the iconic moments of her ignorance to illustrate her

progression towards understanding, and possibly saving, Sasuke.

Arriving at the village, they get quickly briefed on what’s happened.

Kankuro fought Sasori in the desert and is now in critical condition. He

charged on his own against the both of them - an action equally as silly as

Naruto trying to do everything himself; however, he did salvage a bit of

Sasori’s clothing which was used to track them back to their hideout. Does

this reward hotheadedness? I think it shows his degree of ingenuity and

tenaciousness despite throwing himself into a battle he could never win. He

has only a couple days left before the poison gets him but as luck would

have it, Sakura is the only Kunoichi aside from Tsunade who can produce

the right antidote. Again, the same challenge presents itself, as Sakura could

easily have freaked out realising she has a very slim window of opportunity

to save him, but her chances will be based on her ability to assess the

situation, identify the type of poison and gather ingredients.

After he stabilises, they make their move to track Gaara. Coming out of the

Forest they stumble upon a lowly nobody - some journeyman called Itachi

Uchiha. The moment where Naruto is put under genjutsu is eye-opening,

as he’s trying to gauge Naruto’s response to the neurotic extremes of

himself. Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi and Gaara all prod him with the worst

things they could say to him, but it’s Gaara’s that hits home the most: “Only

you achieve happiness”

[6]

. He doesn’t want that to be true, and it doesn’t

matter if it’s just a genjutsu. This is what Itachi knows: regardless of the

absurdity of the reality that conveys these points, it’s the same. Tears begin

to stream down his face and he’s breathing heavily, unable to provide an

answer or saving grace, but the agony stops as Sakura and Chiyo snap him

out of it.

135

By the time they ﬁnally defeat this crude impersonation and get inside the

hideout, Gaara is stone dead. Naruto cannot accept any of this and charges

at them, forgetting all his training, even his comrades: “Charging in

without thinking, and you’ll get us all killed”

[7]

In terms of dealing with emotions, there is a poignant section in Hagakure

that talks about compassion and courage in relation to their signiﬁcance for

the warrior and the monk. Both achieve a necessary symbiosis that is key to

elevating one's own craft. If the Samurai is only courageous on the outside

and without love on the inside he will be unable to fulﬁl his duties;

likewise, a monk who doesn't have courage and bravery on the inside shall

never attain enlightenment in the Buddhist Way

[8]

. Naruto has certainly

grasped compassion, but courage has drifted into recklessness and suicidal

frenzy. This kind of attacking without thinking is also mentioned in the

handbook, called shini-gurui

[9]

, translating to ‘death frenzy’ , which was

typically associated with people who are ultranationalist and will sacriﬁce

one’s life in the name of their country. Naruto is a man who will charge in

the same way, but in the name of an individual. The section gives stark

advice to its protégé's about losing your mind and just handing yourself

over to insanity so you can make the sacriﬁces necessary. Doing anything

else like careful planning and measurement will paralyse your mind and

doubt will manifest

[10]

In the ﬁrst chapter I had talked about Bushido being a wealth of knowledge

in regards to Samurai ethics, philosophy and practical advice, but Hagakure

goes a completely dierent direction and claims that this very death-frenzy

is Bushido

[11]

. If your reason to serve is grounded in great exploits, and

killing more people than your enemy, why not become insane and desperate

to die? It deﬁnitely had its advocates, and Naruto acted similarly to when

Sasuke tried to scream and charge the ﬁrst time he saw Itachi.

136

The meaning of Art

Despite the rampaging fox ready to strike at any moment, Deidara and

Sasori break the tension completely by having a discussion on the

philosophy of art, whether it is "Eternal beauty" or "A ﬂeeting moment",

and just as they’ve veered o course, I shall brieﬂy do the same.

I quite like this article of Maria Popova’s about Walter Benjamin

[12]

, as it

explains the dierence between mere information(a single moment) and a

story, which lasts for far longer. Raw information has no meaning in the

same way a piece of knowledge is called trivia but an assimilation of

knowledge is called wisdom. Obviously this article is in favour of Sasori’s

artistic perspective as we need stories to shape our lives, that special kind of

art that oers a timeless sense of wonder and enrichment; but Deidara

would argue that nothing so binding could ever be digniﬁed if it attempts

to stick around forever: his art leaves no story, no eternal scent, but how are

his explosions dierent from mere ﬁreworks?

We have to turn to the artistic use of the word “sublime” which was

expounded by the work of Edmund Burke(1729-1797). He separates the

beautiful and the sublime into two categories with the former based on

ideas of love, whereas the latter is based on ideas of astonishment, fear and

ineability. For something to qualify as sublime it must subsume us and

shock the soul to where we cannot think of anything else: “The passion

caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most

powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in

which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this

case the mind is so entirely ﬁlled with its object, that it cannot entertain any

other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence

arises the great power of the sublime, that, far from being produced by

them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible

137

force. Astonishment, as I have said, is the eect of the sublime in its highest

degree; the inferior eects are admiration, reverence, and respect”

[13]

An explosion such as Deidara’s does qualify as sublime, but he smuggles in

the ideas of “clean, reﬁned lines” and “two-dimensional deformé”

[14]

pronounce his clay ﬁgurines as inspired. But for him to say the height of

the creative endeavour is a “transient beauty that fades after just a

moment”

[15]

is quite something to Sasori, who lost both his parents in war.

They are his main artistic outlet and the reason why he doesn’t like to keep

people waiting, reﬂecting his time as a child waiting for them to return.

Sasori is a traditional artist who captures the content of his subject and

allows for interpretation of this form. This orthodox relationship between

the artist and the object has happened to Deidara only once, but was

enough to shake him to the core. It was when he was being targeted by the

Akatsuki and fought Itachi to avoid being recruited. The moment when he

stood between the broken wall backlit by those golden rays made Deidara

forget all about his prior beliefs in art, for a moment he stood spellbound.

The statues on either side of him have the same three tomoe around their

heads

[16]

, which creates this incredible display whereby each element

complements the other. All of Itachi’s colours are drained away apart from

the searing red in his eyes, maximising their captivation.

We can try to understand why this resonates so strongly by turning to

Hegel's Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics, as he tries to deﬁne what the ideal

piece of art is. When the abstract Idea(the concept/essence of a particular

thing) ﬁnds alignment with its mould, that being the medium which gets

shaped and reformed, such that the conformity brings the Idea forth, that is

the Ideal

[17]

. Now there is much more to it than this but we can identify that

Itachi's spontaneous portrait is the Ideal display of the Sharingan, as he

allows himself to be the medium that allows the concepts of power,

138

authority, resplendence to thread through. After that day Deidara began

training one of his eyes to counter genjutsu speciﬁcally to revoke his prior

perspectives, as they say “art is in the eye of the beholder”, but if the eye can

change he doesn’t have to consider that moment “art”.

He said at the start of their meeting that he had no purpose

[18]

, but was

satisﬁed with being paid commissions as they gave him time to reﬁne his

masterpieces. Funnily enough, there is a segment in Nietzsche’s Will to

Power where he speaks brieﬂy about the nihilistic artist as one who takes a

decadent but nihilistic attitude towards life, seeking refuge in the beauty of

form

[19]

, so it seems this is an archetype of sorts. When he has his ﬁght with

Sasuke, it’s probably a conﬂict between the rational scientiﬁc mind which

coldly dissects his work, and the eccentric artist who claims no critic could

understand him. He is the ambassador of this high-ﬂying self-language,

whereas Sasori will wear any mask, use a range of dierent voices and

expressions, transfer himself into any puppet body to continue living and

express new ways of being.

What’s changed?

Sakura has never had to see a living Akatsuki member in the ﬂesh, and

though Sasori is mostly a puppet he is certainly the real deal. Now she's

facing all the evil she had previously read about in textbooks because she

made a promise to Naruto to be at the frontlines - "I vowed that the next

time, I'd protect them both"

[20]

. Initially she had felt the sheer scale of

Sasori's combat experience over hers and had to take a step back

[21]

becoming despondent with how dicult it would be in keeping up with

him: "understand the puppet master? Make snap judgements? I can't really

do either"

[22]

. Nowhere other than war and combat are theories going to be

conﬁrmed the quickest by reality, as that is a scenario where every move of

the opponent is for the expressed goal of killing you. She has to analyse

139

things objectively and see what she can do, and agrees to be used as a

puppet. This is the dream of Sasori: a living, breathing specimen, and yet he

doesn't know the secret behind acquiring it. To him human life is nearly

worthless and of no real meaning, but living is the priority and through the

husk of others he will never disappear.

Shifting gears to the mythical, it's no coincidence that he who bears the

Kanji for scorpion on his heart

[23]

would come to embody the Scorpion

Goddess Serket of Egypt so well. Ironically she was the one who protected

the vital organs of a dead person, and kept the body from harm, but here

the symbolism has been repurposed as Sasori instrumentalises those

cadavers for experiments. She also has associations with the embalmer’s

tent

[24]

, and her corresponding expertise maps to Sasori's grim explanation

on how he makes his puppets: "First I pull out the entrails. Then I skin the

body clean... then I drain the blood, down to the last drop. Add in a few

preservatives, then just string up what's left and we have a brand new

marionette"

[25]

, which is remarkably similar to the process of

mummiﬁcation

[26]

. One thing to note is that the heart is often left inside

because it represents the most important part of a person, and this is the

last piece of humanity that resides in him as well. Seeing Chiyo's jutsu and

how it can breathe life into a puppet, it's the magnum opus of

puppet-masters and translates to the central name of Serket herself, being

she who causes the throat to breathe

[27]

These commonalities are intriguing, but where our central parallel resides

is that Serket is one of the guardians of Horus

[27]

and aliated with Isis.

Moreover, he is the one who holds vital intelligence on Orochimaru and

through his henchman they could pinpoint Sasuke's whereabouts: "go to

the Tenchi Bridge in the Hidden Grass Village, ten days from now at noon.

One of Orochimaru's henchmen is a spy of mine I'm supposed to meet

140

there"

[28]

. And with that, the two of them hobble back to regroup with

Naruto and Kakashi who’ve been able to handle Deidara.

They lay Gaara down in a ﬁeld, and Naruto ﬁnally realises he’s dead. “Why

always Gaara…? He’s just become Kazekage…”

[29]

. Chiyo tells him to calm

down but he doesn’t want to listen to her, the woman who put Shukaku

inside him: “If you hadn’t put that monster in Gaara none of this would’ve

happened”

[30]

. He feels the sting of other people’s Will and throws his hope

away whilst mourning his friend in anger. Things that Naruto could once

take in his stride have become unbearable burdens when the pain and

consequences are too real, when friends die and things can’t be repaired.

Interestingly, Neji is beside him and this message also pertains to him - he

may be thinking about what happened to the Naruto who spurred people

on to change despite tragedies in the past. Fate has momentarily eclipsed

his optimism.

“I couldn’t save Sasuke… I can’t save Gaara. For three years I trained like

crazy… but nothing has changed”

[31]

. Both he and Sasuke by this point have

uttered words of the form "all these years have been for nothing", as his

friend had this realisation when he got beaten into the ground by his

brother, and it was that arc which Naruto has behaviourally replicated.

Back then there was no avenue whatsoever for Sasuke to try and stop

Itachi, just as Naruto had been drowned in obstacles to the point where he

couldn’t make it. This happens, and whilst these years have taught him so

much, this is one thing you can’t prepare for. Naruto has never had to

watch a friend die as it was always the enemy that got their comeuppance,

but now he knows what it feels like.

It is only because Chiyo oers her life does Gaara get a second chance. The

ﬁrst time he came into the world was for someone else’s dream but now

they just want to see him as a person, nevermind that he lost the tool he

141

was put on the Earth to master. To have lived a previous life as a puppet for

the beneﬁt of the village, ironically sees the use of the transference jutsu

originally designed to breathe life into puppets, divesting them of their

strings to live as humans.

Temari recognises that Naruto has “the power to change people”

[32]

Chiyo would’ve never sacriﬁced herself for anyone, she didn’t care any

longer about the village once she’d retired. What caused such a profound

change? Well, the ﬁrst shock to the system was meeting Sakura and

realising that she genuinely helped both Kankuro and herself with no

hidden intent; back in the days of the Warring States, a friend today may be

an enemy tomorrow, so what’s the incentive to help these potential

enemies? Sakura could’ve easily feigned ignorance and made the case that

the poison was “too complex” and let Kankuro die.

Additionally, during their battle against Sasori she was continuing to heal

Chiyo’s injuries despite being near her limit

[33]

, and if that’s not enough she

sacriﬁced herself and was stabbed with a poisoned sword despite not having

taken the antidote

[34]

. She completely exempliﬁed Naruto’s principles of

“Whether it’s Konoha or Suna … means nothing to him”

[35]

Chiyo could see her selﬂessness and decided to use the ﬁnal antidote on her,

also imparting her own life force to keep Sakura alive beyond ordinary

medical ninjutsu

[36]

. Despite being sculpted by trepidacious times, where

relationships between lands were mere formalities forged on self-interest,

she has seen the lengths to which another village will go to save one of her

own. Originally it was her who sealed Shukaku in Gaara

[37]

believing it

would be good for Suna, but now she sees this was yet another mistake -

“up ‘til now… everything I’ve done has been wrong”

[38]

. She feels strong

national pride and thus sheer humiliation, but sees something unique in

Naruto. He puts his hands on top of hers to deliver all the chakra he can

142

muster, as she admits her own power isn’t enough to heal Gaara on its

own

[39]

. Ordinarily she would’ve failed once again, “but … at the very end, I

think I might be able to do something right”

[40]

. Collaboration is what does

it, as now Naruto too has ﬁnally worked together with someone, and seen

the result he wanted all along.

143

Team 7-ish

Hundreds of feet below the normalities of village life are the quiet

catacombs of the Root

[1]

where Danzo plots his next move. Now that

Sasuke is a rogue ninja he hopes that Itachi can understand why he needs to

be taken care of. That's why Sai monitors Team 7, keeping an eye on

Naruto.

He’s gathering his things just before heading o on his mission and gazes at

the cover of his picture book; for a single moment he lowers his guard and

gets attacked by a fellow Root member

[2]

. It’s here that he’s given the details

of the “Top Secret Mission”, but midway through the lecture his colleague

thinks he spots an intruder and throws a kunai, but it was just a cat

[3]

. All of

this paints their organisation as paranoid surveillance junkies where the

central motto is: “Those of the foundation have no names, no emotions, no

past and no future. There is only the mission”

[4]

On the way to the bridge, things couldn’t be more awkward. Sai says he is

“trying a dierent personality type”

[5]

which is a totally foreign concept to

Naruto, who has been unabashedly himself since day one. He calls Sasuke a

traitorous cockroach who went against the village in search of greater

power

[6]

, which is the opinion of someone who knows very little. Sakura

gives him a false smile before delivering a hard punch to the face, an

expression he’ll surely remember next time. He feels no animosity towards

her though, he is merely ﬁguring out how to act in a way that minimises

conﬂict.

144

In their training exercise the essence of teamwork is lost on Sai, for the ﬁrst

instant that Naruto makes his position compromised he ties him to

Yamato’s substitution and completes the rest of it himself

[7]

. Afterwards,

Naruto asks him "Do you know what the word comrade means"

[8]

, to which

he spells it out. But nowhere in Sai’s understanding does the complicated

idea of brotherhood get intermixed, as that is the antithesis of solely

mission-oriented thinking; this is why moments later he doesn't even

attempt to save Sakura when she could've died from her fall o the

bridge

[9]

, as neither of them seem to be contributing: “I simply considered

what would best ensure mission success and acted accordingly”

[10]

. There is

no thought about whether Sakura could be useful on future missions,

especially since she’s a medical ninja that takes years to train, and this

tunnel vision will cost thousands of lives.

But as standard Samurai dictum states, the Way of the Warrior(Bushido) is

to be found in dying

[11]

, and if you have to choose between the options of

life or death, simply settle for the latter

[12]

. This probably explains his

nonchalance towards his comrade's potential demise, since his DNA is

practically the Hagakure rulebook itself. But aside from his philosophy, his

actions are those of a well-trained Shinobi, with his specialisation in

espionage, assassination and reconnaissance. This is why he was selected to

gather intel on Orochimaru, be the double agent for Danzo all whilst

avoiding the scrutiny of his teammates and the Hokage.

It is said that to master the art of spying is the highest form of the ninja

[13]

because it involves being able to discern the truth and the lies from a

person’s character; to extract relevant information, coerce their character

into revealing additional data whilst being able to recognise and shift your

own form into places that could garner more is the key. But this talk of

exploiting and manipulating other people is the polar opposite to Naruto,

who not only wishes to retain and develop his personal identity, but doesn’t

145

want to steer other people into giving him data for the village. He

practically wishes to be the antithesis of a spy.

We see why Sai can stomach this line of work as we glimpse into his

psychology, speciﬁcally when he talks about the death of his brother: “I

didn’t know what kind of expression I was supposed to be making”

[14]

. He

would cry merely because it was the “correct expression” in accordance with

how people have come to express grief. Even the death of those closest to

him does not rattle him enough to fail his mission. Danzo has certainly

succeeded in creating a culture which espouses incredibly high

single-mindedness(Ichinen), and warriors that incorporate this into their

duty are called Kusemono

[15]

. The term also has connotations for describing

such people as eccentric, but in the sense they are adjacent to social norms.

For Sai, it’s clear that he sticks out like a sore thumb at gatherings and is

often seen in the library to try and read up on social cues or how to strike

up conversations.

Tenshi Bridge

Yamato scuttles out to meet “the henchman” whilst he attempts to mimic

Sasori, but the meeting quickly spirals downward. The three of them get

called in, at which point Naruto ﬂares up as he ﬁnally sees Orochimaru, the

object of his hatred, staring right at him. Chakra swirls around the bridge

and tails dance in the air - but he needs more! He starts spouting the same

self-loathing points as Sasuke: "I didn’t have the power to bring Sasuke

back", "If only I had been stronger back then"

[16]

... can he begin to

understand why he went to Orochimaru of his own free Will? Taking the

shortcut to greatest power, he goes beyond the bars and into the Nine-Tails’

clutches

[17]

. Hate has now ensconced him and his consciousness is lost in the

process.

146

He shreds apart the bridge, eviscerates Kabuto and goes after the snake. He

pushes him to his limits as he remarks “this body continues to reject me”

[18]

after having to crawl out of his own mouth about three times and narrowly

dodging a tailed beast bomb, it’s nearly over; ﬁghting turns back to the

other side of the bridge, where Naruto no longer possesses a notion of

friend or foe, hitting Sakura with one of his tails causing major bleeding on

her left arm. Luckily before it can escalate Yamato manages to restrain him

and separate the tailed beast chakra, but we can see it has burned Naruto’s

entire body.

Now that things have settled, the three of them can regroup and discuss

their next move, but Yamato takes this moment to bring Naruto to one

side. He discloses that it wasn’t Orochimaru who laid waste to everything,

he was the one who hurt Sakura. Does he know what the word “comrade”

means? I guess all too well.

These last two missions have shown something poignant in Naruto’s

character: that he isn’t able to endure anymore. He is so close to ﬁnding

Sasuke and the nearer he is the more he will listen to the fox to get him

across the ﬁnish line. The only thing he chooses to remain conscious of is

his care, not his methods, so he allows the demon to ﬁll in the blanks;

Yamato knows he isn’t stupid, and he’s aware that this happens

[19]

, but the

reason is because he’s stopped believing in himself to get the job done - to

keep his promise and ultimately save his friend, as he admits when he

ﬁnally sees Sasuke

[20]

. This kind of surrender is a soft form of giving up, but

if he still wishes to be a Shinobi(忍), this isn't an option. The Kanji itself

carries the meaning of endurance, patience and perseverance, and one can't

expect to complete their goals without pain and hardship.

I think Naruto's main problem with it would be the connotations that

people should just stomach any pain and repress it, as was encouraged for

147

middle to lower-ranked Samurai to do

[21]

. Whilst he rallies against this

traditional Shinobi culture, I hope he can consider one helpful aspect of

Bushido, which is called zanshin(“lingering heart”). It stresses the

importance of psychological and physiological alertness, keeping hold of the

adrenaline racing through your veins despite the heat of battle

[22]

. Hagakure

is one of the main texts that concretised Bushido, which is what Naruto

wants to revolutionise, but he hasn’t come to understand what is worth

retaining versus what should be thrown out. He presumes Shinobi culture

as a whole to be entrenched in anachronisms, but much of it is grounded in

Buddhism - practices he sorely needs - but ﬁrst he’ll need to understand why

it would be better to reign in his anger in the ﬁrst place.

Traitor!

Now that the brief skirmish is over, Sai ﬁnds Orochimaru and oers

himself as Danzo’s convoy, handing him what is seemingly an authentic

roster of Anbu Black Ops members assigned to the Hokage. Ironically he

called Sasuke a traitor but look at him now; obviously in his own mind he

considers this the ﬁrst step to helping the village, but until he can take his

chance to kill Sasuke, he will act no dierently. He fully trusts in Danzo and

hands over his life to him, but how is this dierent to what we saw Naruto

do in regards to Kurama? He has slighted both of them at one point, and yet

he concretises both sides of their negligence.

This may be another case of apophenia, but it’s interesting to see that

Sasuke left his headband and Sai left his picture book behind when going to

Orochimaru, and Naruto abandoned his friends when assimilating with the

Fox - the exact things which tethered them to the world of the living had to

be severed when “selling the soul”.

148

Once at the hideout, Sai becomes the ﬁrst member of Team 7 to see Sasuke

in over two years. But only those eyes are in colour, peering into his blank

facial expression. He contorts that fake smile again and tries to ingratiate

himself but he’s quickly told to get lost. Before Sasuke leaves he mentions

that Naruto and Sakura are searching for him, and they didn’t like him right

away either - but he has a feeling they’ll get along better. A ﬂash of genjutsu

sends Sai falling to the ground and we presume his friendship has been

rejected. For a moment he seems to be broken out of his usual emotionless,

mannequin-like posture and observes that he’s actually sweating: “Just by

meeting his eyes… I somehow fear Sasuke”

[23]

Just as he’s laying out his things Team 7 manage to ﬁnd and interrogate

him. He has three separate stories that he relays depending on whether he’s

speaking to Danzo, Orochimaru or his teammates: For Danzo, he sends

accurate mission reports regarding the Sasuke assassination; for

Orochimaru he drums up talk about Operation Destroy Konoha part two,

and with his teammates he heightens the fact he is a double agent, but

ignores the bit about Sasuke

[24]

. When asked if he is ﬁne with juggling the

lives of all the villagers should it go wrong, well “I’m just following

orders”

[25]

; that the Root aligns with Blood Mist village isn’t surprising.

Renowned for producing the coldest Shinobi capable of completing any

task with no regard for human life, and if the mission goes wrong, it doesn’t

go Wrong. What I mean is, Kirigakure ninja come with a rather harrowing

insurance policy, exempliﬁed when Kisame was escorting the cipher core

and they got ambushed by Konoha Shinobi. Kisame killed them all o so

that the village’s secrets wouldn’t be leaked

[26]

. In the end, he would admit

to “Yagura”(Obito) that he didn’t know whether he was truly an enemy or

an ally

[27]

, and that he began to feel like a false existence; seeing that it was

really Obito coercing the Mizukage only exacerbated the feeling that all the

faith he had in his Lord was misplaced from the start.

149

Sai is trying to sacriﬁce himself in the name of the good, for something

which will beneﬁt the village - heroic is it not? A hero is often shown in the

identity of people like Superman, Batman and so on as someone who wears

a uniform and dissolves their identity too as this gives them the courage to

act and ﬁght o evil; but what Sai has is much more than a uniform, it’s a

way of life that has completely taken over his speech, his home-life, his

friends and family (or lack thereof), whereas a hero is someone who tries to

think for themselves, with the uniform magnifying this aspect of their

character.

Now outside and tied up (like a traitor might be), he baulks at Naruto’s

continued optimism to bring Sasuke back for he cannot see any way of

convincing the person he is now. He asks Naruto why is he going so far for

someone who has no interest in him and just as little for being “saved”

[28]

His bombardment of questions is very uncharacteristic, but I think it’s

because he wants to see what reason Naruto gives for continuously trying

to maintain a relationship with his brother. He says the reason he goes this

far is because Sasuke is the one who truly accepted him, evil and all, and

such a bond can never be broken.

Kabuto intervenes and says that “people change”

[29]

, but he may be alluding

to a person moving from one kind of mask to the next as deﬁning their

personhood, which is true in his case since he is a man who has assumed a

thousand faces.

Sai wants to see who’s right and he’s willing to risk the entire mission. He’s

prepared to change if it means he can remember those times and runs o

with Naruto to check every door on the ﬁrst ﬂoor. They take a moment to

sit down as Naruto still hasn’t fully recovered, to which Sai starts seeing

more of his brother in him: “He was loud-mouthed and impatient too [...]

the list of his short-comings goes on and on … but you know when he did

150

something… he always gave it his all, just like you. Watching you has

helped me remember him”

[30]

. There! He remembers what he was going to

draw and he quickly pens the ﬁnal pages.

His ﬁrst true smile, one that lifts the whole face is something we all see as

sincere. I’m sure he can feel joy, and probably relief, for ﬁnally being able to

complete his work. To make it one’s prerogative to sever feelings will allow

oneself to detach from the intensity of missions, which someone like him is

expected to do, but he mistakenly thought he could ﬁnish his artwork by

doing so. The act of “holding hands” is simply that if there is no emotion or

resonation behind it, as he had to feel the meaning behind that action to

choose it speciﬁcally.

Once uncomfortable to show his picture book to others, he happily explains

to Naruto that this is the image he wanted his brother to see all along.

When Sakura handed it back to him earlier, it’s a low-resolution equivalent

to when Naruto handed Sasuke back his headband, as she says to him “you

hang on to it because it is the only thing that proves you actually exist”

[31]

;

additionally, “abandoning it means abandoning your identity as a

brother”

[32]

, but this is precisely what Sasuke wanted to cut o as that

headband symbolised everything he needed to sever for greater power. For

someone who has no inner reticence about separation, how can Naruto say

his bond is still intact?

When Sasuke would ﬁnally see his former teammates, they all came o as

their weak and childish selves, so this path must’ve paid o. They oered

no resistance or challenge, with Naruto only taking one shot of his Chidori

Stream before being out of the ﬁght.

He takes the idea of reading people’s minds to a whole new level as he

ventures into Naruto’s psyche. In their last match he was only able to see

151

the demon since it had risen to the surface, but now he can see the roots

and Kurama is surprised at his progress, saying “you could actually suppress

my power”

[33]

. A key thing to note is that on the bridge Orochimaru was

able to see the enclosed Nine-Tails as well

[34]

, so it seems hate recognises

hate.

Sasuke has come far, but admits neither he nor Orochimaru are strong

enough to kill Itachi. But if there were a way he could hand over his body to

him and get revenge, he would do it many times over

[35]

. He doesn’t say it in

the sense that he will, because he smells Orochimaru’s greed a mile away,

but hypothetically speaking.

He’s about to drop Kirin on them, but Orochimaru advises against it as they

could still kill another member of the Akatsuki, which simpliﬁes his own

mission. They fade away and out of Naruto’s grasp, which closes the ﬁnal

parallel between Sasuke’s meeting with Itachi, where they decided against

capturing Naruto and chose to run o instead.

Time to train!

In the ﬁrst series Sasuke was weaker than Gaara, which crushed his

expectations especially after the two of them had cultivated this grudge to

see who was strongest, then his dream evaporated when he lost to Itachi.

Likewise, Naruto’s priority was to be there for Gaara as his friend, as the

two had cultivated a friendship, but he couldn’t make it in time; in addition,

Naruto’s dream of having Sasuke come back to the Leaf was shattered after

he impulsively tried to make it happen, which marked his second defeat.

These two equivalent narratological failures spur the need for rapid

development, and he visits Kakashi in the hospital to relay what happened

on the mission. He agrees that serious training is needed and he may have

just the regimen which could see Naruto surpass even him

[36]

152

During training we see a real shift in attitude to a man who has to prove

himself

[37]

. It’s the ﬁrst time in Shippuden when he’s recognised the need to

control the Fox’s energy and separate it from his own goals, as no matter

how much he tried to use it, it seemed to only impede his chances. Now

that he ﬁnally saw Sasuke it snapped him out of the fantasy that this was

going to be easy.

His relationship with Kurama regresses to an instrumentalisation because

he sees that he can’t operate interpersonally with him, as of right now he

doesn’t have the dialogical ability and always gets possessed. Jiraiya’s

advocacy of direct contact has thus been replaced and we see that he scales

this thought to villains like Kakuzu, not even attempting any resolve.

As he meets up with Kakashi and Team 10, his eyes are a duality between

the fox’s and his own

[38]

, showing that the beast is on the frontlines but not

running the show. This ﬁght will be about controlling that killer instinct,

the most dangerous side to the Shinobi. “Look, I know teamwork is

important, I do. But right now there is a bridge I need to cross alone, no

matter how dangerous it is. If I don’t work my way to the other side, I’ll just

be a kid forever”

[39]

. As he sees what it takes to mature into an adult, it

marks a major reshaping of his nindo as well, as teamwork has so often

been the key, but not when it comes to addressing his own hatred; but this is

a ﬁx precisely so he can return to comradery and not make others suering

the new normal. One aspect of his central philosophy has had to change in

regards to accepting some people cannot be saved by him, and just as this is

a crucial juncture in the Hero’s Journey, he must realise that part of what

Sasuke is doing is actually heroic and no longer entirely evil.

Speaking of whom, we see him reemerge in the very last panel of this saga,

enveloped by a thousand fodder Shinobi, and yet he manages to defeat them

all without using a fatal blow. They aren’t his true target

[40]

, and this

153

explains why Kurama said he had the ability to suppress his power, as

sharpening the killing instinct clariﬁed his hatred.

Additionally, he may ﬁnally understand the reason Sasuke could now accept

killing him, as it goes back to the earlier quote about “he who ﬁghts with

monsters should be careful lest he become a monster”, as Naruto had been

dangerously close to that precedent; but Sasuke is sure he wouldn’t turn

into his brother by cutting o his last tie to the village, and can even absorb

Orochimaru without being tainted by him. Indeed, while the prospect of

power was there for Sasuke in killing him, and for Naruto in learning the

Rasen-Shuriken, both have prioritised it as a test of character.

An index of revenge

The following is a subjective table that I use as a reference for all the

contours of revenge in Naruto, using these four metrics:

- Eort to resolve? This is where I look at the person seeking revenge

and whether they end up amending the relationship they had to

their target or not.

- Still with their village? This gives me an idea of whether this

individual is part of the correcting, helping process of being

surrounded by other people or whether this is someone cut o from

the world launching a vendetta.

- Eort by the target to resolve? This is where the target of the

revenge makes the eort to try and steer things away from death

and to rectify the bonds they have between them.

- Who qualiﬁes as a demon? I deﬁne a demon to be someone who has

rejected forming any bonds to humanity, seeking mere exploitation

and the “pure beneﬁt” that the world can oer to themselves, using

a symbol beyond any friendship to any person i.e., to money, power

154

and so on. P is for perpetrator and D is for defendant, with Y and N

being yes and no.

Eort to

resolve

them?

Still with

their village?

Eort by the

target to resolve?

Who qualiﬁes as a

demon?

Sasuke Uchiha (Itachi

Uchiha)

N - at time of

passing,

Y - during

reanimation

PN/D?

Sasuke Uchiha

(Danzo)

PN/D?

Naruto Uzumaki

(Orochimaru)

PN(PY - if in

Four-Tails form)/DY

Shikamaru Nara

(Hidan)

PN/DY

Orochimaru

(Hidden Leaf)

PY/DN

Pain

(Hidden Leaf)

Y (After

ﬁght/talk

with

Naruto)

Y (Naruto)

PN/DN

Madara

(Hidden Leaf)

PN/DN

Gaara (1st series)

(The World)

Y (After

ﬁght/talk

with

Naruto)

Y (Naruto)

PY/DN

Obito

(The World)

Y (at the

very end,

Y (Naruto,

Kakashi, Minato)

PY/DN

155

sacriﬁces

his life)

Madara

(The World)

PY/DN

Kaguya

(The World)

PY/DN

Sasuke Uchiha

(The World)

Y (After

ﬁght/talk

with

Naruto)

N (but

rejoins

afterwards)

Y (Naruto)

PN/DN

156

Culmination of the Uchiha

Orochimaru can smell that his vessel is at its ripest, what a sacriﬁce it shall

be! His patience is near the end as well as his body. This vessel is at

breaking point

[1]

and Kabuto rushes to get medicine that will bind him a

little longer.

Now Sasuke seizes his chance, running a blade of chidori through the door

and into his arms. Orochimaru knew he’d come for him

[2]

, as the delicate

balance in keeping him weak enough to be taken over and strong enough to

be obedient is dicult. Sasuke realised that as the due date for the

transference crept up, he hadn't taught him anything that would surpass

Itachi, nor would he have gone out of his way to ﬁght him.

But that aside, Sasuke doesn’t like Orochimaru’s style

[3]

and thinks his

obsession with the Uchiha is what caused him all this suering. I don’t

think he was surprised that his personhood wasn’t signiﬁcant, as it hasn’t

been to anyone since the massacre, but he is disgusted with how much he

idolises his clan. There are many outsiders who see the allure of such

bloodlines but know nothing about their history. In handing himself over

he admits that the last light of their heritage should belong to this delirious

fanaticism, though he doesn’t deny their brilliance either: “It turns out

you’re just a run of the mill ninja… you’re not even in the same league as

Uchiha [...] mild brilliance such as yours becomes actually rather

ordinary”

[4]

He charges with his Kusanagi blade but Orochimaru regurgitates his true

form, the Giant White Scaled snake. Its body is composed of smaller

157

snakes, truly a meta-snake to signify his position at the top of the mythic

hierarchy. They begin to wash over him as he activates the second state: “A

snake that crawled on the Earth dreamt of soaring through the sky knowing

full well it was impossible. Still, hoping beyond hope, it kept its eye on a

baby bird that it nurtured in its own nest… little realising that actually… the

snake is prey because that bird is a hawk”

[5]

. The white scaled snake has

been chopped to pieces, but once these bodily ﬂuids make contact with the

air they evaporate, causing a numbing eect in humans - assisting in the

next phase of the ritual.

He’s now within Orochimaru’s transference universe, a space devoted to

the passing over of one body to the next. Finally he will get his hands on an

Uchiha after failing to snatch Itachi! But just like his older brother, he turns

the tables, with the serpent having to hear the same line as well:

“Orochimaru, my eyes can see through all your jutsu”

[6]

. But this is on a

completely dierent scale, as he uses Orochimaru’s own curse mark - a

symbol of his Will - to perform the absorption against him. After the ritual

is complete, Kabuto walks past him and is genuinely unsure whether

Orochimaru succeeded or not, which speaks to his embodiment of

Negation in the snake symbol.

The shadows of Egypt

Previously when Sasuke had assumed the form of Horus, his

transformation was a last resort, one that he could feel was eating away at

him and had to be performed quickly

[7]

; now however he can dance on the

line of order and chaos just as Naruto was able to do in the last series, with

the reduced risk of losing his psyche. His curse mark had been accelerating

this Egyptian metamorphosis quite painfully as a means for power

originally, but he has come to embody the story of Horus as well, which is

one that closely aligns with his own goals. It was Isis that relayed what

158

happened to his father, that he was murdered and dumped in the Nile, and

his rage grows toward taking vengeance on his uncle

[8]

Remember that this battle for kingship is also one of avenging his father,

which he prepared for diligently. As Horus was nearing the stages to take

on his Uncle, Osiris appeared before him with some preliminary questions,

such as ‘What is the best animal for seeking revenge?’, to which Horus

replied a horse. But this answer confused Osiris as he expected him to say a

lion, with its sharp claws and commanding teeth, but his son replied that

this is the perfect animal to pursue a ﬂeeing enemy and to stop his escape.

This made him realise that he was ready, no longer giving into anger but

thinking about strategy

[9]

, just as Sasuke had originally been content with

being maniacal and using Hate, he has become truly calculating.

With Set taken care of, we move to the symbol of chaos, darkness and

treachery in Apophis. Just as Orochimaru was the snake of snakes, there is

an interesting passage in an ancient King's homage to the Falcon God that

called him the bull who attacks bulls

[10]

, and thus we start to piece together

that one must become equally symbolic if one is to stand a chance against

the serpent.

There is a book literally titled The Book of Overthrowing Apophis, which

granularly draws out every single thing you must say and do in order to

renounce this power. It involves summoning all of the most formidable

deities in the Egyptian pantheon to destroy an aspect of his being, like his

name, magic, body and so forth

[11]

. This is incredibly important, for Sasuke

has to contend with and visualise each and every aspect if he wants a chance

to survive and we get a glimpse into his preparation when he drops a bit of

snake trivia whilst ﬁghting Kabuto

[12]

. In terms of utilising other deities, I

mentioned that all were hypnotised by Apep’s stare except for Set, who

159

managed to pierce him with a spear

[13]

, which is how Sasuke started the

attack on Orochimaru by launching Chidori at him through the door

[14]

In an excerpt from the same book, there is a snippet which mentions the

role of Horus. By using the ﬂame of the Eye of Horus, this supposedly takes

power over the soul and casts out the shade of Apep

[15]

. Indeed those

fearsome eyes have been the cause of victory once again, and you could say

it did take power over him quite literally, since Sasuke managed to absorb

his entire being using just his Sharingan.

Beyond just Egyptian connotations, Sasuke can be readily interpreted by

Shinto mythology, namely Amaterasu the Shinto Goddess of the Sun

. Her

most well-known story is that after the actions of her brother Susanoo

which caused mayhem and destruction, out of either humiliation or

frustration (depending on the interpretation), she retreated to a cave and

plunged the world into darkness.

This coincides quite well with the dream of Apophis, who sought every

night to swallow Ra the Sun God. As the latter moved through the darkness

of the waters accompanied by an array of assistants, it was this union

between the light and ﬁery with the life-in-death, reinvigorating aspects of

Osiris in the underworld that were necessary to propel the Sun anew to

mark the next day

[17]

. What’s more, only at the darkest part of the journey

when hope is nearly lost does this union manifest

[17]

. All this time

Orochimaru had thought he'd succeeded, slowly bringing Sasuke into

darker and darker catacombs, moving from hideout to hideout, which

should've eroded his resistance to being absorbed just like all the others.

Upon the curse mark’s ﬁrst activation, Sasuke had said he was happy to sell

The shining and resplendent beauty of Amaterasu has been inverted to destructive black ﬂames,

given the inversion of love into hatred that comes with the Mangekyo Sharingan. The destructive

aspects align more closely with the Hindu God of Destruction Shiva’s Third Eye ability to burn

desire to ashes

[16]

160

his ﬂesh to the devil

[18]

, but Naruto’s intervention reminded him of his

family ties, which articulated a clear boundary between him and Itachi, and

likewise between him and evil. When Sasuke was ﬁghting those fodder

Shinobi, it was one thing not to have any of his own blood on his clothing,

but he didn’t have the blood of any of his opponents, which is what illustrates

the fact that the ﬁlth, the darkness and the grime has failed to penetrate

him. What Orochimaru has accidentally done is be the perfect person for

enacting a symbolic reunion between the sun and the moon, which has

become a type of individuation.

Such a process is necessary to become Pharaoh and upon attaining supreme

authority, one is bestowed a Uraeus, which is a small golden upright cobra

that’s worn in the centre of the headdress. It symbolises the prosperity of

the Nile river when the Pharaoh has integrated the snake and become

“upright”. The cobra itself is the serpentine Goddess Wadjet, who serves as

guardian, spitting ﬂames in defence of the King

[19]

, earning her the epithet

“The eye of Ra”.

The dierence between the eyes of Horus and Ra is that the former is the

left eye, regarded as the symbol of the Moon, and the latter is the right eye,

the symbol of the Sun

[20]

, with the Pharaoh being the one which holds them

both. We see the inverted relationship in the Shinto myths, where Izanagi

washes his eyes and Amaterasu comes from his left and Tsukuyomi from

his right; regardless of which side it happens to be there is a pre-eminent

symbol of renewal in either eye, for both the sun and the moon operate in

cycles - whether it is the daily cycles of Ra, or the monthly cycles of

Horus

[21]

Mythologies will bifurcate on whether the task of the sun is something that

needs to see everyday be fought for anew, or whether there is only a single

moment of weakness that leads to darkness. We’ve seen the former in Ra

161

and the latter in Amaterasu, but looking at cultures like the Aztecs, the God

Tonatiuh was said to rely on human blood and sacriﬁces to make it through

the night and into the next day

[22]

; conversely, in Greek myth the only

instance that Helios was said to have an issue was when he allowed his son

Phaethon to ride the chariot for a day, aside from special requests from the

gods to slow down or speed up

[23]

Time draws near

Itachi is making preparations as he knows Sasuke beckons, and both of

them will soon get the closure they want, but he has to determine which

way he should handle his brother. First he meets him in the cave to see the

man he has become

[24]

, and his sullen eyes explode into fury. “You’re not

going to just go crazy and charge me like last time are you?”

[25]

; whilst

shocked to see Itachi he focuses himself and launches a surprise attack,

causing the crows to scatter. He can see that Sasuke is ﬁnally ready and tells

him to head to the Uchiha hideout

[26]

The use of crows to gather intelligence is actually noted in a few mythic

circles, especially Shinto as they were said to be guides to Emperor Jimmu.

Their appearance is meant to illustrate the Will of heaven and divine

intervention

[27]

, and Itachi has always tried to act like a Hokage. In Norse

mythology Odin had two ravens that would ﬂy across the world and gather

knowledge which would be relayed back to him, which serves the same

crucial role as the crow did for the Shinto Emperor.

Speaking of which, Obito is trying his best to make Sasuke’s journey there

uninterrupted, and he has caught wind of Naruto’s eorts. He says

something very poignant, which is that he senses Sasuke continually going

through a process of zoomorphic-shedding from one animal to another and

162

he’s intrigued as to what he will change into next: “all that’s left is to see if at

the next shedding he remains a snake, or transforms into a hawk”

[28]

Itachi vs Sasuke: Reality, knowledge and the inevitability

of history

“How much can you see, with those Sharingan of yours?”

[29]

. A cleverly

worded question which can be taken literally, to which he would know

Sasuke still sees him as he hoped, and that he had attained the Mangekyo;

or, Sasuke would reply that he has “seen the truth” metaphorically, from

which point they would have a very dierent conversation. Itachi has the

job of delicately calibrating his theatre, probably holding a handful of

stories he could pluck given who and what Sasuke is aware of, but it seems

he can simply extend the facade he has always shown him further - the

power hungry megalomaniac.

They engage in another small close-combat match and the same phrase

“you’ve gotten stronger” reappears

[30]

, alongside the crows and genjutsu in

the previous cave. It resembles the data-point collecting of the Izanami,

which is a jutsu I doubt Itachi picked up in death, and the use case of it

aligns here: to facilitate self-reﬂection in the individual. Whilst all Itachi

has ever done is lie to Sasuke, with this ﬁght he hopes to liberate him from

the burden of having to spend his entire life training to kill him. The goal

of this match will be to pull Amaterasu out of her cave, by seeing whether

she(Sasuke) will be willing to accept new lines of truth

[31]

The mythological concept has become entwined with the philosophical idea

of Plato’s cave, which is the story of how people can live in ignorance as

what they take to be true is facilitated by an illusion. Plato notes how

dicult and nearly impossible it would be to change their perspective, with

people likely to refuse the truth even if they were taken out. In an attempt

163

to liberate Sasuke, Itachi uses this opportunity to talk about Madara and his

current existence as a way of expanding his mind in regards to things he

has taken for certain. It’s interesting that he’s pushing Sasuke to force a

particular resolution, and yet he says knowledge and awareness are

equivocal; the understanding he possesses of his younger brother despite

how predictable he may seem, is imperfect - so despite him saying that we

are tethered to our own individual bounds he still has the temerity to

interject. It’s also ironic because the very example he gives of Madara is

ascertained by what he sees of him, hears of him and the feats he achieved

like controlling the Nine-Tails - and yet this is no dierent to the type of

illusion he constructs now.

Regardless, Sasuke isn’t listening and says that his Sharingan can see

through genjutsu

[32]

, implying he can pierce lies and pretences, but as we

gradually improve our awareness, we see he never glimpsed what really

beheld him. What lured Amaterasu out in the end were the dierent gods

and goddesses pretending to have a raucous party outside which heightened

her curiosity, then just as she peered out someone put a mirror in front of

her face to which the bright reﬂection astonished her and she was quickly

led out with the entrance sealed behind her. Will Itachi really get

Amaterasu to self-reﬂect with his words? This is the target, the stain of the

Uchiha name which must be removed!

Moving onto other preconceptions, he brings into question Sasuke’s ideas

of him ever being the kind and gentle older brother, presumably to make

severing their bond much easier. For Sasuke, he couldn’t believe his clan,

family and friends had all been slaughtered, hoping it wasn’t real - just a

horrible genjutsu - “but there was no mistake, I was trapped in reality”

[33]

He wants him to explain how that is equivocal.

164

They continue, talking about the secrets of the Mangekyo and how Madara

became the ﬁrst man to awaken it along with his brother Izuna

[34]

. They

united the Uchiha and ruled with their visual prowess, but Madara began to

suer the eects of prolonged usage and his eyes began to lose their light.

Trying every method he could think of, he despaired and eventually stole

his brother’s eyes. From then on, his vision never waned with the

newfound powers of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Around this time

the clan became increasingly aware of how these powers could be obtained

and now they knew of a way to mitigate the side-eects, but it didn’t always

work and new jutsu weren’t guaranteed either, this wisdom only gleaned

after countless sacriﬁces.

“From the time you were born into our clan… you too were entwined in its

blood-soaked destiny!”

[35]

. He wants Sasuke to see that the man he’s become

is just part of this unfolding - just look at all the Uchiha who have come

before. Likewise, Itachi can’t rule out that Sasuke’s genuinely like this, as he

has seen in his younger brother the one who rampaged years ago, running

to Orochimaru for power, holding the same image of him all these years - is

this “blood-soaked destiny” applicable? He certainly manipulates him like it

is.

He shouts that he shall take his eyes and reach new heights and succeed

where Madara failed; the ghoulish ﬁgure that appears behind him is the

representation of an Oni, which is not actually there but a spiritual

expression of his person. It’s appropriate as it’s a Yokai that’s been called a

person-shaped anti-person

[36]

, that exempliﬁes every kind of evil which

torments society, and this is the character he shall be channelling. Sasuke

snaps out of his lecture to which Itachi says “It seems you were able to see

my internal self”

[37]

, crucially not his true self, just the playing out of a

particular personality.

165

The next phase of the battle rages with the Tsukuyomi taking grip of

Sasuke and he feels his own eye getting ripped out

[38]

- just as painful should

it have happened in the real world. Even so, he manages to wrestle free

using just regular Sharingan. Now, there has been much debate around this

topic of whether Itachi went full force or not and whether there was any

breakout at all; using “the middle way” as a generic rule of thumb, it may be

both - that Sasuke surprised him by breaking free, and Itachi reducing the

intensity below its maximum. We know that when he was hit by

Amaterasu a few moments later, Itachi carefully hit his wing and provided

him an out to separate using his substitution. This Tsukuyomi was an

interesting one as it was the only instance we’ve seen that didn't have any

time dilation at all, being stitched into reality seamlessly. Maybe he’s trying

to illustrate how easily the world of dreams could line up with what he

considered reality, rather than putting him into a coma.

Ninjutsu slugfest

Seeing as genjutsu is essentially pointless for either side to use, it’s time to

get to the real meat and potatoes of this match. Fireballs and explosions

carve out the battleground and now they’re outside, where it seems Sasuke’s

jutsu is stronger

[39]

, probably being amped slightly by the curse mark.

Oftentimes we use the saying “ﬁght ﬁre with ﬁre” to mean defeating an

opponent with their own weapons, but it can also be used sarcastically for

doing something that is completely pointless and makes things worse;

Itachi ﬁghts ﬁre with the symbolic epitome of ﬂame - Amaterasu being the

blackest ﬂame capable of boundless carnage, burning any target it touches

to a crisp, even if that target is other ﬂames; this essentially pushes the

earlier contradiction to sublimation, which is much like his take on

violence: “ﬁghting violence with violence” will only continue and spread,

yet if we up this violence to, say, the level of mass slaughter then once again

we break through that contradiction, typifying his way of resolve.

166

It is now that Sasuke uses the very last of his senjutsu chakra to launch the

Dragon Flame jutsu, which if it connects with Itachi all the better, but he

for once isn’t the main target. Both of them stand with pretty much nothing

left to give, so the next series of moves shall determine the victor.

“This jutsu guides the lightning down from the heavens… in short, I merely

direct its power toward you”

[40]

. The name of this jutsu is called Kirin,

taken from the creature of Chinese Mythological origin. They are used as

an expression of divine judgement, making sure to never strike someone

who wasn’t guilty of a crime

[41]

and spearing the guilty with its horn. I think

it’s also worth mentioning the Lightning God Lei Gong as well, who

wielded thunder strikes from Heaven when given the holy order to

vanquish. What’s funny about this myth in particular is that Lei Gong often

misses and hits targets which weren’t immoral; this is due to the clouds

sometimes being so dark they “cloud” his judgement, hence why Heaven

ordered lightning to come ﬁrst and allow for the correct person to be struck

by the thunder-clap

[42]

. Moreover, it seems that the Kirin we see here is an

amalgamation of these two, with Lei Gong also having assistants

sometimes whip up the clouds and provide downpour for example

[43]

mirroring the utilisation of the dragon ﬂame.

Amongst the sea of rubble the smoke clears and Sasuke hears nothing -

“Done … it’s ﬁnally over”

[44]

“Is this the death you had imagined for me?”

[44]

Kirin is based on the God of judgement which would smite those who have

an impure heart, so does it mean that Itachi did have good intentions and

our perception of him being truly evil is wrong? Maybe, but he also says “If

I hadn’t had this… I would have been dead”

[45]

, with emphasis on the ‘would’

so there are arguments for both sides. He boots up the curse mark again,

167

but he has no chakra left to balance it, evidenced by the fact one of his eyes

has that signature purple outline

[45]

. What makes matters worse is that

Itachi unveils his ﬁnal trump card, the Susanoo, which completes a

ridiculous set of abilities: “the one other jutsu that took root in my eyes,

once both the tsukuyomi and amaterasu were awakened”

[46]

The names for the abilities of his Sharingan correspond to the three deities

that emerged from the God Izanagi, after he rushed to wash out his eyes

and nose after being in the underworld looking for his wife Izanami. The

latter is where it’s said Susanoo came from, the God of storms. He was

known to be far more energetic and impetulant than the other two who

were largely quite responsible and forthright; it has been suggested that the

reason for his bashfulness compared to his siblings may be due to Izanagi’s

time in the underworld, as it wasn’t possible to purify himself completely

from the pollution

[47]

. The way the Susanoo forms, it does look like a spirit

that was once skeletal and slumbering which has now been animated, those

energies from the World of the Dead ﬁnding their way into equally dark

eyes.

Interestingly, those eyes didn’t need to have the Mangekyo activated and

Itachi doesn’t even have his regular Sharingan in use as he walks toward

Sasuke

[48]

. On top of that, Madara Uchiha when going against the tailed

beasts didn’t even have eyes at one point and still used the Susanoo

[49]

, so

what’s going on? It seems the jutsu needs one to master their eyes to

awaken it, but once done they’re no longer vital to its summoning. This

would suggest it becomes the only Uchiha Dojutsu which transcends the

eyes and suces with the body, as evidenced by Sasuke at the Gokage

summit when he said “All my cells hurt… so is this the Susano’o’s side eect

… if you use it continuously. How bad was it for Itachi?”

[50]

. The entire body

seems to be maintaining the Susanoo and generating the spirit that

slumbers in only a few members of the clan - those with the strongest

168

Kekkei Genki i.e., the ones with the strongest Uchiha blood running

through their veins, as remember not all members who awakened the

Mangekyo got new abilities.

Moving over now into researching the historical origins of Susanoo,

consensus stems around the idea he was derived from Korea and

introduced to the natives over time. His name comes from the Korean

word for a male priest(shaman), su sung

[51]

, which as we know is someone

capable of traversing between realms, interacting with spirits and doing

exorcisms if necessary. This last ﬁght was partly the orchestration of Itachi’s

suicide, but also the attempt at separating Orochimaru from his brother as

once he appears, Itachi comments “ﬁnally… it emerges”

[52]

What’s interesting is that back in ancient times, not only was Amaterasu

regarded as a male deity

[53]

but also there were links to snakes in ancient

times

[53]

. This form is noted whenever Amaterasu does any promiscuous

activities, so this ﬁght could be interpreted as Susanoo liberating the God to

shine purely once again.

The story of Susanoo tells of a God who initially strutted around in heaven

but due to his excess mischief and destruction was banished and sent to

Yomi, the Land of the Dead. Just before leaving he wanted to pay a visit to

Amaterasu, but she suspected he was coming to instigate a ﬁght and

prepared herself; but after some talk and tests of character she realised that

at the moment, he was genuine

[54]

. Ironically, passing this test caused him to

erupt in victory and he destroyed parts of Heaven, and in some

interpretations defecated in her rice ﬁelds. She then retreated to the cave

and Susanoo was deﬁnitively banished, though the myths have no record of

what his time in Yomi was like at all.

169

We can see that the two brothers are playing out a similar kind of dynamic

to these two, for there was a moment that Itachi was the loving, caring

older brother who was trusted deeply by Sasuke and then moments later the

cause of utmost pain. He is the reason that Sasuke is trapped, and has to go

on a journey to try and redeem himself.

Making his way out and into the land of the living, he ﬁnds an old man

weeping and clutching his daughter. Susanoo asks what's the matter and the

man says this is his last daughter that hasn't been eaten by the eight-forked

serpent, but the time is approaching with no means for her escape

[55]

Susanoo promises to take care of this serpent in exchange for marrying the

princess to which the man agrees. The monster in question was called

Yamata-no Orochi, the eight-headed serpent and was slain by the sword of

Totsuka-no Tsurugi. Obviously the parallels should be drawing themselves,

for the Totsuka blade is what Itachi’s Susanoo used to absorb Orochimaru,

who had performed his art of the Eight-Headed Serpent jutsu. In the myths

the serpent was made drunk by sticking its head in gourds of sake, making

it easier to be slain, and likewise Itachi’s blade is sheathed in one giant

gourd of sake, sealing its target within an eternity of drunken stupor

[56]

The Totsuka blade in Shinto mythology doesn’t designate a single sword,

but any sword of “ten tsuka’s in length” and thus for a God to brandish the

sword itself would be the display of a “meta-sword”; in addition, Itachi’s

mirror is said to reﬂect all things

[57]

. Lastly, the beads which resemble

magatama are “of great sacred and shamanic power”

[58]

which bolsters the

idea they would be wielded by someone like Susanoo, but he holds

“Yasakani no Magatama” which means “a string of magatama”; all three of

these items are noted as being part of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan,

and signifying possession of them shows the individual holds the essential

virtues for governing Japan: Valour in the sword, Wisdom in the mirror

and Benevolence in the jewels. Susanoo found the Kusanagi blade in the tail

170

of the eight headed serpent he slayed, and he oered this to Amaterasu as a

means of improving their relationship, and this is the actual sword which

constitutes the Imperial regalia. Whilst the Totsuka blade is “a variant of

the Kusanagi blade”

[59]

, he didn’t get it after slaying this snake, his journey

through the land of the dead must’ve been where he acquired all these spirit

weapons.

In addition, he has mastered up to three changes in form of his Susanoo, all

the way up to the sword wielding, armour-clad warrior. To explain why

such a multi-tier element was introduced, I turned to Emilia Gadeleva's

work entitled Susanoo: One of the Central Gods in Japanese Mythology. In it she

talks about the development of the Storm God as presented in the Kojiki,

progressing through four stages. The ﬁrst is a little boy who cries and

brings disaster along with it, the second is a youth who cannot control his

energy and destroys parts of Takamagahara, frightening his sister

Amaterasu. The third is evidenced by his maturity into a young man

capable of slaying the serpent, and thereby saving and marrying the maiden.

Last is the man who is master of his own land, and capable of being a

mentor to his son

[60]

. Itachi has awakened the penultimate stage as

evidenced by his current side-by-side with the myths, but can he go one

further and be a mentor to Sasuke?

Itachi is dead

Itachi collapses, just about able to walk over to Sasuke and pass him the

remainder of his strength. Convinced the ﬁght is truly done, Sasuke lies

down next to his brother as the rain washes over him.

Zetsu reports this to Obito

[61]

to which the rest of the Leaf Shinobi, Naruto

included, are aware he has completed his life’s mission. What next for dear

Sasuke? He once again becomes a blank canvas susceptible to being dyed to

171

whomever gets to him ﬁrst. He had absolutely no plan whatsoever for this

next phase of his life, so it’s up to reality. Obito uses Kamui to get to the

location in an instant and he checks if Zetsu recorded the ﬁght as he wants

to closely review everything

[62]

: his battle strength and secrets, the things

they discussed in regards to the village, the Uchiha, Madara and so on. Once

again, a theatrical display shall be constructed and it seems whilst one

Izanami has closed he has entered into an even larger sphere of illusions.

Whenever Sasuke is in dire straits it always seems to be the worst character

imaginable that pops onto the scene and steers him further down the path

of darkness, like Orochimaru in the Forest of Death, The Sound Ninja Four

tipped the scales into leaving the village and now Obito. I suspect this is an

inversion of a common trope in the tale A Journey to the West which is

where a monk and the monkey king Sun Wukong are often caught against

opponents by whom they appeal to Heaven for help, to which it is granted;

it was the Will of Heaven that would interject and keep them on their

journey to self-improvement, but in this tale Hell is the one who “provides

assistance” and bends him to their Will. Sasuke is going to be used as a

narratological canary in the coalmine for whether a character, if all crucial

junctures wobble, can still ﬁnd solace in the end.

It is around this time that both Naruto and Sasuke are the furthest from

who they were in the ﬁrst season, for none of the latter’s victories have

come from the honour he hoped to achieve the ﬁrst-time round to ﬁghting

Itachi. Against Orochimaru and Deidara they have all been scued to show

whether he likes it or not he has had to drop that aspect of himself. For

Naruto, he’s now gone completely the other way and ignores the pain of

others now, happy to kill Kakuzu, ﬁght Kabuto without question and to

repeatedly try and attack Obito. He would attack him from right-to-left,

and Sasuke’s strike would go left-to-right

[63][64]

is a very simple and elegant

172

way of saying Naruto is going into Sasuke’s past, whereas he will be going

into Naruto's future had he chosen hatred.

Now he’s back in the cave, listening to the painful unravelling of “the truth”.

Obito started by saying “I am, like you, an Uchiha survivor”

[65]

which he

knew to say since if he declared himself as Madara, Sasuke wouldn’t have

listened and/or tried to kill him. He activated his sharingan as a means of

proving this identity, but now one of Itachi’s insurance policies activates.

The Amaterasu was done to protect him

[66]

, but wasn’t this the very same

Itachi who moments ago did everything to kill Sasuke? Obito sees this

leverage and announces himself as Madara Uchiha, the one who assisted his

brother that night: “Only three elders are left who know the secret and

none are likely to ever tell anyone the truth. So Itachi’s actual mission will

disappear into eternal obscurity. Which is what Itachi himself desired”

[67]

He begins ﬂicking through pages of the past, reading from its tommes and

changing the wording to suit his desire, for example saying that Itachi was

“ordered to do so by Konoha”

[68]

. He threads the continual sentiment of

ostracisation since the time of the Second Hokage, and whilst it’s true that

there have been many poor governmental decisions, some out of suspicion

of the clan, he wants Sasuke to see that their plight is due to the intrinsic

fallibility of the Leaf’s village structure

[69]

“The Uchiha clan started plotting a coup d’etat to take over the village. And

so Konoha’s leaders sent in a spy to watch the Uchiha clan. That spy was

your older brother Itachi Uchiha. And that’s when his odyssey began”

[70]

His father instructed him to join the Anbu to gather data on the higher-ups,

but in fact he was a double agent helping the government keep tabs on the

Uchiha’s movements.

173

This might’ve been where his ties to Susanoo symbolically started to

develop, as aforementioned paragraphs alluded to his origination in Korea,

the God was always an intermediary between the two lands. In the book

The God Susanoo and Korea in Japan’s Cultural Memory: Ancient Myths and

Modern Empire, it describes how Amaterasu was at the centre of Japanese

identity whilst Susanoo was on the margin, and his true identity was

ambiguous, neither truly Self or Other

[71]

Itachi would betray the Uchiha to avert war, as he had seen its

consequences as a young child, hoping to stop it from emerging in future.

He tried to be like an impartial Zen monk, to care for the village

irrespective of his clan identity and to make composed decisions despite the

high pressure: “He would drop the curtain on his own clan’s history. And so

Itachi made his decision”

[72]

. It went smoothly, except for one mistake. He

couldn’t kill his younger brother.

After the massacre he joined the Akatsuki and “spied on the organisation

that threatened his village from the inside”

[73]

. This is quite funny as I guess

Obito knew he was a spy and nevertheless kept him in his organisation.

Whilst unintuitive at ﬁrst, he could be a loyal pawn despite his primary

allegiance to Konoha.

The majority of Obito’s explanations are through, and Sasuke refuses to

believe him, shouting that he’s a liar several times, until Obito says “you are

alive aren’t you?!!”

[74]

which is a callback to being “trapped in reality” as

proof that the ends of the massacre were real, and thus why investigate

further into their means. The fact he is alive, he can now understand is for

completely dierent reasons than he initially suspected, and he ﬁnally starts

thinking about what Itachi said to him, that knowledge and awareness are

equivocal and how much he can see with those eyes was really a probe into

174

whether he knew the truth. “Your eyes didn’t see through Itachi at all. Not a

single one of his illusions”

[75]

He just couldn’t bring himself to kill Sasuke despite killing the children of

all the other parents, who also knew nothing, and so his life was more

precious than the village. That same village which he accepted dying as a

disgrace for, slaughtering his clan for, losing his best friend for, still he was

more precious than that. He respected his father’s last wish, but it’s not the

sole reason. He loved Sasuke. Granted he pushed him hard when they

fought, but he only escalated when he knew he could handle each stage.

Seeing that Sasuke could peel away each layer it got progressively more

intense “And by allowing you to defeat him, he achieved revenge against

the Uchiha clan. By making you out to be Konoha’s hero… He had to ﬁght

you and die in front of you. For the peace of Konoha and most of all, for

you Sasuke Uchiha. He desired to die a criminal and a traitor, accepting

disgrace in the place of honour and hate in the place of love”

[76]

Sasuke did indeed shed his skin after the meeting with Orochimaru, Itachi

and now Obito. He is no longer the Hebi(snake) but the Taka(hawk) whose

mission is to destroy Konoha

[77]

Sasuke and the Akatsuki unite, swapping out one

brother for another

With talks going well, Obito regroups with Zetsu and relays how “the

eyesore”

[78]

is ﬁnally gone and they don’t have to stick to the pact of keeping

away from Konoha. He had respected Itachi’s wishes, not out of virtue, but

because he didn’t want to ﬁght him as he could use that power for other

missions. But in knowing that Itachi was philosophically compatible, Obito

needs to conﬁrm whether Sasuke is as well. After he “successfully” brought

back the eight tails, Obito wants to see whether he will protect Konoha and

175

be an annoyance like his brother or not. “Itachi’s life shows how he

sacriﬁced himself to protect the village. But my grief at losing him is deeper

than any desire to follow his path. Inconsolably so. I do not want peace

bought with Itachi’s life. Now that I know the truth, I will never take his

side and protect Konoha. Most of all, I will never forgive the three elders,

and I believe that everyone in Konoha enjoying the peace gained in

exchange for Itachi’s life is guilty too”

[79]

. “The reason Itachi couldn’t kill me

was because my life was more precious than the village. Then I feel

similarly. That Itachi’s life is more precious than Konoha. That’s all”

[80]

Due to being apart from the Leaf, and having each level of it summarily

reject him, if not for a couple individuals, he hasn’t got the instinctive need

in his heart to sacriﬁce himself for the sake of the village. Sasuke now uses

what was implicit in his brother’s actions to make explicit declarations that

Itachi is worth more than the village, at the expense of every villager, even

though he chose to spare him out of hope that he could redeem the Uchiha

and change the course of their history. In his grief, he weaponises his own

pain and resentment (which nobody can understand) and he looks at the

villagers as ignorant and unknowing about the true pain that underlies

their own peace. He has to realise that these villagers haven’t had the

chance, like he, to understand the bigger picture - would this mean he

would kill his prior ignorant self? “If anyone who would disparage my way

of living were to come forward I’d kill their loved ones left and right. So

that they too could grasp what it’s like to experience this hatred of mine”

[61]

176

The Loss of a teacher

Whilst I have made fun of Jiriaya’s detective skills as a promiscuous

Sherlock Holmes, he has come up trumps and found the location of the

Akatsuki Leader’s hideout

[1]

. As far as he knows the Hidden Rain is still

engaged in a bloody civil war, with the leader of the Akatsuki behind the

insurgent faction. Jiraiya wants to see for himself the current state of the

Rain, whether there is war at all and if there’s Akatsuki presence

[2]

He manages to inﬁltrate the village successfully, but his suspicions grow

since it shouldn’t be so simple to traverse borders with a country that is

supposedly at war. Pain immediately detects that someone has entered the

village and identiﬁes the strength of the person by their chakra

[3]

In the ﬁrst few moments Nagato has eortlessly managed a few of the feats

we think of when visualising a God: omniscience, garnered by the mass

surveillance system he set up, by mixing his chakra into the rain and noting

any novel disturbances, and omnipotence in having the power to stop the

downpour at any time. He exempliﬁes the elementary mastery that we’ve

seen in Hashirama for the Leaf, Gaara of the Sand and so on.

In trying to gather information, Jiraiya has a cunning plan for luring people

in for interrogation. His pretend Saké bar turns into a frog once the

customers have their arms and legs trapped and eventually one of them

spills all the news about their village: their land hasn’t been at war for a

long time, as Pain single-handedly brought peace to it and defeated Hanzo

alongside all his associates

[4]

. He killed them down to every last woman and

177

child, which couldn’t be more similar to Itachi, but this time the one person

he wanted to save was already dead.

Despite all that Pain did, it is for this reason that most of the people,

including this Shinobi, respect Pain and he refuses to leak more about

him

[5]

. Nevertheless, this has been enlightening and Jiraiya keeps him

within the belly of the toad whilst he completes the next phase of

reconnaissance.

As a precaution he takes Gerotora out and tells him to return to the land of

toads. He begins thinking about the reasons that Naruto came to possess

the Nine-Tails and why Minato would seal such power inside his son.

There must’ve been a reason as he couldn’t have burdened him like that

without cause

[6]

. He is reevaluating things he long took to be true, since he

has just come away from that interrogation knowing what many nations

are currently unaware of. Gerotora laughs at him for questioning the attack:

“Nine tails has always been a natural disaster that mysteriously appears

whenever humanity becomes steeped in evil”

[7]

and chalks it up to mythical

and divine forces. He knows that the only people that could perform such

things like Hashirama and Madara are long dead, but still he cannot shake

this uneasy feeling

[8]

. It cuts to Obito(“Madara”) sitting on his statue at the

ﬁnal valley, thus implying the manual summoning theory is possible.

Gerotora described the emergence of the Nine-Tails in much the same way

Jiraiya described the emergence of the Rinnegan as a mythical endowment:

“Rumoured to always appear when the world becomes corrupt, capable of

being both a godlike force of creation and an all-obliterating instrument of

destruction… I always thought it was a myth”

[9]

. Is this a sly and subtle way

of letting us know the story of the Rinnegan is not how it seems as well,

since we know the truth of the Nine-Tails incident?

178

In addition, Itachi’s actions are written o by everyone in the leaf, except

Danzo and the elders, as a callous evil action caused by the innate hatred in

the Uchiha. In reality, there is much more than meets the eye. In fact, this

idea of peering deeper into what one takes as certainty is the underlying

thread of these two ﬁghts: the identity of both Pain and Itachi are beyond

their mere appearances but unfortunately neither Sasuke or Jiraiya could

venture beyond their opponent’s name. Just as Pain is a God, for Itachi

“when he moves, the wheels of destiny turn”

[10]

; Jiraiya in comparison

frequently consults the wisdom of the Great Elder Toad and is more

hesitant in walking the path of the individual. Their divergence is due to

the depth of (dis)trust they have in destiny: Itachi is trying to divert the

course of the Uchiha, and Jiraiya is trying to make sure that the words of

the Great Elder come to pass.

In making it to where Pain resides, Konan manages to surprise him and

doesn’t spare a moment in trying to kill him

[11]

. Sometimes we see villains

take their time as they feel nostalgic when seeing old faces, but Pain wants

to “kill him, of course. You don’t have any lingering attachment to him do

you?”

[12]

Seeing his old students again, Jiraiya remembers the happy times amongst

trouble and war, when they sat around the table eating dinner together.

Yahiko seems to be the courageous one of the bunch, as he philosophises

about potential solutions: “If there is to be peace, it should only come after

they go through what we did! That’s the true meaning of sharing the pain

isn’t it?!”

[13]

. He never would’ve imagined how that outburst could lead to

the development of such an organisation.

Nagato had been so compassionate in the past, and that guilt had kept him

up at night sometimes, with one example being the rogue Shinobi he killed

when he and Yahiko were attacked: “I became so frightened that I had gone

179

blind with rage and killed him! I know I did something wrong. I can't help

but think that there must've been another way”

[14]

. Jiraiya tries to ease his

worries, “you protected your friend … so I believe what you did was the

right thing. No one can fault you for that. Once you have been hurt, you

learn what it is to hate. On the other hand, if you hurt another, you become

hated, in addition to shouldering a sense of guilt. But it is because one

understands such pain that generosity towards others becomes second

nature. This is what it means to be human”

[15]

. This sort of bootstraps o of

Yahiko’s prior statements that universal awareness of pain does become a

way for people to be more human, but it also exempliﬁes the Jiraiya from

the Japanese folktale I mentioned many moons ago. He was a vigilante

character and thus even an action like killing someone wasn’t o the table.

Nagato mentions that Yahiko had to steal food from others if it meant he

could feed him and Konan, which is where this strong urge to protect

comes from. All he wants to do is repay those two, to protect them “no

matter how much pain befalls me”

[16]

. Later however it is revealed that he

would fail in that endeavour, for he had died a long time ago

[17]

All these losses forced him to grow up: ”Master… you are merely human,

but as I was mired in endless pain… I am no longer trapped within

humanity”

[18]

. Initially sounding contradictory, it’s referring to his ability to

climb through the levels of hell described in the Wheel of Samsara,

journeying from the lowest level - the Land of Hell (naraka) up to the Land

of the Gods (devas). Seeing as he has experienced Pain at some point or

another across the entire wheel means he should possess a solution for

everyone, for we are all in Samsara.

Nagato explains his plan of gathering the tailed beasts, as they will develop

weapons that have the capability to wipe out entire nations. By giving them

back to the villages, they will use them - killing millions. Seeing the scale of

180

devastation each land would be forced to restrain themselves, out of mutual

fear of annihilation: “This fear would give rise to the end of warfare.

Conﬂicts would cease. Pain will force the world to grow up, just like it did

for us”

[19]

This philosophy is taken directly from the eects of World War Two where

the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, and despite them being the results

of relatively new nuclear testing, their power killed almost a quarter of a

million people. Now we have newer generations, where a single one can be

3,300 orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones that hit Hiroshima

and Nagasaki

[20]

. We live in a time where we don’t want war as that will

lead to nuclear escalation, which then forces us to consider dialogical forms

of peace, so Pain is right in a sense. But look at the world now. Wars will

continue between nations where the threat of annihilation isn’t there, and

only a small few have this immunity. Pain wants to give the weapons to

every nation, so that they won’t have their integrity undermined so easily.

But all this won’t guarantee peace, it just means we aren’t ﬁghting to the

death anymore, and all sub-problems will mount as there’s no

understanding toward solving them, which will equate to the damage of

nuclear strikes in the end.

Jiraiya looks a bit dumbfounded by his suggestions and laughs when he

claims to be a paciﬁst God, but Nagato sees him as an insect, which may be

the reason he’s only using the Animal Path. He manages to push through

this level and proceeds to summon the two great sages, a couple geezer

toads, but an even older geezer’s prophecy may be on the cusp of resolving

itself. Jiraiya believes this is the “critical selection” he has to make - to stop

his former pupil here and now

[21]

Nagato racks up the pressure, summoning two additional minions: the

Human Path and the Preta (Hungry Ghosts) Path

[22]

. These are the realms

181

above the Naraka Path (Land of Hell) but the Human realm is the ﬁrst one

that isn’t on the “evil” half of the wheel; the realm of humans is sort of

unlike any other, in that you can go up in a single lifetime to the Devas and

beyond, or down into the darkest Hell. It will be the actions of said person

that will incur the corresponding karma, at a time when Jiraiya is hoping

his decision is the right one.

If he can make it past these three then he shall move past the level or mere

man and challenge the other Paths of Pain. But at the moment he knows

that even with sage mode activated, ﬁghting these three will get him

killed

[23]

. He does have one trump card left though, which will be an

incredibly powerful genjutsu based on singing to overcome all Hell.

Listening to an old speech given by Terrence McKenna, he said that singing

can get you through almost any bad psychedelic trip that would’ve

otherwise been agony

[24]

, so just as Pain has weaponised Samsara, could this

be the weaponising of the solution to pass through these realms?

The song executes as planned, and all three of them are paralysed and

summarily taken care of

[25]

. The chances of seeing the Rinnegan appear are

essentially zero and considering the coincidence of ﬁnding him during the

war, it was hard to accept that he wasn’t the harbinger of light: “For just a

little while… I thought you were the one”

[26]

. He breathes a sigh of relief and

walks away.

In letting his guard down, another Path sneaks behind him and manages to

blow his arm o. Retreating outside again, he is accompanied by six

Rinnegan wielders. The Pains he thought he had conquered are back, and

look to be utterly unharmed by the last battle. Again he asks just “what is

pain”

[27]

, to which Tendo says this is an alias that designates the six of them

as a group. The totality of Samsara is designated Pain, to which the eyes are

their ability to have transcended the cycles themselves

[28]

182

Managing to get away for a moment, he pulls in the Animal Path that

started this whole thing into a barrier space and tries piecing together all

that has happened. Yahiko was pronounced dead, and yet there he stands

before him, but he wasn’t the wielder of the Rinnegan… is this man

Nagato? The crossed-out headband falls and a single scar reveals all

[29]

- the

truth of what pain actually is has been grasped. All the times he has

vanquished someone in battle, could it be that every member of Pain is

actually a previous chapter of his travels? He has to check this out and see,

even if it costs him his life. Now then, to run or face him, he’s certain this is

the critical selection he had to make

[30]

He sees them all and recognises their faces - ”they’re all Shinobi that I’ve

encountered before!!”

[31]

. Everyone is here, except the person who helped

shape the main character himself. The book was an adaptation of his life, a

book which Nagato loved, but it seems he has decided to puppet around

those bodies for the next phase of the work. The conclusion shall be

imparting a kind of karmic justice upon Jiraiya, who is having to contend

with all the actions he has done so far, and having to stomach Nagato’s

interpretation that his life has only brought about suering - even his

decision to help the Ame orphans as evidenced by Tendo. Now only Nagato

stands outside it as the only one who can bring peace.

With consciousness beginning to fade, he’s taken back to a cherished

memory of him and Minato sitting at the table discussing his latest book.

Despite sales being lacklustre he thinks it’s great - so much so that he shall

name his son after the protagonist, hoping he follows in his footsteps.

Thinking about all those moments with Naruto again, he really is a lot like

the main character. A lot like himself. “If never going back on your word

and never giving up is your Shinobi way… Naruto, as your mentor and

teacher, I have no business whining [...] I’m not gonna give up. That was

183

the true choice I was supposed to make! Naruto, you are the child of

prophecy, I’m sure of it now! And the rest, I leave in your hands”

[32]

To see that he should’ve just followed his own Way, to never give up rings

true not just in this moment, but across our Path as a whole. The same

message as it was for Neji all those moons ago, and he almost slipped into

Kimimaro’s state of mind of changing his supposed destiny with the

prevailing winds, as happens with losing your purpose. But this answer

isn’t just mere intel, it also asks of Naruto to push through all the Paths of

Pain, as his way of perseverance is the right one! This was the jewel that

Jiraiya had claimed for his eorts, realising the truth in his teachings and

how Naruto just needs to keep forging ahead until he meets the individual.

What am I supposed to do now?

After being stalled by Obito and having yet another failure, he receives the

news that his mentor has died in battle

[33]

. Lord Fukasaku informs him that

he went to the hidden Rain village all by himself to gather intelligence, and

in doing so got further than anyone ever could in ﬁnding out who and what

Pain is. He left a code that should unlock the secret of his identity, but lost

his life in order to bequeath it to him. Right now Naruto cannot accept this

gift as he is too embittered with the loss of his Sensei and scowls at Tsunade

for sending him out. Deep down he knows he would’ve left anyway, as he’s

just as stubborn. Again, he has the same rage as he did on the very ﬁrst

mission he was sent on, mourning the deaths of those dearest and

prioritising their safety at the expense of his beliefs about freedom and

autonomy.

As he walks home, he thinks about the years they spent travelling together

when he was a little furball with heaps of energy. He loved having Jiraiya by

his side as he continued to grow older - “I wanted him to keep watching

184

over me… [...] But I only ended up showing him the worst, most uncool

side of me”

[34]

. Iruka sits beside him and doesn't take his earlier rejection at

face value, telling him how much Jiraiya had praised his student, “he was

always boasting about you, saying you were like his own grand-child”

[35]

It’s a similar tender moment to when Sasuke’s mother revealed how Fugaku

expressed love and high regard for him despite his impression that he

wasn’t getting through to his father.

The next morning Shikamaru knocks and asks Naruto if he has any new

ideas about how to decipher the code. He can tell he’s still a bit down, so he

tries to oer some words of wisdom: ”Having lost my teacher too, I know

what you’re going through. But whining and sulking isn’t going to make

things better”

[36]

. He speaks on behalf of the village, in that he took action

against the people that killed Asuma, though I question whether this is the

same solution for Naruto. The loss of Jiraiya mirrors what Sasuke lost as

well, as Kishimoto explains on this topic: "when Naruto lost Jiraiya, a

father-like ﬁgure to him, he understood Sasuke's position for the ﬁrst time.

From there, what would Naruto do...?"

[37]

Cracking the code - of nature energy!

Whilst looking at the problem with some fellow codebreakers, Naruto

informs them that the ‘nine’ is probably Jiriaya’s way of spelling Ta(タ)

which is the letter that denotes the corresponding book - Make-Out

Tactics. Pretty quickly they get the code: “The real one’s not among

them”

[38]

. For the moment the meaning is opaque, and whilst Shizune and

Ibiki complete their separate investigations, this is the perfect time for

some training! Lord Fukasaku tells Naruto to come with him, as it’s time to

teach the boy to master sage jutsu

[39]

185

This training is the continuation of his most recent improvements in

controlling and integrating the malice that lies within, as he had begun to

realise the onus is on him to take the reins of adulthood. Now he’s learning

the dynamics which explicitly counter the Nine-Tails, as he’s learning to let

the world in - “we animals can only appreciate and sense nature energy

when we stop our own movements and synchronise ourselves with the

ﬂow of nature”

[40]

. We would see a clear shift in his perspective by the time

of the war, as his fellow comrades were getting attacked by Madara but he

was sitting in the middle meditating

[41]

! The old him would’ve lambasted

this decision and whilst this is a lacking turn of phrase, he seemed to

exercise “measured compassion” as he brought forth the maximum strength

he could muster across time, which would involve using senjutsu.

This nature energy itself is equivalent to Chi or Qi, which is the

fundamental energy of the universe described in Taoism, akin to Prana in

Hinduism, or Pneuma in Ancient Greek Stoic teachings, with the latter two

both translated as “breath”. Chi can be honed through stillness and

centredness, as well as exercises for mental and physical health like Tai Chi.

Chakra as we see it over the course of Shippuden is known to have come

from the divine tree and thus doesn’t qualify as a ubiquitous source of

energy, though this would be the correct answer in the ﬁrst series. The

energy centres in the body, called Tenketsu

[42]

, and the eight gates are closer

to the Hindu system of chakras in the body whereby the energy released

and directed is Prana. To add to the potential confusion was Sasuke saying

in the Forest of Death: “my Chi is so out of whack, I overlooked a giant

snake!”

[43]

, but this was used to describe the general state of himself in

regards to all energies, not just chakra, so it’s no wonder the term was

summarily dropped after this chapter.

The idea of disturbances in one’s energy persists though, as Lord Fukasaku

cannot sit on Naruto’s shoulders to supply nature energy into him as

186

Kurama is messing with his chakra ﬂow. This is because he didn’t want

Naruto having another source of power contending with his own

[44]

, and

his adversarial stubbornness has led to an impasse. He tries running and

gathering nature energy at the same time, which is the deﬁnition of

contradiction: “To gather nature energy, whose principle is stillness, while

running … it’s like looking to the left when you’re already looking to the

right”

[45]

. Well why didn’t you say so!

The majority of the inspiration for this section in regards to the training,

toad symbolism and hermitage is based on the folklore of

Gama-Sennin(“Toad Sage/Hermit”), who is an elderly sage that lived in the

mountains. Accompanied by nobody else but a giant toad he made a living

by selling magic herbs

[46]

. His appearance isn’t exactly ﬂattering as he’s

depicted with skin covered in pimples and warts, which might be because

he always lets a frog sit on his shoulder or on his back

[46]

. What this may

inﬂuence is Jiraiya’s distorted appearance when he is in sage mode, as well

as the technical aspects of the jutsu requiring a frog to sit on the shoulders

as well. Additionally, Gama-Sennin’s ability to turn other people into toads

may be the origins of sage-jutsu petriﬁcation, or it may be borrowed from

earlier Chinese Mythology with Chang’e the Moon Goddess. I go more in

depth into her story in later sections

[47]

, but what’s important is her stealing

the elixir of immortality from her husband Yi and ingesting it, turning her

into a toad

[48]

. This isn’t believed to be the right eects of the elixir but

rather a punishment for bad behaviour

[49]

, which coincides with the

distractions and temptations which pollute the mind and will transform

Naruto as well if he isn’t careful.

Now we're getting onto something psychologically important which is also

linked to the origins of Gama-Sennin himself, with that of the Taoist

Immortal Liu Haichan, who is often pictured with a toad on his shoulder,

alongside gold coins and so forth

[50]

. He was a popular mythic ﬁgure during

187

the Song Period in China(960-1279) and played an important role in

dispensing Neidan techniques alongside literature relevant to its

implementation

[51]

. Neidan refers to "internal alchemy" and speaks to a set

of practices that people can do to purify themselves in order to produce the

“inner elixir”

[52]

. What's more, this is what Chang'e wanted to procure and

stole, actually squandering its truest production, which is found in part by

addressing the state of one's mind, body and spirit.

What often happens with characters like Gama-Sennin that are adapted

and remodelled into Japanese folklore is that they don’t tend to include this

conceptual wealth of knowledge and spirituality as they’re used primarily

for artistic expressions

[53]

; here however Kishimoto illustrates Jiraiya’s

deepest desire is to eventually bring about great change to the Shinobi

world, and whilst most of his books land on the naughtier side of things,

Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi expresses his heart most clearly

[54]

. “Even I can see

there’s too much hate in our shinobi world. I’m always thinking that I want

to do something about this hatred… But I’m not sure how to go about it yet

[...] Well then, If I can’t ﬁnd the solution myself, shall I pass the quest on to

you?”

[55]

. Naruto says “Yes Sir” in his usual upbeat way which completely

plays against the gravity of his request, making him burst out laughing. In

reading these passages, Naruto remembers those fonder times with his

Sensei over those when he ran amok. He can picture himself in every battle,

realising just how much of his nindo had been penned by his master: “As

long as we live in this cursed shinobi world… there will never be peace. I’ll

break the curse. If there’s such a thing as peace I’ll ﬁnd it! I’m not giving up”

[56]

The character’s name? Naruto. But whilst he’s feeling warm and fuzzy about

his bonds, at the same moment Sasuke is plotting to destroy Konoha and all

it stands for, with a dierent snippet of Jiraiya’s words arising: “once you

have been hurt, you learn what it is to hate”

[57]

. This will certainly mean a

battle of teachings is on the horizon, but that’ll be between a dierent pair

of sibling students.

188

Pain

Back at Konoha HQ, Tsunade sees that the invasion is ﬁnally happening.

Just as she orders the messenger toad to get Naruto, the elders walk in and

demand that he stay at Mt.Myoboku. It does make sense from a practical

standpoint, as all they want is Naruto; however at this moment in time we

see that many high-ranking ninja have left to go out on missions, which

means there isn’t much stopping them from ravaging the entire village.

After a small back and forth she grabs the elders by the scru, dictator style,

and tells them to sod o basically

[1]

. You old timers have had your day in the

sunshine, you’re senile and you lack faith, with a habit of applying archaic

principles.

As she runs o to summon Katsuyu, Danzo hobbles outside, for he knew

the elders would be too weak, and seizes his chance to kill the poor

creature

[2]

. With Konoha destroyed he will probably get successorship due

to Tsunade’s failed idealism, and he mentions just this amongst his

subordinates: “How fortuitous that this chaos has allowed us to escape

Tsunade’s vigilance. It seems the Akatsuki have their uses. The era of Lady

Tsunade shall come to an end. But the Akatsuki wish to possess the

Nine-Tails. So I have eliminated that possibility. We stay burrowed

underground until things quiet down up above”

[3]

. One of his Root

members says that’s crazy as they need to make sure the village and the

people aren’t eradicated, but Danzo hedges his bets on Tsunade’s medical

prowess to avoid wholesale slaughter - all deaths being necessary for him to

become Hokage presumably.

189

With interrogation of the citizenry not bearing fruit, Tendo hastens a guess

that Tsunade will know where the Jinchuriki is, and this is the ﬁrst time

they have crossed paths since Jiraiya parted ways with them all those years

ago.

“We will never trust anything you say, you terrorists who seek to destroy

the peace and stability our predecessors obtained and have strived to

maintain until now”

[4]

. Of course, she has only developed this

understanding through reports, third-party references and so forth, and

based on this hodgepodge of truths Tsunade will not interrogate or

understand Pain further to see if she is correct. The genius of assuming the

name ‘Pain’, allows one to see all the poetic irony at play for whenever a

person tries to deal with him: “kill pain”, “take out pain” - how about

“resolve pain”? But then again, Nagato thinks he is a God who can assume

both the human and conceptual form of that word, but is he willing to

change when someone attempts resolution?

He calls her arrogant and says her so-called peace brought misery and

untold suering upon villages like his. She counters, saying that Konoha

has had its fair share and these are unwarranted attacks

[5]

. This was at

roughly the same moment that intel was pulled from Shizune’s soul and he

became aware that Naruto was at Mt.Myoboku, and he was about to

leave

[6]

, but this aggravated him immensely… such ignorance cannot be

ignored!

Pain thinks she has become lulled by peace and doesn't grasp the situation

of other lands. Does she imply that every attack against the Rain was

warranted? He retreats the other Paths so he can concentrate his energy

into Tendo. The names of his abilities Shinra Tensei and Bansho Ten’in are

amalgams of the phrase Shinra Banshō (森羅万象, literally meaning:

All-Covering Forests and Ten Thousand Things), a Buddhist idiom which

190

has come to mean "All of Nature" or "All of Creation"

[7]

. Nature and pain

are almost inseparable, intertwined concepts - but are they inevitable?

“Feel pain. Contemplate pain. Accept pain. Know pain. Those who do not

know pain will never understand true peace”

[8]

. Stood high, arms

outstretched over Konoha, symbolising his manifold perspective and

beholding his creation: Pain sculpted this land in the beginning, now it is

just the work of a more broad-brush inspiration. With a single move he

pushes away the entire village, sparing the very outskirts, and Tsunade

cannot believe it - “Unforgivable, unforgivable Pain!”

[9]

. In short, she said

nothing to him which couldn’t be reﬂected with a mere change of

circumstances. The Rain has had equal amounts of power ravage their

village for no good reason, thus it too must be unforgivable. “How dare you

trample the jewel … the dreams of my predecessors”

[10]

I need a hero!

Through the smoke, and amongst the towering Ninja toads, help has ﬁnally

arrived. Naruto thought the reverse-summoning must've placed him in the

wrong location, but the Stone Faces prove to him he is in Konoha,

although all they preside over now is rubble. Across from him yet again is

the manifestation of his hate.

The ﬁght begins much the same way as against Jiraiya, with the onslaught

of animal summonings followed by the hungry-ghost path as before. Both

are summarily stopped and he breezes through this stage with ease. This is

due to him having the informational advantage: their linked vision, their

singular ability per path, the nuances of the abilities in each Pain like the

wait period for Tendo and so forth; Nagato however doesn’t know all of his

quirks, like the Frog Kumite hitting without a direct blow or his senjutsu

chakra able to spontaneously regenerate. Nagato notes that he’s using the

191

same techniques as Master Jiraiya, to which Naruto is shocked he calls him

Master

[11]

. Sibling students ought to be able to understand one another,

especially since they’re both on a quest for peace. But this is no time for

deep philosophical dialogue! Instead he goes straight for the jugular, telling

him to shut up (twice)

[12]

before hurling a Rasenshuriken at him.

His recent training has deﬁnitely been good for stopping his aliation with

evil, as he has the ability to step up to the plate without the fox, but now

he's distanced himself from demons altogether and refuses to speak with

them. In this resolve it’s no longer the case that some people who go against

the village cannot be rectiﬁed but anyone, which means he has to accept he

wouldn't have helped his former self. He is supposedly an adult now, and so

that means throwing out the childish things he used to do like sharing his

thoughts with his opponents.

Being alone for so long and doing things to get attention birthed the start

of his character as the trickster - a cheeky, charismatic ﬁgure that could play

on the fringes of society, but he looks back on that part of himself as

something he had to do

[13]

. Naruto has to realise the strengths that come

from developing that side to him and how it can aid in his goal for peace.

What's more, the archetype of the trickster has from its earliest conception

been paired with the symbology of the saviour, like the Alchemical ﬁgure of

Mercurius, with other commonalities like their shape-shifting and pranks

on others seeing embodiment in Naruto

[14]

. This is due to the trickster

experiencing diverse cross sections of reality like that of the shaman, who is

the healer capable of rejuvenating stultifying societies. Jung notes that this

is in part due to experiencing agony of the body and soul, becoming the

"wounded wounder" who is the agent of healing, and the suerer that takes

away suering

[15]

. So as we see, Naruto rejecting his prior self based on it

being wrapped up with the shadow of Kurama has in turn separated from

192

the very pain that made him understand others, breaking from the very

nature of the one who can bring peace

[16]

I think the root cause of this problem, for him and Nagato, is that both are

reading Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi as a literal work meant to resolve the world,

and being that ﬁction isn’t “real” their attempt to exemplify it literally has

caused more problems than before. Pain has dug up the characters and

ordered their corpses around to continue the story, but there is a massive

dierence between copying the protagonist word for word, action by action

and embodying what he’s actually ﬁghting for. Additionally, consider the

fact that Naruto is embodying a simpliﬁed narrative of Jesus by choosing to

ﬁght the Six Paths by himself, for who else attempted such a thing - ”Naruto

is ﬁghting Pain [...]?! All by himself?”

[17]

. Jesus in fact was oering his eyes

and ears, his body as a vessel by which we come to understand each other

hence the eating of bread and drinking of wine in Communion as accepting

his oering. We don’t actually drink the blood of Christ, we register the

deeper meaning.

The beginning of the end

One Path after another has been taken out, and three have been ﬁnished by

the time his ﬁrst allotment of sage mode expired; despite the hungry-ghost

Path being revived and sapping away at his chakra, Naruto sees this as the

perfect opportunity to stay still enough to allow chakra to build up quickly,

with the overload of nature energy turning the penultimate Pain to

stone

[18]

. This is truly the farthest they have ever been (almighty) pushed, so

Tendo wastes no time in beginning the same Cruciﬁxion process he

performed on Jiraiya, spearing a chakra rod through both his hands.

Now the hero and the villain can have their classic mutual exchange of

ideas, and whilst initially reticent to talk he may as well ask “What are you?!

193

Why? Why are you doing this?!!”

[19]

. Pain tells him that the reason isn’t

always apparent until you have the beneﬁt of foresight, and the ability to

see the forest through the trees. “My goal is to fulﬁl the dream even master

Jiraiya was unable to achieve… as I said earlier - to create peace and bring

about justice”

[20]

. Naruto is still disgusted and sees what’s right in front of

him: “Peace…? Justice…? Yeh, right… Give me a break! You killed my

master! And my teacher! Hurt my friends! Destroyed my village! You dare

say peace after all you’ve done?!!”

[21]

. Naruto shouts that he will take down

Pain and bring peace to the Shinobi world. “A lofty plan. And that would be

justice. However, what then about my family… my friends… my village? Is it

fair that you Konoha Shinobi who once did the same to me as I have now

done to you, be allowed to spout all of this drivel about peace and

justice?”

[22]

. If Naruto considers him equal, then he considers what

happened to his village as wrong, and thus he has to accept it does qualify as

the same justice as his. He would kill Nagato and destabilise the Rain once

more, after the work that's been done to bring stability? Couching his

language in virtuous terms doesn't separate it from the vengeance at its

heart, though Nagato also accepts that “The justice I delivered to Konoha is

no dierent than what you are trying to do to me”

[23]

and until he creates

those weapons of mass destruction, he is no better than Naruto: “Right

now, I live in that cycle”

[24]

Naruto thinks back to when he sat with Jiraiya, talking about how he would

take up his master’s request to do something about all the hatred in the

world, but right now - when he’s being asked - he can’t say he has anything.

Does this mean he's failed? If he doesn’t like what Pain is doing to address

things, but also has no way to stop the coming tide of conﬂict, what does he

have as an objection? Moreover, might his dreams be just another trite

exclamation like all the other idealists that have come before? He doesn’t

know and stares at the ground glumly in a newfound understanding for his

opponent. His shouting stops.

194

“I am going to show the world true pain… stop all wars with the terror that

pain will inspire and lead it into stability and peace”

[25]

. Naruto knows this

is just intimidation, but Pain retorts that humans evidently aren’t smart

enough to master any other form. “After several decades, that pain too will

eventually fade with time. Its eectiveness will diminish and humanity will

begin to war once more. This time, they themselves will use the Biju

weapon against one another and reconﬁrm what true pain is. And then

peace will be restored again, for a time. To create these short periods of

peace, through pain, that interrupt the endless cycle of hatred. That is my

dream”

[26]

It is upon those ﬁnal words that we ﬁnally get to see the actual mastermind

behind all this: the withered, emaciated man who seems to be between this

world and the next. He can’t let go of all of Master Jiraiya’s ideals and has

the hope that peace may come, “but in this cursed world, a peace where

people truly understand each other is nothing but ﬁction”

[27]

. This

obviously takes a jab at the book his Sensei and sibling student so admire,

but he delicately avoids contradiction by specifying his peace doesn’t allow

people to understand each other, it just renders them inactionable from the

use of nuclear weapons.

Naruto has now heard the ﬁrst story. The story of Pain. The objective

retelling of the passage of history, and the general solution that shall deliver

change. Coming out of such hard times, his views of human nature aren’t

the most hopeful, and thus having to start with dark axioms you get dark

answers. Nagato has equated the living characters in the book with his

reanimated puppets because all the living can do is react to the pain that

beholds them. When he needed to replace the animal path, he had a Rain

Shinobi carry the girl up to the tower for Rinnegan and chakra rods to be

implanted. In other words, the eyes which see and register pain, and the

rods which respond to it. Nothing more than stimulus machines. To

195

implant these into Yahiko as well implies him dead is just the same as his

friend alive all those years ago. He caveats it by having him be the Deva

path, the one which holds wisdom and knowledge.

He drives more chakra rods across Naruto’s back and legs, which prompts

Hinata to jump in. She knows she can’t save him, but maybe she can

separate him from his Cross. “Why’d you come here?!! Run! You can’t

win”

[28]

. She accepts that this is a little selﬁsh, but she wants him to know

these words: “You helped me ﬁnd my way and take the correct path, Naruto.

I always chased after you, wanting to catch up... Wanting to walk together

with you forever [...] You changed me, Naruto! Your smiling face saved me.

And that’s why I’m not afraid to die, defending you!! Because… I love

you”

[29]

Made idle by Pain’s actions, then his words, he was already questioning his

own nindo and now he sees someone parting with the cold, impartial

nature of Shinobi and expressing their love for another - his very dream,

crushed. Years ago he was accepted as part of the village, with Iruka’s words

acknowledging him as an individual, but to be acknowledged is just to have

a seat at the table without being chastised, to be loved is something which

cannot be forced. When he ﬁnally feels the weight of Hinata’s words, we

see there is no elation, astonishment or confusion in Naruto’s reaction, as

he has absolutely no idea how to react

[30]

. Nobody has ever told him that

before, and no matter how often he imagined what love could be, it doesn’t

compare to the real thing. Additionally, she represents the loss of pure

innocence and the unfettered Will to cherish another, that which underlies

both Pain and Naruto’s striving, as Nagato says - “this is just like… when

you Konoha Shinobi killed my parents right in front of me”

[31]

Naruto doesn’t see the need to ﬂirt with the Nine-Tails cloak anymore, with

six tails spawning alongside the exoskeletal structure - an oering of his

196

body to the demon to be reborn through him. The necklace tries its best to

seal the power away

[32]

, but he manages to grab hold of it and smash it. Now

this is the jewel that has been truly trampled, for in it is the essence of the

First Hokage and the abandonment of the Village Identity constituted in

hope and dreams. He doesn’t care about any of it anymore, now is the time

to exact revenge… “In this state, he could attack anyone, none of us are

safe”

[33]

The Alchemical dissent

The breaking of the necklace I argue is not only a psychological break

between person and village, nor just a religious experience - but an

alchemical one. The reason I say this is because of the swathe of historical

literature that equates one of the prime alchemical substances, the lapis

philosophorum i.e., philosopher’s stone, with the psychological and spiritual

meaning of Christ. This pattern has been expounded upon by the work of

Carl Jung in books such as Psychology and Alchemy, Alchemical Studies and so

forth, which are the main sources of reference for this section.

As long as Alchemists have been practising, the primary realisation that in

order to create the perfect physical material, the person performing the

work (the opus) had to be equally pure and proper

[34]

, has stretched from

Ancient Chinese teachings to the latest epoch of Western practitioners; to

clarify and incubate oneself in the same ﬁres as any crystals or rocks is

paramount in being able to conduct experiments that ventured towards

truth. Additionally, how Alchemists see the elements is congruent with the

Shinto way of doing things as it isn’t just the chemical amalgam but the

symbolic one as well: if iron is Mars and copper Venus, their fusion is at the

same time a love aair

[35]

. Nagato is not just a man but also Pain, and it is

up to Naruto to see both sides and comprehend them alchemically.

197

Now that the jewel is broken, Naruto is going to have to develop it within

himself, which is actually the best thing he could do as the lapis is a symbol

of the self. What starts to happen psychologically is that one is inundated by

the unconscious, oftentimes one doesn’t expect an encounter, which can be

so destabilising it causes psychosis. This battle against darkness is an

alchemical phenomenon called the nigredo, which is a putrefaction of

matter or blackening. Alchemists believe this decomposition is a necessary

stage before the emergence of the Philosopher's Stone whereby one can

turn any base metal into Gold

[36][37]

. This anguish develops the stone by

making the descent into Hell, where the heat is so intense that the Hero

loses his hair, and is reborn as bald as a babe. This ﬁre is the ignis gehenn alis,

the Hell into which Christ descended in order to conquer death

[38]

. What's

more, we see an incomplete descent in Naruto as whenever possession

reaches a four-tailed state, his entire body is burnt in the process

[39]

This journey into the underworld is always something that has to happen

to warrant eventual psychological and spiritual integration, but for

everyone that actually goes there, they want to head into that darkness

speciﬁcally, without this greater awareness that they’re going to get out or

that it shall be rewarding. That’s what’s so terrifying, as people don’t have

the foresight or the worry of what will happen to them - the consequences

of being devoured are total disintegration of the personality and psyche.

This takeover seems to have happened, for Naruto can only writhe in pain:

“Why?! How did it come to this?! I don’t know … it hurts … I hate this…

[...] someone, please help me! Give me an answer!”

[40]

. Christ has lost

himself for a moment, which is reminiscent of this famous excerpt from

Chesterton’s Orthodoxy: “When the world shook and the sun was wiped out

of heaven, it was not at the cruciﬁxion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry

which confessed that God was forsaken of God”

[41]

. A moment of Atheism

in the most assured self, from a man who knew that he had to make this

sacriﬁce, but could still question it.

198

Now that Naruto is taking up the mantle of Shinobi hate, it is inevitable

that he will face the incarnation of it in Kurama, just as the Devil began to

assume his true form with the advent of Christianity

[42]

. Indeed, it seems

Naruto doesn’t realise the more he realises the peaceful, sagely aspects of

himself the closer he will inevitably be to drawing out the equal and

opposite force and have to confront it. Initially he was quite happy to accept

the initial beneﬁts of entanglement, namely the heightened recovery rate

and strength, but can he accept its natural progression: ”Destroy everything.

Anything that causes you pain. Give me your soul. And I will rescue you

from your pain”

[43]

Naruto must know that’s impossible, but his eyes have seen red and the seal

is beginning to leak out in the direction of the gates. Upon the eighth tail all

that binding energy has dispersed, which also released Minato’s chakra as a

ﬁnal measure to stop Naruto if need be. He catches him just in time as he

had his ﬁngers on the seal, to which he is shocked the Fourth Hokage just

popped into his psyche.

“I didn’t ever want to see you again Nine-Tails… But then again, I was

looking forward to meeting my son as a young man, so I guess it all evens

out”

[44]

. Naruto doesn’t make the connection, and thinks he is going to see

someone else, as this seal must’ve been placed by him as a measure to keep

the Leaf strong against other villages. In actuality, he did it because Naruto

is his son

[45]

, and whilst this is a happy moment, it’s also a tense time for a

reunion. He doesn’t know whether to be mad at his father or not for

putting this demon inside of him and making him live that life. Reductively

speaking, if his nindo is that people shouldn’t be treated like tools, but

people that do treat others that way are evil - is his father not evil?

This was not his premeditated intention but something he thought he had

to do based on what happened 16 years ago. Around the time he was born,

199

the Nine-Tails attacked the village and a masked man orchestrated it, and

Minato believes he is also the one using Pain. "You're wrong! Pain has his

own grudge against Konoha! He said Konoha ruined his village long

ago!"

[46]

, but that's precisely what he's leveraging. It's also telling of what

Naruto has believed in regards to Kurama: he couldn't have been used, for

he has his own reasons to kill Nagato!

Even though there is a master-mind, and Jiraiya has given him the quest to

ﬁnd peace in this world, he just can't forgive Pain. He says “Lord Fourth…

please tell me, what should I do?”

[47]

and evidently he isn’t used to having a

parent; “you have to ﬁnd that answer out for yourself. For even I don’t

know it”

[47]

, and Naruto accuses him and Jiraiya of giving him this goal

without any idea of how to accomplish it, that he isn’t smart or a great

Shinobi as his predecessors are and so on and so forth. But Minato rues

his hair, and tells his son he truly believes he can ﬁnd the answer, for that is

the unconditional belief a parent has in their child. Someone is asking him

not as a teacher or as a Hokage, but as a parent whose Will is just the

continuation of that hope dating back to the start of the Leaf.

Having such a relationship with your family, and by extension your

ancestral line, is to have access to the unfurling of history and thus the relief

that life is not so opaque that one has to put it all on one’s shoulders to

comprehend. Tribes that haven’t lost touch with the rituals and practices

that connect people over the course of thousands of years have no sense of

bewilderment and isolation that begets people in more recent social

conﬁgurations; the animating spirit is still at their ﬁngertips, guiding them

along. Little does Naruto know he is already embodying the answer, and

the next steps will be about making that journey rise up into conscious

thought and articulating it.

200

Symbolically speaking, this is the journey of the King's Son, the regius ﬁlius,

who is a rejuvenated form of the father

[48]

. It is up to him to restore the land

and wade through the dark waters

[49]

. The King is an archetype which rises

from the depths of the unconscious, and the son must respond to this call in

the name of wisdom and salvation

[49]

, and just as Horus was the one to

defeat Set and become the next ruler, it continues the work of his father

Osiris in creating a prosperous Kingdom.

So as we can see, this ﬁght is being fought on two fronts: the match with

Pain, who spurred the descent, and the confronting of Kurama and being

able to climb back out. Here we deviate from the standard mythological

playbook as Minato, his father, actually tightens the seal and saves his son

whilst still being in the “underworld”, which means we can be sure Naruto

shall resume this descent in future to pull the King from the belly of the

whale.

One ﬁnal tangent I want to explore for the King's son motif is the

etymology; the word derives from the Old English word 'cynn' - "family,

race", or from a prehistoric Germanic word for “noble birth”

[50]

; people are

torn by which one is correct, but it seems both are equally necessary to

determine what the King means. To be born of a noble lineage is precisely

one which has the richest connection down the ages, but remember what

we know the King to mean - the awareness of every subsequent generation:

that we act for our family yet unborn, for the families of our dear friends

and neighbours, and their children’s children. It is a spiritual pipeline. If we

syncretise all facets, the King is he who can hold both past and future in his

mind when governing over his people.

What is your pain?

201

He boldly asks to be taken to the Pain Master

[51]

, but now we wonder

whether he means the puppet master or the one that uses Pain himself; if

only Naruto could see how far this message really went. Nagato is in no

mood to talk anymore and tries to haul him back to the hideout, but he is

quickly gotten the better of. If he won't generously reveal his location, he

shall be found! Taking one of the chakra rods, he pierces himself and

combined with sage mode which takes in energy, he can sense the direction

of Nagato's incoming chakra.

Making his way over, he bumps into Shikaku, Inoichi and a few others who

say they want to help him ﬁght Pain. This moment could've been left out or

swapped for other ﬂashbacks, but it's meant to represent two things: the

proof of Pain's words in miniature, but also how Shikaku mirrors his

solution to their need for vengeance: "Let's let Naruto go on alone, [...] he's

the one who stopped the Pains. I'm sure he's got something in mind [...]

Let's put our faith in Naruto"

[53]

Isn’t it almost contradictory that the very village he has fought so hard to

save he now scolds? He’s beginning to realise the problems with his prior

foolhardiness, and neither he nor they would be acting in the spirit of the

village if they were to do such things. Because the repercussions of their

actions are just beyond the horizon of their awareness, they blame people

other than themselves. It’s not that Naruto now dislikes his own people, as

he cannot forgive Nagato either

[54]

, but he wants them to stop causing more

damage. In time he will ﬁnd a way to get everyone to see what he's learnt

today, and the answer he shall ﬁnd will be one that reverberates across all

villagers.

Taking his ﬁrst steps into the tree where they were hidden, rage

immediately starts to bubble, for Pain and the masked man are the two

people that have taken everything away from him: his parents, his ability to

202

make friends, the reason he was given the fox, and the loss of every light

bar his father's help. But now he can look at everything that would've

pieced together a normal life and put it to one side, because he cares more

about peace than the misfortunes of his upbringing. Speaking of which, he

wants to hear Nagato and Konan's stories, to see how they could go from

loyal disciples to fallen angels.

Nagato is intrigued and agrees, maybe now he ﬁnally has an answer for

him. Despite wanting to lead a dictatorial and destructive global order, he is

genuinely keen to know what other people have to say in regards to his

philosophy and ethics, since he too wants to conﬁrm he’s on the right path.

In causing all this pain upon Naruto, he hopes he cannot bring himself to

forgive, thus proving his point, and even if Naruto has begun to grasp

Jiraiya’s teachings “that shouldn’t change the fact that you cannot forgive

me. Human love isn’t so cheap that you can just sweep it under the rug”

[55]

Maybe what Naruto should do is create an overarching theory of peace that

factors in the necessary killing of these two as well.

That aside, Nagato starts his tale from the beginning, recounting the ﬁrst of

his two great pains: the loss of his parents. This was during the height of

the Third Great Shinobi war when almost all civilians had left the war

zone

[56]

, but not them - for they had nowhere else to go. Upon Konoha

Shinobi breaking in, his parents tried to distract the enemy whilst Nagato

got away, but they both died and he froze in place out of fear. He lashes out

with the Rinnegan before collapsing, but awakens to ﬁnd them both still

beside him. There he began at the lowest level of Samsara, the Hellish

realm, as one of the most horrendous pains a child can feel is the loss of

both their mother and father.

Now totally alone and in search of food, he struggles to ﬁnd anything and is

on the cusp of death. To be clear, the Hungry-Ghost realm is a land of

203

addiction - but he is just trying to eat to survive; he walks and walks,

knocking on doors but nobody oers him anything. He collapses in the

middle of nowhere fully expecting to die

[57]

. But as if an act of divine

intervention, Konan appears and oers him bread, taking him to Yahiko.

Together they coordinate eorts to steal food from the market stalls, as

"there was no system for helping orphans in that chaos-ridden small nation.

Thievery was the only way for orphans to survive"

[58]

. This allowed them to

go beyond the threat of starvation, and now they can begin to contemplate

how to end this suering, jumping all the way up to the Human Path.

"This world is about never ending war! I will rule this world and make it

stop!"

[59]

. Seeing the loss of life all around him, Yahiko felt the pressure to

provide an answer, and Nagato also took pride in the fact that he could ﬁnd

a solution so quickly - "I was able to come up with an answer right away. I

just want to protect them, no matter how much pain befalls me"

[60]

. But by

the time they were left to fend for themselves, that philosophy had

shattered when Yahiko sacriﬁced himself - "it was the same as when my

parents died. I realised then that the answer I had given Jiraiya was worth

nothing"

[61]

. Over the years they had been given teachings which helped

move them away from a forceful model into one that "was minimally based

on military conﬂict"

[62]

, but after Hanzo had collaborated with the Leaf to

eradicate them, he went back to his prior words about rulership.

Before Nagato could even think Yahiko had run into the Kunai himself and

taken the burden o him, but it seems just as Hinata was trying to help

Naruto, their sacriﬁce spurred the deepest hatred for all those who forced

this to happen. After years of training, he had one of his eyes shown in the

parting of his hair

[63]

which had illustrated his maturity, waking up to the

power he was capable of; but whenever he is enraged both bulge out of

their sockets, and he doesn’t think twice about summoning the Husk of the

Ten Tails - otherwise known as the Gedo Statue or the Demonic Statue of

204

the Outer Path. The reasoning for this name is in regards to the being that

stands outside the wheel of Samsara and holds onto it. Yama, the Lord of

Death, is the monster which represents impermanence. All things change

and fade away, you might as well call him the God of entropy.

The Fourth Databook makes this comment on Nagato’s resolve: “Using the

same ‘Rinnegan’ of the Sage of the Six Paths, he follows the path of

destruction. For the creation of a new world…”

[64]

. Judging from Konan’s

reaction saying not to use ‘that’

[65]

, he has obviously summoned the Gedo

Statue and wrecked havoc before, but did he take out the rods last time? It

is unclear.

The consequences of that day brought a profound change to the Akatsuki

way beyond mere leadership. Originally it was all about trying to

understand people’s pain and their group was the means of doing that, but

people like Hidan are signs that the Akatsuki did a complete ﬂip, as it

became about imposing pain. In fact, each member of the Akatsuki

represents an aspect of society on behalf of which they shall impose pain:

- Nagato, Peace.

- Hidan, Religion.

- Kakuzu, Money.

- Itachi, Clan.

- Sasori, Parents.

- Kisame, Government and Bureaucracy.

- Zetsu, Mother.

- Deidara, Art.

- Sasuke, Village.

- Obito & Madara, World.

You see this most clearly in Hidan, as the ways of Jashin are about getting

people to experience shared pain which could bring people together, but

205

this completely collapses since the ritual entails the person’s death whilst he

himself cannot be killed. People that are going on a shared journey may

experience pain along the way and shall certainly bond, just as Nagato got

this idea from being with Yahiko, but the point of his organisation now is

that they remain personal enough to have known pain with others, whilst

impersonal enough that they have the ability to govern over you as we

know how recluse both Nagato and Konan became.

The culmination.

Nagato has told him everything, now it’s time for an answer. Naruto can

see where he’s coming from and there were times even as recently as today

where he could’ve been swayed to resolve things through Pain. But whilst

he can’t put it all into words just yet, he has seen the liberating power of

belief. Not as a deﬂectionary tool or a method of ignorance, but he realised

that if he cannot believe, then he will have to let someone else do the work

of Naruto: “My name is a precious heirloom from Pervy Sage, I can’t just

give up and sully my master’s gift”

[66]

. It may be that any action requires a

non-zero amount of faith, for one could ask an inﬁnite amount of questions

and still be unable to motivate oneself. This is probably why Nagato

peppers him with objections, all along the lines of how you could be so sure

that you will never change

[67]

. Well, Naruto is about to change massively,

from the boy who was hated by the village to being loved, “which is why no

matter how much it hurts, I gotta keep walking… because that’s who

Naruto is!”

[68]

It is analogous in some ways to what he said to Sai before looking for

Sasuke at the start of Shippuden: “If he tears my arms o, I’ll kick him dead.

If he tears my legs o, I’ll bite him dead. If he tears my neck o, I’ll glare

him dead [...] Let Orochimaru try and cut me to pieces, I’ll still ﬁnd a way to

bring Sasuke back”

[69]

206

In this moment Nagato’s perspective changed from Pain back to his former

self after seeing his forthright sibling student, as before now he had

presumed Naruto was just the totality of his pain like everyone else i.e.,

Jinchuriki and nothing more. Phrases such as: “Time to tame you

Nine-Tails”

[70]

, “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. My precious Jinchuriki”

[71]

alludes to his reduction; even as he walked in and wanted to speak with

him, Nagato said it was better if he just handed himself over - for Naruto

was the ‘invaluable jinchuriki’

[72]

which even caused Kurama to lose his

temper. For a moment his eyes managed to bear both energies which

resembled the Cross, but I don’t claim that to be the reason we see it,

though I would like to expand. It was fashioned by the Romans meant for

humiliating people and maintaining social conformity, to appease the

populous from following the example of Jesus by letting him die a slow and

painful death. It was essentially the limit case of mistreatment by his people,

and yet “the Son of Man must undergo great suering, and be rejected by

the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three

days rise again”

[73]

The key to all these developments have been due to Jiraiya’s book, and

whilst he had been clawing in the dark for most of his life trying to

articulate his purpose, for once he surprised even Gamamaru: “I never

thought two of Jiraiya’s disciples would both turn out to be children of

prophecy and both become leaders of a Shinobi reformation. Perhaps, in

the moment when Jiraiya chose not to give up, all this became

pre-ordained”

[74]

. Thus it could be said that with Naruto refusing to give up

and to avoid the use of force, a new age of Shinobi had begun. “I gotta

believe in Pervy Sage’s belief! That’s my answer”

[75]

The reason it took a fellow student to convince Nagato of his Sensei’s

teachings is because now he sees a hero exists - one who read Tales of a

Gutsy Shinobi, inspired hope, and his name is Naruto! If we cast our eyes

207

back onto some alchemical wisdom, it seems he has sought to become the

page manifest, as Naruto exempliﬁes the character in this book as a kind of

secular analogue to being Christic by following Christ through scripture.

But what is requisite for this transformation is having the Word become

real, verbum dictum et factum, whereby we can sense it and touch it with our

hands

[76]

. Now all this sounds very confusing as you can't be a living word,

and yet Jung's analysis shows that contradictory operations, akin to

squaring a circle, are one way of achieving the lapis

[77]

, and Naruto is after

all the man who can look left and right at the same time.

He is also the one who solved the mystery of what the Protagonist must do,

and this embedded narrative with the same ﬂashback the two of them have

had serves as a continuation of Jiraiya’s initial talk with Nagato all those

years ago

[78]

. This literary device, whilst somewhat rare, is a great way to

not only concretise the essence of characters, but provide a space for

dialogue around those critical topics. One great example of this is in

Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov in the chapter titled The Grand

Inquisitor. The sub-story centres on the return of Jesus during the height of

the Spanish Inquisition, for what reason it is unknown, but it causes quite

the spectacle; one lady throws herself at his feet and asks that her dead

daughter be brought back to life

[79]

. It is done, but he is summarily taken to

prison to quell the chaos, and the ninety-year old Inquisitor enters.

He puts his lamp on the table and stares at him for a minute or two before

speaking. He explains how he and the clergy have been trying to establish

the Christian teachings across the world, and the Inquisition itself is the

purging of all heretical threats to the Church to consolidate its authority.

The last thing they need now is him returning with new teachings, new

miracles and so forth and so he hopes he can understand why he’s had to be

put in prison. It is exactly like Nagato’s attempt at justifying the persecution

of the heretical remnants of Hanzo’s clique, the centralisation of power and

208

authority in order to carry out Jiraiya’s teachings, and now he is having to

articulate himself to the Christ which listens solemnly.

During his exegesis of Christ’s teachings, the Inquisitor mentions that

during The Temptation he should’ve agreed with the Devil and turned

stones into bread to stave o hunger, as mankind would've run to him like

sheep, grateful and soon obedient, with the added bonus that they shall fear

turning on Jesus lest the bread be rescinded

[80]

. After seeing the godly

displays of Pain, the villagers of the Rain have become grateful for no

longer being in suering - surely he is the light-bringer?

He instils practicality and says one should feed a man ﬁrst and then ask

virtue of him

[80]

, which would actually come to be the sentiment of Naruto

as well when he’d slip into a kind of megalomania. Convinced of his own

power to stop the war, he said to Shikaku (in regards to Madara): “I’m

acting ﬁrst and maybe I’ll try to talk to him after”

[81]

. That isn’t what worked

this time, since he could’ve continued ﬁghting long after he had found

Nagato.

“Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the

mouth of God”

[82]

, and thus Jesus describes the staple diet of a Christian, but

the Inquisitor sees this principle and blames him for ignoring those of

whom earthly bread will be their only consumption: “if for the sake of the

bread of Heaven thousands shall follow Thee, what is to become of the

millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have

the strength to forego the earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly? Or

dost Thou care only for the tens of thousands of the great and strong, while

the millions, numerous as the sands of the sea, who are weak but love Thee,

must exist only for the sake of the great and strong? No, we care for the

weak too. They are sinful and rebellious, but in the end they too will

become obedient”

[83]

. So many of his points we get to see play out in this

209

moment, for Naruto knows that when he went o to see Pain to avoid

killing him, he did it despite all the thousands of villagers that had died and

only those who had survived the attack would see the necessary resolve

itself. In the same vein, Nagato’s sacriﬁce has meant he is no longer the

leader of the Rain, and the Church has disassembled, thus forgoing the

stability he took so long to cultivate.

His use of the Rinne-Rebirth jutsu is the attempt at slowing the wheel of

Samsara and mitigating the ceaselessness of suering. He believes in

Naruto’s vision where people can come together and understand one

another, which shall mean a world that can address pain in a fundamentally

dierent way that will reap rewards for the citizens of Konoha, Ame and

beyond.

Understanding has been reached.

Every now and again you need someone who represents the Will of Fire as

such, so people can understand what it is they’re passing down. It is both an

indefatigably Japanese form of brotherhood, but also a common Christian

allegory. As Fr. David Merconi writes, a piece of iron alone stands hard and

resistant, but if we were to place it in a furnace or some other source of ﬁre,

it will begin to glow and take on new properties. Now malleable it can be

worked into whatever the craftsman needs

[84]

. You can see that whilst

Naruto has been able to revive the passion inside Nagato’s heart there is

also the possibility for manipulation to direct people for the Will of the

craftsperson, to take that love, energy and hope for malign purposes. It is

because of this exploitation that a sizable portion of watchers and readers

have accused the Will of Fire of being nothing more than brainwashing, a

means of propaganda that is only used by the top of the village hierarchy to

continue its existence for the sake of the elders. Naruto hated this aspect of

it just as much as everyone else, and felt it ﬁrst hand. But if we are passing

210

the ﬂame from one another, in a manner in which the ﬂame isn’t passing to

person but personhood, then we get timeless progress. As people aren't just

constituted by their relationships but by their independent integrity, it is

this kernel of selfhood that struggles to be conveyed to another person.

Passing the ﬂame ordinarily would only continue separation; what is crucial

is that one’s mediating words and actions become the life-giving aspect of

ﬁre and not its destructive counterpart

[85]

This dichotomy will always persist as long as there is only one craftsperson,

but Naruto is assured of himself - being not just material, but the reiﬁed

stone, the principled being that rests within everyone. He has this uncanny

ability to change people because he brings them into the present, snapping

them out of frameworks that are built o of trauma, war and hatred. It

allows them to be in the Now by getting them to face fear and uncertainty,

things which also come from inward contemplation, as Nagato says: “I

wasn’t able to keep believing in Jiraiya. Or even… in myself”

[86]

. It was due

to his lack of belief that he regressed into believing in his eyes, as he didn’t

want to let his mentor down. “For master had told me that he wondered if

the solution lay with my Rinnegan”

[87]

and “I just get the feeling that the

sage’s hopes were bestowed upon your eyes”

[88]

are moments that he

probably thought he was the saviour because of them. In fact, when he does

die I think he avoids giving Naruto his eyes because even with the strongest

visual prowess he couldn’t see the answer, whereas Naruto could; what’s

more, when he was given Shisui’s eye, it was his heart that he wanted to

primarily pass on

[89]

Now it is the villagers which get to oer him just that, and everyone in the

Leaf has come to greet the golden boy. From the cruciﬁxion, to the

resurrection, to the ascension, he is thrown up high and cheers roar for the

previous outcast. When he was carried by Kakashi to greet them, once he

saw just how many people had come, it’s the second time he simply didn’t

211

know how to react

[90]

. It’s fair to say today has been quite like no other, and

the anime does a great job of showing how people like Ebisu had gone from

their initial hatred to having a great deal of aection for him, as Naruto’s

continual eorts had chiselled away at their presuppositions.

Can you read my mind?

Nagato was right about one thing, two people cannot understand each

other if they don’t understand the pain that sits between them, and even

then it isn’t guaranteed. In losing the village and gaining it, in losing one

teacher and seeing him revived, in losing a friend in Gaara and being

reunited, he has not only had bonds but could comprehend what it feels like

for all of them to be severed. Likewise, Sasuke is rapidly approaching an

understanding of Naruto despite neither of them knowing the shared

narrative they have experienced. The tables below are not exhaustive lists

of their journeys, since this is about articulating the equal and opposite

challenges, revelations and so forth, but by the time they see each other

again in war, all it will take to renew that bond is for both of them to show

what is in their heart to the other.

Sasuke: Naruto(First Series):

Direction: Top-down

Naruto: Naruto Shippuden:

Direction: Bottom-up

Pain of losing clan, brother, family,

love

Pain of losing village, teacher, love

Becomes an Avenger

Becomes a Sage

Awakens Sharingan

Awakens Senjutsu transformation

Enters Forest of Death. Meets

Orochimaru.

Jiraiya dies. Enters Land of Toads

Fights Yaroi, Restricts curse mark

Fights Kakuzu, Restricts fox

212

Trains with Kakashi

1. Fights Gaara

2. Fails to kill Itachi, all these

years have been for nothing.

1. Fights Itachi

2. Fails to rescue Gaara, all these

years have been for nothing.

Leaves village, Trains with Orochimaru

Trains with Jiraiya, returns to village

Then we do the inverse, using the remaining moments to see Sasuke travel

into Naruto’s past.

Sasuke: Naruto(Shippuden):

Direction: Top-down

Naruto: Naruto(First Series):

Direction: Bottom-up

Fights Naruto

Fights Sasuke

Fights Orochimaru, uses ruthlessness

and hatred

Fights Gaara, uses friendship and

acceptance

1. Fights Itachi

2. Curse mark is rescinded

1. Seal rescinded by Jiraiya

2. Fights Neji

1. Obito revelation about the

mission

2. Will destroy the village, kill

the elders

1. Mizuki revelation about the

decree

2. Accepts the village and Iruka

Attacks Gokage summit

Spray Paints Hokage faces

Fights Naruto

Fights Sasuke

213

Danzo does it

The village is under reconstruction, and Tsunade has released pretty much

all her chakra in summoning Katsuyu to aid as many villagers as possible.

Being comatosed isn’t where we do our best work, so we may need a

change of leadership. An emergency council meeting is called with senior

members of Konoha and the Land of Fire Daimyo. There are talks of

raising funds and rebuilding infrastructure, but there is one other pressing

matter at hand, the only important thing in Danzo’s case: “the selection of a

new Hokage”

[1]

The elders quickly back him up and accuse Tsunade of letting the village get

destroyed. He is about to put his name forward when Shikaku jumps in and

suggests Kakashi Hatake for the role. There is a nodding of heads, as he has

the lineage and “big names” of Minato, Jiriaya leading his tutelage but there

are some doubts due to his lack of experience in senior village roles. Danzo

goes on the attack: “It was the Third’s teachings that led to this current

crisis! The Akatsuki leader that ﬂattened our village was a former disciple

of Jiraiya’s. The result of Jiraiya sympathising with other lands and lending

them battle strength! [...] And that generational softness allowed our ally

the Sand’s betrayal and Orochimaru’s operation Destroy Konoha, the rise of

the Akatsuki and now the surviving Uchiha, Sasuke, has gone rogue and is

engaging in underground activity! What sort of Hokage is necessary in

such times?! Someone who can clean up this mess, reform the Shinobi

world and enforce Shinobi laws… The Hokage should be me!”

[2]

Despite Shinobi culture having its problems of internalising massive

amounts of grief and stoking hatred, Danzo wants to push it further as it’s a

214

necessary force: if we can just get rid of the emotions which plague our

Shinobi and hamper their ability to perform missions, then that will restore

order. Now is the generation of punishment, strict laws and the

abandonment of diplomacy with the use of Machiavellian power dynamics.

In torrid times an extremist leader’s rhetoric lands on many more attentive

ears as they hope for quick ﬁxes, and the Daimyo entrusts Danzo to clear up

the village, appointing him the Sixth Hokage

[3]

He didn’t mention a word of Jiraiya’s own disciple having the strength to

defeat Pain and bring all the villagers back to life, and his teachings having

nurtured the Jinchuriki who once resented the village into someone that

will give everything to protect it, going beyond the port of call compared to

Danzo’s Foundation. He was far too condescending in regards to the eorts

of the Leaf, seeing as they did take out Sasori, Hidan, Kakuzu and now Pain

- what have the other lands (like your favourite “blood mist” village) done

as none of the Akatsuki died by their hand. Knowing what we know now

about the history of that organisation, it was actually Danzo’s meddling

which birthed the current Pain, and if he had the same knowledge of events

as we do, it would seem he’s angry at the consequences of his own policies

and to remediate them, adds more fuel to the ﬁre.

Two modes of Governance

Danzo is head of the Root, and the concept of root and branches goes way

back to at least the ancient Chinese texts on government and political

order. One of which, the Huainanzi, tries to articulate the perfect

socio-political setup, made so they say by the perfect ruler. He isn’t meant to

be a dictator, in fact he is dubbed ‘the Sagely ruler’ who cultivates the Root

in themselves and has government ocials as the branches, which repeats

for all lower levels. The naming for this section is because the frameworks

and explanations in this book can be interpreted in two ways.

215

In the ﬁrst you get Naruto’s ideas, and in the latter you get Danzo’s. Take

the snippet that implores the ruler not to waver by one degree, to be stoic

and resolved

[4]

. This can be interpreted either as Danzo ruling with an iron

ﬁst and never cowering to the ﬂaccid, lifeless teachings of Hiruzen, or

Naruto refusing to sway from Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi for otherwise it would

be a dierent book. In both cases there is one absolute centre of resolve

which they shall not secede… whether this point causes contention down

the line is another matter.

Danzo actually holds a lot of beliefs which are irreconcilable with actual

peace, as ﬁrst he avoids emotions like the plague because other Shinobi

villages are constantly vying for short-term power grabs, and he will do

whatever it takes to make sure his minions uphold all their critical

intelligence. He doesn’t believe that other villages will cooperate in any

form whatsoever that isn’t to expand their own interests, so we must play

such games otherwise we lose out. As a result, he becomes implored to use

the same trickery against his own people, just in case. To hide one's tracks,

conceal one's sources, so that your own subordinates cannot guess your

next move

[5]

is from a book called the Hanfeizi(c.240 BC), which reads much

like Machiavelli’s The Prince.

It is essentially the Bible for a school of thought called Legalism, of which

all the writings are geared towards solving a single problem: how to

preserve and strengthen the state

[6]

, which is funny since it’s happy to forgo

legal principles if it means the state is preserved. Unlike Confucianism and

other belief systems it spoke solely to the ruling class, with no real interest

in ordinary citizens inasmuch as their lives didn't impinge the rulers. As a

result, it didn't really care for culture or customs, and there is no mention

of morality being prioritised whatsoever

[7]

. Here we are starting to see what

represents Danzo exactly: morals are secondary and coincide with whatever

ruleset arises after addressing any potential uprisings. If it threatens the

216

sovereignty of the ruler, then it jeopardises the state and thus it is a crime

against the people. There’s a reason Mao Zedong championed the ideas of

these ancient legalist scholars when he was a student

[8]

. It all goes back to

how Danzo sees people through the lens of utility: even nefarious actors

like Orochimaru have potential, since he can give him a way to greater

power through Sharingan implants, Senju abilities, and a method of

usurping the Hokage’s position. There are never friends or enemies, there

is only utility and the end goal.

I mentioned Machiavellian connotations, but there is already an entire

literature on amoral Chinese politics, called quanshu, which is a set of

techniques one can use to usurp the rules and eliminate political

adversaries

[9]

. The perceived political success of an enterprise is the only

centre of concern, and all suggested policies are good when they can

produce beneﬁts, not because they align with moral standards

[10]

. Whether

known as a bug or a feature, people who endorse legalism and elements of

quanshu are extremely aware of citizens replacing their imperial position,

and apparently the only reason that ministers don't assassinate their

sovereign is because their cliques are not strong enough

[11]

.This is in all

likelihood the sort of philosophy that Danzo had managed to infect the

leader of the Rain village with, as the Akatsuki’s rise in prominence could

only mean one thing!

Such a life inevitably becomes stressed, paranoid and he has to juggle the

consequences of not trusting his ministers too much whilst simultaneously

needing the reports they provide, for otherwise his actions will miss the

mark. In fairness to the Hanfeizi, one of the Ten Faults mentions this

ﬁne-line, because if you fail to heed your ministers when it's your fault, and

you have a dogmatic need to have your own way, you’ll squander your good

reputation and crash the state

[12]

. What's more, we see Danzo make heavy

use of subordinates and he’s perfectly happy to take routine mission reports

217

whilst going to the Gokage summit

[13]

. It shows he never tunes out of that

mode and has to worry about threats to his life constantly.

A Legalist state also tries to radically simplify the problem of a diverse

citizenry with the functions of punishment and reward. The Two Handles is a

section that details this dyadic nature of mankind, speculating that we only

respond to these two forces, though this machinery isn't something the

ruler is subjected to. Their self-rule is what causes a fundamental

asymmetry in the village and thus there is no distribution of the Village

Identity to everybody. If you thought the dream of becoming Hokage was

unlikely under Hiruzen’s type of rulership, there’s no chance you can get

there under Danzo without becoming a puppet and a shell of your former

self.

Despite a framework with much to be desired, Danzo remains popular

amongst Shinobi purists and has a reputation as the knowledgeable elder

who has the Leaf’s interests at heart. For Konoha to survive the threat of

foreign states, it has to have the capabilities to win wars, which means it

has to have a populous willing to die - and nobody is going to die for an

indecisive, weak leader. But in addition, if people start regarding

themselves as more than tools the ubiquity of sacriﬁce will fade.

Many kids in the Shinobi world go through this phase of joining Danzo and

needing hardline intervention, rigid structure and direction so as to

embody this ideal of self-sacriﬁce. Kakashi, Yamato and Itachi are some of

the names who have joined, and because troubled children have come to

Danzo and become strong and reputable Shinobi, he thinks maybe this

training should be used for as many kids as possible. He has a knack for

getting people to alleviate their agency to him because their love for the

village supersedes their need to be recognised for helping. Seeing Danzo's

218

quick and momentous strokes of change illustrates that he’s doing

something.

But despite his work in sculpting the symbol of the Shinobi savour, the

people that have an anity for him come from very dismal backgrounds,

and he himself has equal reluctance to delve into his past beyond

superﬁcialities. This is a crucial problem, as the state of the consciousness

of the leader will reverberate down and aect the mind of their nation.

There is a story in the Huainanzi that talks about dierent Kings making

their preferences known to the populace. If one admired narrow waists, the

people cut down on food and starved themselves. If one admired bravery,

the people put themselves in danger and risked death

[14]

. It shows that a

ruler has to be careful, and such things should be absent - part of the job

really is being a shadow.

Ordinarily it was the Samurai who had a Shogunate that enforced the

nuances of government control, but in the Naruto world this is replaced

with the Ninja way of doing things - but then the “Ninja” aren’t very covert,

as one Musashi Kishimoto explains: “From the start, I was supposed to get

far from the traditional ninjas, dressed in black and living in shadows. This

kind of thing has been seen countless times in mangas. I wanted them to be

seen. Well, they're supposed to be hidden. But Naruto doesn't do that, he

shows up in front of everyone, he gives his name to people ... Unlike usual

ninjas, he likes to be seen and noticed. Then his blond hairs and blue eyes

make him seem like a foreigner, not what you would expect from a

ninja”

[15]

This was due to Kishimoto wanting to play with the idea of the individual

contrary to the laws of the Shinobi, and now Naruto has ﬁgured out the

character which will encompass this reformation - the Sage. This is a man

marked by moral autonomy, listening to his own heart over the opinions of

219

others. He doesn't cower or take the lead from others. For the Sage, seeking

within and understanding oneself are the most important qualities for the

"morally perfected person"

[16]

Naruto can see the potential dangers of his ambition and has grappled with

doing things beyond the moral bounds of the current Shinobi code, as

thinking for yourself can tread into ignoring rightful criticism, to

“obtaining oneself” at the expense of others. The key to reconciling these

aspects is to remember what being an individual means to Naruto. When a

Sage rules, they place their priorities in nurturing the people

[17]

in a

spirit-like way, and giving people tasks that their nature can thrive in. Thus

it is said he manages the reins of government as if they were the silk

ribbons of a dancer

[17]

. With this understanding comes the ability to

combine many for any kind of endeavour: if you combine the strength of

many to lift something, nothing can get in your way. If you collect the

wisdom of many, there is nothing you cannot accomplish

[18]

. This is the

heart and soul of Naruto’s philosophy, and dare I say the entire anime, as

reifying your individuality maximises your collaborative faculties, and vice

versa.

For Danzo however, this ad-hoc organisation is way too complicated and

frankly unnecessary. What’s most important is having every Shinobi meet

the minimum standard of a blank slate that can be used expediently for

missions. But Sai shows something important, that no matter how much

you try to cut someone down to the Root, it will still grow up again.

TnJ for Naruto, and anti-TnJ for Danzo.

Talk no Jutsu is meant to be a personhood expounder, whereas its

antithesis focuses on using speech to stoke the attribute and properties in

people. Danzo is a master of using fear and/or hatred, whichever causes

220

people to get into conﬂicts and factions that never pose a threat to

succession. The anti-TnJ picks up where Naruto's former naivety left o, as

it relies primarily on becoming a master of persuasion.

For both the Sage and the Tyrant this is one of the most important traits

you can have, but they bifurcate based on how much they want to calibrate

and systematise their speeches. We see Danzo's attempt at this whilst trying

to deliver an impassioned sermon, illustrating the need to have him be the

leader to ﬁght the Akatsuki: “Just as the ﬁrst Hokage once brought together

his clan and created Konoha, now we must merge all the villages and create

one Shinobi world. This shall never be accomplished through discussion

and negotiation. Taking the time to do it morally and ethically will result in

no change. And the Akatsuki will eventually destroy the Shinobi world”

[19]

He does a good job of reducing the options down and ramping up the need

for urgent action, tied with the coincidental loss of agency, but this doesn't

win over the other Kage who have little trust in the notoriously tricky old

man.

What trust was left evaporates as they ﬁnd out he’s used Kotoamatsukami

on Mifune to sway the election, justiﬁying it by saying results are necessary

and he doesn't care whether they trust him

[20]

. Gaara hears these words and

the image of his father rises, as he knows such things have been tried before

to no avail. "If that's the state of the world, and of humanity, we have no

future. If we stop trying to understand and trust each other, all that will

remain is fear and terror"

[20]

But what is it that Naruto does which makes such a profound impact? Well,

the Huainanzi coins the term "the sovereign expression"

[21]

which denotes

that moment of breakthrough when you marry yourself perfectly to the

context; we see such a thing happen when he spoke to Nagato, consciously

reciting the exact words he'd said previously. It's his goal to speak to a

221

person behind their mask, as he wants nothing other than friendship with

them.

You could say that mastery of this jutsu includes the possession of

Shibboleths, which are a single word or phrase that proves to another

person that you are part of their group, party, organisation etc. It is in

Naruto’s business to acquire them all and become the central node for

which all previously tribal groups can congregate, though to use them to

facilitate broader connection is not how they have been used across history.

For example, in the Biblical texts(the Book of Judges) the Gileadites

installed a blockade along the river Jordan and would use the word

‘shibboleth’ to separate friend from foe, since the Ephraimites had no ‘sh’

sound in their language. Sadly, the use of a Shibboleth to distance, to sever -

and even kill - was used in the last hundred years in Haiti. In October 1937,

the then Dominican dictator orchestrated an operation to kill Haitians who

had settled across the border. To distinguish them from Dominicans, the

soldiers held a sprig of parsley at the end of their riﬂe or the side of their

machete and forced the individuals to say what it was. The word in Spanish

is 'perejil,' but if you're not a native speaker it's practically impossible to roll

the 'r' sound, which cost them their lives

[22]

Ultimately, there is no dial to change the way one converses from an

attributive to a self-to-self basis with another, so for anyone attempting to

resolve through dialogue it will be a perpetually delicate dance until it isn’t.

Naruto cannot take shortcuts and "jump to the other side" so to speak, and

the loss to Sasuke should've clariﬁed the failure in getting him to return by

force. The fact that he does have a motive with Sasuke will be the thread

that constantly distances him. This inner conﬂict is what neuters any hope

of Naruto actually connecting to him as a person, and he almost has to

become a stranger before he can return to being his friend. He will have to

222

summon the courage to simply present himself and the Leaf to Sasuke as

they are in the ﬁnal judgement, as the most transcendental form of

persuasion will be the truth in its unparalleled clarity.

Naruto didn't mention a word about the village to Sasuke during their last

ﬁght, and what's more he lets him leave the Leaf right after! The reason

being is that it wasn’t about literally bringing him back within village gates

as his younger self presupposed, it was about returning to the spirit of the

village.

Pain, the driving force.

A letter from the Raikage has come, demanding that the issue of Sasuke

Uchiha be resolved; this is right up Danzo’s street as he wanted Sai to kill

him, but that mission was unsuccessful. Upon hearing the news that he has

been branded a rogue Shinobi to be disposed of, Naruto was about to storm

into his oce and have him change his mind, and he doesn’t care if he’s

thrown in prison; but as Kakashi correctly deduces, if he starts going

berserk he will tarnish his reputation of being village favourite.

Hard times create hardlines and the benevolence toward Sasuke has gone,

but Naruto doesn’t actually believe he could pose a threat to other lands.

That is until he meets the Hidden Cloud ninja who bluntly tells him the

facts: he attacked their teacher and they don’t know whether he’s dead or

alive, all done whilst wearing Akatsuki clothing

[23]

. “We can’t just sit around

and do nothing when we have no clue what’s happened to our sensei”

[24]

Naruto sees they’re just like him when he lost Jiraiya, and agrees to tell

them everything he’s got on the Akatsuki; for one, he knows they capture

Jinchuriki alive so with that chance he will support their chase. This allows

them to be a little more uplifted, but they still want data on Uchiha. Seeing

that they will be persistent and explore any avenue for additional

223

information, things become tense as he refuses - “you’ve got to rescue your

Sensei ﬁrst”

[25]

, but this coddling can’t work. “I understand your need for

vengeance! But if you guys hate enough to kill Sasuke, me and my comrades

are not going to just sit around in silence. Eye for an eye! The vicious cycle

will start all over again! People you love will keep killing each other!”

[26]

Karui counters and blames Sasuke for starting it all, and so by having him

dead she believes this will stop her own suering and avenge her Sensei.

Omoi isn’t as dogmatic, but still he says of Naruto “Where do you suggest

we take our hatred? How would you take responsibility for it?”

[26]

It’s been a while since Naruto had to ﬁght so vehemently for his friend, and

he’s no longer naive of the pain that family can give and take. He’s no

longer the dogmatic protector of the group and can see that Bee is part of

their family, but he hopes they can start by decoupling what they care for,

their sensei, from what they hate - being Sasuke. He won’t sell him out, but

this enrages Karui and she starts to bury her forearm into his throat,

ironically shouting at him to say something

[27]

. Hurting random strangers

for the vague idea that this contributes to your goal is no better than the

person she wants to kill, but it’s not about wanting to be better or worse,

it’s about getting even.

Naruto can’t seem to convince them of leaving Sasuke out of this, and he

can’t stop them from exacting their revenge without ﬁghting them, so he

chooses to sacriﬁce himself. This causes her anger to reach its peak as the

display of the moral high ground is an insult, and says “no amount of

pummelling is going to make me feel better”

[28]

as the cycles of pain haven’t

been addressed in her heart, so why resort to Christic sacriﬁce?

To answer that question, I will have to take a couple steps back and tell you

about pain, physiologically this time. According to philosophers who

224

believe in the Imperativist theory

[29]

, pain is directly motivating. For

example if I injure my ankle, those signals act as an authority to have me

stop putting weight on it. Signals for hunger are an authority that gets me

to seek food and so forth

[30]

. People can separate from this authority if a

greater motivation is present, but what is most often the case is that we

work with these signals to try and remedy pains or needs. For me to say

pain is an authority is particularly ﬁtting with our last opponent in his

attempt at becoming the preeminent “motivator” for people to understand

each other. But since then Naruto has tried to embody the polar opposite

dynamic, not inﬂicting any pain at all unless he absolutely cannot avoid it.

We see he has no motivation to respond to pain at all because of the fear of

spreading suering.

People that have no impulse to mitigate or respond to their own pain are

said to have pain asymbolia, whereby one recognises the phenomenon but is

completely indierent to mitigating or stopping it

[31]

. They don’t have that

instinctual combative response or try to avoid someone hurting them. This

is where someone like Hidan is an interesting case study, as he has no need

to resist pain whatsoever, and when Izumo and Kotetsu stab him in the

sides during their ambush he doesn’t ﬂinch or attempt to alleviate it.

Moreover we could say the motivating factor and the phenomena are

decoupled. Now we see Naruto doing a similar thing, letting the cloud

Shinobi beat him up and take their anger out on him as he won’t try to stop

them despite the large amount of pain he feels.

Asymbolics like him are said not to react because they no longer care about

the condition of the physical body, losing the capacity to respond in

whatever way is relevant to pain

[32]

. He could be said to have greatly

reduced responsiveness, but not all for if they tried to kill him he would be

motivated to stop them, but only because he wants to stop Sasuke - not out

of his own priority for himself. If he were to die here this would massively

225

drive up tensions between the Leaf and Cloud with the high likelihood of

war, and thus his paciﬁsm might ignite more hatred than their previous

back and forth.

This moment also highlights one of the fundamental ethical questions in

Christianity, with the dichotomy of non-violence versus self-defence.

Naruto’s earlier words of an eye for an eye are taken straight from

Leviticus, "And a man who injures his countryman as he has done, so it

shall be done to him; fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just

as another person has received injury from him, so it will be given to

him"

[33]

; there are two reasons why its teachings have been referenced, the

ﬁrst being that it represents part of the Old Testament, of which certain

teachings in regards to diet, agriculture and morality have been

"superseded" by the New Testament and the life of Jesus. This is the idea of

Supersessionism, and in this case Naruto has used the teaching in Matthew:

“But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you

on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”

[34]

Naruto is undertaking the development of the New Covenant, and we have

sly proof this is the case with the codename that Danzo used(Kanzo) when

collaborating with the Rain to squash the Akatsuki. It may be in reference

to Kanzo Uchimura(1861-1930), the Christian Evangelist and founder of the

Non-Church movement. It was formed from his dissatisfaction with the

Church’s mission and believed that a Christian life could be perfected

without things like Communion or Baptism. The Church was obviously

appalled by this and sought to suppress his views

[35]

, and it was in much the

same vein of reformation the Akatsuki had dreamt of, and now Nagato has

passed on the torch to his sibling student to ﬁnd a new set of teachings.

The second reason Leviticus is referenced is because of its perspective of

the blasphemer, and considers the Talion Law(equal consequence for the

226

criminal) the solution. If the community does not put such a reprehensible

person to death for the crime of murder, then the impurity generated by

them is said to be the cause of destruction for the community

[36]

. You could

say that from the perspective of the village they have to kill in

self-defence

[36]

. This is the situation around Sasuke at the moment which

Naruto has to grapple with, as the Leaf should've taken out the man who

has jeopardised their national security, with people now ready to defend it

with a religious fervour.

The talion law wasn’t something that was to be implemented in full rigour

by the populace however, for otherwise you get people plucking each

other’s eyes out - in the spirit of the Uchiha perhaps - which is why Naruto

is concerned that Sai has gotten involved. He can see Nagato’s words

coming to life, “I just want to protect them, no matter how much pain

befalls me”

[37]

, but now it’s closer to being “no matter how much pain I

cause, I will continue to protect my comrades”.

For his nindo speciﬁcally, how do these revelations aect the way he sees

the power of the individual? Can the individual pass justice? We look at

Shikamaru's revenge against Hidan for some clariﬁcation, as he said just

before the rocks started to bury him: "your God right now isn't that stupid

Lord Jashin or anyone else. It's me, and I'm passing judgement on you!"

[38]

He says he follows the Will of Fire, which seems to be the secular analogue

of God, whereby its followers can seemingly hunt down people even

though the Hokage might not always give orders. A life for a life, and it was

o Shikamaru's own back: his planning, his craftiness, that manages to

enact justice. This is one of the dangerous avenues that Naruto’s initially

optimistic view of Humanism could lead to, and it won't always be such a

clear case like the above example; look at the extent to which it is embodied

in Sasuke, as he believes he alone can pass justice, and will destroy Konoha

since his late brother’s life is more precious than the village.

227

Things are beginning to ramp up, and Karui threatens to punch Sai for

stepping in, but Omoi can see she will go too far, stopping her himself.

With the ﬁght simmered down Sai patches him up, and Naruto thanks him

for stepping in even though he told him not to

[39]

. He’s seen the damage of

desiring to cause pain, but desiring to stop desiring to cause pain has

rendered him equally subjugated. He’s paranoid about not getting used by

it, remembering his conversation with Minato when he said “the masked

man” was the one using Nagato, but ironically Sai thinks the same way

about him. He’s read a couple books on recognising emotions and seen how

Naruto behaves around Sakura

[40]

, and has placed too much weight on their

friendship being the inﬂuencing factor. He thinks Naruto is doing this in

large part because of the promise he kept and tells her his thoughts on the

debilitating eect it’s having on him, resembling that of a curse mark

[41]

This is Sakura’s ultimatum, believing that Sai is right, and will try to use

love to steer Naruto away from this pain.

Revenge at all costs!

At the Gokage summit, we see the clash of two hard-iron Wills in Sasuke

and Ay. The former no longer cares about his previous moral code, as

Suigetsu notes he’s just hacking down any Samurai that get in the way

[42]

. In

his short exchange with the Raikage, we saw Ay’s stubbornness in

continually attacking him despite his arm being covered in the Amaterasu,

and he would’ve lost his leg had Gaara not intervened, becoming equal to

the black ﬂames which won’t stop until their target is incinerated

He’s willing to go that far because he thinks in very simple terms as

evidenced by his conversation with Naruto: “Shinobi ought not to lower

This move can also be seen metaphorically from Sasuke's perspective as he coated the Susanoo in the black

ﬂames, which connects to what he said about "hatred inside darkness cannot be eliminated"

[43]

. It is a defensive

psychological measure for anyone who would dare try to see the pained soul within, getting burned for trying.

228

their heads so easily! Action and power are what Shinobi respect!”

[44]

When Naruto was demanding that the Raikage cancel his disposal he

buried his head into the ground and tears ran down his face, showing the

return to the outpouring of emotion. He doesn’t have time to hear his tale,

or a second chance at conversation, he just doesn’t want to see anybody else

turn into Sasuke and become steeped in revenge: “He’s obsessed with it. It

changed him!! His vengeance became warped! And he stopped being the

guy I knew!”

[45]

. So he does believe he has changed.

In Robert Greene’s book 48 Laws of Power, the fourth law is Always say less

than necessary. The reason being is that you will appear weak, common, and

with little control, whereas if you shorten your sentences it’s less likely

you’ll say something foolish. Moreover, it’s noted that one shouldn’t speak

too much for fear of revealing your true feelings

[46]

which is incredibly

illustrative of everything Naruto does as anti-resonating with the Raikage.

That Naruto has lost his ego means he has lost the concept of how he

appears, i.e., how he frames himself. This is a psychological term which

describes a cognitive bias whereby people decide on options based on

whether they’re presented with positive or negative connotations. What’s

more, Naruto has no idea who he’s speaking to, not in the immediate sense

of titles, but in the sense he doesn’t know what the Raikage prioritises.

Reputation is said to be the cornerstone of power

[47]

, and the Jinchuriki of

the Cloud has just been taken, with Naruto being the only remaining

Jinchuriki of the Leaf, so of course he wants them to stop the investigations

- Konoha wants hegemony! “You bow your head for a criminal and beg for

mercy to keep your comrades safe. That is not considered friendship in the

Shinobi world”

[48]

. His reputation as a big and imposing leader has just been

destroyed since the Akatsuki have taken his brother right under his nose

and made him look a fool, and now there is this child who wants him to

stop searching, in his view to stop amending. This is another reason why he

229

set up the Gokage summit, to reclaim his position and avoid letting the

other Nations see his land as weak, by pressuring them with accusations of

supporting terrorists.

Sakura’s dilemma

Sakura and the gang have come to take out Sasuke for themselves, but ﬁrst

they’ll try their luck at quelling Naruto’s worries and dropping his promise,

which as we’ll soon see was as doomed as Naruto’s eorts toward the

Raikage. In both cases there was a cursory understanding of what would be

better for them, but not the ones they do it for, when they’re the ones happy

to sacriﬁce themselves just as Naruto did against Karui, to see their

friends/family back.

During the end of the ﬁrst series when Naruto took the burden of ﬁnding

Sasuke o her shoulders, she initially thanked him, but at the start of

Shippuden she was adamant about helping Sasuke herself. If he was

someone she cared about and wanted to help, she wanted to be on the

frontlines, so she must be able to understand why Naruto will refuse as

well.

“Naruto… you can forget your promise to me… you can stop chasing

Sasuke”

[49]

. And with his acquiescence the rest of the group shall kill him,

leaving Naruto in ignorance. That is how they will repay him for saving the

village. But you see, it is for the village they do it, anyone is expedient, even

the Village Identity! For Sakura to withhold information from him takes

him back to when he was a child living completely unaware of the decree.

Moreover, she says she has stopped loving Sasuke because he has become a

criminal and a nuisance, the very person he could’ve become with being a

Jinchuriki and all.

230

The reason why some watchers and readers don’t like Sakura, aside from

Kishimoto’s writing of female characters more generally, is because of

moments like this where she’s used as a punching bag for the moral lessons

that we are picking up; for Naruto, the solution to his latest failure is here

in this conversation - but why aren’t Sakura words resonating with him?

“I can’t continue to love a rogue Shinobi, a criminal. I’m not a child

anymore, I can separate fantasy from reality”

[50]

, and she shall put on the

appearance of the kind and loving partner, while robbing him of his goal.

In making her way to the Land of Iron she must’ve picked up Itachi’s

playbook - a man who accepted disgrace in the place of honour, though that

was on a completely dierent scale.

Frustrated that she couldn’t ﬁnd an avenue of conversation to change his

mind, or ﬁnd a way to tell him the truth, she turns and leaves, apologising

under her breath for what she is about to try

[51]

. A clone of Sai’s stays

behind and reveals the reason behind her latest stunt, “Sakura smiled and

said she would work together with everyone else … but I could tell it was a

false, forced smile [...] Sakura loves Sasuke so much [...] And I believe that

it’s because she loves him that she can’t leave Sasuke to continue

progressing toward evil [...] Furthermore, she’s also prepared herself for

you to resent her, Naruto. She considers it her atonement for forcing a

lifelong burden upon your shoulders. Sakura has relied on you too much in

the past. That’s why she’s trying to do everything by herself this time”

[52]

Just as Naruto’s head is about to fall o, Gaara appears. He brings news that

his friend has just attacked the Gokage summit, war has been declared and

it is of top priority that he be protected: “If, as an Akatsuki subordinate,

Sasuke Uchiha were to stand against us Allied Shinobi forces, I will not

show mercy”

[53]

. He had thought what Naruto would do and tried to reason

with him, but this shows the truth in something else: even if you have

231

experienced the same pain, held the same eyes, you may still not be able to

share understanding. Gaara has long since branched away from the

darkness, and what Sasuke seeks is rooted in the past.

The question remains, how to bring him into the present. It wasn't too long

ago that Gaara was the main threat to his village, killing his own kind and

growing to become an issue worthy of assassination too. And yet, Naruto

could see what rested behind all that for they had shared the same history

and thus he knew what darkness had sculpted those eyes. With what he

knows now, it may well be possible for Naruto to inspire the same change

in his friend.

232

The Taka

Obito releases Sasuke out of the Kamui realm like a pitbull to ﬁght Danzo

whilst he gets the pleasure of watching. Seeing that there’s no escape, the

bandages on his arm are cast aside to reveal a grotesque assembly of

Sharingan from the proﬁts of genocide

[1]

. Now he wants to take both of

Sasuke's eyes, the more the merrier presumably. But it goes beyond material

gain when he asks “Is it true that it was on your and the other Konoha

elders’ orders, that Itachi Uchiha slaughtered my clan?”

[2]

, as now he does

need to be taken out, just like that old maﬁa saying goes - he knows too

much. “Itachi… he told you everything… with his dying breath, didn’t he. It

seems you alone really were special”

[3]

. On account of validating Obito’s

story, his hate envelops the Susanoo and its arm goes from bone to sinew,

now a hand as real as his own.

Danzo sees this rampant escalation and says the truth about Itachi’s mission

doesn’t matter to him, “You just want to destroy everything with your

hatred. You are laying waste to the Uchiha clan’s sacriﬁce”

[4]

, which is an

appalling thing to say, as they worked to ramp up those tensions. What’s

more, Danzo’s motive is clearly articulated within the Itachi Hiden novels:

“cutting out the root of the evil that had been growing since the birth of the

village of Konohagakure was Danzo’s life’s work”

[5]

. How ironic that he

who desired the eradication of the Uchiha would be haunted by its spirit

and crushed by the Susanoo, the spirit weapon of the Uchiha.

Since Itachi was a child, Danzo had been watching the development of his

abilities closely and noted that his character was unlike that of his clan, and

sought to understand his nature by asking the following: “Ten of our

233

brethren have been shipwrecked. One of them has caught a nasty, infectious

disease. If he is allowed to live, the other nine will also get sick and die. If

you were the captain of that ship, what judgment would you hand

down?”

[6]

. He replied that his priority would be to save the lives of the other

nine, and kill the one o. He smiles at this answer, for he knows he will be

a very natural ﬁt into his organisation, skulking back into the darkness.

“Danzo believed the boy was the very person to fulﬁll his own dearest wish.

[...] A trump card, to sever the link that had continued since the

establishment of the village”

[7]

. His issue was how to get him under his

control, ramp up the binary nature of circumstances, and have the decision

to slaughter the clan be an inevitability.

“Self-sacriﬁce is the meaning of Shinobi. Never to see the light of day…

distinguished servants of shadow… that is the true ﬁgure of Shinobi since

ancient times. And not just Itachi, but many Shinobi have died so. This

world could not function just on ideals and pleasantries. It is thanks to

them that peace has been maintained. You who have misconstrued Itachi’s

Will may not understand. But Itachi, by revealing his secret to you… ﬁnally

truly betrayed Kono-”

[8]

and he is turned into paint. Back in the ﬁrst series,

whenever Sasuke was at his wits end, he would have the story of Itachi rise

up again and he would remind himself that he was an avenger and

persevere. Whenever he needs a surge of energy now though, the story

which ﬂoats up is the one Obito shared with him

[9]

, and this shall be his

modus operandi. All his fraternal hatred was stripped away and replaced with

love, but now they have become the logs for the ﬂame of hate toward the

village. His targets are any and all villagers who don’t take Itachi’s sacriﬁce

seriously!

Those eyes on Danzo’s arm speak of a history of clan members just living

normal lives, possibly entering a coup or choosing to abstain, but now one

by one they’re closing as part of a dream to kill one of their own kind. The

234

Izanagi sacriﬁces the potential in one’s eye to divert any misfortunes into a

dream, to keep going in order to attain one’s goal. The clan’s collective

dream of integration and normality culled for a single man’s ambition to

become Hokage. This is why Sasuke isn’t slowing down, for this is the ﬁrst

time he’s really seen Sharingan that weren’t his brother’s or Obito’s, and

this isn’t what he meant when he wanted his clan to be right in front of him

again.

These barrages are pushing Danzo to use one Izanagi after another, and in

every interval he can’t do better than a mutual strike. Sasuke has managed

to keep this high intensity up long enough to drain him down to just one

eye

[10]

. For the last exchange, Danzo pours the last bit of chakra into his

blade and charges, but the sad truth is that he has been living in a dream

within a dream for quite some time; the Izanagi sought to negate negative

aspects of reality that befall him, but Sasuke caught wind of this and his

genjutsu sidestepped his scrutiny, as all it does is convince him he has one

more eye remaining. If only it were true, and even with all these

get-out-jail-free cards the world has not fulﬁlled his dream; it turns out his

days as Hokage were a mirage too.

He takes Karin as a hostage to help him avoid the use of his last and most

precious Sharingan, and here we see Danzo’s true self-aggrandisement,

with Sasuke calling out his hypocrisy: “You, who extolled self-sacriﬁce…

would take a hostage?”

[11]

. In one instant he says his life isn’t that precious,

but he is also “the reformer who shall change this Shinobi world”

[11]

. Sasuke

must make a critical decision. Well, it doesn't seem like he needed to think

about it very hard...

He says “one down, brother”

[12]

and speaks like Gaara when he would

reference his own mother deliriously before killing people in her honour.

Danzo thought he would have a chance at life by keeping a hostage, but if

235

he was in Sasuke’s shoes he would’ve shot right through her as well. It

seems he relies on people’s good Will and moral compass to allow for his

insane legalism to materialise, but upon seeing someone equally uncaring of

human life he gets his comeuppance. Sasuke, who leads the Taka and has

symbolic connotations with the Hawk

, is the one who takes out the

Hokage in Danzo, the man that started the Hawk faction to take out

Hiruzen! How poetic is destiny that he was the man who consciously

refused to help the village when it was attacked, and berated the Uchiha as

being responsible for the attack when they wanted to assist the Leaf. The

Uchiha who he tried so hard to contain due to the fear he had of them

killing the Head of the Leaf has happened, in one of the clearest examples of

self-fulﬁlling prophecy.

As he’s about to die, he has a ﬂashback to the Second Shinobi War with

Tobirama, Hiruzen and a few others who are about to be jumped by Cloud

Shinobi and need someone to act as a diversion for their ambush. Things

fall silent and nobody elects themselves. As much as Danzo is forcing

himself to, he can’t do it: “Sarutobi… What are you thinking right now? Are

you prepared to make that sacriﬁce?”

[14]

. Even in his own self-analysis he is

thinking about Hiruzen and whether he will raise his hand, and he does in

fact break the silence and take on the challenge

[15]

Frustrated, Danzo yells at him with accusations of “hogging the

limelight”

[16]

and all these other external factors: how he’s perceived, what

other people are thinking and so forth… everything but looking upon

himself. He sees sacriﬁce as a Shinobi doing their proper duty, just as his

father and grand-father did, but it seems so impersonal like a man who just

throws himself into certain death because other people do.

The summoning animal he uses, Garuda, is taken from Hindu mythology and given to Indra for

defeating the serpent Vritra

[13]

, so when Sasuke defeated Orochimaru is the point when he got it.

236

Tobirama notices this and says it isn’t a competition to sacriﬁce oneself, and

he has to reﬂect on the reasons why he refrained, and lastly, “do not bring

in any personal conﬂicts”

[17]

; thus his Foundation eliminated all personality

probably because of this day. His last words are directed to his lifelong

friend - “Who and what am I to you?”, which are the same last words when

Karin was shot

[18]

, which shows that his ideals aren’t dying with him, even

though he tried to take the next generation of them in Obito and Sasuke to

the grave as well.

Paths converge

Sakura races to where Sasuke is and makes it moments shy of him killing

his former teammate. Like everybody else with remotely acute chakra

sensing abilities she notes his profound dierence - “It’s true. He’s dierent

now. He’s changed”

[19]

. She uses the pretext of wanting to join up with him

and abandon Konoha again to create an opportunity to stab him, but the

fact she would leave the village irks him just as much as someone enjoying

the peace - for that implies work like Itachi’s wasn’t good enough for her.

“Right now… if I stab Sasuke, it’ll all be over”

[20]

. I’d have hoped it was that

simple, but her wits didn’t expect a counter as he went straight for the

Chidori. Luckily Kakashi is here this time around to save one of his

students.

In regards to the other one, he’s racing to the same location with every

sliver of advice running through his mind: Itachi’s ultimatum, the Raikage’s

words and Gaara’s

[21]

. Naruto’s own friends, his village and now the

collection of nations have universally rejected Sasuke and would kill him if

need be, but he has to see for himself whether there is another way: “If I

could just see him, I could ﬁgure out the answer”

[22]

. Naruto needs to see if

Sasuke has truly changed into an unrecognisable demon by whom the

237

human spirit can really be lost, and he’ll see whether he himself could’ve

been lost if subsumed by Kurama.

After healing Karin, Sakura returns and will not allow Kakashi to be the

bearer of the burden with one falling over the other to take responsibility

for this stranger. She has the opportunity to take his back as he reels from

the pain in overusing his eyes, but she cannot betray him - the blade inches

away - “I thought I had made up my mind …”

[23]

. As we see, she couldn’t

quite detach from her hope, and with Naruto’s words of resolve later on “I

still don’t have to give up on my dream that one day, Cell 7 will laugh

together again”

[24]

. That’s what was in her strike, but Sasuke was ready to

kill her, showing that their bond has in fact been severed.

Naruto makes it to her just in time, but as ﬁrst impressions go he’s fearing

the worst. He attempts to remind Sasuke that what lies in the past is also

the unity of Team 7, but his eyes are set on his ﬁrst light; this is why Sasuke

tells him he could never understand - “I told you before. What can you,

with no parents or siblings, possibly know about me”

[25]

. But this is it,

Sasuke, with no parents or siblings now, is starting to learn an awful lot

about Naruto and whether he likes it or not this aspect of their shared pain

is something he’s grasped. Likewise, after the Pain match Naruto can say

"Now I ﬁnally understand how Sasuke feels... what vengeance is about"

[26]

Being consciously aware of his own actions and the path his friend has

taken has meant he has crossed the gulf of ignorance and improved upon

their detached acknowledgement in the Final Valley.

He is the ﬁrst person Sasuke has come across who has made the eort to say

“I understand the sacriﬁce of your brother” when his theory rested on there

being nobody that could comprehend it. This exception is another reason

why he is beyond infuriated and decides to desecrate the sanctity of his

238

brother's eyes, as he can no longer aord to go without them; his desire to

have them implanted immediately is to crush Naruto into oblivion

[27]

In their ﬁrst meeting as adults Naruto had said he wouldn’t become Hokage

if he couldn’t save a friend, and he reasserts that point but with

conviction

[28]

: he will die and take on Sasuke’s hate before anything else. "I

understand more now… why Sasuke has become obsessed with revenge and

is causing so much damage. Sasuke really loved his family and his clan and I

think it’s because his love is so deep, it’s hard for him to forgive”

[29]

. He’s

spot on, and that pain shows as Sasuke speaks with Kakashi, as he wasn’t

aware that his former teacher knew about his brother’s secret, so when he

said "I think you know the truth"

[30]

in regards to revenge, this outraged

him for they are the ignorant ones: "you're laughing, at the cost of Itachi's

life!! Laughing like fools, all together, completely ignorant!! [...] I want to

change them to shrieks and wails!!"

[31]

. The father who once ignored him

and toiled away as head of the clan, now Sasuke knows what he was up

against and the tension spilled into his own family; the brother who never

had time for him and always said he was busy, now he knows what he had

to endure too. All these relationships have been digested through that

history and now there is just bitterness towards the village.

What we know of Obito’s words to Naruto and Kakashi back in the Land of

Iron, we’ve become aware of the curse that has started since the Sage of the

Six Paths and the hatred which has followed their ancestors. First we had

the idea that those who came before could inspire and direct one through

belief, hope and strength where possible, but he introduces the equal but

opposite idea for Sasuke via a cosmic destiny and that their very actions are

the continuation of the war between Senju and Uchiha, of Ashura and

Indra.

239

“You cannot omit Itachi’s tale when discussing Sasuke”

[32]

, and this is what

humbled Naruto for a second time. He wanted to believe it was all a lie, but

then he really has no awareness of his own history. What if he knew of the

targeted destruction of his own Land of Eddies, the fact the Leaf took his

mother into the village and made her a jinchuriki and gave his family

inexorable burdens as well. Now imagine he received all that information at

once, and that his lineage rewarded hatred. For Sasuke, to see the sacriﬁce of

his entire clan be swept under the carpet of history as one man’s insanity,

and not the complex internal struggles between clans and governments is

an injustice.

Their conversation in the TnJ space continues, as Naruto talks about his

past as being a Jinchuriki unanimously despised by the village, with nobody

getting past their ignorance to understand the harm they caused. They

believed ﬁrst and foremost in the village and if it told them to ignore the

fox, then they would. If it told them to regard Itachi Uchiha as a criminal,

then they would. It doesn’t mean they were reprehensible, as there was a

moment when he understood why he could do it too. But, “once we really

understand each other, your hatred will go away… just like mine did when I

met Master Iruka”

[33]

“Naruto! No matter what you say to me now, I’m not changing! I’m still

going to kill each and every person in Konoha, including you! So your only

choices are either to kill me and become the hero who saved the village… or

be killed by me and just be known as a loser”

[34]

. Sasuke’s retort is a weird

mesh between his own hate and Itachi’s ultimatum to him all those years

ago - either cling to life like a coward, or hunt him down and kill him.

In his ﬁnal words to Sasuke he says they're both still high-level Shinobi

who can read each other's thoughts with a simple trade of blows. On his

way there he had wondered whether or not he’d know the answer to

240

helping him, but here he realises that combat still works as their primary

dialogue. Since it has stayed true, it means a bond remains, and thus he adds

- "Can you tell what I'm thinking too? You see right? That if you and I ﬁght,

we die"

[35]

This will serve as the real answer that Naruto provides to Itachi's earlier

interrogation about having to choose between the dire options of killing

Sasuke or letting the village be destroyed. He had wanted to test Naruto's

resolve just as Danzo tested him when he was younger to make tough,

cutthroat decisions in the time of a crisis. Would he pick an extreme too, or

come to see the same as he: that he shouldn’t have given up the eort so

soon.

To keep pushing on despite the pressures of either side is to follow what

Buddhists term “The Middle Way”, which calls for a balanced approach to

life, but not in the sense of passivity, as whenever you walk the Middle Way

you exert continual eort

[36]

. It shouldn’t be thought of as a compromise or

moderate position either, as it manifests when you can reject the grounds

of an entire continuum altogether

[37]

. He’s able to use all this because that's

what a dialogue is - it's part of his nature to allow for the back and forth,

whilst also refusing to accept the villain’s prospective solution of choosing

between a rock and a hard place.

Initially, Itachi had asked Naruto what his obsession with Sasuke was,

especially now that he had abandoned him and the villagers, but despite all

that “we may not be blood but he’s more of a brother to me than you are to

him”

[38]

. Like Itachi, labels such as clan, family prestige and birth village

mean little to him, but that wisdom is being properly used for the sake of

connecting with others, not detaching from ramiﬁcations. This bond of

selfhood didn’t break during his questioning, so at least he can be sure that

when he dies Sasuke won’t be left without a brother.

241

A turtle, an octopus and a waterfall

After Obito declared war on the Five Nations, each Daimyo has agreed to

the allied shinobi forces and Tsunade gathers her council to begin

organising resources, battalions, defences and more. Meanwhile in the land

of toads, Lord Fukasaku, Gamamaru and Gerotora are deciding whether to

store the key to the nine tails seal within Naruto or not. The Great Lord

Elder says to “Summon Naruto Uzumaki here. I shall peer into his future

and check for any prophecies. All decisions will hinge on what I ﬁnd”

[1]

In Japan, divination is not so much the forebringing of information of the

future in a manner of fate, but more like interacting with the lived

potentiality. It speculated on what the future might hold rather than an

absolute position

[2]

, and many people would take precautions against bad

outcomes by enacting customs/cultural traditions that would please their

family and ancestors

[2]

. The act of wetting your ﬁnger and lifting it up to

see the prevailing wind is much the same sort of function, but this is the

spiritual adaptation. Because Shinto is a polytheistic religion that primarily

interacts with a range of spirits, there is no counterpart to the monotheistic

idea of a God who has the intractable proceedings of existence. It is through

the rituals and engagement with these kami that an individual acts with the

spiritual, which is why fortune telling/divination plays a noticeable role in

Japanese life as you can confer with dierent spirits in regards to starting a

business, building a house and so on

[3]

What's more, dreams(yume) are given a special place in regards to omens,

with intriguing examples given of animal messengers and treasure-boats

being signs of good ones

[4]

. Moreover, this word of an octopus might

242

actually be a good thing for aiding Naruto in his journey. As for the second

part, he’s already aware of “the lad whose power lies in his eyes”

[5]

, as he was

seen only moments ago.

This is quite poignant because in Ancient Greece the Oracle of Delphi was

a source of foresight, divination and wisdom and as people prepared

themselves for consultation, they would see the famous inscription etched

into the temple wall: “Know Thyself”

[6]

. Naruto started the work of

questioning himself deeply over the course of his journey and in clarifying

his path has made Gamamaru's job a lot easier. It was harder to read Jiraiya

and his subsequent students on the other hand, and the reason why he

would write books wouldn't become clear either

[7]

until he could ﬁnd the

reason out for himself. The contrast between these two actually mirrors

Pythia's readings as well, with her replies to the average person being mired

in metaphor and obscure passages, but upon being asked a question in

regards to Socrates, namely - "is there anyone wiser?" she replied sharply

that there wasn’t

[8]

The reason being can be gleaned from one of his students Antisthenes, who

said that the greatest beneﬁt of the Socratic methods and of philosophy

more generally was "The power to hold conversation with myself"

[9]

. Now

almost everyone has an inner voice and the profundity of this statement

can easily be missed, but what we shall see in subsequent sections is Naruto

enacting a TnJ against himself, so that he can know who and what he is.

The Fox on my doorstep

The last dream was with Gerotora storing himself inside Naruto

[10]

, and so

the key to the Nine-Tails seal will be right next to the beast. All he has to do

in order to claim ownership of the key is place his hand on the central

square and it will be up to the strength of his resolve to never allow the Fox

243

to come out. He looks reticent, and doesn’t rush to make the deal, for he is

all too aware of the consequences. If he gets into the same disenfranchised

way as he did against Pain, he could release the Nine-Tails completely with

no ability to tighten the seal as it may be undone.

The Fox’s power is composed of its chakra and Will, and to control the

beast “one needs to extract just Nine-Tails’ chakra, convert it into one’s own

chakra, ‘n thus make it one’s own power”

[11]

; however, the problem is that

the Will tags along whenever chakra tries to be extracted; “In short [...] one

must have a strong Will of one’s own, empty of hate, that can completely

separate Nine Tails’ Will from his chakra”

[12]

. Naruto’s Will shall serve as

the membrane, which is made more or less porous by his convictions.

The beneﬁts of learning nature energy has mapped over well for

controlling Kurama, as he had to develop an intuitive understanding of

merging external chakra with his own without it taking over his body,

which is only made possible by having a sound mind, swapping out the

eects of petriﬁcation for the envelopment of hatred.

Minato’s wishes of having a little bit of it continuously trickle out of the

cage for Naruto’s network to merge with it has succeeded, but like Naruto

says this cabling has meant his heart could link to Nine-Tails Will all by

itself

[13]

; in time we know this to be more nuanced for it is his dark

personality that is entangled in his heart which serves as the hateful

intermediary to the fox. But despite these risks, he cannot heed Yamato’s

advice forever for he is the Nine-Tails jinchuriki after all. He knows he’ll

need Kurama to ﬁght Sasuke, but hasn’t realised that more important than

the chakra is understanding his hate, for in surpassing that he takes a

massive leap in comprehending his friend.

Turtle island

244

They set sail to the distant island that the Raikage had set aside and

previously used as a training ground for him and Bee, and just as

Gamamaru predicted Naruto would wind up on an island with an octopus

in the fray. The island is itself a living turtle, and the fact it’s mobile makes

it the perfect hideaway not just to evade the Akatsuki, but should the

Nine-Tails break free it can’t jeopardise the war eort.

The world turtle is an ancient idea in mythologies across the globe, and

cultures like the Lenape tribe in what is now Delaware US, saw the turtle as

the symbol of life, earthliness and perseverance

[14]

. The sheer length of time

that a turtle can live for expounds a kind of sagely wisdom which makes it

an apt creature to use for the representation of the world. This couples well

with Vedic Hindu myth, as the world turtle is seen as a symbol for one of

Vishnu’s avatars Kurma. Vishnu is the god of preservation/protection, and

symbolically this turtle is meant to protect Naruto and Bee as they retreat

from the carnage of war.

The world turtle has also been seen by Jung’s introspection into Western

Alchemy as coinciding with the massa confusa

[15]

, which refers to the chaotic

and undierentiated mass from which all alchemical transformation takes

place(the prima materia)

[16]

. What is yet more interesting though is this

comment made in the Mysterium Coniunctionis, where it's said the King

must transform himself into the prima materia in the body of his mother,

and in this return to chaos, where all is in conﬂict and repelling one

another, is the dissolution that is prerequisite for redemption

[17]

. Naruto’s

time on the turtle is where he tries to resolve the inner-conﬂict between

the two sides of his personality, and in passing that stage he meets his

mother where he’s reunited, and only then does he overcome the Fox.

245

His guide for this part of his journey will be an octopus in Killer Bee, and

his tailed beast is based on the Ushi-Oni which is a composite Yokai of an

Ox and a demon, speciﬁcally the head of an Ox with a spider body

oftentimes. There are stories of it harassing ﬁshermen at sea

[18]

, which is

incredibly ironic since Bee actually helps the “ﬁshermen” on the boat by

saving them from the Giant Squid - proof that the demon has been

conquered!

“Someone who not only has these beasts but even the Eight-Tailed Biju

completely under his control. A Jinchuriki , just like you, of eight tails”

[19]

Naruto is shocked at this news and makes a Bee-line to his room, pun

intended. He asks to be trained so he can ﬁnd a way to control his own

powers

[20]

, but upon the slightest reluctance he says things along the lines of

“you’re a Jinchuriki too, so why aren’t you helping me?”

[21]

and throws their

shared experience in his face. It’s a cheap way at avoiding an interpersonal

conversation when it should’ve been what kickstarted it; his second attempt

at persuasion sees him concocting a rap that somehow garners respect, and

Bee oers an exchange of salutations: a ﬁst bump. But it goes a bit downhill

after he calls his shades suspect, like he’s a pervert.

His last-resort move is the harem jutsu which, if it did work, would surely

indicate that he’s not the right teacher to have the knowledge to control a

tailed beast; I guess Jiraiya was his last interlocutor with Kurama and he had

women, money and gambling as some of his vices so Naruto presumed it

wouldn’t be a problem. But Bee doesn’t have any real vices as through his

hardships he developed an identity that doesn’t need crutches, perfectly

happy going about his day crafting new music.

Naruto is still his impulsive and impatient self and runs to Motoi to ask

him about the training drills/techniques that he used. If he won’t teach him

then this is the next best thing. “I don’t care if he’s Kumogakure’s hero! He’s

246

mean and stubborn and keeps quoting weird rhymes! You’d think another

Jinchuriki would understand!”

[22]

. Motoi snaps and is on the verge of losing

his temper, but I don’t think he realises either that Bee was just seeing

whether Naruto gets that shared pain doesn’t mean pain is shared, and

rewarded him when he stepped away from that.

After hearing that Naruto had cleared the ﬁrst stage, he gets taken to the

training grounds and Yamato tags along. Now we’re presented with the

waterfall of truth where we sit and take a moment to reﬂect with our

darker-side, which is the actual Jungian shadow that some have confused

with the Nine-Tails. An implanted spirit is not the Jungian shadow, it’s

closer to a personiﬁcation of hatred that has accrued across millenia and is

representative of that element of the collective unconscious.

The Waterfall of Truth and the cave which sits behind it seem to be another

incorporation of Journey to the West, as the hordes of monkeys declared

whoever could pass through and make it to the other side would be their

King

[23]

. Sun Wukong of course was the one who made the route back, but

passing through the waterfall was really just a test of character to see if one

could jump into the unknown as there weren't any enemies, which

probably links to Naruto’s second trial.

Here though crossing the waterfall does involve an opponent, Naruto’s dark

and embittered other half: “Why didn’t you give them your autograph back

at Ichiraku?”

[24]

. He makes the point that because he didn’t, he must harbour

some hatred deep down for these people who were perfectly happy to hate

him a couple years ago. Now they want an autograph? Surely it is excusable

to resent such people! When he says “I am you. I live in your heart”

[25]

reminds me of Gaara’s pain as a child, that he would clutch his chest and say

this pain never seemed to go away.

247

Motoi doesn’t understand the intricacies of the waterfall and says this half

must be “defeated”

[26]

, though that isn’t quite right. The reason Bee breezed

through it was because he had addressed the anger and rage in himself as he

wanted to become an exemplary brother for Ay: “I believe Master Bee

strove diligently to become a worthy Jinchuriki for Lord Raikage”

[27]

. But,

as much as Motoi respects Bee, he still doesn’t have the courage to speak to

him after what happened thirty years ago.

When they were both ﬁve years old they were good friends, until his father

was killed by the last attack of the Eight-Tails. The council came to a

decision and would extract the tailed beast from the former Jinchuriki,

killing him, and sealing it inside Bee

[28]

. That rampage is what fractured

their relationship, but now seeing that sickening power continue to be used

despite the loss of his father made him resent their decision: “I assumed it

would never be possible to control Eight-Tails, that there would continue

to be mass casualties”

[29]

, so he took it upon himself to kill Bee and take the

beast with him. He would watch him every day, and was appalled by the fact

he could laugh and seem so nonchalant about harbouring that demon.

In turn, Motoi embodied the same facets as the other-half of Naruto: never

forgetting pain, holding grudges and refusing to acknowledge anything

else. It wasn’t that Bee didn’t care, as he took the time to bring ﬂowers to

Motoi’s father’s grave, but do you expect him to be sad all the time? It was

that same self-expression and jovial nature which won over Gyuki in time.

He tamed it through ambivalence to its roars, which is deeply Buddhist in

nature, to watch its anger as merely a stream which runs by us, hence the

waterfall was as natural as any other day.

Over time, and still watching, Motoi started to see the weight of the entire

village’s scorn and alienation would’ve driven him insane. “I came to realise

that Master Bee’s suering was greater than mine”

[30]

. Here he shifted to the

248

other half of Naruto: one who could acknowledge somebody else’s pain, and

his story highlights part of the solution to bridging that divide.

Naruto hears his tale and goes away to reﬂect, with Gaara’s story coming to

mind as he used to be on the opposite side of the spectrum to Bee. Naruto’s

the one who had to crawl from one side to the other, but “I guess

somewhere deep inside my heart… for sure… I’m not conﬁdent that I’ve got

everyone’s trust back home”

[31]

. As he mulls over a solution to his woes the

tempestuous squid pops up again, grabbing Motoi who was on his way to

check up on him. Bee comes to the rescue once more, and now he ﬁnally

summons the courage to tell him the truth; “Oh yeah, you did?”

[32]

Bee

smiles, and sticks out his hand for a ﬁst bump.

Naruto heads back to the Waterfall and realises what he must do. To us his

new autograph won’t mean all that much, but what it illustrates is that

despite everything he still wants to be with the villagers. With one outburst

after another the anguish that is harboured in his heart comes out: “It was

so hard… so painful! [...] You can’t trust any of those villagers!”

[33]

, they’re

ﬁckle for jumping ship and what’s to stop them going back? Naruto can see

that those who have reﬂected like Motoi have understood his heart, they

sense the compassion he has for them, plus he has something rare after the

Pain ﬁght: another ﬁrst impression.

Just like Bee’s greeting to Motoi was the rekindling of their friendship,

people are happy to come up to Naruto and start a conversation and get to

know him. On this path is the chance for connection. Naruto doesn’t deny

many of his points, like “inventing stupid rules, making us outcasts! Don’t

you remember?!”

[33]

, and acknowledges that he got strong in part because he

existed, but he doesn’t want to live in the past anymore. To make positive

change he’ll have to believe in himself - “I need to trust the me that the

villagers believe in”

[34]

249

At the start of their confrontation, despite how much Naruto had become

acquainted with pain, he went on the oensive, but why? It was because he

called this personality (a side of himself) a fake

[35]

, with any hatred he

spouted as estranged and fabricated; for this “Naruto” however it is

anything but equivocal. Whilst he’s a bundle of demonic and hateful

tendencies, from his perspective what he’s doing is just - those villagers

genuinely ostracised him and made his existence far harder than it needed

to be. This personality only wanted to protect him, and despite being an

intermediary he was on the side of Naruto primarily. He just wanted to be

whole and thought that he was going to be abandoned, again, but Naruto

outstretches his arms and says “thanks for everything… but it’s all right

now”

[36]

. This resonates far beyond condoning hate, but embracing one for

their foremost humanity.

Raar!!

Time to walk through the waterfall and battle the Nine-Tails! In the

grounds inside the waterfall are statues with no heads, symbolising those

who had lost out to hatred and been decapitated by the statue

[37]

. These

puriﬁcation ceremonies

[38]

are all about testing the heart, the rest of the

island was about testing one’s brawn.

The statue which you stick your head into doesn’t actually decapitate, and it

has similarities to the Founding of the Khalsa in Sikhism, for the Guru

Gobind Singh asked for people in the audience to sacriﬁce themselves for

the Lord to show their commitment. Only a handful of people had the

courage to walk into the tent behind him and confront the fact they would

die, but they were actually given orange robes and decorated to walk side by

side with him, now inaugurated as the Cherished Five

[39]

. For those who

had the courage to do such a thing had obviously walked a path that had

250

made them tough, strong and ready to sacriﬁce themselves for what they

believed.

They move into the ﬁnal chamber which is a pure space that can handle the

worst case scenario should it manifest. This is the arena where he may go

to war with himself without the possible inﬂiction of harm to others. Such

things are what we need to allow individuals to really cultivate themselves

against the pure evil which resides within, and he used this idea to a lesser

extent when he was learning the Rasen-Shuriken.

He unlocks the cage and doesn’t do too badly in the ﬁght, but it turns out to

be a completely dierent matter when taking on the symbol of hatred and

not just one’s own. He can feel the accumulation of so many generations of

despair, anger, envy, jealousy all merging into one crimson sludge that

covers him in a ﬂash

[40]

. It’s beginning to subsume him, but what force has

caused it to stop half way?

The red-hot Habanero!

His mother, Kushina. Naruto’s initial guess is that it’s the Nine-Tails trying

to subvert him, being a master of illusions after all, but through a little

conversation he sees that she says “you know”

[41]

, which pierces his heart

and he realises it’s Mum, dropping everything to hug and squeeze her.

Because she is an Uzumaki, she was brought by the Leaf to become the

Jinchurki of the Nine-Tails as Lady Mito was about to pass away. As a child

she didn’t grasp all the politics for why this had to happen and was largely

outside of that deliberation process. But in time both him and Kushina have

realised that there will be many burdens, the majority of which we don't

add love. Beyond everything else they left him at birth, his parents had

251

hoped to pass on their ambitions and thankfully it worked; Minato had said

just before completing the eight-signed seal that “To forsake one’s country…

and one’s village… is the same as forsaking one’s child”

[42]

, which

encompasses both his love and failure, for he loves with equal might the

village as his own child, but in turn forsakes the personhood which sustains

it.

As Kushina's chakra starts to fade, she apologises for forcing him to bear

such things, but Naruto knows why they did it, and he can't stop smiling

with the feeling that both his parents have always loved him. He is so glad

to have been their child, and Kushina says she is so thankful that Naruto

was born to them… they leave each other in tears, but getting to say what’s

most important - I love you

[43]

Symbolically, the mother isn’t just connected to the process of birth but also

rebirth considering the deep alchemical marriage to the underworld and so

forth

[44]

. We see that the gates to the Fox on the one side had order,

symbolised by his father, and now the gates have opened he has entered

into the massa confusa and seen his mother. This is the typical demarcation,

and the mother can either pour out love, to which the contents of the

underworld are used to enrich and serve as ashes for the phoenix, or the

mother becomes tyrannical and uses the same contents crushingly.

Fortunately, this unconditional love is entwined with him and serves as the

only thing which prevented his total annihilation. It’s no surprise that Jung

picked up on ancestral connection being another kind of psychological

rebirth that enriches the personality as well

[45]

In returning to the match, he ﬁnds himself completely calm and content,

after the acceptance he bestowed himself and the love he has felt from both

his parents. The Fox is no longer such a terrifying entity, in fact it seems a

little sad that he is this alone, so eager to make his cheekbones gaunt and

252

his body thin down to the ribs just to hurt him. But his eorts are in vain,

and Naruto’s newfound strength overwhelms him, blasting him away

whilst latching onto his chakra, separating the two successfully.

He says “I promise I won’t do wrong by you… so just hang in there, for a

little while”

[46]

. His mission in regards to Kurama has been contextualised,

as he’s seen the eorts of his ancestors over the last century all trying to

keep it in check, but he believes he can go a step further.

Seeing as we have covered the majority of this arc, it’s about time to go

over and piece together the lessons that are available. From Naruto’s

dialogue with Bee he had used the idea of shared history, which he

comprehended from Sasuke and Obito a moment prior, to facilitate

personable bonds, almost as if it could do the work for him. He will have to

realise that there is nothing, no matter how far-reaching and rigorous, that

will replace the human eort to extend his hand and spill his heart. For

Motoi he had known Bee for three full decades, and all that shared history

he kept welled up inside might’ve proved useless if not for Naruto’s

company. Upon meeting his mother, he gets to feel what is packed within

that past: the feelings, the thought processes and so forth which

contextualises an otherwise cold reminiscing; all this comes to the fore

when one oers love to another - Motoi is the example he can become if he

cannot continually show his heart.

Kishimoto has obviously written Naruto to be this gullible and to have him

start right from the bottom in every new arc, to rediscover the truth of the

lessons in the last adventure and how they are shaped in the next

individual. He has to embody a kind of contradiction where his knowledge

of others grows exponentially, but his conversations take no shortcuts or

presuppositions either; thus a series of mistakes are expected if he wants to

participate with the individual as there’s a “mutual shaping” that should

253

occur if one is truly vulnerable. When conversing with his shadow, he

categorised him as the demon, then the fraud and the fake, then the angry

part of himself, until he could just call it Naruto.

And now I am a saviour.

Naruto is eager to continue his “mission” and lines all the animals up to

check whether they are male or female. During the process the world turtle

ﬂips, and he is beginning to suspect something is happening outside.

Kisame’s shark had gotten away and relayed the coordinates of the turtle to

Obito, which in turn allowed Kabuto to make the journey over.

The excuses for why Naruto must remain inside gets increasingly tedious,

and it’s reminiscent of the young Buddha: kept in the palace and given

simple tasks inside the walls of peace and tranquillity; however he too grew

restless and wanted to see what lay outside. Naruto makes a dash beyond

the waterfall when he is met with a group of Konoha Jonin, one of them

being Iruka Sensei

[47]

. He tries to tell a lie about some bogus creature that

has Nine-Tails chakra which may pose a threat to him

[48]

, but classic Naruto

doesn’t care about such things and wants to face it himself, with the guards

trying their best to stop him.

With sage mode activated he feels the eects of the war that’s in full

swing

[49]

and can no longer be coddled. Iruka had tried to arm the orders

given to him by the village, by which he used his love for Naruto to lie to

him, but this is exactly what he had realised was wrong in the very ﬁrst

chapter of the series. Thankfully he drops the charade and comes clean,

moving from the helicopter parent to the trusting parent. He says that

Madara’s war is about taking the Biju and they’re aiming to protect them at

all costs as they’re critical to stopping total catastrophe beyond the Shinobi

world. This war is about keeping them safe

[50]

254

Naruto has never been one that delights in having comrades do all the work

in protecting him, especially when it is his “fault”. He remembers one of

Nagato’s quotes: “wasteful death, eternal hatred and pain that does not heal.

That’s what war is”

[51]

. Now he gets it, and this is the next stage for him in

the symbol of what Naruto is to face. “I will face eternal hatred, I will face

the pain that does not heal! That’s my role!”

[52]

When he accepted himself and consolidated his personality a moment ago,

it seems he also rendered it under the name of Naruto the saviour,

producing this latter complex; he told his shadow “you need to be me”

[53]

but does he not see how he can become Obito so naturally? In losing the

ones he loved and accepting Madara’s philosophy, he said “everyone will

eventually become me”

[54]

and regressed to nihilism; his plan of performing

the Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi where “all shall become one with me! And result in

a complete possession form that unites all”

[55]

is his form of love. Thus we

can be sure there will be at least one more echelon to climb.

Putting that problem to one side, he outfoxes Iruka and the rest of them to

head o with Bee and break the barrier. Their attempts have unanimously

failed, and it was a slippery slope for the village to embody the tyrannical

mother image - the world turtle becoming a prison rather than a resort.

This archetype tries to have the son return to that undierentiated

unconscious state, but for the Logos within the Hero this is the primal sin,

evil itself

[56]

. Therefore the ﬁrst act of liberation will be a kind of matricide,

as the spirit that dares all heights and depths must suer enchainment on

the rocks of the Caucasus

[56]

. This is my summary of Carl Jung’s comments

in regards to the Hero and The Mother image, which emphasises the Will

to be free and escape from the protective womb. Additionally, this

reference about Prometheus and the adamantine chains is the same

treatment, with the same chains, that Kurama the trickster got from

255

Kushina

[57]

. She represents the positive image and rallies behind Naruto,

beckoning him to follow his dream, embodying the nurturing spirit that

goes beyond a superﬁcial love for her child.

256

Tests of character

Bee and Naruto make their way to the battleﬁeld, with the latter still using

his Kurama Chakra Mode(KCM) whilst journeying - and he’s scalded by the

Nine-Tails for doing so. “I’ve been inside you, watching you, for a long

time… But you’re still naive, Naruto”

[1]

. He does seem to have an annoying

air of swagger to him, saying he’s busy and they’ll talk later. Brushing him

o as he thinks everything he says tries to weaken his resolve to take over.

Possibly. But there are concerted questions that he poses to him: “Do you

really think you can end this war all by yourself? It’s not possible. Unless

you want to borrow more of my power”

[2]

. There’s the classic bargain again,

but still: “If your comrades are killed, hatred will arise from their deaths.

Are you planning to defeat all of the enemy before that happens? Then

again, if you take down the enemy, they’ll bear you hatred. Do you really

think you can take all of that on yourself? You’ll eventually end up seized

with hatred like Pain Nagato. This war will bring you closer to that

place”

[2]

. He must be delusional or plain stupid if he thinks that he can ﬁx all

that.

Kurama is sure that war, the catalyst for all hatred since he has been alive a

thousand years ago, will continue and this child won’t break that loop, he

has no idea. He couldn’t even help a teammate. He reminds him of their

ﬁrst ﬁght as children, when he lost and saw Sasuke’s eyes: they weren’t

looking at him, but through him - trying to point out that he hasn’t been

considered since day one, with any kindness shown by Sasuke to be an

exception. In fact this is the consensus now as Kakashi highlights when he

saw him after the Danzo ﬁght: “it is the history of repeated, accumulating

hatred that has created the Sasuke before us”

[3]

257

Even so, from Sasuke’s perspective this doesn’t imply a loss of agency as he

doesn’t believe he is working with Obito because he doesn’t accept that he

[4]

, and yet his actions say otherwise; likewise Naruto says he is going to

tackle hatred and yet his actions recently have been those of extraction,

imprisonment and disinterest - in regards to Kurama. He gets value from

him in the same way that Sasuke was seen to use the Taka.

You shall not pass!!

Whilst on their way to the battleground he sees the Raikage accompanied

by Tsunade. Ay doesn’t butt his words and says “We are here to stop you!

You will not pass!”

[5]

. Gandalf is pretty rattled that his brother has been an

accomplice and supporter of Naruto’s idea to escape.

Trying to run past him doesn’t work as the Raikage matches Naruto’s top

speed to a stalemate. Ay says there’s nobody faster than him now that the

Fourth Hokage died. Minato was a great man, but “with all his power, why

do you think he is not here today to help stop this crisis? Because he

under-estimated the danger of the tailed beasts! You are his son. And you

have learned nothing from his sacriﬁce?”

[6]

. The Raikage has chosen to oer

his interpretation of Minato’s death to the child who had his parents convey

in great detail the terror of that night. No doubt this annoys him, and he

says his father didn’t make any mistakes. It wasn’t such a simple aair that

Minato was weaker, but Ay only renders that day from a power-scaling

perspective.

Things get increasingly heated and the Raikage says he will kill Naruto if it

means that Obito can’t execute his plans in the near future, as it takes time

for Kurama to return to life

[7]

. He has much the same sort of ideas as Danzo,

doing whatever it takes to help his village, and if push came to shove he

would even kill Bee. The reason he chooses to kill Naruto is because Bee

258

has full control over his tailed beast and can use Biju bombs

[8]

. Tsunade says

he can’t make that sort of decision without consulting the rest of the Kage,

but bureaucracy takes too long and won’t resolve anything in time! It must

be done now whilst he has Naruto in front of him.

When someone becomes a Jinchuriki it is thought that they sign away their

Will and exist as a relation to the Shadow: “they belong to their nation and

village to keep the balance of power”

[9]

and they’ll have no say in the matters

of the world. If the commander of this war says they aren’t participating

then they shall not! Bee intervenes and says “you kill him, you kill me and

eight tails too”

[10]

. He implores him to read his soul and go back to their ﬁrst

meeting.

Before Ay was Raikage, they were looking for a partner

[11]

, and only Bee

seemed to be compatible as they could match their strengths to perform the

double-lariat. From that point on he was known as his brother. They go on

missions, and the ﬂashback slows to a campsite with Ay and Bee sitting

with the current Jinchuriki, discussing the next person to take on the

burden of Eight-Tails. He talks about the grief it gives him and the

diculties of having even close friends look at you dierently once it’s been

done: “Even if they think you’re still the same, well, that’s not true”

[12]

. But

why would that be, says Ay, as aspects of ourselves persist through change -

such as “ninjutsu, skill, ancestry, virtue”

[13]

and these were the reasons why

he was chosen in the ﬁrst place. He scos and says despite all this “You can

never look back, only toward the future. But that future is ﬁlled with

darkness and loneliness. Have you really achieved compatibility… if you

walk through life with the shadow of your own death?”

[14]

“You think about it day in and day out until you become so consumed that

you stop knowing who or what you are. It feels like someone’s opened a

hole in your heart. The Biju uses your weakened heart to run amok”

[14]

259

Kushina explained this potential danger to Naruto brieﬂy, and that “the key

was to ﬁll ourselves with love ﬁrst. Then, even if we had to live as

Nine-Tails jinchuriki, we could still be happy”

[15]

. The village keeping that

bond spurred devotion, as we need someone we can talk to, play with, learn

from and so forth. These attributes which Ay described do persist, but even

though they are family he struggles to oer him more than superﬁcial

support.

With the transfer rapidly approaching, Ay tells his sidekick: “You’re about

to become a Jinchuriki. Everything’s going to change. Your life is going to

be very hard”

[16]

, but he basically says no sweat and he’ll take it in his stride.

Ay wants Bee to know he’s very special to him, and so he shouldn’t need to

hide secrets as he’ll be there no matter what. This care is one of the few

things that facilitated him being truly strong, but does Ay know how much

those little moments mean to him?

They go on to battle Minato in the Third Great Shinobi war, and the

yellow ﬂash acknowledges the young upstart for managing to “overcome

being the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki to be your own Ninja”

[17]

. Minato can see

that Ay still doesn’t understand what allows Bee to control it - it must be

talent

[17]

! No, it is far more than that, but if he fails to recognise it then his

brother will regress and may no longer retain what was once human.

Bee makes him remember those days: they’re the ultimate tag-team, and

together they go into battle. If he retracts his care and support, that also

means symbolically the Village Identity no longer trusts and accepts him,

unknowingly withdrawing the real force that keeps him ﬁghting - “I don’t

live and ﬁght just for village and nation! I live and ﬁght for you, bro

too“

[18]

The Raikage abjectly refuses on the basis that there is no evidence they’re

ready to go into war, they could jeopardise the entire world should they be

260

captured. But evidence presents itself when he goes at top speed to punch

Naruto, but misses. Someone who is faster than he is, plus Bee who has

even greater physical strength! This may just be an even greater tag team…

Zetsu Inﬁltration

Back at the medical stations, there is a massive problem. Medics are being

killed despite all the checks on chakra put in place. The suspicion is

someone is being controlled as nobody would kill medics which heal the

Shinobi of their own village. They have no leads and everyone is a

suspect

[19]

This section explores another aspect of identity: how can we deduce upon

ﬁrst impressions whether a Shinobi is who they say they are and not a

traitor? Well, in all proofs it takes time to evaluate and this temporal

dimension is key. In the heat of war you can’t exactly sit down with each

person and draw out any inconsistencies, so this triggers international

Shinobi platoons to segregate via their village, and then again into ever

more speciﬁc localities so that each person can be veriﬁed. But not

everyone will have their best friend/family member in the same facility to

provide a series of pinpoint questions. In one of the tents Sakura told “Neji”

that Shizune is treating Tonton, to which he asked “will Tonton be able to

rejoin the battle?”

[20]

indicating he didn’t know Tonton was a pig!

When you cannot determine whether someone is friend or foe and you

can’t risk engaging with them, what then? Shukaku devises a strategy which

involves boxing everyone o into their own circle, whereby everyone has

the rule that you cannot leave the perimeter, just wait for enemies to come

to you. It quelled the heavy troop losses, but it’s just a stalemate when it

comes to understanding.

261

Fortunately Naruto has come out of the island and sent shadow clones to

every battleﬁeld; he can sense hatred in KCM mode

[21]

, thus he’s able to

uproot the Zetsu. I say uproot because Kishimoto clearly based him on the

mix of a Venus ﬂy trap - in that he has the same “shell” around his body -

and the Mandrake plant, though there are a multitude of similarities for the

latter.

Ironically the mandrake since ancient times was designated for use as a

form of pain relief, aphrodisiac and so forth, but now we see the properties

inverted and Zetsu stands as the plant which will inﬂict pain on the entire

world, growing to a 100,000 strong in order to restore mother. “Mandrake

is a cure for all except death”

[22]

is a nice quote for it shows the helplessness

of Zetsu in that he can get everything else he wants but to see Kaguya again

will be a task which requires almost a millennia of patience.

If a woman had a desire to conceive she would hope to ﬁnd a mandrake in

the shape of a baby and put it under her pillow, and men would ﬁnd a

mandrake root which was in the shape of a woman in hopes of ﬁnding a

partner. Moreover, Zetsu’s shapeshifting being tied with people’s desires

helps explain his link to the Divine Tree, as all of them are the result of the

last lifecycle, i.e., all the people that had been trapped in their own dreams.

This is conﬁrmed when we turn to Richard’s Folkard’s book Plant lore,

legends and lyrics: “The Mandrake-root and the Fern-seed have the magical

property of granting the desires of their possessors”

[23]

In a paper written by Anthony Carter

[24]

, it’s noted that Mandrake plants

contain Hyoscine, which has the ability to cause hallucinations and in high

doses, coma. This shows that it can cause the same sort of eects that were

noted for the Tree itself, but this is only a side-eect of its ingestion, with

the real purpose being to suck out the chakra of those it entangles.

262

“Mandrake roots became highly sought after in their native Mediterranean

habitat, and attempts to protect them from theft are thought to have been

the source of the second mandrake myth, which stated that a demon

inhabited the root and would kill anyone who attempted to uproot it”

[24]

That a demon lives in the mandrake coincides with the ability for demons

to have incredible scientiﬁc prowess, as they have a sharp understanding of

the physical body but not an inkling of the soul. They have no ability

whatsoever to detect or rejuvenate it, which may be why neither Zetsu nor

Obito could understand what caused Nagato’s betrayal, and they probably

didn’t know an ability like Naruto’s exists which can detect hatred and help

people beyond all apparent attributes

In regards to their apparent white-black halves, “the Mandrake was

sometimes conformed like a man, at others like a woman: the male was

white, the female black”

[26]

. Interesting, as the black Zetsu funnily enough

has the deeper voice but he does have a negative mother-complex, and is

being dominated by that image of the feminine. “Because the root has an

uncanny resemblance to human limbs, the mandrake was considered half

demon, with great magical properties”

[27]

, and if you’ve done Mythology

101, you know that standard practice is to equate women with chaos, the

underworld and so on in a completely non-reductive manner.

The mandrake seems to be representative of a kind of split-personality as it

is called the “Singing plant” when it is looked after: ”In France (19th c.), the

mandrake was thought to have the ability to sing, and its song had the

magical potential to endow the alchemist with powers of transformation

just like the philosopher’s stone”

[28]

; likewise, it was said to shriek when it

was uprooted and turned into the shrieking plant - this last tidbit was seen

in Harry Potter with Professor Sprout. This dynamic may correspond to

It is also why in Faust, Mephistopheles is asked by multiple women to heal their physical injuries,

yet he is no doctor of the soul

[25]

263

their nicknames, where White Zetsu is called “wagging tongue” whilst

Black Zetsu is called “Wicked Tongue”

[29]

. I believe Kishimoto has used this

trauma of the Mandrake being uprooted as a clear psychological analogue

for being separated from Mother Earth, and we see the antithetical position

in Naruto who yearns to separate from her grip and be free.

This brings me to my next topic of exploration, which is about the history

of the Mandrake and its relationship with the alchemical idea of the

Homunculus. The most recognised eorts of alchemists was in regards to

the transmutation of base metals into gold, but another was to create living

beings - tiny people called Homunculi, championed in particular by people

like Paracelsus

[30]

. This was due to the Alchemist believing they could

decode the secrets of nature, thus harnessing the transmutative power of

the elements and fashioning their own person out of material in a similar

way to how God fashioned the ﬁrst people from clay.

In regards to mandrakes, there was investigation into whether you could go

from the harmless egies and ﬁgurines of people into an actual living

being. Disturbingly, the ﬂuids from those who were hanged was said to

birth the mandrake, with depictions of it showing the plant beneath a

gallows-man with their hands tied behind their back and so on

[31]

. This isn’t

too dissimilar from how white Zetsu are made from the Divine tree

[32]

, but

seeing as it has to be somewhat child friendly the anime doesn’t go that far

and instead shows them pleasantly wrapped up in a kind of pod for the

transformation to occur, so as not to make out that they are being hanged,

consecrating the merging of mandrake and human form.

There is a second type of homuncular production which doesn’t involve the

delicate merging of spirit and matter, but the puriﬁcation of spirit away

from the material world. I evidenced something along these lines in the

Pain section, where Christ’s descent into Hell mirrored the ignis gehennalis

264

and the heat turns one into a bald babe

[33]

; this is what develops the spiritual

puriﬁcation of the stone. What’s more, in the Visions of Zosimos it details

what are by most accounts the ﬁrst articulations of this kind of

homunculus. He is walking through a temple and sees a bowl-shaped altar,

and upon closer inspection sees boiling water, with a multitude of little

people inside

[34]

. They were in agonising pain, which is the separation of

spirit from the body; Zosimos notes that the eyes of the homunculus began

to ﬁll with blood

[35]

, which is the same eect that we have seen subsume

Naruto in the past when being boiled by the demon fox’s chakra

[36]

during

what can now be seen as a “failed separation”. We also see those eyes during

his introspection at the waterfall prior to becoming this consolidated

self-consciousness, with the black demonic half and a lighter jovial half to

mirror the split-personality of Zetsu.

Naruto has had to undergo this confrontation with Kurama because the

stone(lapis) is born from the ﬁre

[37]

, and now he is the golden one who

burns without corruption. As Jung notes in his Alchemical Studies, the King

is none other than Gold, the king of metals

[38]

, which comes about through

a liberation of the divine soul from the ﬂesh

[38]

; he expands on this quote to

say that 'ﬂesh' should really have been replaced by 'ore' or 'Earth' as the

world had to be separated from in a moral sense, as this was the journey to

attain the 'philosophic gold' - a life-spirit which represents that aspect of the

lapis

[39]

. We also see this in Naruto, as when he is in KCM mode he gives

life-energy to Yamato's mokuton

[40]

This type of development is totally alien to Zetsu, but this comes from the

type of Homunculus he is, being rooted in the physical world. In the paper

The Homunculus and the Paracelsian Liber de imaginibus, Amadeo Murase

shows the worldview of such a being as they think the external shape and

form of an object must correspond to internal states and abilities

[41]

Because a homunculus looks like a human, they must therefore share the

265

same being and do anything that they can

[41]

. Using this theory it is no

wonder why Zetsu’s plan is genius, for surely there exists no means of

identifying him, and it shows the sad state of aairs amongst people when

Shikaku can devise no other strategy. But there is also mention of an inner

spiritual nature

[41]

, and this seems to be what Naruto alone has attained.

Guess who’s back, back again…

Now the medical corps can treat the right people without fear of their

medics dying and many of the reanimated shinobi are being sealed, though

there is one that’s going to be a challenge.

Nagato senses him incoming and feels a warm nostalgia. Itachi is both

surprised and impressed to see Naruto’s rapid development and his control

over the Nine-Tails. Nagato smirks since they are of the same mentor, he

isn’t surprised. He sacriﬁced his life for his faith in Naruto to ﬁnd the means

to overcome pain and stop the ceaseless cycles of Samsara, but now he sees

there is another Ninja war! Not only that, but he has been dragged from the

dead to participate, just as he revived his own Pains when he attacked

Konoha - “Never would I have thought I’d have to battle you again

Naruto!”

[42]

He asks him, has he really been able to overcome hatred and resist falling

back into the lap of Nine-Tails? Such a deep and consequential question to

which Naruto smiles and says “Yeah!” - of course! But he doesn’t forget to

mention all the people that have helped him do it, including Nagato himself

“who taught me what pain really was”

[43]

The reunion is less joyous for Itachi however, as he has to hear about the

fall of his brother and the secrets of his mission have also been revealed; but

he relaxes a little as this intel leak is only between Naruto, Yamato and

266

Kakashi who can’t conﬁrm anything Obito said. Seeing that he’s completely

failed, he reasons that it’s best if he leaves Sasuke to Naruto.

Before dialogue can continue, the reanimation tightens its grip on them

and they do battle, with Itachi activating his Mangekyo, causing the eye

implanted in the crow to emerge

[44]

. Itachi’s ﬁrst insurance policy of having

the amaterasu in Sasuke’s eye take out Obito didn’t work, but here the

Kotoamatsukami was used in a way he probably never thought possible, as

he’s put himself under genjutsu to act only in a way beneﬁcial to the village.

Itachi’s Will was ﬁrst bound by the Edotensei and now he has a second layer

of constriction, and yet he feels freer somehow. He knows that through the

aid of his friend he will act in the way he had wanted to all along, the least

he can do now is stop the Reanimation jutsu. But Naruto exclaims that’s his

job - on top of stopping the war, ﬁghting hatred, saving the Hidden Rain,

the Hyuga, Sasuke all on his own

[45]

. That’s getting involved in a lot of

people’s issues and I doubt he will have the time to genuinely resolve all of

them in the spirit of Ashura’s proactive restoration; if he feels obligated to

solve all of this himself, he may need an all-encompassing solution like the

Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi, which Itachi illustrates: “You said it was everyone who

cares about you who helped you get where you are now. But if you forget

that, if you become so powerful that you don’t remember why you are

strong … you’ll eventually end up like Madara”

[46]

. Just because Naruto is the

sole person who can generate spiritual ties with anyone doesn't mean it's all

on him to ﬁx things, as no matter how he tries to chop and change his

philosophy, after that step he will be no dierent from a villain.

267

Madara enters the war

The main battleﬁeld is in the desert after the other companies have had

mixed results. There have been great battles won in parts, but Darui’s

company suered massive losses as Obito unleashed the Gedo statue,

wiping out thousands. He used that opportunity to successfully retrieve the

Ninja tools containing Kinkaku and Ginkaku - a last resort to ensure he

possesses every Biju’s chakra.

Kabuto goes on to summon Madara to which he wrongly asserts that this

was Nagato’s Rinne Rebirth, and he’s shocked to discover this is a

Reanimation jutsu

[1]

. The war is now rising into its critical juncture, as

both “Madaras” have appeared with the same vision of negating this world

into a dreamscape. He’s worried as he thinks things can’t have gone to plan

if he’s being revived like this

[2]

, which is somewhat true. Kabuto talks to

him through Mu and makes him aware that it was he who summoned him.

Now that he’s up to speed, the next steps will be to take out some buzzing

ﬂies before he can unfurl his master plan.

Kabuto has made some improvements, properly integrating the cells that

Madara had bitten o, and instead of reanimating him at the age he was at

death, he clears up the ageing DNA back to the time of his prime

[3]

. He

smugly claims Madara has achieved the power thanks to his modiﬁcations,

but he had awakened the abilities of the Rinnegan long ago, this is not a

product of his creation!

The last time we saw destruction on such a large scale was when Nagato

pushed the entire Leaf Village out the entrance gates and left a barren crater

268

at the epicentre, setting the benchmark for what a “God” is capable of;

however, his planetary devastation couldn’t even halt the Nine-Tails.

Nobody was so utterly awe-stricken by Pain that they gave up ﬁghting, but

with the imminent descent of a planetary body people are dropping their

weapons and accepting defeat, even Gaara who is the Commander is on the

edge of giving up. Onoki hasn’t thrown in the towel though and races up to

counter the meteorite, making it as light as possible and with Gaara’s sand

it seems to have stopped.

“Now… What are you going to do about the second one, Onoki?”

[4]

. Madara

wants them to understand pain, but also futility. There is absolutely no

conceivable angle with which they can win, you are living in an absurd

dream for thinking there is hope, so allow him to give you a better one. To

hurl the moon, which is a symbol for dreams, is an apt metaphor for what

he wants to do in general - throw people into their fantasy, and if one is

insucient then a second moon shall articulate his point.

He has a go at summoning the Nine-Tails, but sees the beast is still outside

his control. This greatly unnerves Kurama as his least favourite master is

only a few feet away, and he oers to lend Naruto power for the last thing

he wants is to be under his possession again. Now Naruto is not so bad

[5]

Madara would never even think of trying to understand him beyond his

image as a beast either: “You are an ignorant and unstable power, and those

who shall guide you… are the Uchiha. You Biju are simply servants of those

with ocular powers. Now obey"

[6]

. Kurama believes people will probably try

to own him forever, but he still has minor preferences in ownership.

This potent belief in a lack of change toward peace and harmony is

concurred by Madara and Kabuto, who don’t see the world learning from

its mistakes any time soon; Onoki admits it has led to that which “does

nothing but battle. We ﬁght for our nations, our villages. We just take from

269

other nations, other villages! We take back from them, they take back from

us again! Three times our hatred has caused all-out war”

[7]

. Madara says this

is just a fact of life and is he surprised at his ripe old age that this is the case?

This is the Fourth Great Ninja War after all, has anything really changed?

Onoki believes it has: look at all the Shinobi from the ﬁve nations now

battling to achieve something which is of common good to all, “though

slow in pace, the world does accrue its past experiences and grow toward

peace”

[8]

. This is another resolution of this manga in miniature, that the

dream is on its way even though everyone at one time or another had lost

sight of it.

This is no longer a war solely to protect Naruto - but a war to protect each

other

[9]

. Fusing Village Identities yields the creation of something timeless,

symbolic, as all the disparate aspects of strength and defence are collated.

When the Five Kage defend, it is with the rugged stone golem and the soft,

malleable sand that encompass larger facets of defence

[9]

. When they attack,

Onoki makes the Raikage much lighter so his speed increases by a couple

orders of magnitude

[10]

; this is the beginning of a kind of love between

villages, expanding on the vital importance it plays for villagers.

Originally, the only reason Onoki joined the allied forces was so he could

get rid of the Akatsuki, but in this war he has realised there truly is the

possibility to change the Shinobi system and reform the cycles of hatred

[11]

He tells Naruto that he must confront the other Madara and they’ll handle

things here - they promise to win!

You aren’t Madara, silly!

The moment he releases the clone he clashes with Obito, adding another

tally to the number of demons he’s headbutted

[12]

270

He sees that Obito has a Rinnegan too, like the other Madara. The jig is up!

Tell us who you really are for goodness sake. “Heh heh, you can call me by

my past name Tobi, then. Now that the war has begun, names are

irrelevant. Madara… Tobi … use whatever you like”

[13]

. It’s funny that Obito

has taken on the name “Madara” to represent his philosophy, just as

Naruto’s name is from the teachings of Jiraiya in the book Tales of a gutsy

ninja, and both have accepted their name as part and parcel of how they see

the world; Naruto’s is a precious heirloom that has been passed down from

his sensei and anointed by his father which typiﬁes their hopes in him for

continuing their quest to ﬁnd true peace in this world; on the bleaker side

of things, Obito has had the quest passed down to him from his master to

become the saviour after a series of losses, with nothing but pain, suering

and futility to show for it. Madara says “the only thing passed down is

hate”

[14]

which shows that this is Indra’s way of perceiving history.

Naruto trusts in the “spiritual cabling” that has been laid out aeons before

and will continue to do so aeons after, but for Obito this chord should be

cut, as what have the innumerable generations been able to resolve?

Nothing. Unless things are solved, to him it’s the same as no work being

done at all. All this eort for the sake of abundance and prosperity, but now

this can be envisaged within the dream.

This seems to be the nature of the “vain mind” that can reject such things,

articulated by our old friend Hegel again, who notes a certain kind of vanity

that knows better than any as to what each is, regardless of what their

speciﬁc nature is

[15]

, in this case the primary nature being emptiness.

Indeed, this grows into a kind of governance which is so clever it knows of

all others without ever consulting them and aspires to be the ﬁgurehead.

Power and wealth are the highest echelons of attainment, done with

sacriﬁce and renunciation(of the self), becoming universally recognised and

accepted

[15]

. Such a phenomenon seems to be conﬁrmed by what Tsunade

271

said after the actual Madara is revived: “it is as if a presence like Madara’s

does exist in this realm. So even if one is full of deceit, if you can convince

the world, it will quake in fear. The name itself is power. It draws your

attention and the lie then drew us all into war! We’ve been trapped hook,

line and sinker…”

[16]

Obito has gone on to exhibit the nuanced, most recent adaptation in vanity

which is to dissolve oneself, even though it was traditionally the state of

trying to inﬂate one’s grandeur and appearance. Now it is in the art of

demolishing and reducing the self and taking pleasure in it, as with this the

ego can rebu the accusations that come with being “self-centred”,

“self-interested” and thus the self as such must go, but this is just proof of a

grander negative egoism.

It stems from the fact that in every “nobody” the ego has had a “negative

awakening”, which was articulated in the research of psychologist Erich

Neumann(1905-1960); when the solute(the ego) is weak then interaction

with the solvent(the Uroboric Mother) will be strong. The latter is the one

who ﬁnds the act of dissolution pleasurable, and will incite the same

pleasure in the subject to which shall ﬁnd their unconscious identity

preferable

[17]

. During the ego’s initial development there is the danger of

such a phenomena happening, especially if the catalyst of said awareness

was a traumatic experience. It’s birth will be all the worse when there is no

prior self-reﬂection or negation upon themselves, and thus the world keeps

them in its grasp, as was the harrowing case for Obito.

A totemic change.

It is no coincidence that Obito’s plan of world domination should run into

Naruto at this level of development at this particular time, as Minato was

the one who made the decision to put Kurama inside of his son because of

272

the future threat he posed

[18]

. He was the one that threatened the Five

Nations and spurred their Allied Shinobi Forces, pushed Kurama to

reconcile with Naruto and ended up making him the symbol of global unity.

But a lot of this newfound collaboration has been reactionary, as is initially

the case with the Fox. Naruto was given power to stop Madara’s assaults,

not to hasten their friendship. During the smackdown with the six

Jinchuriki, Five-Tails made a charge for Obito but he was pinned down and

scaled back to his second-state, but a small voice ebbed out of the trance: “so

painful… can’t believe I’m his…”

[19]

. It’s sad that a fellow Biju has been

treated that way and yet Kurama isn’t surprised and scolds Gyuki for being

angry now. It’s always been the case

[20]

. He refuses to wag his tails this time,

even when Naruto is in the belly of the Monkey King, because “No matter

what words they use… humans are always saying the same thing”

[21]

;

although, he has found someone which has promised to go after the hatred

in him someday, which admittedly has never happened before.

As Naruto steadies himself, he ﬁnds Son and initially calls him Four-Tails,

but he won’t take that objectiﬁcation lightly! He demands to be called his

full name, spiel and all, the “Sage equal to heaven” which was the

self-proclaimed title of the Monkey King Sun Wukong as well

[22]

. For

someone like this to regard him as just Four-Tails is an insult and implies

his subordination; what’s more, his home of Suirendo (Water-Curtain

Cave) is of similar nature to the one Naruto had managed to push through,

and seeing that they have done the same tests of character, they should be

equals. This must be why the Monkey King out of all the Biju swallowed

him up, to illustrate the equivalence between them and humans. Despite

the awkward introduction, Naruto genuinely wants to help Son and

remove the chains that bind him, to which he cannot believe a human

could empathise with him.

273

After a bit of rummaging through the maze of hair, he ﬁnds the chakra rod

at the base of the neck and successfully pulls it out, but this merely binds

chakra to the former Jinchuriki’s body… the tailed beast chakra itself is still

within the Gedo Statue which gets transmitted to each body in turn. To

break them out of the statue is an entirely dierent matter. Son thought it

was only worth telling him how to stop him from attacking, but his

intention was to render him truly free; Naruto came back to him panting

and covered in sweat

[23]

, with his seriousness convincing Son that it’s worth

passing on some of his power as a parting gift.

Kurama is also willing to give him some more strength in ﬁghting the other

Madara. They have a light hearted argument before sharing the same ﬁst

bump as he did with the Monkey King

[24]

. The two of them have really

come a long way, and now Naruto thinks of those words Iruka spoke when

he was only a little furball: he isn’t just the Fox but Naruto Uzumaki of the

Leaf, and through his name he shall be inaugurated as a citizen of

Konoha

[25]

; indeed, I don’t even think it’s possible to integrate someone into

your life based on attributes alone, for otherwise once they’ve trodden

outside that space - they’re gone! By naming it encompasses all that they

are, and it’s a declaration to go on a journey no matter where Kurama takes

him; as Naruto said for his friend, “Sasuke is Sasuke”

[26]

no matter how dark

or dierent his chakra may be.

Having a Biju like this to symbolise a deep spiritual relationship with

nature in the form of an animal or plant has been illustrated in a diverse

range of cultures and societies, noted by scholars like Levi Strauss and Erich

Neumann. In Origins and History of Consciousness, it mentions man’s original

orientation in the world as being situated in Totemism - a philosophy

which regards certain animals as an ancestor, a friend/guide and

providential being

[27]

. But this relationship is ‘masked’ as there isn’t a full

disclosure between the spirit and person, and stays in the realm of symbol

274

and metaphor. Sometimes the totemic animal is designated another name

than that applied to the actual animal itself

[28]

. This dynamic is evidenced by

the fact that until now Naruto always called him “Nine-Tails” and had a

distant relationship to his totem, but now the one knows the other as such,

and as Jung highlights, the name of an individual is his soul

[29]

Prior to comprehending how a Bijuu’s needs could be recognised as similar

to his own, he hadn’t given any thought to the possibility Tailed Beasts

could have their own name

[30]

. He was more than happy to “hunt” for his

chakra and battle it out and break the rites of passage between him and his

totem; standard practice for tribesman in regards to ritual would’ve been to

ask permission before things like the killing of an animal, and apologies to

be made afterwards

[31]

. We saw progress in Naruto on Turtle Island, as after

he took some of Kurama’s chakra, he says “I promise I won’t do wrong by

you, just hang in there for a little while”

[32]

. Now he asks for nothing in

return, and wants him and all other Biju to be free, because he has

understood what type of friendship they want with people.

It is said that the key to developing the bond with one’s Totem is by

Participation

[33]

, a shared experience which brings both into Being, and it’s

precisely what Kurama prioritised when he watched Naruto try and rescue

Son: “Naruto… if you’re absolutely serious… and truly wish to do something

for us Biju, then just do as you’ve always done. Prove it through your

actions”

[34]

The last point I want to make regarding the incorporation of Totemism

will be the idea that this is another avenue in which the participant

cultivates their individuality, as the Totem represents the innate ancestral

experience, the totality of the group, which becomes enshrined in the

heart

[35]

. For Naruto in particular, the hosting of the Nine-Tails has been

something his clan had to do since the dawn of Shinobi, from Mito, to

275

Kushina and now himself. The meta-chains - the expectations of society

and the willingness to address Evil itself have loosened, and just as Naruto

has intersessioned with him, Kurama is willing to let this image of Naruto

as vessel, keeper and exploiter fade away. Now they stand as one holistic

chakra.

In connecting himself to Kurama he can now enter deeper into the

collective Biju psyche plane, or the fabric of the collective unconscious

[36]

Prior to him popping up, Son had relayed his conﬁdence that Six Paths’

message had ﬁnally come true in this child: “even if you are far apart, you

will always be together, and eventually, the day will come when you will be

united again [...] and unlike when you were inside me, you shall be led

properly. I hope you learn what true strength is before that time”

[37]

. That

moment would arise when all the Bijuu, which are based on Yokai - the

more demonic and nefarious ones - would come to know love and the

support of people.

Each of the Tailed-Beasts and their Jinchuriki greet him, and on the level of

Names he shall know them - similar to Adam naming all things in the

world. But the true array of connections comes from Naruto's emergent

symbolism with the Egyptian God Thoth, who was said to be the

messenger, intercessor and conciliator between the dierent Gods

[38]

. This

will be one of his new roles, to provide a space for communication that all

Jinchuriki and their beasts can use, dialoguing whenever problems occur.

What’s more, “he was ‘lord of divine words’, ‘lord of Maat’, and ‘judge of the

two combatant gods’, Horus and Set”

[39]

. Divine words being the crucial

point, and in Ancient Egypt knowing the names of the Gods was a very

select privilege to the point where even other Gods may be unaware, and

Naruto is bequeathed a sliver of their joint power.

276

Thoth is held in high esteem because of his adherence to truth and

rightness, earning the epithet the heart of Ra

[40]

, which dovetails with our

protagonists’ conviction that won over the tailed beasts. Lastly, the

connotations with Thoth and a baboon are listed as one of his original

zoomorphic forms

[41]

, and assisted in the rights of the deceased, helping

Anubis by recording the results whilst he checked the scales. Thus

completes a diverse and yet self-similar suite of connotations with the

Monkey King, of rightness and of assisting Horus and so forth.

Jumping out of the Egyptian metaphors and psyche planes back into the

story, Naruto has undergone his ﬁrst tailed beast transformation which is a

bit hazy and mostly chakra rather than ﬂesh, but he and Bee put up a good

ﬁght and push Obito into a corner. “Naruto was always merely a pawn to

test Sasuke. He was supposed to be an amusement. So what is it? What’s

happened? It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter who or what Naruto is

now!”

[42]

. The primary goal is to enact the Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi and with the

slivers of Eight and Nine-Tails chakra he possesses it signals the

transmutation into the ten tails - the symbol of Destruction itself, though it

could be said to be the symbol of Nature, and thus the symbol of change:

“The return of Ten Tails! the beginning of the end of the world”

[43]

277

The Dawn of Ten-Tails

The summation of all ten tailed beasts is said to be the progenitor who

shaped these lands, where you hear phrases like “he drank oceans, split

open the earth, hoisted up mountains”

[1]

in that typical absurdist fashion.

These feats coincide with the abilities of the Yokai that correspond to him:

“Ameno-Hitotsu-no kami, Datara, Deidarabotchi, he has many names”

[2]

;

the last one in particular is a Yokai who stands as tall as a mountain, with

equivalent sculpting ability. Daidarabotchi are so large that their steps can

shape the world. They are the ones who build mountains by aggregating

rocks and dirt, even picking up mountains to other places

[3]

Aside from being a giant, there are also connotations of him being a

blacksmith, as Ameno-Hitotsu-no Kami is the God of iron and metallurgy

who has one eye. It is said he fashioned the weapons during the time when

Amaterasu was in her cave

[4]

. And lastly, Datara is most likely a reference to

the Yokai Ippon-Datara, who is also a one-eyed blacksmith. The reasons

these two motifs sync up is because it’s said a blacksmith will close one eye

to judge the temperature of a heated metal, and in this case loses it due to

repeatedly staring at the intense ﬂames. The blacksmiths are also an

invaluable asset in Greek Mythology, with Hephaestus being the most

gifted metalworker, forging Zeus’ Thunderbolt

[5]

The Ten-Tails being the God of metallurgy could also be interpreted as a

negative becoming if you look through the lens of the apocryphal Book of

Enoch, as it was the Fallen Angel Azazel who taught humans metallurgy, and

In the Rigveda the toolmaker Tvashtar is also seen as the one who fashioned Indra’s

Thunderbolt(The Vajra)

[6]

278

was punished the heaviest by God: “The whole earth has been corrupted

through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin”

[7]

. Hell

was born out of the fallen angels, and the spirit of astounding art, master

craftsmanship and so forth was taken into the domain of emphasis on the

self and all its passions: "And Azazel taught men to make swords and knives

and shields and breastplates; and made known to them the metals [of the

earth] and the art of working them; and bracelets and ornaments; and the

use of antimony and the beautifying of the eyelids; and all kinds of costly

stones and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and

they committed fornication, and they were led astray and became corrupt in

all their ways"

[8]

. The power to forge tools and shape the world in the same

way as the Gods is thus the power necessary to make dreams reality.

The mask comes o!

It’s the four of them versus Madara, and Kakashi wants to try using his

Kamui to take the head o the Gedo Statue. To his shock horror it’s

immediately negated, and he suspects this “Madara” has an ability linked to

his, but he’s not sure of the details

[9]

. Things become clearer when he

throws a Kunai at Obito and it passes through his head, but teleporting that

blade into the Kamui dimension lands a hit precisely on the part Obito had

phase-shifted, scratching his mask

[10]

. He’s pretty sure that his hypothesis is

correct, but wants to conﬁrm it with this next attack.

Naruto runs at him with the rasengan and Kakashi sucks into the Kamui

realm; as Naruto’s body phases through a part of Obito, it makes contact

with the rasengan just like last time. He has ﬁgured out that this is all one

jutsu in dierent directions

[11]

. Their timespaces are linked, but this isn’t

usually the case for people using teleportation ninjutsu, so he asks Madara

where he got his eye. Sure enough, he says he got it around the time of the

battle of Kannabi Bridge in the Third Great Ninja War

[12]

279

Kakashi is shaken that the man across from him is most certainly the friend

he couldn’t save. But now isn’t the time to wallow in regret, he has to

formulate a plan. He uses Kamui to teleport a Shadow clone that’s ready to

strike at the moment Obito has to phase-shift his body to avoid the Biju

Bomb

[13]

, and after all this time the mask is ﬁnally o.

Between this world and the next

This is where we are taken back to Obito's period of isolation, immediately

following the incident during the war. He wakes up to see some grey

dishevelled face looming over his bedside, saying he is neither living nor

dead but trapped between two worlds

[14]

. He tries getting up but it’s

unbearably painful to move. “The fact that you feel pain means that you are

still alive”

[15]

and for this act of kindness he expects Obito to repay his debt.

Upon ﬁrst landing into Madara’s clutches we see that he thinks rather low

of his mantras about pain, suering and futility being all there is

[16]

, and

tries to tune out the lecture. The Zetsu are also trying to get him to

understand the master plan, but a bit more nonchalantly: “Just think of it as

all of us going to this huge dream world that was created using genjutsu!

Well, it’s more like forcibly taking everyone there… and for life too”

[17]

Obito thinks it’s so stupid he’s speechless and goes back to rehabilitation,

trying his best to walk, to move and so forth. Such an idea sounds

preposterous because he holds a dream already!

Months go by and Obito realises he can’t leave this place as there’s no exit,

and it will take time to smash the boulder that blocks the main entrance.

Madara doesn’t actually need to break his Will here as Obito’s hope is

narrowing towards his goal on its own, combined with all the Zetsu that

surround him all that’s left is to plant the seeds of despair: “I told you, things

don’t go as planned. You’ll eventually catch on too”

[18]

. He won’t be able to

280

leave until Madara is assured that the only contact he makes with “the

wider world” shall break him.

There is a similar motif in the movie Pinocchio of all places, where the main

villain, the Coachman, keeps donkeys trapped in boxes and breaks them

psychologically before sending them o to work in the salt mines/circus,

where they’re used essentially as slaves. There is a scene where one donkey

still has a hat and jumper on, signs of individuality, and tries to resist by

calling for his mother. Upon hearing this the Coachman throws him to the

side and says he’s not ready yet - he still has a voice. In time it shall temper,

soon he will be without character like the other donkeys in boxes. Indeed,

the only reason Madara assuaged Obito’s desire to break free was because

he set up the entire death of Rin, and suddenly the Zetsu are bending over

backwards to help him get out once they’re being attacked.

They allow him to use one of the Zetsu as an exoskeleton that allows him to

move

[19]

and he’s praying, hoping that he makes it in time. This will be the

moment his Sharingan gets used with Kakashi’s, the tag-team will be better

than ever!

He gets through the clearing to see his worst nightmare in front of him. His

friend has not only broken his promise, but broken it with his own

strength. To him, this is the end. “I will not accept any of this!!!”

[20]

. Obito

doesn’t know where in the world he is, where could a place that allows such

evil be other than Hell? He had managed to stay relatively sane due to their

memories

[21]

and progressed based on that dream of coming back: it started

in his mind, then travelled down to his ﬁngertips when he broke out, and

shattered when he had to hold Rin’s corpse.

281

What can he possibly do now? For where is there certainty? Madara’s

words. “Let’s create a world where you exist again”

[22]

. He knew he’d return,

and that’s when he would take his repayment.

“Starting today you shall be the saviour”

[23]

. Now for technicalities: they will

need to develop a genjutsu that will be reﬂected o of the moon to cast a

dream upon the world, but they will need the Tailed Beasts. They’ll also

need to manipulate Nagato - the boy he implanted his Rinnegan into. Now

that his ambitions, his Will and plan are clearly laid out he hands Obito his

identity and dies; it’s more than just trusting him, for he believes Obito’s

feelings of suering and futility will never leave, he can be sure he shall

strive diligently to bring his dream into fruition. He severs his connection

to this world, but only for a moment.

Mephistophelian roots

This section will look at Goethe’s Faust and see the panoply of similarities

in Obito to that of the two main characters: Faust and Mephistopheles. The

latter, which is the equivalent to the Devil, represents the spirit of negation

and he is called so by the Lord

[24]

during their short exchange in the

opening prologue, right before descending to make a wager with Faust.

The play focuses on a man with vast amounts of knowledge and decades of

hard study, yet can't ﬁnd anything which interests him for more than a

moment, so he resorts to magic to converse with the spirits. This is where

Mephistopheles greets him, to which Faust asks “who are you” and he

responds sarcastically by saying names are ﬁckle and he is someone who

should be going after the depths of essence

[25]

. But Faust retorts that names

are still indicative of the person, so asks again - who is he? Mephistopheles

declares himself the eternal spirit of negation, “And justly so: for all things,

from the Void Called forth, deserve to be destroyed”

[26]

. Now we are

282

starting to see some parallels to Obito, for he thinks everything in this

reality is quintessentially ﬂawed, but destruction isn’t the answer - instead,

a mercy shall be placed upon humanity! What’s more, Obito only uses this

name as proof that people don’t want to plumb the depths of essence, and

his theory that the entire world only knows each other at a risible level of

scattered attributes seems to be true; take his former best friend: of all the

times they have encountered each other, as long as he wears a mask and

claims to be Madara Uchiha, Kakashi believes it. The fact that the entire

world could be brought to declare war on “Madara Uchiha” is proof that

nobody knows anything about anyone.

This is one of the major shared motifs, in that the demon will never see

adequate justice and thus it only exacerbates the view that things are just

tricks, lies and obsequious gamesmanship. Mephistopheles had given Faust

the bargain, he had agreed of his own free will and lost; however, the angels

came in and swooped the soul before it could be taken

[27]

The wager is centred on the idea that Faust will never say the words “Oh

moment, thou art so fair” with the feeling of restlessness ﬁnally leaving

him, but Mephisto thinks he is capable of providing such a thing; in return

he shall take his soul. Obito represents the battle between both characters,

and this wager is an inner psychological battle to ﬁnd a moment where life

shall be worthwhile, but will that be found within a dream?

After it is agreed, Mephisto and Faust start working together and their

travels take them to a wine-cellar in Leipzig. There are three men

downstairs who are drinking and having a great time, and Mephisto asks

them what - out of all the drinks in all the land - they would desire most

[28]

;

for each man they are handed their dream beverage, downing glass after

glass, but he warns them that they shouldn’t spill a drop. But in their

gluttony, wine is spilled and it roars into ﬂame and terriﬁes the drunkards.

283

Faust wanted to leave whilst they drank, but Mephisto was insistent

[29]

Obito shall also sculpt the perfectly tailored dream world, where animals

can get whatever they please and there’s never a moment of despair without

redemption, challenge without success, but stepping outside the boundary

will lead to your demise.

Faust ends up meeting a girl called Margarete, nicknamed Gretchen, with

whom he begins to fall in love. He begins to lose that sense of feeling

eternally unsettled… with her he feels dierent

[30]

. You should be able to see

the clear inversion with Rin, for after he lost her his sole moment of

happiness and joy was gone and he was sure that the world had become the

one which Mephistopheles believed.

To win her heart, the two of them begin plotting their next move and

Mephisto works to gather the most beautiful jewels, so he can place them

in her room and be astounded by their beauty

[31]

. Goethe does a brilliant job

at showing how she becomes recluse and cannot ﬂaunt them at Church,

being a devout Christian and all; now we start to see that a life exists

separate to the Church’s principles and she goes to her neighbour Martha

and tries them on: “Walk up and down an hour, before the mirror yonder,

We'll have our private joy thereon”

[32]

Soon enough she crosses paths with Faust, and all the poetry, plays and

theatres are no match for the joys of walking together and being intimate;

they share long conversations and whilst she loves his company, whenever

she sees Mephisto her blood runs cold

[33]

. She goes on to say that he seems

incapable of loving anyone, with his face half of mockery and half of anger.

She is a sweet, innocent girl who doesn’t want to make love, especially since

she lives in the same home as her parents; but Faust manages to seduce her,

with the worry of her mother waking up assuaged by a “sleeping potion” -

284

three drops of which is enough to stop her from noticing. Faust assures her

it isn’t harmful but Mephisto on the other hand is fully aware his

recommendation is a lethal dose. Later, when Faust and Mephistopheles are

making their way to Gretchen’s house, they run into her brother Valentine

and they get into a brief ﬁght where Faust relies on Mephisto’s powers to

strike him dead

[34]

Things worsen, as Gretchen drowns the child of hers and is sent to prison.

He and Mephisto try to break her out, but she has realised the scope of her

immorality and all that has happened by letting these two into her life and

wants to be judged by God.

In the second Act, Mephisto tries to ingratiate himself with the Emperor

initially in the form of a court jester; but upon learning about their ﬁnancial

troubles, he gives some advice on mining to exploit the country’s natural

resources. He also suggests they use paper money to give the people the

illusion of wealth when in reality they’re no better o

[35]

. After a

celebratory carnival at the supposed stabilisation of the economy, the two of

them meet once more with the Emperor alongside his chancellor and

courtiers who are delighted with the results; however, upon hearing that he

signed all this yesterday, the Emperor can’t believe it and demands to know

who forged his signature

[36]

. The intendent reminds him that he did, and

now he must accept it.

The start of their ascension into politics is reminiscent of Obito’s

manipulation of Yagura in that he didn’t even notice he had been

controlled, and that was the starting point for grander plans. The Akatsuki

was started in the Rain by Nagato, Yahiko and Konan but when they started

to scale up it seems the Mist served as another centre of operations, hence

the accusations at the Gokage Summit

[37]

285

Now they have been given a second task by the Emperor and that is to

revive the Classical Greek Spirits of Helen and Paris of Troy, but this isn’t as

simple as a click of the ﬁngers for Mephistopheles. In fact he cannot help

Faust at all. One reason that people give for his inability to help is that he is

a symbol of the Christian Devil and so cannot interact with Pagan spirits;

nevertheless, he is eager to help and tells Faust the way he shall do this is if

he interacts with “The Mothers”, which Goethe uses to designate the

preeminent feminine spirit of creation and generation, of which he will

have to plumb the lowest depths of essence to ﬁnd

[38]

. This is a callback to

when they ﬁrst met, when Mephisto backhandedly told Faust he didn’t care

about names but the essences of things; this is his calling, and it aligns with

Zetsu doing everything for Kaguya, and Obito wanting to be the saviour

after seeing Rin die.

Faust tries for the ﬁrst time to summon Helen, but it is only partially

successful, but he can still see her beauty clearly and he is spellbound; most

of the courtiers are unimpressed for they don’t see the symbolic union at

play here of classical and modern, of myths and science and so on. He is

trying to get his hands on her, but the phantom shall not be begotten so

easily! She strikes him down with thunder and he falls unconscious.

Once Faust’s back up, the plan is to go to the classical Walpurgis Night in

Greece and meet Helen. As always, Mephisto does some meddling and goes

up to her ﬁrst, informing her that the Greek King Meneleus who she is at

war with is coming to kill her, and he recommends they take the service of

another Chieftain (Faust) who shall protect them. They ﬁnally speak, and

whilst she has never heard someone speaking in rhymes like Faust, she

ﬁnds it oddly charming. He beckons her to come with him and ﬂee to the

Eden of Acadia: a domain where people are forever young and they live in

perfect bliss

[39]

286

Helen and Faust have a child, Euphorion, but he has inherited his relentless

striving, and the beatiﬁc, romantic ideals of Helen. All he wants to do is

climb high into the sky, into the domain of clouds and stars

[40]

. Both Faust

and Helen despair at their child climbing so far up, and he does take it too

far - falling o and dying. This is another major motif which is shared

between this story and ours: the unnecessary death of someone dear. It was

the case for Obito, and he made sure it would be the case for Naruto; the

suddenness and shock of Neji’s death mirrors Rin’s, and this is the ﬁrst time

he has watched somebody pass away in his arms as Gaara and Kakashi had

died before he got to them. Additionally, Obito hopes that for all the

similarities they have

[41]

, this will be the time that he drops his promise of

never letting his comrades die

[42]

But before Naruto can mirror his descent, Hinata slaps him out of it and

reminds him of Neji’s last words. “Brother Neji just said that you hold more

than one life in your hands… Do you know what he meant? I will never let

my comrades die. Neither those words nor the conviction behind them are

lies! For he was able to successfully store them in his heart [...]. It’s not just

you, Naruto. We all hold those feelings within our hearts”

[43]

. He

remembers that reciprocity which comes naturally from having a shared

bond, and whilst it wasn’t Neji’s desire to die in war he will make that

sacriﬁce for him if need be.

There is another story which illustrates a similar feeling well, which is the

story of Bunpuku - the monk who kept Shukaku inside of him decades ago.

Speaking with the tailed beast in the conﬁnes of prison, he meditated and

would open his palms to reveal the two Kanji for love: heart and

acceptance

[44]

. Ironically, that was a tale of caring for tailed beasts as much

as a man, whereas the Hyuga were known for caring for man in the same

way as beasts. In Shukaku’s ﬁrst exchange with Gaara, where the young boy

is surprised by his hatred for humans, he asked “But… you exist to protect

287

my village, don’t you?”

[45]

- “I’ve never protected you because I wanted to!”

which smacks of the same imprisonment and forced servitude of Hisashi,

but we see the same solution in the end: love - allowing another to be as

equals.

Back to Faust. After the death of Euphorion, Helen fades away, unable to

stomach the pain and joins up with her son. But despite losing his family,

Faust continues striving ever still and this time he has declared war against

nature itself. Following the unnecessary death of his child, this shall be his

ﬁnal act.

His dream is cut short due to the outbreak of another war, as the Emperor

has realised the paper money has become worthless and is having to ﬁght to

protect his throne. If they help him they could possibly be given land for

their eorts, which would be the start of his Kingdom. Faust is sceptical

that he can change the tide of the war, but Mephisto shall summon a legion

of the foulest demons to assist him.

Sure enough, the war is successful and Faust is bequeathed some coastal

land by the Emperor; but there’s one cottage that’s owned by an old couple

that is yet to be his

[46]

. Philemon and Baucis don’t trust the Emperor and

think foul play has earned him the victory, refusing all oers on their house

or relocation to a larger home. They love their quaint and simple routine of

going to the local chapel and are happy with it. The bells that ring where

they pray annoy Faust no end, as they speak to the inability to partake in

the natural life, the simplicity which grinds against his own utopia. It’s a

nice metaphor that translates to how Obito is irked by the simple principle

of bonds that Naruto has and feels he cannot participate since he’s

committed himself to this path; it’s why he selﬁshly wants to run them into

the ground with Ten-Tails’ attacks, so they may despair and plead with him

to open the world of dreams.

288

He sends Mephisto and his goons to evict the two of them and relocate

them into a palace away from his Kingdom, but they end up killing them

instead. Faust had managed to rationalise their eviction in that he was

giving them a grander, better palace in return for a complete landmass, but

now they’re dead he feels genuinely distraught. Finally, he has taken full

responsibility for his actions as he realises Mephisto cannot be trusted.

Faust starts to regret the path he has taken, and wishes he could be rid of all

the magic, incantations and demons, and face Nature simply as a man

[47]

. In

this private moment a person called Care walks in, frightening Faust for

she accuses him of being totally without recourse due to his material

devotion

[48]

. She breathes on him and he goes blind in both eyes, but he

continues on. If anything she has only strengthened his resolve. Care was

hoping to blind Faust into inaction by exacerbating guilt, which is one way

care can blind people, but for Obito it had blinded him in another. Now he

could strive on behalf of people for the goal of the Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi and

alleviate all people of their suering, regardless if they wanted to pursue life

in this world. They had only internalised the endurance of the Shinobi to

their detriment! All cases were merely people accruing wounds of loss to no

avail; but Naruto says “it’s those wounds that prove your comrades live on

inside here. Comrades that you create in a dream so that you can’t get hurt

aren’t real, and that means you’re erasing your actual comrades right? Curse

or not, I want to keep the real Neji right here”

[49]

It’s Naruto’s goal to push on and create a dream world right here, where the

hearts of his friends who believed in him can rejoice in it too. It was in

having the courage to face that suering that Faust would wrestle with

nature, to build a community where people can get together and ﬁnd a way

to live in harmony, despite the knowledge that it won’t be all bliss. To ﬁght

for it every day anew, for this vision he ﬁnally says of the moment, “tarry a

while, you are so fair”

[50]

289

Obito has gone this far for Rin, as he wanted to keep his promise to her

that he'd become Hokage and save the world

[51]

, which mirrors the

preeminent principle in Faust that “the eternal feminine shows us the

way"

[52]

and she was the one who took his hand and spurred that call to

adventure

[53]

. Incorporated into dierent ﬂashbacks is the fact she addresses

his wounds, and he never thought that much about the scars he got along

the way as they were moving as a team.

The Eternal Feminine was Faust’s “Why” as it represented that symbol of

benevolence, and Obito encapsulates that in her alongside his promise:

"Rin… was my sole light and hope. After I lost Rin , the world as I saw it

changed"

[54]

. But after years of mistakes, deaths and siding with the Devil,

both characters manage to do good in the end. Faust had technically lost his

bet to Mephisto, and as his soul left the body it was his to snatch, but

Heaven interjected and he ascended beyond his clutches. But this was only

because of the petition by someone he had wronged - Gretchen. At the

point of death, Obito doesn’t die a criminal, despite his track record, and

tries to make amends with the limited time he has. Faust admits that one

can't be rid of demons easily as their ties can never can be severed

[55]

but

still, when Obito took some of the Bijuu chakra from Madara, and restored

the Nine-Tails into Naruto and saved his life, he was still entangled with

Zetsu after all.

290

Brothers between battle

Sasuke has ﬁnally gotten away from the hordes of annoying Zetsu telling

him to stay inside, but just as he’s making his way through the forest he sees

somebody who looks an awful lot like Itachi Uchiha

[1]

. It’s weird that our

protagonists manage to miraculously encounter him in the forest, but there

we are. Itachi tries to brush him o as his priority is to stop Kabuto’s

Edotensei, but his brother has burning questions.

His anger stems from the truth he discovered and the maddening feeling

that he had been left in the dark for so long: “Now you want to run away

from me?! Are you running from me out of guilt for being a liar? You have

no courage to tell me the truth! I know everything about you! That’s why I

will destroy Konoha!“

[2]

. Itachi ﬁnally reveals what we’ve long known in

that he tried to tell Sasuke something “between the lines” of their match,

alluding to the fact people live within their own realities; Sasuke’s

perception of him has certainly changed, going from the symbol of true evil

to be slain to the symbol of martyrdom that performs an Abrahamic-level

sacriﬁce if called upon.

It’s funny that he ﬁnally has the same eyes as Itachi, which couldn’t be

qualiﬁed more literally

[3]

, but both of them have continued to redeﬁne what

this motif has meant over time. It started by matching the hatred he

possessed and spurring Sasuke to possess the Mangekyo, then in their ﬁnal

battle he broadened that concept to see if Sasuke knew the truth, or thought

about seeing things from his perspective; now Itachi has realised something

else, that the signposts he changed weren’t Sasuke’s only guide, and he can

trust in Naruto to guide him from now on.

291

They make it to the cave where Kabuto has secluded himself, and whilst

he’s surprised they managed to ﬁnd his hideout, it’s no matter. The

Edotensei technique has no weaknesses and he’s become a full-ﬂedged sage,

what could go wrong? Itachi notes that this jutsu’s greatest weakness is

him

[4]

, which is pretty darn cool.

They surmise that Kabuto has ingested not only Lord Orochimaru’s cells,

but the abilities of his prior experiments: Karin’s regeneration, Suigetsu’s

liquid-shapeshifting and the ability to master snake senjutsu from studying

Jugo’s cells

[5]

. He found Ryuchi cave, the home of the White Snake Sage and

shed his skin from a snake - into a dragon

[6]

, a creature which in old myths

and tales was depicted as a large snake, so if you consider it a bit weird that

he would say “dragon” you can understand that he means the symbolic

maxim of the snake.

It is said in the fourth data book

[7]

that the White Snake Sage will bite

down on their student and inject them with nature energy, and just as

Naruto had to make sure he didn’t turn into a frog, Kabuto has to avoid

turning into a snake; thus the point of this training isn’t to literally become

a snake, but to maximise the symbolic elements such as poison, knowledge,

manipulation and so forth.

Itachi has done much the same sort of journeying, becoming the symbol of

the Uchiha as he learnt ﬁre-style, awakened the Mangekyo, mastered

genjutsu and learnt the inverse techniques to cover his own weaknesses;

kunai training to hit sharingan blind spots, learning water-style etc. Even

without that eort he’s still leagues above other members as Kabuto

remarks: “What sets you apart from the rest of your Uchiha brethren is that

you have true ocular powers, the ability to peer into and read people’s souls

… and use what you learn in battle. That is why you’re so good at deceiving

292

people… you died a genius … at lying!”

[8]

. You’ll never be able to trust this

man as he perpetually deceives all he meets.

To get Sasuke on the same page, Itachi tells him to remember the time they

went boar-hunting as children. This activity seems oddly speciﬁc, and

rummaging through some Japanese mythology reveals a tale with just a

creature - ridden by Susanoo no less! He is pictured on the Boar ﬁring

arrows and scattering pestilence (disease) to the surrounding land

[9]

The reason might be because he’s being conﬂated with a very similar God

called Gozu Tenno(“Ox-headed Heavenly Deity”), who has been seen as

another form of Susanoo for almost a millennia

[10]

, being the cause of and

protector of disease and epidemics. This wrinkle triggers relations to Set of

the Old Kingdom - the God of foreigners, disorder and so on which helps

to keep society strong the same way that continuous but manageable

interaction with disease keeps the immune system strong. All of these Gods

seem to be on the “societal boundary” and the nation relies on them to have

a sound mind and spirit so as not to open the ﬂood gates. In the same way

as Set, both Susanoo and Gozu Tenno become a menace when they let that

side of them takeover.

There is another tale which speaks of a Demon-possessed Boar, and it was

the task of Yamato the Hero to go o and slay the beast. Declaring his

quest, he was given “the Sacred Sword” which turns out to be the

Grass-Cutting blade(Kusanagi blade). “In his tail alone is the monster

vulnerable and he runneth more swiftly than the wind”

[11]

, so he would need

to use the sword to sever the tail from the spine. During a heated battle, he

managed to straddle the boar like Susanoo and grab at the tail, successfully

severing it.

293

Drawing parallels to Sasuke, he missed his shot as a child when out with

Itachi

[12]

, but now against Kabuto he manages to hit the tail precisely with

Susanoo’s crossbow. It shows how he has grown up and conquered the

animalistic, destructive aspects of the Storm God’s nature. Just as I

mentioned in the Battle between brothers section, he had his roots in Korea as

a derivative of the male shaman, the same goes for the root of Gozu Tenno;

originally he was known as Muto Tenjin which has its root in the word

mudang, meaning “shamaness”, particularly one of Korean origin as well

[13]

Whenever disease or misfortune had swept through Japan, it was believed

to be caused by a certain Kami(spirit) and the shaman was someone who

could enter a trance-like state and identify the divinities that were causing

[13]

. Indeed, to have both a male and female shaman must be to ascertain a

psychological completion, for interacting with any kind of spirit for the

sake of the nation.

Jumping back into the ﬁght, Sasuke’s arrows have created an opening for

Itachi to strike, but Kabuto counters, piercing Sasuke’s blade through

him

[14]

. The ﬁrst snapshot of the Izanami has now been taken and the crows

dispel, marking the end of this sequence.

The ﬁght mellows for a moment and we begin to see some of Kabuto’s

childhood and backstory. Like Itachi, he was used by the village for his

abilities as a spy, but because he had no family or sense of where he came

from, all those personalities became much easier to wear; so easy in fact that

eventually he had no idea who was the real him

[15]

. Itachi admits that

Kabuto was an even greater spy than he, but anything he may ﬁnd

endearing about him, in terms of jointly attacking the village, should be

taken with a pinch of salt.

Both of them were chewed up and spat out by the higher-ups in the village

even though they just wanted to do what was right, and despite leaving a

294

legacy of disgrace as the rogue Shinobi that killed his clan and joined the

Akatsuki, Itachi still considers himself a citizen of the Leaf

[16]

. This is

because I think he grasps the fundamental principles of service - which is to

know yourself, as it shows you how you can serve by articulating the

sacriﬁces you can make: “To know oneself is not to achieve everything and

become perfect. It is to know what one is and isn’t capable of”

[17]

. Kabuto

smirks and says that sounds like the philosophy of a loser, but you don’t

acknowledge yourself at your peril, and you will surely fail if you do not

recognise the eorts of your comrades

[18]

, with it panning to his recent

words to Naruto.

Kabuto begins to reminisce about the time he was rescued by people from

the nearby Convent. He started with no parents, no friends… he didn’t even

know his own name

[19]

, and so Mother called him Kabuto, giving him his

ﬁrst smile too. When he struggled to tell the time, Mother gave him her

glasses and he burst into tears saying thank you uncontrollably. Those were

his ﬁrst memories. Unconditional care, with those closest sacriﬁcing the

only things they had regardless of personal cost. Before all this he couldn’t

remember anything because memories have to be attached to something,

someone, and he will never forget her smiling face.

A few years pass and he is aiding in the war by healing any injured Leaf

Shinobi. Orochimaru eventually comes across him, noting that he’s quite

adept at medical ninjutsu, maybe he should become a ninja

[20]

. Kabuto says

all he wants is to help Mother as she’s given him everything, all he’s been

able to do thus far is get her a new pair of glasses.

Kabuto was truly a sweet child that got caught up in the pressures of a

world at war, and he overheard Danzo’s “negotiations” with Nonou, the

name of the Nun, and he says they'll need her espionage skills to go into the

Hidden Stone for a long-term intelligence operation. If she refuses, the

295

orphanage will stop receiving money, uncaring of the Third Hokage’s

assurance

[21]

. His goons imply the orphanage could have a string of

“misfortunes” if they don’t comply, the type that involves property damage,

robbery, child-snatching if necessary

[21]

. Danzo says they shouldn’t be

appalled, for they are fools which don’t understand its signiﬁcance: her

mission is critical to the village’s continued stability. On top of that, they’ll

be taking one of the children to use for a separate mission, and Kabuto

voluntarily accepts that job

[22]

Five years go by and he has spied in each of the other Hidden Villages

[23]

but during his undercover work in the Stone he gets ambushed - by none

other than Nonou. He frantically tries to heal her but she has no idea who

he is, even with the glasses she stares at him blankly like a stranger. It’s like

he’s healing just another patient instead of the person who had given him

unconditional love, and he actually stops before getting ambushed again

[24]

Now the last cord is severed, even love seems to be ﬁckle. He goes to a

nearby lake to wash his hands, but doesn’t know what anything means

anymore… his name, his glasses - all things bestowed upon him by Mother,

now they are just part of the same uniform that he wears now, tokens of an

identity which lead to nowhere. As he reaches the climax of his despair,

Orochimaru emerges from the lake

[25]

and in typical serpentine fashion

oers him “forbidden knowledge”: the reasons behind why Nonou went

after him and didn’t recognise him.

In short, it was because Danzo decided to dispose of both of them because

they were too good as spies

[26]

. They possessed too much knowledge about

other villages and were considered dangerous. He told Nonou the reason

Kabuto had joined the Foundation was to keep payments ﬂowing to the

orphanage, and she wished to ﬁnd a way to liberate him from it. Moreover,

that’s when he gave her the mission to assassinate a certain person,

296

ironically that person being him. Over time, she had been fed photos that

slowly but surely distorted his image enough so that the “Kabuto” she knew

was completely dierent to the one who existed, thereby making the

mission possible

[27]

Orochimaru was sent to kill whoever survived the confrontation, but

decided to take Kabuto under his wing and make him his assistant at his

new hideout - one made especially for him

[28]

. Orochimaru tells him that if

you lack sucient intel to deﬁne yourself, continue to acquire dierent

kinds of knowledge and experience so that you have an idea of who you

really are. This is mostly correct, but beware of the self that lives for

experiences! Indeed, what is it integrating into if there is no self to begin

with? These things take on a life of their own and use the body as a puppet

of sorts. Kabuto thought that this idea of unconditional love no longer

existed, as “Mother was supposed to be the parent that didn’t forget me!”

[29]

but now it’s back to the time before he was found, where nothing can really

stick. Nonou did make him into a person, if only a young Shinobi who

could assume many dierent faces - the next one will be Orochimaru's

assistant. This is why I believe that Kabuto genuinely wanted to take Sasuke

in a sense because he had a clan, a name which had meaning (the name of

Hiruzen’s father) and all these things he hopes shall sculpt a genuine

identity.

In this respect he is very similar to Orochimaru, as all these experiments

have a deeper psychological relevance. Countless hours in gloomy

laboratories, research facilities has certainly improved their skills as a ninja,

but neither of them have obtained knowledge about who they are; this is

why they both become versed in hundreds (if not thousands) of jutsu, but

their personhood hasn’t changed in decades. Orochimaru describes that he

undergoes rebirth to ﬁnd himself “a new, more perfect me”

[30]

which is

where that previous Itachi quote about perfection comes into play.

297

“If you’re not satisﬁed with what you’ve had so far, just ﬁnd other things

and add them to yourself from here on out”

[31]

. Now, I’ve already referenced

this book a few times, but I feel that the Huainanzi should be a staple

reading for anyone even if you don’t plan to take any governmental oce.

There are lessons pertaining to all aspects of life, and in the very ﬁrst

chapter(Originating in the Way), there’s a lesson extremely pertinent to

Kabuto. It talks about a ruler whose heart may fall into mourning when the

party ends, the wine stops and the music comes to a close. But what is the

reason for this melancholy? It is because one is trying to use what is

extrinsic to bring peace to what is intrinsic, and if you don’t realise the

intrinsic nature that lies within you, external things will continue to falsely

adorn your spirit. It will never go beyond your ﬂesh and aliven your mind

and awareness

[32]

. Many times in that book it stresses the importance of

meditative, inner cultivation and the recognition of the Way that coincides

with this Quintessential Spirit

[33]

This seems to represent the same process that Itachi illustrates to Kabuto

using the Izanami: to ask himself serious questions about what he wants to

do and where he wants to go, instead of having his Path tethered to

somebody else’s. After going through the perils of this jutsu he decides to

lend a hand in the war against “Madara” and heal the same complex of

relying on someone else’s identity: “Both Obito and I thought we’d lost our

place in this world and dragged everyone else into this. But I know now

who I am … and what it is I must do!”

[34]

Another forbidden jutsu

The ﬁght surges on, and Kabuto is forced up onto the ceiling again by

Sasuke’s Susano’o, Itachi sees his chance and runs at him, only to be pierced

again by the same blade, in the same fashion

[35]

. Now Itachi’s left eye has lost

its light and the Izanami has begun. The crows disperse and the horn is

298

sliced o, but seeing these repeated tricks only makes Kabuto’s conﬁdence

grow - this is just too easy! But little does he know that his fate has been

sealed, to accept it is the only way to climb out.

This jutsu is named after the wife of Izanagi and the last pair of the

Kamiyo-nanayo(神世七代, “Seven Generations of the Age of the Gods”).

Depending on whether you look at the Kojiki or the Nihon Shoki for your

historical information, in the former you will see a group of ﬁve deities -

The Kotoamatsukami (別天神, "distinguishing heavenly deities") - as the

ﬁrst to come into existence. The rest of the Gods assigned Izanagi and

Izanami the task to develop the Earth by cultivating the islands and having

children.

Izanagi was given the Amenonuhoko (Heavenly-Jewelled Spear) which

churned up the seas and created Onogoroshima, or Self-Shaped Isle. Seeing

as that was done, the two of them descended and began to consecrate their

relationship in marriage. This involved the two of them circling around a

pillar with the two Gods going in opposite directions

[36]

; as the two began

to circle it was Izanami who purportedly spoke ﬁrst and complimented

him, but this was said to be improper so they had to go round again. Izanagi

spoke ﬁrst and complemented Izanami, and by completing this ritual they

were married

[37]

They proceeded to birth more islands, the Gods of each respective element

and over 800 dierent Kami. Once again, there is a dierence to whether

you read one text or the other, because in the Nihon Shoki Izanami doesn’t

die giving birth to Kagutsuchi(The God of Fire) and she is the progenitor of

Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Susanoo

[38]

. This may be why Sasuke goes on to

inherit the Kagutsuchi ability since it is just another member of the inner

family. However, in the Kojiki his birth was excruciating and burned her

299

genitals, the pain causing Izanami to pass away into the Land of the Dead

(Yomi).

Izanagi went in search of her, but she told him to avoid looking at her since

she’d eaten the food of the underworld. Intrigued, he refused her wish and

lit his comb into a makeshift torch, beholding the transformation of his

wife as she decayed whilst covered in insects and dirt; the image terriﬁed

him and he ran out of Yomi and sealed the entrance with a rock, keeping

her locked inside for eternity. Enraged at her husband, Izanami promised

that for each passing day, she would murder a thousand of their inhabitants,

to which Izanagi countered and said he would continue to birth 1500

people each day

[39]

That Izanami supposedly stepped out of line in the above world ritual, and

Izanagi stepped out of line in the underworld is what caused the rift

between them and a very short marriage. In all instances, failure caused a

possibly inﬁnite cycle of repeated behaviour: Izanagi failed to bring his wife

out of Yomi and separated the two worlds, causing them to cycle

independently. But despite the lack of connection, there would be another

God going to the underworld, which was Susanoo. Dierent accounts say

he was expelled for excessive grieving over the death of his mother

[40]

or for

causing destruction in heaven, but either way he travelled through Yomi

and no doubt saw Izanami. Itachi is the person who will be that bridge

between the underworld and the living, for he returns to Kabuto as a dead

man, and can undo the cycles that plague both worlds.

Itachi goes on to explain the dynamics of the jutsu, whereby you use your

Sharingan on a given moment, called Exhibit A, then you take that moment

and all the feelings which are part of it to try and recreate it, that being

Exhibit A’ (A prime). When you make the link between A and A’ , the

Izanami will automatically link any snapshots between them, so if you took

300

A, B and C snapshots and then A’ you would have a loop of A, B, C and

back to A’

[41]

. It was originally designed as a counter to people that would

abuse the Izanagi, as people would take a snapshot of reality and write it

into a dreamscape and thus start over

[42]

. You’re pruning reality for the most

desirable result which led to massive problems within the Uchiha. The

Izanami was meant to humble a Shinobi and to stop the practice of avoiding

inconvenient outcomes

[43]

. The way it works is that the Izanagi takes a

snapshot of moment O, and so does the Izanami user; when the ﬁght ensues

and the Izanagi user wishes to move away from unfavourable position X

back to O, they immediately step into the Izanami as they have repeated

that moment themselves, allowing the loop to be created.

In learning the dynamics of the Izanami, Sasuke is appalled that Itachi

would try and help Kabuto for “he sees his former self in him” - he views

Itachi as perfect

[44]

! It’s a similar degree of disgust that Izanagi had when

seeing the creatures in Yomi, wanting to cut them o and live separately;

however, we know Susanoo wasn’t so squeamish

[45]

, which is precisely why

he functions as a bridge and to a lesser degree as a shaman.

Egyptian Mythology, The Eye of Ra and Hathor

It seems that the Shinto story of the Sun goddess Amaterasu going into the

cave, out of either anger or shame, has a very comparative story to the

Ancient Egyptian tale of the Goddess of the Sun(daughter of Ra) in Hathor.

It is said she was jealous of the other Gods and went south to roam the

deserts of Nubia. With her gone, Egypt became desolate and darkness

enveloped light and chaos threatened order

[46]

Ra grew worried and summoned Thoth the Baboon to go to Nubia and

bring Hathor back. But if she gets enraged she can terrify even the other

Gods, so it couldn’t be a force of Will or trickery that gets her out, but a

301

genuine change of heart. We see that Itachi had tried in the past to pull

Sasuke this way and the other, but instead of replicating the trickery seen in

the Shinto myth, he introduces love into the equation and Sasuke climbs

out of his own accord; what’s more, it will be up to Naruto to get Sasuke to

return to the village, not by force, but by being there for him as his friend.

Thoth meets Hathor in the desert and tells one story after another of her

father Ra, and as memories ﬂood back he oers her some divine food that

gives health and joy to the consumer; this also got her thinking of Egypt

[47]

It’s signiﬁcant as Sasuke had often said that seeing or hearing of his brother

brought back memories - “when I’m with you, I remember things”

[48]

. As

Thoth thought he had ﬁnally managed to convince Hathor, he began to

walk back to Egypt, but she realised all of this was just an attempt to take

her home - her rage now magnifying beyond anything prior, transforming

into a huge lioness

[49]

- her love ended up growing into even greater hatred.

Thoth pleaded that he be allowed to tell one more story, to which she

permitted. It ended with the conclusion that Ra is her father, who gave her

the power to ﬁght evil, his avenger

[50]

. With that, Hathor became proud and

was jealous of nobody else anymore. Naruto(Thoth) does the same thing to

other people, as how he obstinately reminded Obito Uchiha who he was,

with the memories of the Leaf and dreams of being Hokage.

The changing tide of history

Kabuto was convinced that he had history on his side, but here he ﬁnds

himself beaten. Where did he go wrong? He looked at the Shinobi world as

a system which has festered hatred, and as Onoki said a couple of sections

ago, “three times our hatred has caused all out war”

[51]

because of the belief

that states were perpetual enemies stuck in combat. Kabuto can see this

pattern clearly as he has been on the frontlines healing injured Shinobi after

302

all. This “progression” of history, if you can call it that, meant that his plan

of using reanimated Shinobi is perfect. As Shinobi are creatures that are

irrational and prone to revenge, having to ﬁght and kill your immortal

brethren, your best friend or family member brings the highest pain.

What’s more, seeing Shinobi of other nations go with the intent to kill the

ones that sacriﬁced everything for you must surely spell the most egregious

suering within the Allied Forces right? Each reanimated Shinobi was

carefully selected and matched with the corresponding companies that were

launched as they had the battle plans relayed by Kisame. This was supposed

to crush morale, cause inﬁghting and stop the illusion of collaboration that

they were ﬁghting under. But in fact, they only seem to have gotten

stronger.

In the moments that we see in the war with Sai and his brother, with Sasori

and Kankuro, with Mifune and Hanzo, these are all cases where if the

reanimated Shinobi was left with its personality intact they could actually

break away from the world and rest in peace. The complete opposite of his

prediction happened right at the apex where it was supposed to be

indefatigably true. Each of these aforementioned ﬁghts is where the

reanimated Shinobi died with a certain regret and in their battle they were

presented with an answer which resolved their lingering pain. Sai’s brother

ﬁnally saw the last page of his book which showed the two of them meeting

in the middle and instead of ﬁghting to the death, they stood together as

brothers not enemies. Sasori’s view of art was that things should be left for

posterity as he wanted to immortalise his parents, and this is where his

own idea of being an immortal puppet came from. Being reincarnated

meant he could be “a true doll that will never rot”

[52]

but Kankuro shows

him “the puppets you’ve created will live on forever. As long as there are

future generations of puppet masters to inherit the soul that lives within

them!”

[53]

. Each new generation will immortalise them in their own way,

303

which is what he really wanted to pass on, as his parents get a new lease of

life each time.

To really hammer home the message, let’s look at this last example of

Mifune versus Hanzo. Decades ago they clashed and Hanzo was the victor

in their battle. Mifune may have survived the injury but the blade was

coated in Salamander venom which would kill him within 48 hours

[54]

Mifune has to face his own death and sees that “people themselves are

swords! Which means I also was a blunted edge. So it ends like this? So

disappointing”

[55]

. Hanzo tells him that death isn’t the end, loss of

conviction is the end

[56]

He actually respects Mifune as he decided to stay and ﬁght, using himself as

a shield to protect his fellow Samurai, giving them the chance to run. If he

died he would not be considered a dull blade but a hero. Hanzo oered him

compensation for his death in that he would sing his praises for his heroic

sacriﬁce, but the only compensation he wanted was that his fellow Samurai

be left alone

[57]

. Touched by this total selﬂessness, Hanzo gives him the

antidote to drink - “I told you that one cannot tell if someone has

conviction or not just by looking at them. But sometimes one can tell from

ﬁghting that person… and you are a rare one indeed [...] I too have my own

conviction… to bring peace to this world. I shall use you as a test case. To

see if you will die still embracing your convictions or whether you end up

surviving, and abandon those convictions over time”

[58]

He made a wager on the development of history and wanted to see just

what shape it would take: would it regress to the pattern it always does, or

is this philosophy of peace going to produce any tangible proof? Hanzo

continued to live on and drifted from his convictions, beginning to

associate with Danzo. He forgot about Mifune, but in this moment he can

304

see that he was wrong. History has shown him the exception will become

the new rule.

He entrusts Mifune with his conviction and prepares to kill himself, cutting

the sack of salamander poison in his side and breathing it in. This was

where Kabuto was shocked that he was disobeying the orders in his tag

[59]

and tried putting him into mindless mode to resume the killing machine

…but he didn’t move. “If you remain true to your self… you show that you’re

not just a blunted blade”

[60]

. The answer was found way back, right here,

but Kabuto overlooked it.

Each of these Shinobi and Samurai had undergone the journey to

understanding what represented their own spirit, which was formed in

conjunction with what could support their village; Mifune stayed true to

himself and sharpened his blade, aligning himself with the spirit of the

Sword, Kankuro wants to inspire new generations of puppet masters, and

Naruto wants to inspire a new generation of Shinobi.

Kabuto held that the unwinding of nature was always the front-seat driver,

to which mankind was being pulled along for the ride. His experiments

were meant to pull out the secrets of nature, which would illustrate his

superiority over everyone else. He got to a stage where he had surmised the

Rinnegan was the natural progression of the Sharingan when mixed with

Senju DNA

[61]

, all without reading the Stone Tablet himself. See, the Sage of

Sixth Paths power isn’t so illusory, it can be coaxed out with the basic

scientiﬁc method! Indeed, this is the primary belief for people who have

what’s called a Naturalist interpretation of history. This is where they assert

that reality and “nature” are equal, synonymous terms and there is nothing

“supernatural” or “out there” that the scientiﬁc method cannot investigate,

including the human spirit

[62]

305

These last two words were the last thing to be scrutinised by Kabuto, as he

couldn’t have had a spirit if he lived as a completely dierent person from

moment to moment, consuming other people’s legacy and abilities. But as

we see, he was accumulating other people’s functions

[63]

, the same way that a

frog’s tongue has a function of catching ﬂies or a girae’s neck for eating

fruit etc, he amalgamates them together.

He does a good job of incorporating the Kekkei Genki of many dierent

people together to become a creature which could survive in any world, any

environment and become anything - but then, what is his purpose? Going

down the naturalist route, they would say there is no purpose, in fact it is

ateleological. Kabuto says he just wants to continue perfecting Lord

Orochimaru’s work and conduct new experiments, pushing the limits -

essentially gorging on instruments for instruments’ sake, becoming the

Will of the Instrument.

On the other side of the coin we have the Idealist theory of history, which

relies on axioms like human freedom and reason to transcend and live apart

from the unfurling of nature. Madara and Obito are ironically invoking a

kind of Idealist theory of history because it is precisely their utilisation of

power, and the reasoning that Madara articulated to him all those years

ago, now he shall be able to “sever the karmic cycle of this world”

[64]

Looking at what we see of Itachi, he believed as a teenager that he could sit

away and cogitate through pure reason alone what the best solution for the

village would be, but later adopting an “equivocal” nature of knowledge and

awareness, a kind of bounded intelligibility. As he got older, we see that the

only things he is now reasoning about with fervour is what he is and isn’t

capable of, and the intelligibility of oneself rendered clearer through

introspection and experimentation.

306

Itachi isn’t going to treat Sasuke like his guinea pig anymore, and decides to

tell him everything that happened from start to ﬁnish: the negotiations, the

meeting with Shisui, the ultimatum that Danzo gave him etc. Remember

that he’s still under the Kotoamatsukami to have him act in the best way for

the village, and it turns out that to do so was to be completely honest.

As the pressure toward the coup ramped up, he always kept him at a

distance and lied to him as he didn’t want Sasuke to get caught up in the

complexities of the village

[65]

, but now he starts to think he could’ve

changed Father and Mother and the rest of the clan. I know you’re thinking

“that’s absolutely ridiculous a child isn’t going to stop the coup d’etat'' and

you’re right, but I want to bring back an example from our very ﬁrst

section. Inari couldn’t defend his father, his mother nor the village and

almost became totally steeped in despair due to thinking he had to do it all

on his own; however, when reignited by Naruto, he came to inspire the

villagers and urged them to come together and take down Gato. When

Fugaku was explaining the Coup d’etat in one of their meetings, he

explained that his actions were for the future of his children and all of the

clan's children; but then if Sasuke were to know, his innocence vanishes

and he may have even supported such things. To keep him ignorant would

guarantee he could be spared.

The best thing he can do for him now is to allow him to make up his own

mind and to rearm his own sense of self, but more than that - “you don’t

ever have to forgive me. And no matter what you do from here on out

know this… I will love you always”

[66]

. Aside from the theories of history

and the powers of reason, I feel that this unconditional love plays a bigger

role than any in who we become, as most people just want to be

surrounded by those they love and trust. After the war, Kabuto ended up

returning to the orphanage and helping the children, for that is where he

felt unconditional love and the warmth of being accepted in name.

307

What is a village?

After Itachi returns to the ethereal plane, Sasuke is left with every emotion

there is: joy, sadness, anger, confusion … the lot. “What is a clan? What is a

village? What is a Shinobi? What am I?”

[1]

. As he ponders these questions

Suigetsu and Jugo crash through the wall and exclaim they have a scroll

which could see them take over the world

[2]

. This would be facilitated by

the Shinigami, the Death God, by wearing the Reaper’s mask; however,

Sasuke sees an entirely dierent reason for interacting with such a creature

as this is the chance to talk with “the all-knowing”

[2]

as he puts it.

Sasuke is smart enough to recognise that he’ll need help and comes up with

the idea to reverse summon Orochimaru: take a bit of Kabuto’s body and

apply it over Anko’s curse mark, reverse the order of the hand signs and

voila

[3]

“I want to know what started it all… what I’m supposed to be, what I’m

supposed to do [...] I want to know everything so I can ﬁnally have the

answer. I need to see with my own eyes and decide with my own mind

what I must do”

[4]

. This is the necessary talk with the elders of the

Underworld that Naruto did, but this time in the form of the Four Hokage.

A few times he has been tied up and lectured to like with Kakashi and

Obito, and Naruto also went in search of the “real Pain” after being given a

forced lecture by Nagato as well. But both are now in the habit of seeking

out their purpose by themselves, and this may be when Amaterasu ﬁnally

comes out of her cave.

308

In no time at all the previous Hokage are successfully summoned, and it’s

time for the interrogation to commence. First, Sasuke gets the Third

Hokage to tell him everything in regards to Itachi’s mission: “Not only did I

have him kill his brethren … I also had him bear the false charge of traitor

and keep tabs on the Akatsuki all by himself”

[5]

. Now, the “keeping tabs”

thing needs to be made clear, as Itachi didn’t send routine reports to the

Leaf but had to minimise the damage caused by the Akatsuki internally. For

example, when he went to collect Naruto in the ﬁrst series he would run

away from Asuma and Kurenai, he leaked the Akatsuki’s goal to Kakashi,

had him and Kisame run from Jiraiya and didn’t allow Obito to attack the

Leaf, hence why they went for Naruto once he had gone outside the village.

It also explains why Pain attacks the village immediately after Itachi’s death.

The investigation turns to Tobirama’s history and responsibility for what

essentially led to the “second great rift” between Uchiha and Senju. I cannot

state how much of a change occurred when Tobirama had sole authority

over the Leaf after his brother’s passing. When the village was ﬁrst

established everybody was integrating and convening with dierent clans,

as we know not long after the Senju and Uchiha formalised their alliance,

the Sarutobi and Shimura clans also joined

[6]

. People were just so thankful

that each passing moment wasn’t a catastrophe, and it was in that initial

moment of ecstasy that dierences were cast aside. Over time however, the

village matured and the electric energy died down as they began to have

routines and normal lives. Granted, the construction of the Anbu, the

Police force, the Chuunin exams were incredibly beneﬁcial and set a

precedent for all other nations, but this was the point in time where

Tobirama prioritised said stability over other targets.

Ultimately he couldn’t live up to Hashirama’s standard and combined with

the jutsu he invented and the governmental decisions he oversaw, it created

many problems down the line as mentioned by Orochimaru

[7]

. Passing

309

legislation which impacts a group of people, with said group unable to

contest the decision with no major standing in government is simply

imposition without dialogue, forsaking the very concept of united clans;

almost as though wishing for conﬂict. In fact, the two aspects of the war are

his two main failures: the Uchiha and the Edotensei.

Of course it’s an oversimpliﬁcation to say Tobirama was the sole reason we

have this war but it added many logs to a ﬁre that weren’t put out. He set

precedents which weren’t revoked, in fact they were encouraged by people

like Danzo as Orochimaru summarises: “those who crack down on crime

tend to be easily disliked. Plus, the more authority such a group has, the

more conceited it can get. By building the police station next to the prison

under the pretext of facilitating the monitoring of criminals, you

conspicuously shoved the Uchiha clan to the margins of the village. That

helped foster the Madara adherents”

[8]

. Hashirama yells at him for slighting

the Uchiha and he replies that he gave them positions they were qualiﬁed

for; this dismisses however the larger point of antagonising the Uchiha and

having them be associated with the symbols of authority, force and keeping

them in that pen. He restricted their ability to be fully integrated into the

village which was their fundamental aim arising from the pact between

Hashirama and Madara.

He believed that if another threat did arise they could just be dealt with

[8]

though this isn’t the answer that saved Madara and brought about the

creation of the village in the ﬁrst place. Hashirama never lost sight of the

fact that Madara was his friend, and despite their inter-clan wars he always

oered him a chance for unity. In never wavering, he eventually convinced

him to try this idea of a village. The tension between opposites created all

things, but this time the duality didn’t breed conﬂict. Tobirama simply

doesn’t understand this founding principle of the Leaf.

310

Once Tobirama hears of this man Itachi Uchiha and how much

responsibility he put on his shoulders, he notes it under their “cursed fate”

[9]

as he saw the rebellious elements bearing Madara’s Will had been

smouldering. He knew that once an Uchiha felt love, if it were taken away,

they would feel an ever greater compounded hatred, illustrated by the

formation of the Mangekyo. But even though Madara had the most

ferocious eyes, with the scars of losses greater than any other member(for

he was the ﬁrst to unlock the power of the EMS)

[10]

he should’ve been the

most irredeemable! But he managed to set that aside for the village, for

Hashirama. But then seeing his hate take hold once more, ignoring the

nuances and complexity, Tobirama reconciled this love as a momentary

exception.

Despite this track record, the Uchiha are a clan which felt even deeper love

than the Senju

[11]

, which is probably why he opted for a careful and more

pragmatic approach whereas his brother would’ve made it his mission to

stick by any Uchiha who fell into darkness. This is no doubt the harder and

riskier method but it’s the only way that it won’t spill over down the line.

This intense love is what must’ve surged through the clan when they joined

up with the Senju and created the Hidden Leaf, but upon seeing things like

Tobirama’s decrees and other events, they must’ve felt betrayed. All the

sacriﬁces of their family members not to give up, like those of Izuna

must’ve felt in vain.

Nevertheless, no other clan has represented the Will of ﬁre so clearly, for

even the surname Uchiha is just another way of pronouncing Uchiwa

meaning “paper fan”, bringing ﬂames into greater intensities; however,

there is a second derivation of Uchiha, much like many of the names

Kishimoto gives his characters, and this one stems from a type of Samurai

conduct called Uchihatashi. This can be a type of duel between Samurai or

family members as something has caused them to become bitter enemies;

311

pledges would be made in writing or spoken aloud for the declaration that

they would kill their target, which could lead to all-out war between

families or clans

[12]

. This highlights the problematic nature of killing others

to boost one’s own strength, which existed before Tobirama.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Susanoo has part of its design based on

the Tengu, with its wings and long nose, which has aliations with the

spirit of rebellion and anti-authoritarianism

[13]

, which is why I can see the

elders having their feathers rued that such a symbol would be aliated

with an already ﬁery clan, but this element is vital for village health. When

directed on behalf of the Leaf it becomes a scrutinising force, but when

performed on behalf of the individual it can regress to the rejection of all

things as authority, this being demarcated by whether there is hate in the

eyes or love.

In the end, after learning about the massacre and the current situation of

the Uchiha, Tobirama’s ﬁnal verdict is this: “In the end, they were of use to

the village of Konoha”

[14]

. How truly awful. Without them there would be

nothing, and it is why he should’ve been paired with someone who cared

for them just as much as Hashirama did, either from the Uchiha and/or

outside it. Left alone, he pushes them around like jigsaw pieces in the name

of utility and I guess there’s no utility in grieving or thinking ‘what if’

either.

With that awkward recounting we move to the central questions: “What is

a village, what is a Shinobi?”. He wants to understand how his brother

could kill his own family for this thing called Konoha. The answer given

will inﬂuence whether it is right to exact vengeance or not. This last bit

causes Tobirama to become enraged at the brat “possessed by Uchiha evil”

but as we’ve come to see in Sasuke, this is the most rational and

unpossessed he’s been for a long time.

312

Hashirama agrees to tell him the meaning as it is understood by him, and

we rewind back to a time of innocent stone skipping at the river. Madara is

trying to reach the other side, and here he comes, beating him from the

start - “I’m your stone skipping rival, though I’ve already reached it”

[15]

Despite the formalities they had to walk through, Hashirama notes: “our

personalities diered … and yet I sensed a mysterious kinship with him. I

felt I knew why he’d come down to the river too”

[16]

In time we see Hashirama lose his brother, Kawarama, at just seven years

old in battle. “It’s just adults ganging up on and driving kids to their deaths!

I know we’re doing the same thing to the Uchiha clan”

[17]

. His father

responds, “That is how we honour our opponents. Even an infant, if

wielding a weapon, is deemed an enemy”

[17]

. Hashirama says that is no sign

of honour and times are so bad you can’t keep track of the deaths, we can’t

even say our family name! He goes into the woods to cool o accompanied

by his brothers. They talk about the need for clans to make pacts and

alliances if they truly want to minimise conﬂict, though there is no sign of

that at the moment. Itama chirps up and says “But then … what of our killed

parents and siblings? What about our feelings towards our fallen

comrades?”

[18]

. That’s a good way to get yourself killed, and they fought for

the continued survival and prosperity of their fellow clansmen, which peace

facilitates. To maintain it is to fulﬁl their wishes. Itama’s hair being dark

and blonde was to signify the middle-ground, the compromise and balance

which is killed early on illustrating the extremity of the times.

He goes to the river and sees Madara again, conﬁding in him that his

brother died and by going to the river the haziness in his heart washes

away. Madara tells him that he’s lost siblings too and he also hopes to ﬁnd a

way in which neither side has to die: “It’d be where both sides revealed their

guts, hid nothing from each other… and poured each other drinks and

drank together like brothers. But that’s impossible, cuz one can’t really look

313

deep into someone’s belly, down to their guts”

[19]

. He says he doesn’t know

the way to make it happen, but each time he comes to the river he makes a

wish that one day the answer will come. It seems to be a universal prayer

amongst Shinobi.

They began formulating a way forward, and every time they met they got a

little closer. On the top of the cli that would become the scene of many

Hokage faces, they foretell of their future and the nature of their village.

Madara can protect his brother from this vantage point, for he is the only

sibling he has remaining

[20]

. It seems Hashirama has already conceptualised

the basic structure: a school to teach Shinobi and a mission assignment

structure based on abilities and mission requirements and so forth

[21]

He made a resolution that day, to endure for the sake of his vision. But one

evening he comes back from seeing Madara and his father wants a word

with him. He has looked into who this ‘friend’ is, and they’re actually a

member of the Uchiha. He may be tricking Hashirama trying to gain intel

on the Senju and he may lower his guard around him and be killed. He must

stop all communications, for the sake of his family. No wonder other

Shinobi haven’t made progress, are they going to go against the wishes of a

family that has done everything to keep them alive?

I would hazard a guess that Madara must’ve had a similar grilling because

his father and brother show up just as Hashirama’s do at the river

[22]

. If his

side of the story had been shown I’d bet that it was almost word for word

the same interrogation, as people with such compulsion to ﬁght don’t think

for themselves, and nobody apart from these two seem to take seriously the

idea of cooperation. The two sides are ready to clash and a dejected Madara

looks down at the ground and thinks this pipe dream just isn’t reachable.

These recurring moments by the river may have something to do with the

314

saying “No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it's not the same

river and he's not the same man” - Heraclitus.

Years of ceaseless ﬁghting go by, and both have become the Heads of their

respective clan. Madara had erased Hashirama completely from his life

[23]

and diligently served in war, and the latter couldn’t just do what Naruto did

and chase after Sasuke, as those times were much more brutal and he had

responsibilities as leader. “We were the furthest place possible from the

dream I’d wanted to fulﬁl”

[24]

. Madara lost his brother to Tobirama in one of

their clashes, and with Izuna gone he was looking to wipe the Senju o the

map; and he’s particularly sick of these oers for peace. “Hashirama! How

long will you keep saying such juvenile things? It’s just not possible to show

our guts to each other don’t you get it?!”

[25]

After a battle that lasted a whole day, Madara’s back ﬁnally touched the

ground, and Tobirama was itching to kill him and ﬁnally take out the

linchpin. But his brother refuses - nobody is allowed to touch him

[26]

, and

it’s the only time we see his murderous gaze turned on his own brother. He

holds Madara as equally precious to him.

Even now, he thinks for a moment about the oer of creating a village, but

he doesn’t have a single brother left and just can’t bring himself to trust this

clan. Hashirama asks if there’s any way he can prove himself to be sincere,

and he replies: “Either kill your brother … or kill yourself. Right now. And

then we’ll be even. I’d be willing to trust your clan”

[27]

. Hashirama thanks

him for being kind enough to oer the option of taking his own life, rather

than having to kill Tobirama. He has battled high-level Shinobi such as him

so he knows the oer he’s made is from deep within his heart; before

signing o, he says that there will be no more ﬁghting between Uchiha and

Senju - and Madara must not be killed. He is moments away from piercing

the Kunai into himself, when his friend grabs his hand: “Enough … I have

315

now seen your guts”

[28]

. For a man who didn’t believe the dream could exist,

and would happily let it wash away along with the river, he decides to give

this a try.

“It was like a dream… Uchiha and Senju joined forces. There would no

longer be mass casualties nor would the deaths of countless children be

necessary anymore”

[28]

. Hashirama wants him to be Hokage as he would like

him to accept all the villagers as his new siblings, though he says “me, who

couldn’t even protect my own brethren?”

[29]

, which is the same thing he

mentioned when they were on the exact same mountain top as children

[30]

;

it was where he vowed to protect him, now looking over Konoha he knows

he couldn’t keep that promise. Things haven’t been resolved, and it’s also an

analogue of what Naruto said to Sasuke when they ﬁrst met after two and a

half years, “If someone can’t even save a friend, then I don’t think they

deserve to be Hokage”

[31]

. A loss of belief in oneself, which as we see led to

the abandonment of identity in Obito as well and thus the start of believing

in nebulous, extreme solutions.

Madara’s distrust grows, and just before leaving the village he takes

Hashirama down to the Nakano Shrine as he wants to show him the stone

tablet. It reads: “One god, seeking stability, split into light and shadow. And

it is these two polar opposites operating together that gives rise to all things

in this universe”

[32]

. In short, the standard interpretation is that true

happiness can be found when two contrary powers cooperate. But it could

be interpreted dierently, and Madara does choose to see it dierently now.

He had obviously read this transcription before but that was prior to him

creating the village with Hashirama. Now he can see that with the Senju's

power he was able to resolve those disputes, which shall mean that to

manifest his own goals he’ll need his cells; that's why he took a bite out of

him, never realising it would yield the Rinnegan and only conﬁrm his

interpretation of reconciling opposites this way.

316

These opposing forces give rise to all things, but what exactly are those

things? Death, suering, pain, loss, the vanquished along with the

vanquisher, the victor must have a loser and so on. Thus whatever does

arise in the dynamic of opposites creates a universal negative for every

positive. It is up to Madara then to somehow create a universal monistic

principle, free of the pangs of dualism, and it shall be done by allowing

everyone to live on one side of this reality, within their own bubble that is.

He was spurred on to create an entirely new system after seeing the future

path of a distrustful village-based structure, but upon asking for the support

of his clan he didn’t have a single person willing to come with him

[33]

. He

embodies many aspects of the passionate but ultimately overbearing

Mother that will do anything to protect the ones he cares for despite them

feeling irked by his level of involvement. This is the path that the Uchiha

have chosen and they want someone like Madara to campaign for their

continued prosperity and integration with the village rather than

immediately try and squander what progress they’ve made.

But this is a completely dierent kind of revelation in that he judges the

nature of reality to be the root cause of suering. This metaphysical

realisation as given by his interpretation of the tablet calls for a dierent

solution to the conﬂicts caused by Shinobi altogether. Just as Hashirama

had already visualised in great detail what the village he imagined would

look like, Madara has begun to cultivate a theory of dreams. Reality has

conﬂict ingrained into it due to the constancy of opposites - dreams are the

only thing which makes sense.

A duel of opposites

Time has passed and Madara has come back to attack the village, just as

Sasuke might do. This is one small step to universal salvation, and

317

Hashirama is pushed to the test again. This is their last and most symbolic

battle as Madara has wrapped his Susanoo around the Nine-Tails, which is

currently the highest symbol of hatred and disdain for mankind, whilst

Hashirama summons the symbols of benevolence and cooperation. Just as

Madara said, opposites lead to the creation of all things, and a lot of

opposing dynamics are on display in this match.

The ﬁrst one I would like to explore is the history of Japan’s two most

prominent Ninja clans: the Iga and the Koka, with the Uchiha being Iga and

the Senju being Koka. There is certainly some evidence that Kishimoto is

aware these clans existed and read about them, since his editor gave him the

book The Kouga Ninja Scrolls, which is a fantasy novel depicting the two

sides at war

[44]

. Originally the two clans were merely farmers and labourers

who supplied wood to the jisha(temple-shrines), but come the time of the

Kamakura period the demand for Warriors (bushi) rose. Whilst some clans

continued to be regular workers, those of Iga and Koka began to train for

military aairs and were used as mercenaries across Japan

[34]

. This is how

the Senju and Uchiha became the strongest within their Land of Fire, as the

more they were hired, the more they improved until it became a case of one

hiring the Uchiha if another hired the Senju. Ironically, in real life the two

clans became quite friendly as resources became less scarce, and they

weren’t known for intense rivalries.

In Iga tradition, it is said that Susanoo’s eorts of slaying Yamata no Orochi

was the birth of Shinobi no Jutsu, the arts of the Ninja

[35]

. Whilst

non-canon, we see Indra come to lay waste to his home with the ﬁrst

incarnation of the Susanoo, and it was him who invented Ninjutsu and

begun the lineage of the Uchiha; what’s more, the ﬁre so typical of this clan

which we take as a given is also derived from the Iga, who were said to be

the best at controlling and using this element

[36]

318

Come the formation of the Hidden Leaf, the Senju were the ones that began

setting up democratic processes, whilst the Uchiha relied on family names

and the strength of “Uchiha blood”. Likewise, the Koka ninja began to

create a community(sou) which was used for management; decisions were

made by lottery or majority vote, and everybody was basically equal. This

structure worked because the people of Koka were composed of many small

villages, which mirrors the community of the Senju, whereas no such

dynamic was evident in Iga

[37]

Going one level up from clanhood now, we shall take a look at the religious

symbolism present in the Uchiha and Senju; I hope you don’t mind that I

focus on the latter as with the previous section we’ve covered all the main

deities in Amaterasu, Susanoo, Izanagi/Izanami and sadly there aren’t many

stories about Tsukuyomi that carry much mythological weight.

The Senju have predominantly Buddhist symbolism, with the stereotypical

symbols of compassion, charity, meditation and so forth which counter the

darker interpretations of Shinto in the Uchiha. All of them were crammed

pretty tightly in this last ﬁght against Madara, but each of Hashirama’s jutsu

have distinct references.

Starting with his ﬁrst jutsu Choju Kebutsu, artefacts of the Buddha

[38]

, the ﬁrst

bit translates to “Peak transformed buddha” which relates not to himself but

to his True Several-Thousand Hand statue, Senju Kannon. Senju means “one

thousand hands”, to which Kishimoto has used it to denote their

multifaceted skill set as well as their compassion for others. The statue itself

depicts the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, “represented with thousands of

arms, which rise like the outspread tail of a peacock around him”

[39]

. His

name means “lord gazes down at the world [in empathy]”, which is based

on the fact that he could’ve gone up to nirvana, but chose to stay in Samsara

and help the suering instead. This is the inspiration for the Chinese

319

adaptation of this ﬁgure in Guan Yin, a female equivalent and with a

slightly dierent translation of “Perceiver of the Sounds of the World”

[40]

she heard the cries of those in pain. Hashirama would lend Madara an

outstretched hand or a listening ear, regardless if they were at the river, on

the mountain top or in the midst of battle.

He also used Kakuan’s tenth edict on enlightenment

[41]

which is based on the

story of Ten Bulls; this is a series of short poems and accompanying

drawings used in the Zen tradition to help describe the stages of a

practitioner's progress toward enlightenment

[42]

. The Bull is said to be the

eternal principle, truth in action, and the book lists the ways of taming it.

The edict itself describes a sage who’s barefoot and wearing simple clothes,

mingling with all the people of the world. He is blissful and uses no magic

to extend his life, but rather gives his blessings so that dead trees become

alive

[43]

. Hashirama mingles amongst the villagers and they wave to him;

he’s happy to be just another person, and the last line I take to be

metaphorically expressed, as his own Mokoton actually brings forth living

organisms.

The Story of a Veritable Prince

I shall end the exposition on these two by looking at one of the most

popular tales in Hinduism: the story of the Ramayana. For those who

haven't read the Epic, it’s about a saintly prince called Rama who is the

incarnation of the God Vishnu, born to defend his land from a terrible

demon called Ravana who’s captured his wife Sita.

Due to politics he was banished from his home by the craftiness of one of

the King’s partners, Queen Kaikeyi. As the coronation ceremony for Rama

was being prepared, one of her maid-servants called Manthara caught wind

of this and informed the Queen of this “terrible happening”. The reason she

320

considers it so is because Kaikeyi has a son, Bharata, who is equally

qualiﬁed and now he won’t have the chance to become King; but in

actuality, nobody - him included - had a problem with Rama being the

principal Hier, yet Manthara does her best to manipulate Kaikeyi to think

of her own status, her son’s legacy and so forth.

The maid-servant is described as a gloomy hunchback who spends most of

her time in the darkness monitoring people, and she understands all the ins

and outs of Kaikeyi’s relationship to the King. Years ago she had saved him

during battle, and it was there that he promised her two Boons(blessings)

for her eorts. Manthara tells her now is the time to cash them in! The ﬁrst

will be the ascension of her son to the throne, and the second should be the

expulsion of Rama into the forest. Initially the Queen is aghast at her

recommendations, but she says she’s just an innocent, caring soul dedicated

to her welfare

[44]

This character I think lays the groundwork for what we see in Black Zetsu,

since he too is someone that slithers across any point on the globe and

listens in to people's conversations. He distorts information like the Stone

Tablet

[45]

, tricks Madara and inﬂames wars just so Kaguya can be revived. It

mirrors Manthara’s approach to the Kingdom, as she is a devoted servant to

Kaikeyi completely uncaring of the fact she is removing Goodness itself

from the land.

Rama’s subsequent adventure and dramatic ﬁnal clash with Ravana is the

main “spectacle” of the Epic, but it was due to a lowly maid-servant that it

should come to pass; likewise, this narratological subtlety is at work in

Naruto too, but many viewers considered it misplaced. In the Ramayana we

were shown Manthara’s trickery early on and her ties to the Imperial

Lords, whereas we have no real knowledge of Zetsu’s connection to Kaguya

and the overlying structure only got articulated in the later chapters.

321

Character traits such as trickery and back-stabbing are well grounded, but

as late as the Itachi and Sasuke ﬁght he just seemed to be a gloriﬁed

cameraman

[46]

There are also parallels between the characters of Rama and Lakhsmana

with Hashirama and his brother as well; when he got word that his brother

was being banished from the Kingdom, Lakshmana was ready to follow

him, but he was also ready to ignore the King’s decree all together - even

assassinate him if need be

[47]

. He has the same drive for stability above all

else just like Tobirama, but his brother would not acquiesce to that way of

thinking.

Rama had given the demon many chances

[48]

as all he wanted was to see

Sita, and if Ravana surrendered he would take care of him without repose.

In the end he does end up slaying him, as he’s a demon that doesn’t know

right from wrong, no sense of Dharma, and a devotion to diabolical

conduct

[49]

! But ours is a tale of people, not of concrete separations like

demons and angels, and I wonder whether Rama would kill someone like

Madara.

Come their last battle, Hashirama would ﬁnd such resolve too, but this

would be at the cost of giving up his principles of compassion. He kills his

friend by stabbing him in the back

[50]

, which is the symbol of betrayal and

superior cunning. He probably thought about the time they skipped stones

as children because Madara blamed him standing behind him for his

miss

[51]

, and when he went for a pee in the river, Hashirama spooked him

and said “found a weakness”

[52]

; I wonder if he really used that moment of

silliness against him.

Whilst Madara may wield the symbol of hatred, it is for all Uchiha past and

present that he ﬁghts and aims to be their unifying force. Mentally he is

322

using love but executing it using hatred; inversely Hashirama has come to

accept the village above all: “I am going to protect our, or rather, my village.

No matter what it takes. I still believe to this day that protecting the village,

shall lead to the protection of people, Shinobi and children. I shall not

tolerate anyone who seeks to harm the village, be they friend, brother or

even my very own child”

[53]

. It is said Guan Yin/Avalokiteśvara stayed in

Samsara to help others, but in being mired in suering Hashirama has

begun to change from his caring and patient self, but Madara objects to his

shift in philosophy the most: “you’re mistaking the cause for the end, it shall

someday lead the village… to darkness”

[54]

. This moment also represents the

expulsion of the head of Shinto, and the era of imbalance despite

Amaterasu’s long association with Avalokiteśvara as equals

[55]

. Gone are the

implementations of its ethics as well as the religion doesn’t have absolutes,

nobody is perfect

[56]

Their friendship had been grounded on one being able to see the guts of the

other even if they were on dierent pages sometimes, and this Shinto idea

of makoto no kokoro(heart of truth)

[57]

seems relevant; it corresponds to

sincerity, regardless of the particular emotion one feels, and melds with the

very nature of the Sharingan - the eyes which reﬂect the heart

[58]

. People

might not like what they see, but that’s the state of the Shinobi world;

Madara has lost just as many people as Tobirama if not more, but just

because the former’s losses are etched into his face he brands him a kind of

evil.

A tale as old as tribe

It is here that the story between Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha

comes to a close, but before concluding I want to add one more story - this

time in the real world - which speaks to much the same dream of these two

characters.

323

In the middle of the Fifteenth century there was a similar time of constant

tribal warfare, moments of negotiated peace and then back to war. This was

the moment of heightened bloodshed between tribes of the Native

American peoples. But one man of Iroquois descent, called Deganawida,

had a dream whereby tribes of all dierent origins would ﬁnd a way to

move past this undulating war and peace towards genuine prosperity.

He envisioned a union of all clans under one federation, but had to

consolidate everyone of Iroquois origin ﬁrst. In the book The Tribes and the

States it talks of Deganawida conversing with a like-minded friend

Hiawaitha on the actionable steps they can take to bring about peace. It’s

very reminiscent of the story of Hashirama and Madara being the two

optimists that would ﬁnd a way. In the book however it notes that

Hiawaitha was the one who was the better orator and helped formulate

Deganawida’s dream, for he was slightly insane. To prove the conviction in

his heart and to illustrate his belief in the federated system, he once climbed

to the top of a tree and ordered the Mohawk tribe (one who initially

opposed his plan) to cut it down so it would fall into the river. They did so,

and watched him vanish into the leaves before crashing into the water.

They didn’t see him emerge and concluded he was dead, but unbelievably

he was seen at the campﬁre the next day. This proof of conviction

supposedly persuaded the Mohawk tribe to join the Iroquois federation,

according to legend

[59]

What’s more, Hashirama notes that other nations quickly adopted the same

system, but that wasn’t because they shared the same ecstasy he did of

uniting all previously war-mongering clans, but they federated out of the

need to survive a stronger opponent. As noted: “To nations outside the

spread of the Iroquois empire, however, the rapid spread became alarming.

In many cases they were forced to seek some plan of protecting themselves

324

as late as the last moment, when danger had already gone too far. The only

successful procedure was the adoption of the enemy’s tactics, and federate as

the Iroquois did, meeting the menace with another federation”

[60]

. What’s

more, I can’t say for certain but I doubt other clans in the Five Nations

battled as regularly and as intensely as the wars between Uchiha and Senju.

Now then, Hashirama summarises his points and deﬁnes both village and

Shinobi: “The village that Madara and I envisioned in the beginning is

something that joined one clan to another. An invaluable cornerstone that

created order out of chaos and then maintained it. It protected the children,

averted pointless conﬂict and made peace a reality. Shinobi are those who

endure for a purpose, but depending on what that purpose is, a Shinobi can

change… just as both Madara and I did”

[61]

. Sasuke can see this in his

brother, and he ﬁnds it ironic that a member of the Uchiha was one of the

people in the Leaf who shared its Will of ﬁre so closely. He has made up his

mind, he won’t let the village and Itachi become nothing

[62]

325

Squad 7 Reunited

Sasuke makes it to the battleﬁeld, and the ﬁrst shock is that he’s on the side

of good, but arguably the bigger one is that he now wants to be Hokage and

change the village

[1]

, but as Naruto knows from Itachi’s words, he doesn’t

have a single person acknowledge that.

The Four Hokage set up a barrier and pin down the Juubi with some

gracious deity gates mixed in, and this is where ﬁssion beings start getting

released to try and protect the main body. Now is the chance for the

specialised Allied Shinobi forces to tackle him for good, and we notice the

manner of the war has shifted from companies and platoons, to more

personal entities like village and clan; when they tried to immobilise

Ten-Tails we saw the original squads from each village doing tag-team

combinations like Ino-Shika-Cho

[2]

But the mightiest combination is right at the frontline as the three way

deadlock has a new generation. Whilst Naruto and Sasuke work great from

a technical perspective, by combining their attacks and matching chakra

ratios

[3]

, they have a massive gulf between them in terms of philosophical

beliefs and values: if the Juubi hadn’t separated itself from the Amaterasu,

what would Naruto have done then?

Meanwhile, Obito falls back out of the Kamui after ﬁghting Kakashi, at his

limits and a bloodied mess. Madara scos and sees that the pawn has

exhausted its use - “time to make him Rinne-Rebirth me”

[4]

; whilst Black

Zetsu tries to cover his body, he fails to stop Obito from completing the

ritual, as he successfully got rid of the seal that Madara had put on him

326

when he was patched up all those years ago - his hair going white isn’t from

performing the rebirth jutsu as we suspected, but from turning into the

jinchuriki himself, just as it would be for Madara.

The prophet is here to help!

All that magniﬁcent power which had previously been scattered and

lacking precision is now focused in human form, though Obito is still being

puppeted by it for the moment. He pulls apart the barrier and shakes o

Hashirama’s sage art, but hasn’t awakened the Truth-seeker orbs or the

Shakujo(Six-Paths sta)

[5]

. Peering into his psyche the current situation is

dire as he’s being torn apart by the beast’s Will, the central portrait of him

amongst Kakashi, Rin and Minato is being shredded too. But he’s come this

far for them and to survive he has to accept his identity

[6]

- thus this

mission cannot succeed being “nobody”. Unintuitively, this is a win for

Naruto, as now it’s possible to perform the Talk no Jutsu on him. There are

heart-strings to pull on, but getting there is the challenge.

No longer the puppet of Madara, or the ragdoll of the Juubi, he is ﬁnally his

own person and as a result of this consolidation the two truth-seeker orbs

have become nine, with one morphing into the sta. He gets a host of new

tools, including shaping the orbs into the Nunoboko which is the sword

that Hagoromo supposedly used to create the world

[7]

, mirroring the

world-shaping ability of Izanagi’s Amenonuhoko, which he used to stir up

the oceans and create the islands.

The truth-seeker orbs are ordinarily the mixture of all ﬁve chakra natures,

but can be fused with Yin and Yang release

to create an expansive truth

seeker orb, and Kaguya did something on this scale before her resealing

[9]

The system of ﬁve elements that also includes yin and yang is taken from the framework used in

Onmyōdō - an ancient Japanese system for natural science, divination and astrology

[8]

327

When merged with these two releases, they have the ability to nullify all

ninjutsu, for what technical reason it isn’t explained, but this is what

Tobirama grasped when the damage to Edotensei bodies wasn’t

recuperating

[10]

. Interestingly, this negation wasn’t the case prior to Obito’s

consolidation, as he hit Edotensei bodies with them and they were able to

recover

[11]

The term truth-seeker(Gudo: 求道, “Seeking the Way”) comes from

Mahayana Buddhism, and is the path to Buddhahood. Mahayana itself

translates to “The Great Vehicle” and is the means by which one attains

enlightenment, which can only be done through ardent striving towards

truth; however, Obito’s proﬁciency with the Orbs, and how he can change

them into a wide variety of dierent forms may have something to do with

the saying “to bend the truth”.

The rest of his appearance borrows heavily from Shugendo, which is an

ascetic mountain religion native to Japan, being the syncretisation of

Buddhism and Shintoism, with Taoist and Confucian elements. We see why

Kishimoto placed this religion as the resource of choice for the Sage of Six

Paths as they require one to hone both the power of Uchiha and Senju and

all corresponding symbols.

The cloaks are based on Shugendo monks, and the Shakujo is carried with

them when they walk along the mountain; the reason being is that they

want to get closer to their founder, En no Gyoja, and use it to develop a

kind of companionship

[12]

. Gyoja is often portrayed with this sta but its

usage and meaning have stayed consistent across countries and religious

branches, with Zen Buddhists using them as well; the Buddha instructed his

disciples to carry one because all Buddhas of the past, present and future

328

will hold such a sta

[13]

. Now that Obito has an identity, he also has a

lineage, and by taking in the Ten-Tails he has connected himself with the

Sage, now situated in the line of prophets who can change the world, for

better or for worse

[15]

The means shall be through the power of Ten-Tails, which also has

Shugendo-inspired characteristics. Most prominently the Conch shell on its

back when it’s still in its preliminary forms

[16]

, as it’s used as a trumpet in

Shugendo ceremonies

[17]

; moreover, with the motifs of the trumpet and the

way Ten-Tails is described in an apocalyptic sense, there is a lot of

crossover with the Seven Trumpets in Christian Eschatology. They are

what denote dierent levels of the apocalypse and how ever-increasing

disasters occur, mirroring the biju bombs, then the cataclysm and then the

Divine Tree. The Yokai I mentioned aliated with Ten-Tails were linked

to the mountains, which is the central spiritual symbol in Shugendo and the

primary source of nature energy, thus its incorporation here is that the

Ten-Tails Jinchuriki has harnessed the foremost spiritual energy of the

religion and thus superseded nature.

How the Ten-Tails came to be revived is also born from two Buddhist

practices: the Statue Filling ritual and the Eye-Opening ceremony, which

have been included into Shugendo circles

[18]

. To perform the ﬁrst, the statue

must be hollow and have its eyes covered, for it is in the process of

preparation. Now begins the insertion of speciﬁc sutras, rolls of tightly

bundled text, from the head down to the base; the number of which, and

any speciﬁc sutras depend on the statue itself. Once that is done, you can

begin the Eye-Opening Ceremony, which will dier slightly depending on

which branch of Buddhism it is, but commonalities will involve painting

In Journey to the West, Tripitaka is also bestowed a Nine-Ringed Monk’s sta to assist on his journey, alongside

the sealing hoops, as he journeys to become a bodhisattva

[14]

329

the eyes of the statue and reciting the Lotus Sutra, as this consecrates

everything from the head to the lotus throne

[19]

This may be why the Gedo Statue has been seen on a lotus in its dormant

state

[20]

, as it had been ﬁlled with seven out of the nine tailed beasts. Indeed,

the Gedo Statue in earlier moments of its summoning, like when Nagato

used it, had bandages around its eyes

[21]

, indicating a lack of completion of

the second ritual. Instead of using sutras, the Gedo statue is ﬁlled by

exorcising the Tailed-Beast out of the Jinchuriki, which is another

perversion of Shugendo, seeing that some practitioners became

professional exorcists, usually for kitsune and tanuki

[22][23]

. What Obito

practises truly is the antithesis of the Sage of Six Paths’ original message:

consecration of all chakra in one person, the individual above all,

attainment of power as primary and so on.

Turning for a moment now to the history of Shugendo, it parallels the

developing narrative of Ninshu and all later reincarnates. It was only just

sprouting in the sixth century when Prince Hachiko ﬂed into the

mountains of Dewa province upon the assassination of his father, and from

there devoted himself to a life of religious asceticism.

This was around the time that Buddhism reached Japan’s shores, and

Shintoism was still in its budding form, so for centuries the two had grown

in tandem

[24]

. Their synthesis was typiﬁed in Shugendo all the way up until

the Meiji Restoration(1868), where the ‘Kami-Buddha Clariﬁcation

Edicts’(Shinbutsu Bunri 神仏分離) were passed, which tried to force the

separation of these two into separate forms of worship, separate temples

and shrines and so forth

[25]

. This ravaged Shugendo and essentially

outlawed its existence. The classiﬁcation is mirrored in the births of Indra

and Ashura as the genealogical separation of Shugendo into its component

330

parts, but eventually one or the other had to be picked for ninshu to

continue.

Most Shugendo scholars tried to push the mountain religion into the

sphere of Buddhism, precisely combinations of the Esoteric Shingon School

and Mahayana Buddhism. By the 1920s, scholars feared a total extinction of

Shugendo should academic eorts cease and the rest of society forget about

them, so they published as much content as they could

[26]

. The restoration

eort was spearheaded by Umiura Gikan, who was at one point(late 19th

century) the chief monk of Engakuji Shugen temple; he implored Shugendo

to align its position with that of Mahayana Buddhism

[27]

, which shows the

same transfer of power from Hagoromo to Ashura. This however wasn’t

through external fears of government reprisal, but internal schisms that

saw his formerly benevolent group abandon their core values, and through

his younger son he had hoped this would reinstantiate Ninshu.

On the opposite end of the spectrum was the revival of a movement called

Haibutsu Kishaku(abolish Buddhism and destroy Shākyamuni), where

Shintoists called for the expulsion of Buddhism from Japan. This stance is

taken by people like Indra who came back to destroy Ninshu, and Madara

who returned to the Leaf to destroy the Senju, this being one particularly

vociferous cycle of hatred amongst all the others. Madara had seen the rise

of Buddhism and how it would come to overwhelm his brethren and was

equally reticent of integration, articulating the feelings of some Shinto

Priests advocating for the decree. It also seems to be similar to what Sasuke

advocated for after killing Danzo

[28]

During wartime Shugendo had a resurgence in interest, with the reason

being that it channelled the idea of the “Japanese spirit” and reinvigorated

ideas of the sacred motherland

[29]

; the shamanistic and bucolic asceticism of

331

the monks had been reworked to ﬁt War Propaganda in the same way that

Ninshu and its original meaning is being contorted to push a war now.

Whilst Obito tries to pull Shugendo away from its roots, many symbols of

the Uchiha, like the Tengu, are in fact incorporated into the religion and

used as guides. Originally there had been some connotations with them

being enemies of Buddhism

[30]

, but by the ﬁfteenth century Shugendo

practitioners(Shugenja) came to be referred to as Tengu

[30]

. During their

time of reprisal, Shugendo monks disobeyed government sanctions and

continued to practise, attesting to the same deﬁant spirit as the spirit itself.

This is just speculation, but when Madara uncorked the full-body Susanoo

and used the blade to cut the mountains

[31]

, I believe this represents the

Tengu severing themselves from their duty as guides and revoking the

original symbiosis between them.

The reason for their antagonistic framing was due to the natural disasters,

political unrest, internal and external schisms within Buddhism around the

Kamakura Period(1185-1333), and temples complained of people ignoring

religious duties and siding with desire

[32]

. It was here that the concept of

Tengudō emerged

[33]

as a realm where misbehaving monks were said to go

after death, thus there was an incentive to get practitioners back in line.

This idea of them being vengeful spirits which would bring chaos to

anyone that caused them harm

[34]

is very much in line with Sasuke’s

righteousness, but instead of Naruto seeing him as an enemy he will do

unlike the Buddhist practitioners of his time and set the example of

compassion. So strong is the Mahayana Buddhists adherence to this giving

that scholars had to reinterpret the Four Fundamental Truths, as the third

is cessation of all things and letting go, but practitioners make it their

mission to stay in Samsara and lend a hand to others. It is said that to attain

332

nirvana is not actually to leave the conditioned world(Samsara), but to

pervade it with one’s love for others

[35]

It wasn’t long ago that Naruto could feel a sense of total isolation, without

a single person to share anything with, and close to justifying causing

others harm, but luckily he’s seen what people can do together and how

much they can resolve. There is no need to construct distant realms like the

Tengudō, nor is the Pure Lands for reincarnating the only way to revive the

current world.

This is what drives the ethos behind a 20th century movement called

“Humanistic Buddhism” pioneered by Tàixū

[36]

, and it takes some

inspiration from the aforementioned principles of Mahayana and

Christianity. It tries to change the reputation of Buddhism in the eyes of

educated young Chinese who see Buddhist thought as being centred on

emptiness and pessimism in regards to the Human Realm

[37]

Buddhism could be interpreted this way, if one feels the empty side of

emptiness so to speak

[38]

, but the fruitful nature of emptiness is expressed

succinctly by the Taoists in their canonical I Ching: “The thirty spokes unite

in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle), that the use of

the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty

hollowness, that their use depends. The door and windows are cut out

(from the walls) to form an apartment; but it is on the empty space

(within), that its use depends”

[39]

During their ﬁght, Obito showed Kakashi the hole in his heart

[40]

, but this

wasn’t as a sign of potential to blossom, as an abode for friends and

relationships, but a wound inﬂicted by the world for just Being. The

process of becoming a nobody is an emptying endemic to all and the only

way in which that hole can be ﬁlled is with dreams. But to be more precise,

333

dreams are the vehicle for salvation, and he shall mix its symbolism with the

signiﬁcance it holds in Buddhism, for the moon is said to symbolise the

Third Noble Truth - cessation of suering

[41]

But Obito and Naruto diverge at the reason for enduring

, as the former

says he will not kill those that surrender, a message which falls on tender

ears - “that’s right. You don’t have to fear death or keep enduring any more

pain. You’ll be entering a dream”

[44]

. Hashirama tells them not to give up,

but this doesn’t speak to the current dilemma: why keep ﬁghting for the

chance that we succeed when I can surrender and deﬁnitely be placed under

the dream?

For Naruto, the collapse of Shinobi is the end of generations of hard work

by people, and he doesn’t want to throw away the past and the potential

futures of many away. This is why he reignites his chakra to ﬂood the

memories of his childhood into everyone’s mind, as now it’s not about

telling them, it’s about showing why he would rather be here with them.

The fresh pain of losing a dear friend, compounding the loss of his parents

and mentor - should he not be the ﬁrst in line to jump in and see them

again?

It is here that Hashirama also takes a moment to show them his memories

of the very ﬁrst Gokage summit. He was ﬁlled with great joy despite other

Kage seeing it as merely a transactional agreement for distributing the

Biju

[45]

. To Hashirama it signiﬁed something more, that people were ﬁnally

coming together, and as Onoki comments it was the meeting that ended

minor conﬂicts

[46]

. The Hidden Sand didn’t want another Tailed-Beast but

were making much more outlandish demands about sharing arable land,

This world, as composed of cycles of life and death in Samsara, is also called the Sahā world - “the

world to be endured”. A world in which people must endure suering

[42][43]

.This is how the idea of

Shinobi (that of “perseverance”) has cleverly become the symbol which synergises with Buddhism to

liberate oneself.

334

having other nations pay compensation to them for holding more than one

Biju and so on. Other Kage basically laughed at him and said the other four

leaders will just gang up on you and crush your village

[47]

Hashirama accepts that he has no idea if this treaty and this momentary

peace will last, if things won’t just go back to the way they were, but

nevertheless he hopes “that some time in the future… There'll come a day

when Shinobi will collaborate and help each other with one heart,

regardless of their aliation. That is my dream of the future”

[48]

. It was

against Madara where he said “our, or rather, my village”

[49]

but in this

speech he corrects himself the other way - “all of my, our, beloved

children”

[50]

as his care for everyone has been revived too. Up to this point

they have shared battle plans, weaponry, chakra and now feelings and

memories, but when will they understand that they share the same dream?

Little by little, the realisation that unity is possible will be articulated and

Naruto will be there, be it for his friend, foe or very own child.

The Divine Tree

Resembling much of the Jubokko Yokai, it is a tree which grows from the

blood of slain warriors, and the Fourth Databook notes the divine tree also

absorbs the blood of dead ninja

[51]

. “Jubokko wait for unsuspecting humans

to pass underneath their branches. When somebody gets close enough, they

attack, snatching their prey with long, jagged, ﬁnger-like branches, and

hoisting it into their boughs”

[52]

. This process of absorption is just the

beginning, with the Ten-Tails being the initial stage and the Divine Tree

the ﬁnal form

[53]

Upon its rebirth, Madara tells the tale of the Divine Tree as inscribed on

the Uchiha stone tablet: that it’s merely trying to reclaim the chakra we

humans stole from it; in truth this isn’t the Will of the Divine Tree but

335

Kaguya’s, as she believes it has been “stolen” from her as Zetsu articulates a

bit later. Madara goes on to detail the life of the Princess as the ﬁrst one to

taste the fruit, yielding the power to stop the war and going on to bear a

child who possessed chakra inside him. His name was Hagoromo Otsutsuki.

The man known as the Sage of the Six Paths who stopped the Ten-Tails

from running amok

[54]

. He concludes with his interpretation of events, that

the forbidden fruit didn’t bring about an end to conﬂict, if anything it

started the cycle of global wars we see now.

His solution for reconciliation using the power of the tree isn’t unique, as

Jung’s analysis of the Mother archetype shows; the unconscious state of

present day man who is stuck between a rock and a hard place, namely the

past that is no more and the future which is yet to be, will feel abandoned

by this world and use the symbol of the Cosmic Tree to try and base his

existence

[55]

. The section goes on to say that the tree reaches up to the

heavens, with descriptions of the Nordic World Tree Yggdrasil having its

roots burrow down to Hell. Whilst the Divine Tree isn’t on this scale it

does incorporate some of their properties. For example, Obito weaponised

the roots into dragons which assaulted the Allied Shinobi

[56]

, which may be

an adaptation of the dragon Nidhogg who gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil;

Nidhogg lived below the Earth in the realm of Náströnd, similar to Hell. It

would eat the bodies of all the people that had gone there and been

entwined with the roots on account of doing evil deeds.

The origin of the word ‘Yggdrasil’ I shall warn you is a graphic one, as ‘Ygg’

is in reference to one of Odin’s epithets as ‘The Terrible One’ and

represents his persona as God of the Hanged. Drasill is an ancient term for

‘horse’, and the combination of the two is a metaphor for the way the body

rocks under a gallows tree

[57]

. This was a passage between life and death the

same way that Yggdrasil connects the heavens and hell. Again, the

336

gallows-men being the very people that would end up contributing to the

formation of the mandrake-homunculus in alchemical practice.

Ordinarily, hanging will denote the end of conscious awareness, but

mythologically speaking when this act coincides with the World Tree it

represents a turn back to the unconscious, and for Odin this was just the

beginning. In one his most famous tales it describes his fascination for the

Runes, which are a type of magical alphabet where even just writing with

these characters could invoke special abilities. He was seized by that desire

to write an idea and make it manifest, but to acquire that would mean

nothing short of his own death. Whenever someone normally makes a

sacriﬁce to him, the person has to be both strangled and stabbed at the same

time, which is what Odin did to himself; for nine days he suered in the

piercingly cold wind, under the tree of Yggdrasil with a spear in his side,

becoming more dead than alive, until the thing he wished for all along

showed itself. It was a sacriﬁce not only of himself but to himself, and now

like a man reborn he continued to accomplish what other Gods thought

were beyond them, becoming Odin the Wise

[58]

Cutting himself o the tree is the act of separating himself from nature and

becoming an individual with an ego that is aware of itself. Whenever we

hear the word ego nowadays it is usually referencing the undeveloped,

childish and destructive results of poor integration - remaining as separate

to the person as if it were still unconscious. It continues in symbolic form

and sees expression through deities of war, love, hatred relative to the point

of the personality needing to be consolidated. The weaker the ego the more

of one’s experience will be projected upon the group

[59]

. What’s more, this

group instinct for non-dierentiation is typiﬁed in the Apophic desire to

swallow up the sun and return to the primordial oneness, or as Neumann

calls it - “the pre-egoid unity of uroboric containment”

[60]

which is the very

serpent-like nature that someone like Odin had to master to become

337

self-consistent. Comparatively, in the manga we see the same thing

happening when Guy opens the Eighth Gate and sacriﬁces himself not just

out of the desire to do so, but because he has satisﬁed his own self-rule, ﬁrst

expressed by his father: “to protect something precious enough to give your

life for”

[61]

. This is what stops the ego cowering in solitude and seclusion, as

love beckons the highest form of agency.

Odin had articulated his dream and entered into the collective Ouroboros

to visualise it, as it is in dreams that we revert to this stage of the psyche

[62]

before the one of separation to manifest it. This theme is relayed in Naruto

words, when he says to Obito: “We’ll sleep tomorrow, dreaming our own

dreams!”

[63]

in the spirit of the individual, but now comes the necessary

enduring through Samsara.

The ﬁnal mapping of Norse mythology will be to thread it with the

Buddhist ideas of suering and broaden our own understanding of Hell.

Starting etymologically, the word has a long line of derivations from the

Old Norse Hel, to the Proto-Germanic Haljō meaning hidden place, and

ﬁnally the Proto-Indo-European Kel, meaning “to cover, conceal, save”

[64]

Additionally, the Greek word Calypso, rooted in kalyptein, also has the

same meaning to conceal and is derived from the same PIE word Kel. This

is where we get apocalypse from as it is Apo-calypso, which is to uncover,

reveal and so forth. This moment of apocalypse is called Ragnarok in Norse

myth and marks the advent of the worst demons, natural disasters and the

submersion of the world in water.

To alert the Gods of the day it would come was Heimdall, who sat at the

border of Midgaard(Earth) and Asgaard(Land of the Gods). Should it

arrive, Heimdall would blow the Gjallarhorn and alert the Gods for battle.

Interestingly, this same horn is used in the well spring of Mimisbrunnr, or

“Well of Memory” as the God of Wisdom Mimir will use it to drink water

338

from the well and gain secret knowledge

[65]

. In the Prose Edda, this was

where Odin went to ask for some himself, but Mimir wouldn’t hand him

such wisdom so easily - he had to give something precious in return.

He demanded that Odin sacriﬁce one of his eyes, for it was a fair exchange

to receive knowledge from this Well

[66]

. He handed it to Mimir and was

given a full Gjallarhorn of wisdom, and the eye thereafter infused into the

Well. So we’re starting to see the importance of memory and the wisdom

that results from journeying through Hell. For Obito, he moves out of

being a demon when he can remember who he really was, for everything

which previously covered himself has gone, and he comprehends his true

nature, just as Itachi had said when speaking to Kisame: “No matter who

you are… you do not know what kind of human you are until the very end.

One realises one’s true nature at the moment of death. Don’t you think

that’s what death is about?”

[67]

. Naruto isn’t telling Obito to be “Obito

Uchiha” as a kind of regress to the status quo, as the path to understanding

oneself is the most rugged path of them all. It requires nothing less than a

kind of death of the self, but can you stomach your own apocalypse? This

will coincide with ﬁnding your purpose, and the role that Obito was willing

to play was the blanketing of such things for the instigation of the Inﬁnite

Tsukuyomi - the ultimate Hell as we can see now, which ﬁts its original title

as the Nightmare Realm

[68]

Once the journey through hell is done, and everything has been pulled out

then Naruto lends a hand to the person at the bottom, for if he tries to help

anyone above he is only fanning the ﬂames. This is why he ﬁghts someone

until they are totally exhausted and have nothing left to give. Conversely,

this is why when Hagoromo tries to give strength to Sasuke, in an attempt

to mend the preferential treatment among siblings, he is not helping as it

fuels his ability to create a new system of Shinobi.

339

The Spirit Tree

As I mentioned that Obito has been spurring the equal and opposite

development in unity, we ﬁnally see the counterpart to the Divine Tree. It

began to form when Naruto connected his chakra to myriad dierent

members of the Allied Forces, able to mould himself to ﬁnd compatibility,

and the leafs are extremely diversiﬁed compared to the impending

homogeneity

Naruto connects right through the populace and develops these Ninshu-like

bonds, with this sharing of chakra helping them on multiple occasions

[69]

but also spurring the drive in every Shinobi to make connections upward

beyond their clan, village and up to the entire army in turn. Now they repay

the favour, jumping down to help Naruto in a game of tug-of-war that will

decide the future path of humanity.

Kakashi hopes Obito can understand the reason for their collaboration:

“Obito… When people see someone trying twice as hard as others [...] they

instinctively start wanting to lend a hand. That’s because people eventually

learn that they only have each other to ﬁll the holes in their hearts”

[70]

. The

Spirit Tree has ocially taken shape and we catch a glimpse of its roots

[71]

people ﬁnding chakra from Naruto’s main trunk or someone like Minato’s,

now they’re no longer keeping pace but in ﬁrm advantage!

It is now that Naruto enters the Talk no Jutsu realm and through their

chakra linkage he saw all the images he had of being Hokage, with his face

carved onto the mountainside

[72]

. You can change goals as many people

have, but Naruto will inspect whether your heart and your words line up,

Using the language of the two dierent kinds of Homunculus, it would stand to reason that the

Divine-Tree represents the Homuncularisation of people into nutrients, whereas the Spirit Tree

represents the second kind, that of the puriﬁcation of the soul.

340

and this time he paces around him

[73]

, unrelentingly questioning his beliefs

as all this time Obito had been testing his resolve. He admits that what he’s

doing is no dierent from a Hokage’s actions, but he’s been able to surpass

that title by oering world peace

[74]

. All of Naruto’s ideas are just too

uncertain, with so many ifs and should he falter what then? “Anyone would

choose a shortcut with a ﬁxed outcome. That’s right…the goal a Hokage

ought to aim for is world peace”

[75]

In concrete Buddhist terms, this is a battle of self-power(jiriki) and

other-power(tariki) that reiﬁes these ideas of a humanistic Buddhism and

represent two paths to enlightenment, the “path of easy practice”

[76]

and

“path of dicult practice”, with the latter being known as the way of

Sages

[77]

. This ties in with what Naruto says to Obito about becoming

Hokage: “What I want to know isn’t the easy path… but how to navigate the

rugged one”

[78]

It seems that the idea of Hokage has scaled as Obito realised what is a

logical extension of Itachi's actions: for an Uchiha individual to understand

the workings of their clan, they would need to grasp their relationship to

the village, and change couldn’t come without their being productive

conversation between the two; but then to develop the best relationship

with the village you have to understand how other nations put pressure on

the Leaf, as was the case for the Hyuga. Then you come to despair, for

world control must be the only way to stabilise what is the global root of

inequities, and this reaches back down to the individual where minds need

to be lateralized. But this is only the solution if there is just one person who

can correct the system! Naruto stands before Obito with a better way to

address all that, and he occupies a central symmetry in being surrounded by

everyone to participate in his plight, as Kakashi had said of his gift: “Naruto

possesses a special power. Without exchanging many words, he can strike

up a friendship with anyone”

[79]

341

If you govern by seeking to employ the dominion of oneself instead, as

Sasuke is trying to do with his Egyptian Symbolism of Osiris, then the

principles dictated in the Book of the Dead such as “I am yesterday, today and

tomorrow”

[80]

becomes a form of omnipresence under his iron ﬁst rather

than a fact across all Kings. This is why Naruto is at the helm of the Spirit

Tree, because he succeeded where many have failed as his conversational

abilities serve as the bridge between the individual and the wider collective

ideal of Ninshu; even though there is the loser, the vanquished and the

lonely, this has become the one other tool in addressing the pangs of

dualism.

People had given up on genuine communication, and thus Hagoromo’s

dream, because of the hole in one’s heart that Obito spoke of, and the

symbols of meaninglessness and separation. Friends are necessary to aid in

the recovery, but they cannot be given to you, nor can anyone but you

address this pain. This personal Hell upon an individual is precisely what

makes them reject Ninshu before it can even begin since it cannot aid in

self-understanding, as Madara seems to imply: “The sage’s actions ended up

merely furthering the human paradox. And even if some managed to

connect hearts, all they learned was that true understanding was

impossible”

[81]

This was the Sage’s fundamental naivety, as he said himself this creed was

meant to birth hope

[82]

, but as we know from the myth of Pandora when

she opened that box, the very last thing to come out after all the hatred,

disease and evil was hope. Pandora, being the ﬁrst woman in Greek

mythology and an analogue of Eve in Judaism and Christianity

[83]

also

unleashed evils upon humans. So in birthing hope he also birthed all evil

and yet with no mention that this also necessitated the striving and

enduring that people would need to surpass it.

342

Naruto’s gift is what completes the puzzle, and answers questions like “Why

would I link myself to begin with, when they know nothing about my

pain?”, “Why wouldn’t I do it all myself?” and so on. Through Hell, the

individuals who coalesce into a “Ninshu network” could now stomach the

threat of negation, loss and even betrayal. In the case that someone like

Sasuke leaves the village, you won’t see anyone trying to kill him but ﬁnd a

way to understand him. Without this ability to converse we saw the shift in

perspectives of people like Kiba, Neji, Shikamaru - all men willing to

sacriﬁce their life to make sure he could return the ﬁrst time around, now

calling him a bastard and a traitor. All this reveals is that they only love the

“Shinobi” in themselves or the “Leaf” in themselves and beyond that they

could be scared by their own potential for darkness.

Naruto’s conversation with Obito continues, showing his old friendship

with Rin and how “you know, Rin, you saving me… is the same as you

saving the world”

[84]

which is a clear adaptation of one of Jung’s most

famous quotes: “If you take a personal problem seriously enough, you will

simultaneously solve a social problem” and by doing what it takes to

become Hokage, he wanted to stop the ongoing war and help the village.

Thus inversely, seeing that Rin wouldn’t watch over what he has now

become is proof that he has strayed from his original goal: the one who

wanted to address problems through connection, because he thought this

wasn’t feasible. He switched because he equated Rin with the spirit of hope

in the same literalising manner that Sasuke has done with his own

symbolism, but if he can come to believe the spirit is not dead he may be

able to accept that he and his ideals have lost.

Crashing to the ground, he is about to watch Kakashi put an end to him,

when Minato interjects and says all the lecturing that Naruto did should’ve

been his job as a friend, as he’s the one that understands him

[85]

; more

precisely, Kakashi is the other half of him that somehow managed to stay

343

on the path of good when he could’ve been just the same: “I’ve thought this

world was hell too, I thought I’d lost you… and then lost Rin right after

that. And later Master Minato as well. Even though I don’t know anything

for sure… I tried my best to see the world with this eye”

[86]

, and this is when

he says that his words were a crutch despite losing his last light and hope

too. Remember, he had a very brief, if non-existent, relationship with his

mother and his father killed himself before he even started the academy. His

teammates were the last thing that reignited those familial bonds.

That’s why he supports someone like Naruto, and attests to the fact he

won’t fail as much as Obito, because “if he starts to trip and stumble, I’ll help

him [...] Because he’d never give up on his dreams, or reality. That’s the

kind of guy he is. And the way he lives his life draws others to him [...]

that’s the dierence”

[87]

. Obito can see his old self, he can hear Rin’s words

and he realises how sad Madara’s philosophy is as he broke people and

demoralised them into collaborating with him.

This is where Naruto climbs atop the divine tree and spins up a

rasenshuriken to aim at Madara, but from Obito’s eye it looks like the Spirit

Tree has ﬁnally bloomed

[88]

. He had always been behind or at pace, but now

his way is higher, brighter than anything he has seen before. There he is,

shining brightly like the star we wish upon. This idea of the guiding star is

in Pinocchio too when Geppetto wishes upon it for his marionette to

become conscious, which is present at the very start of the ﬁlm, and this

would’ve been the beginnings of a new life if not for one ﬁnal thread.

Black Zetsu succeeds in covering his body and redirecting the

Rinne-Rebirth to revive Madara

[89]

and all of the good work of Naruto and

the Allied Forces has led to even greater evil. Obito has not atoned for

anything, right now it looks like he’s made things much worse.

344

Endgame

With a single Rinnegan and the Gedo Statue, Madara is able to stun and

capture every single tailed beast

[1]

and we wonder why it was so easy, but

this method of statue-ﬁlling deliberately negates any opportunity for

teamwork; if it could only chain one at a time it would allow the Biju to

focus eorts on liberation, but here Kurama can only spill the briefest of

battle plans to Gaara before being separated. Once it was Naruto who saved

him from the darkness, now he has a chance to repay that debt.

He ﬁnally makes it to Minato and just as he’s about to transfer the

Nine-Tails over, slippery Zetsu jumps out of the ground and absorbs him

before sinking back to Obito

[2]

. This little motif of “the snake stealing the

jewel in a moment of weakness” is repeated, both here and in mythical

stories; Gilgamesh for example lost the plant of rejuvenation he had swam

to the depths of the ocean to retrieve when he took a brief moment of

relaxation

[3]

. In this case, the Good are also naive and this vulnerability has

been exploited to direct power back into Madara’s hands. The ritual is raced

through as he becomes the second incarnation of the Sage, and he has no

problem accepting his identity or tussling with Ten-Tails: the complete

form is assumed - save for one left eye

[4]

As Madara joins the battleﬁeld, Obito wants to know what he saw in him

all those years ago. After realising the failure to save the world through

adopting an identity, he questions whether Madara genuinely wanted him

to dissolve himself, or whether that name is a symbol representative of a

philosophy. The answer turns out to be both: “You are Madara. Madara is

he who rejects this world. All who hold that thought in their heart and

345

strive toward achieving the Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi are Madara”

[5]

; however,

even though Obito was meant to be the replica, he was adamant that he be

the one to complete the mission and deliver mankind from its suering -

but if he has inherited his namesake, what dierence would it make if the

world is "saved"? In actuality, the designation is used to render all things in

dierent shades of his likeness, but only he is the name and symbol, thus

from that standpoint it only makes sense for him to take centre-stage.

This might've come as a shock, but the same logic can be seen when Obito

had declared: “a single world that belongs to nobody. One perfect world

without war or ill feelings. It is only within a single collective

consciousness, where the individual has been cast aside that the truth can

be found!”

[6]

. But when asked who he was he replies "nobody. I don't want

to be anybody. I just want to fulﬁl Project Tsuki no me"

[7]

. Now you see the

problem. Obviously he doesn’t notice, but he had to be the exception to

being nobody the same way he couldn't really suce being "Madara" for

Madara. He even stated that he would be the exception when declaring war

at the Gokage summit: "By controlling them all, I shall unify the world! I

shall create a world with no bad blood, no wars. Everything will become

one with me, and be united together"

[8]

. It also conﬁrms the feelings Obito

had when he said “I’ve never really considered you a comrade”

[9]

, so he

knows it wasn’t just him distancing himself, seeing people in that light

made it mutual.

Can Madara really say this worldly rejection started with him? Indeed, if

you look at Hashirama or Naruto they also “reject this world” in a way,

though the last thing they’d want is to have someone wear them like a

costume. Naruto leaves all the time when speaking with his father, mother,

Obito as he enters a small and temporary psyche plane where they say what

they need to before returning. The work doubles-back and enriches the

material world however it need be, whereas Madara was willing to attack

346

the village, stab through the crest of his clan

[10]

, kill Obito and all things if

necessary, as that’s what happens when you rely on power. The reason he

does so he says himself: “Power is only the ability to make things

happen”

[11]

, not some ridiculous idea called love - for that was tried with

Ninshu and it failed miserably.

The Sage emerges

A lot of conditions have lined up for them to meet this cleanly, and though

the intricacies aren’t known it seems to be a dierent dynamic whether you

are going to correspond to the Yin or Yang half of Hagoromo’s

consciousness. For Sasuke he now has Hashirama cells via Kabuto and

chakra from Hashirama before he died, which is the same thing that

spurred Madara’s awakening of the Rinnegan, and the reason he retains his

Rinnegan as well. Both of them correlate to the dierent aspects of the

sage, with Naruto representing his heart and the spirit of Ashura, whereas

Sasuke represents the “blade” and the spirit of Indra. But the two of them

also fulﬁl the other deﬁnition of Shinobi, that of endurance, as they have

continued on despite countless obstacles. Madara noted a similar thing

when he sensed his Mangekyo: “That you possess such eyes proves you

have continued to seek something despite many great losses”

[12]

, and

Naruto’s heart has continued to grow thanks to many great friendships.

The names Indra and Ashura are derived from Hinduism, with the root

word for Indra being “to kindle” or to “ignite”

[13]

as he was known as “the

radiant one”

[14]

, though there are alternative translations

[15]

. He was quite a

handful at birth to say the least, as he refused to be born the normal way

and chose to emerge from his mother’s side

[16]

. After that he went to

Tvaṣṭar and managed to steal the soma, drinking so much that it made him

unparalleled in strength

[17]

and eventually the leader of Svarga(Heaven). It

may be a link to Sakura’s earlier comments about Sasuke after they crossed

347

paths in early Shippuden, believing he had been using drugs and forbidden

jutsu to accelerate his development

[18]

Like Sasuke, Indra possesses a heroic yet tyrannical nature, and his ways are

said to be rough, his primary attribute is power and he’s not afraid to shake

the world to its foundations

[19]

. Being noted as the God of Storms, he also

seems to share a similar temperament to Susanoo as he has been called

impetuous at times

[20]

; the thunderstorm itself regarded as the space

between heaven and earth

[21]

, and the shamanistic power of Susanoo to

traverse between realms also solidiﬁes these aspects; what’s more, Sasuke

has begun some kind of intercession with other realms, ﬁrst with the

Underworld of the dead Kage and now with the Sage in the Pure Lands.

Now for the other side in the Asuras. A word that correlates to “titan,

demigod or anti-god” depending on the proclivity, the good ones follow the

God Varuna, whilst the despotic ones follow Vritra. It is said that in the

older Indian Rigveda, Asura applied to beneﬁcent deities, but by the time of

the late Vedic texts it strictly refers to hostile and demonic forces

[22]

Confusion begins to mount when you consider some of the Vedic hymns

which used the word asura could be invoking Indra

[23]

, as the term had some

overlap with the concept of kingship. These schisms in etymology

eventually settled into stable categories, and the devas and the asuras did

perpetual battle, with the Devas winning but only barely

[24]

. Now we have

this battle mirrored by the introduction of reincarnations.

This may be why Kishimoto decided to use these two names for the Sage’s

sons since they encapsulate both sides of good and evil in each one;

moreover, Indra is the one who rules by himself and his own might, whilst

there isn’t a single Asura as such, it is a class of beings, denoting the power

of the Many in Ashura as well.

348

Whilst I can’t speculate historically for the changing usage of the word to

refer solely to evil beings, we can get a window into their psychology by

reading commentary on the Isha Upanishad - that until we know the Self,

we will always live as an asura

[25]

. Both of our protagonists have stripped

away these impediments and rapidly approach two sides of the same coin,

so does this mean reconciliation is on the horizon?

The greater the number of opposites that can be maintained between any

two reincarnations, the closer they get to the images of Indra and Ashura;

Madara and Hashirama were from dierent clans, with separate

philosophies, cultures and livelihoods but they managed to consolidate

these as children, and once more with the formation of the village as adults.

Both of them could see and understand parts of the other more than any

prior, but they couldn’t get past a certain contradiction - that of the village.

Eventually there will be those who disagree on Reality itself, which our

penultimate pair had no means of reconciling; it’ll be up to Naruto and

Sasuke (this iteration of meta-individuals) to work through the ﬁnal

echelon of cosmic combat

. The answer is beginning to rear its head, for

Indra and Ashura to cease they will have to integrate their eventual

contradictions on Being and accept the result.

Madara is unparalleled in his striving, consolidating more of his opposing

reincarnate than anyone else, even integrating his very cells to awaken the

Rinnegan. Subsequently, Hagoromo says “Now, no longer Indra’s

reincarnate, he’s obtained Ten Tails power and is getting close to me”

[27]

showing it isn’t a facet which is tethered to his Being.

Erich Neumann notes the dynamic of the Twin-Brothers in myths, and their separation coupled

with reconciliation marks an important stage for the conquering of the Ouroboros, the

transcendence of the Apophic instinct, and the concretisation of ego consciousness

[26]

349

It was predicted by the sage long ago that Indra or one of his incarnations

would become signiﬁcantly possessed with power enough to understand

how to maximise it

[28]

, which is why he wrote the Stone Tablet for the

Uchiha to try and address any potential problems; but Zetsu obviously

thought this could be a possibility and made modiﬁcations. Additionally,

the Fourth Databook conﬁrms what we see in the ﬁller arc of Indra and

Ashura: “Black Zetsu tempted Indra and instilled in him a burning hatred

for his father and younger brother. Denying Ninshu and driven by his own

genius, he invented ninjutsu and challenged his younger brother”

[29]

. The

linking between people stopped because the issues within the individual

pertained, and all it takes is a couple hand signs to calibrate oneself, which

motivates the outcast and disenfranchised especially in promising no need

to address that psychological pain.

The system of hand-signs that Indra developed is taken from the art of Kuji

Kiri, seen in traditions like Shugendo, and translates to “The Cutting of the

Nine Signs”. It has nine select hand-seals for assisting meditative practice

and one can uses them for supporting mantra recitation; where the cutting

comes in is that the practitioner(majutsushi[pure-art-user

[30]

]) will use their

bare right hand, or with a sword, and envisage a 4 by 5 grid by cutting rows

and columns in the air.

Once the grid is formulated, the idea is that the majutsushi will draw a

symbol onto it which will serve as the locus for new information, hopefully

being impressed into reality and altering its structure

[31]

. As you can see

power is implied in the dynamics of Kuji Kiri with the express aim of

removing disruptive inﬂuences

[32]

, which can go very wrong very quickly.

That is why these hand signs are subsidiary to a larger spiritual apparatus

like Hinduism or Buddhism. For Shingon Buddhism in particular, symbolic

meaning has been assigned to each hand: the left had symbols of Truth, the

350

Finite and Phenomenal realm and the Moon, whereas the right had

symbols of Wisdom, the Buddha-realm and the Sun

[33]

; not a step is out of

place in terms of the bestowing of power from Hagoromo to the two

reincarnates, with Sasuke and Naruto having the same correspondence

[34]

Moving into more speculative utilisations of mudras now, I shall start from

the moment they are bestowed power by the sage

[35]

, and the spirit is

displaying an open-palm gesture, which corresponds to this one of granting

protection

[36]

. The two of them are being given power from the

symbolically masculine impulse in Hagoromo who broke free from Mother,

and now it is up to Naruto and Sasuke to prevent the same thing from

happening once more.

When they seal away Kaguya, the spirit that’s behind them places its hands

palm to palm at the breast which is called the gasshō mudra, which

represents the unity of the Phenomenal world with the eternal Buddha

Realm

[37]

: the consolidation of reality in Sun and Moon. And lastly, if you’re

not already asleep, there is another called the Mudra of Six Elements, or the

Wisdom Fist mudra. I bring it up because it looks practically identical to

the rat hand sign that Naruto and Sasuke use to break the Inﬁnite

Tsukuyomi

[38]

, the only dierence being that the Buddha Dainichi Nyorai

only uses his left index ﬁnger

[39]

though the correct Mudra is shown at the

end of that chapter

[40]

. It is meant to symbolise the unity of all ﬁve of the

worldly elements with spiritual consciousness/mind

[41][42]

, which is what

happens when everyone in the Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi is released.

Sun and Moon rejoin the battleﬁeld

Naruto uses his panoply of tailed beast chakra to sever the Divine Tree, but

in doing so only accelerates the rate that all this power becomes centralised.

In absorbing it Madara realises that it's just the Ten-Tails taking a dierent

351

form

[43]

, but really that voice is Kaguya's - urging the possession to facilitate

the ﬁnal step of her revival.

This ﬁnal battle will see whether the separation of Sage power into Six

Paths Senjutsu and the Rinnegan is truly preferable to its monolithic form.

The ﬁrst inheritance in Naruto yields him the Shakujo amongst other

things as proof of his ascendence into a Bodhisattva via his unerring

Bodhicitta - the presence of love and compassion for all beings

[44]

. Sasuke in

turn gets the body-shifting ability in his Rinnegan, the Amenotejikara,

which is based on the God Ame-no-Tajikarao who pulled Amaterasu out of

the cave and ended the age of darkness

[45]

, so he has been symbolically

represented surmounting imprisonment and ignorance.

While they’re focusing on the ﬁght outside, Sakura is within the Kamui

realm trying to muster the strength to stab Obito in the eye, as he can no

longer suppress Black Zetsu

[46]

; if Madara gets his Rinnegan this war is

over. Despite her previous eorts to kill him she is reluctant to inﬂict pain,

but Naruto would’ve done the same thing as he wants to ﬁnd a middle-way

out; Sasuke however would’ve done it without even asking since he was

one of the ﬁrst people to run over and try to kill him when the

Tailed-Beasts were ripped out.

To retrieve it for himself, Madara rips Kakashi's eye out of its socket and

uses it to enter the Kamui realm just in time. Whilst he regenerates he

takes his time to break Obito physically and mentally, revealing that he was

the one who orchestrated Rin's kidnapping not Kirigakure. Now he sees

that Obito chose to release the sealing-tag placed on him in exactly the

same way

[47]

, though he couldn't have imagined back then that Kakashi

would be the one to kill her

[48]

352

The earlier snippet I mentioned about an asura needing to acquire

Self-knowledge will also come with the stripping away of Maya(ignorance),

and it is precisely this which an asura is capable of inﬂicting on others. In

the Rigveda it refers to ‘māyā

’ as the cunning of the Lords(asuras) Mitra and

Varuna

[49]

, and these concepts are entangled because it involves the genius

of leading people astray; people like Itachi could weave brilliant lies with a

combination of genjutsu, acting, framing - anything, realising all too late

that he could fool himself.

Madara had chosen him of all people because “you were genuinely devoted

and kind to others. [...] Your deep love for Rin, for your comrades, for the

Hokage and all other Shinobi, once you fell into darkness, it would

conversely transform into an equally profound hatred for this world”

[50]

Madara was able to negate every level in him that it took himself decades to

sever, and Obito’s transformation almost replaced his role completely, but

now he has his left eye back, only he is Madara.

With everything now prepared, there is no need for further entertainment

and he spins up a few obstacles whilst centring himself to launch the jutsu.

“According to that stone tablet, when one who possesses the power of

Rinne should draw near the moon the eye that can reﬂect o the moon and

grant the inﬁnite dream, shall open…”

[51]

. “Become One” is shouted as

Kaguya’s image hangs over the whole world

[52]

. What’s more, the Moon is

said to be the favoured symbol of the Great Mother and considered her

fruit

[53]

, the expression of her essential spirit.

The Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi is launched and shines over humanity - but I

thought this is where the good guys win? Sasuke sees the tomoe of the

Sharingan hit the moon and knows it’s only a few moments before that

light shall hit the world and it’s game over. He races down to Naruto and

the others and covers them in the Susanoo. Interestingly, it makes anyone

353

who gets touched by it possessed with Rinnegan

[54]

, but why? Well, if we

recall from a long time ago during Naruto’s confrontation with Nagato

after he defeated all the Pains, Konan said that the Rinnegan are eyes “said

to exist outside this world of life and death. Nagato’s ocular power itself is a

jutsu that presides over life and death“

[55]

. Rinne literally means Wheel

cycle and represents the cycles of Samsara, and anyone who attains the

Rinnegan can see outside of it, thus in severing the karmic cycle you see

everyone being bestowed it; however, all those who embodied the

Rinnegan into themselves were unaected by the Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi:

Sasuke, Obito/Zetsu, Madara. Ordinary folk are given it as the ultimate

irony that they are now outside of suering but without any of the

crystallised lessons from the journeying through those realms, which goes

back to the ideas of Obito representing the path of easy-practice - in giving

severance - and Sasuke as a result of self-severance. More pragmatically,

you could also say those who were immune had a Rinnegan to counter

Rinne-level genjutsu

[56]

, as Zetsu speculates: “His Rinnegan can deter even

this jutsu?”

[57]

which is conﬁrmed by Sasuke as it has ramped up his

Susanoo’s strength.

Now to make it eternal - Divine Deep Forest Emergence shall keep them all

entombed and this will be the last light they ever see. The tree shall serve as

a ﬁtting con to live out this simulation. “All that’s left is to get rid of you

guys”

[58]

Zetsu growls, which Madara the saviour shall do. Naruto, Sasuke,

Sakura, Kakashi - these are all the bad guys getting in the way of everyone’s

happiness, so what if it’s a lie? Zetsu concurs, though this isn’t the ﬁnal

chapter: “you are not a messiah, nor is this the end of things”

[59]

. The second

time we have seen Madara get stabbed in the back, a betrayal which shows

the veil stretches further back than him!

Mother’s back.

354

Zetsu’s paralyses Madara and the Divine Tree’s roots spring forth and start

to tie together with him, but this massive amount of inﬂooding chakra is

too much for a single human body, and this is way stronger than even the

Juubi. He’s swallowed up entirely and from him emerges the archetypal

symbol of the Tyrannical Mother: Kaguya Otsutsuki. She is essentially a

God and the concentration of all three dojutsu within a stable form, the

Byakugan and the Rinne-Sharingan as her third eye.

Her name was ﬁrst seen in a single passage in the Kojiki, where she was a

consort of Emperor Suinin. Her surname is taken from the record of her

father, noted as King "Oho-tsutsuki-tari-ne"

[60]

, where the ﬁrst bit

translates to "Big Bamboo"(大[Big] 筒[Tube] 木[Wood]). Moreover, it

seems that these two names were incorporated into The Tale of the Bamboo

Cutter, where Kaguya-hime(Shining Princess) is found by a remote village

family in a piece of wood

[61]

Initially no larger than the palm of their hand, she grew rapidly and word

of her beauty spread across the land, attracting many suitors. They were

persistent, and “These ardent lovers bore the ice and snow of winter and

the thunderous heats of midsummer with equal fortitude”

[62]

. This may

explain a couple of the worlds we see in a few moments time, with the

incredibly icy land and the sweltering desert that Sasuke gets thrown into.

Indeed, the ﬁrst world of lava may be borrowed from the ﬂames that she

used to test the clothing of prospective suitors, to see if they were of proper

quality and didn’t burn, and obviously despising Naruto and Sasuke, she

hoped to cast them into ﬂames as well.

Reading the entire book, you see that the overarching narrative of her

testing the hearts of all her suitors is really secondary to the actual

knowledge only she knew: that she was from the Moon and would have to

return eventually, and this was just deference until that time. It mirrors the

355

current actions of Zetsu as from the perspective of those suitors they take

each challenge as it comes none the wiser to the actual reason at play.

Despite her nearing departure, Kaguya was intrigued at the lengths they

would go and whether they could succeed in the tasks she set. But time after

time she saw they would attempt to sidestep their diculty; take the

aforementioned fur robe for example which was supposed to be immune to

ﬁre, but burst brightly into ﬂames

[63]

. It may be what caused the current

reluctance with Kaguya towards humans here, concluding them to be

disreputable. As the years go by, even her father tried to nudge her into

getting married, to which she says she isn’t so stupid to enter wedlock

without putting them through their paces ﬁrst

[64]

The emperor had ordered one of his maids to judge the beauty of

Kaguya-hime and see whether she was suciently fair to be of his interest.

She basically told her to scurry back to her palace and the emperor was left

none the wiser. Thus he set o himself and decided this must be quite the

catch to have disrespected him so bluntly. He enters the home and catches a

glimpse of her radiance, but before he can take her back to the palace she

vanishes

[65]

Years go by of her avoiding one man after another and her once sarcastic,

witty and energetic nature mellows as she is often seen gazing at the moon

in the dead of night. Her father asks what’s the matter, but she’s not

thinking of anything in particular, everything just seems so depressing

[66]

She began to weep openly, uncaring if people saw, and she ﬁnally told the

truth that people from the moon had brought her here, and soon they

would bring her back; she was upset at the grief this would cause her

adoptive parents.

356

On word of this, the emperor had all his guards stationed outside the house

and the door was locked, with her mother cuddling her tight so she couldn’t

be taken

[67]

. Nevertheless, the King of the Moon came down and pushed

through all the defences with ease. But before the Princess leaves, she passes

a letter to the Emperor relaying the entirety of her heart, articulating the

reasons why she acted the way she did. As a parting gift she gives some of

the elixir of immortality to him, and takes one ﬁnal look at her weeping

parents before adorning the robe of feathers, “and in a moment all memory

of her earthly existence departed”

[68]

. That scarf is called Tennyo no

Hagoromo, and is the derivation for the name of the Sage of Six Paths. In

another translation it is said that one who wears this robe knows no

griefs

[69]

, but here it’s uncertain as to whether it was eating the chakra fruit

that caused Kaguya to become totally emotionless, or after the birth of her

children, but her caring nature for humans and her desire to live amongst

them certainly waned.

Secrets of the fruit

Now that we've looked at the deep role the Moon plays from a folkloric

perspective, it’s time to consider the alchemical tradition of East Asian

countries, notably China, with the story of Chang'e the Moon Goddess.

There are many dierent accounts for how she came to acquire the elixir of

immortality, but you can ﬁnd one succinct retelling in the Huainanzi. Her

Husband Yi had gone to the Queen Mother of the West to ask for the

Elixir

[70]

, presumably because of his success in shooting down Nine of the

Ten Suns that threatened to scorch the Earth. His request was fulﬁlled and

the Queen bequeathed it to him, but Chang’e stole it and ﬂed to the Moon.

Some versions will say it’s because Yi was turning into a tyrant, and others

express that Chang’e expressly desired it.

357

This links back to the original tale of Kaguya-hime in a way as there’s a

moment where she asks her suitors to get “the treasure hard to attain”

[71]

which is precisely a test of their heroic capabilities, but this is also the

central goal of alchemy - to acquire the treasure(the stone) and produce it

in visible form

[72]

. In our case that would be the Divine Fruit, and yet

another layer of conﬂuence arises through Neumann's work on the Mother

archetype, as he notes the symbol of immortality is tied together with ‘the

fruit birth’

[73]

; it is the Mother sustaining herself through the production of

her own fruit.

This personality of Kaguya’s we see resonates with the more greedy and

malign interpretations of Chang'e, but the Moon Goddess herself is often

not the one depicted as producing the elixir, which is where our second

character comes into play - the Moon Rabbit. The idea stems from

interpreting markings on the near side of the moon as a rabbit/hare, using

a mortar and pestle to ground up ingredients. In Chinese alchemy these

may include Jade, Cinnabar and Hematite

[74]

, and we get an inkling that this

idea has trickled into Boruto, as the Otsutsuki can turn nearby targets into

edible chakra fruit/pills with the Cinnabar Elixir technique.

Kaguya has been described as a rabbit goddess

[75]

as thus the fusion of these

two myths as she is the one who shall make, prepare and eat the fruit

herself in the spirit of Ostanes: “Nature rejoices in nature. Nature subdues

nature. Nature rules over nature”. All the Otsutsuki in fact are alchemical

practitioners, being bequeathed those horns in reference to the long ears of

the Moon-rabbit.

Aside from being an assistant to Chang’e, the Daoist Goddess

Xiwangmu

[76]

, the Queen Mother of the West also employs the Rabbit as a

servant to look after her sacred orchard where peaches grow and promise

longevity, ripening once every three thousand years

[77]

. This myth was

358

likely adapted into the tale Journey to the West, where Heaven tried to get

Sun Wukong to look after their heavenly peach trees, some of which taking

three thousand years to ripen

[78]

, and if consumed would make the person

immortal.

There’s not much crossover with the fruit in the biblical corpus aside from

being forbidden to consume by normal folk, as it grants the person

knowledge of good and evil not extended youth and physical power.

Indeed, the fruits described in the Journey to the West oer a closer

resemblance since there is a group of heavenly beings which regularly

partake of them, but in this case the Otsutsuki lack the knowledge of good

and evil.

They primarily concern themselves with procuring and developing the

Tree for the sake of reaping the material beneﬁts, speciﬁcally the genetic

information that comes from the Chakra Fruit holding everything of the

planet it absorbed

[79]

; but remember, a true Alchemist’s focus was not the

transmutation of metals into gold, rather the attainment of spiritual powers

and the puriﬁcation of the soul

[80]

; we see however that this has been

watered down into a physical immortality that facilitates the consumption

of yet more fruit, more power, which gets hailed a “unique and peerless

existence”

[81]

- a “God”.

Their obsession with Nature seems to be a perversion from their Shugendo

roots, as the Mountain religion has a central principle of demarcating

between “sacred nature” - the Mountains - and “secular nature” - the

Plains

[82]

. Kaguya had said the Earth was her precious nursery

[83]

to do what

she pleased, but if this next source is anything to go by, it would involve the

religious participation between the Shugenja and the sacred environment

such that one became an eternal existence dwelling in the Divine

[84]

359

All of this ascension and wanting to live forever marks the worst kind of

Humanism, for it completely presupposes one’s ability to reach salvation

themselves. Historically this passing of wisdom has supposed practically the

opposite, as we are told man can only receive the secret knowledge through

divine inspiration, or from the lips of a divinely inspired master

[85]

. As

independent as Naruto and Sasuke both are, the two of them have been

bestowed strength by “God”(Hagoromo) in return for their striving. Going

back to Sasuke's symbolism, he cannot have been made truly free it seems

without divine assistance, so does this invalidate our philosophy of the

individual? No, let me illustrate why.

Whenever Naruto has entered the frame of mind that he's been

unstoppable, can save everyone, including himself, the way he perceives the

world changes dramatically. Everybody is now shaped as a thing which just

needs to be calibrated, or their evil expunged and they’re good to go. He has

to realise that he isn't a machine which converts people, there are no

“salvation mechanics”, he is only the principle that must stand before them

and keep his hand outstretched. He is the Stone itself, and its completion

requires the grace of God to keep his mode of helping others as personal too, as a

God which one can speak to is not an attempt to make Him

comprehendible inasmuch as it is to maintain a dialogical relationship to all

people as well.

In Jung’s Alchemical Studies, it notes the Stone as being identical to the Tree

in the aptly named subsection The tree as the lapis; it’s no coincidence that

the stone which sleeps as ore in the depths of people would be the primary

Root amongst all, and thus the thing the Spirit Tree itself relies on: Plant

this tree on the stone, that it fear not the buetings of the winds

[86]

. To be clear,

this quote pertains to the tree of Wisdom, but this is made by the same

journeying through the apocalypse that our Spirit Tree is, and thus they

serve as interchangeable terms.

360

One will never make such a stone, or such a tree, without sacriﬁcing

oneself and the way the Otsutsuki sacriﬁce others and delegate the

production of the elixir, turn their own brethren into consumables

approaches an Ouroboric nature but never attains it; they stay in the

material, the Apophic and the unconscious. Conversely, look at the eorts

of people to lay their lives on the line to help Naruto, look at Guy, Neji and

many others. Any sacriﬁce made by the root, the stems, the leaves cascade

across every part of the Spirit Tree, whereas theirs crumples down for the

sake of one deluded person’s beneﬁt.

The End of History

The tale of Shinobi is nothing more than the work of restoring Mother.

This is the gist from Zetsu’s dialogue which encapsulates the largest

retelling of history we’ve seen yet, predating even Hagoromo’s awareness,

with the story of Kaguya and her two children. This is a pivotal moment as

the root cause of the hatred in Shinobi culture has been identiﬁed, and for

the ﬁrst time we see both Naruto and Sasuke’s ways of Being as requisite for

defeating this enemy.

On the one hand, we have Naruto who has listened to the stories of

individuals all his life, with the histories of Haku, Neji, Sasuke, Gaara,

Nagato, and learnt about what a village, nation and governmental model

should oer a person based on all their perspectives; likewise, Sasuke has

asked “What is a clan? What is a village? What is a Shinobi?”

[87]

and heard

about the founding of the Leaf from the prior Kage; moreover, he

comprehends the village from a top-down perspective with these

institutions and organisations in mind. The fulﬁlment of this dynamic is at

play when Naruto played tug of war against Obito; it was partly his work to

inspire everyone up to the Allied Nations to join him, but then they jumped

361

down to lend a hand

[88]

, which cemented true collaboration and secured his

victory. It isn’t that having Sasuke on side is a nice added bonus, but he’s the

man who will make Naruto’s way of governing possible, evidenced by his

role as Shadow-Hokage in Boruto.

Speaking of which, their collaboration in this next sequence is

unconventional but quite ingenious, as Naruto’s use of the harem jutsu is

something Kaguya would never expect. She’s watching out for some

complicated technique that would ensnare or paralyse, but this is such a

curveball that it creates a window for a sucker punch

[89]

. His pervy ninjutsu

might just save the world.

They almost manage to complete the seal but she shifts to the ice world,

and she’s a bit smarter this time and chucks Sasuke into a separate realm.

This jutsu where she can teleport just herself and/or a few others by

opening up a wormhole is called Yomotsu Hirasaka, which is named after the

passageway to the underworld(Yomi) that was blocked o by Izanagi

[90]

But the much more chakra-intensive jutsu is the Amenominaka, where the

dimension comes to her, and the entire world itself is shifted

[91][92]

Seeing that it’s a spacetime Ninjutsu, Obito reckons he may be able to slip

into them using Kamui. The only problem is that it will require an

enormous amount of chakra to accomplish the journey to rescue Sasuke

[93]

Sakura oers up her strength and embodies the role of Isis once again,

beginning the emblematic search for Osiris in the desert.

They check dierent timespaces, but one portal they open is a sea of acid

that roars in and burns through her jacket

[94]

. But instead of using too much

Named after the ﬁrst Shinto God that came into existence and is said to be the heart of the

universe, Ame-nominakanushi. The centre of the universe ties in with the fact that Kaguya is the

centre point to which all other worlds shall revolve around.

362

time to heal herself, she keeps going and continually supplies chakra to

Obito for the next search. He sees that she is willing to “help him when he

starts tripping”

[95]

, which is what Kakashi said to him in regards to helping

Naruto.

Now that both of them are reunited, the threat of sealing reemerges so

there’s no option for Kaguya to conserve chakra. She teleports them all

again, this time to a high-gravity plane where movement is heavily

restricted. The bone-killing ash is a one-shot technique and Obito and

Kakashi are rushing to use themselves as meat-shields to protect those two,

but Obito doesn’t want his friend to join him just yet, and uses Kamui for

the last time to teleport the spear away

[96]

. He thanks Naruto for trying to

heal him again, but really he wants to thank him for something else: “It was

as if… when I looked at you, I saw my past self. And regretted the current

me. However, more than that, it also made me happy… When I was a kid,

I’d imagine myself as Hokage so often… I think you brought back that

indescribable feeling of exhilaration and uncertainty. Imagining the village,

comrades and me as Hokage, even after all that’s happened. Just the thought

of it seems to ﬁll up the hole in my heart”

[97]

. That he mentions exhilaration

and uncertainty is testament to feeling the call to adventure: you feel alive

and ready to tackle the unknown because you have set forth along the road

that means something. He remembers that moment with Rin where she

encourages him to become Hokage and how she’ll be there to see him save

the world

[98]

. It is now that Obito has come full circle and accepted the

dicult task of responsibility.

With little life remaining, he has tried his best to atone for the multitude of

sins he has committed. It began right after he was defeated, as he could see

the truth in Naruto's words, deciding to perform the same sacriﬁce that

Nagato did. From there he progresses and manages to save Naruto's life by

reconnecting him with Kurama, when he was ironically the person which

363

spurred Minato to implant him into his son in the ﬁrst place. Earlier he had

said the feeling of having a Jinchuriki must be a way of understanding his

despair

[99]

, but the pain of separating from Kurama goes beyond just the

technicalities of Biju withdrawal.

We're ﬂying back through his life as he tries to make good on the things he

had formerly annihilated, like the remnants of his clan, and in saving the

last light of the Uchiha in Sasuke, he keeps walking forward.

This is what happens when you dare to accept Naruto's hand, but all the

while he has that weight, he ﬁnally sees that Rin is always watching,

Kakashi is there to catch him when he stumbles, and the example he

wanted to set in Naruto will continue on after he dies. He is now right back

at the day he turned into Madara, unable to accept Rin's death, but here

once more he can perform the very sacriﬁce he previously rejected.

Standing in front of his comrades, his dream of Hokage arms itself.

Going back to one of the earliest moments that Naruto had ever

complimented anyone with Inari, he called him a “big strong boy”, and now

Obito is the coolest guy. Neither is the full truth to be sure, but in the same

spiritual pipeline which comes from ﬁlling one’s heart, is the spirit which

allows oneself to head forth into uncertainty.

364

The ﬁnal, ﬁnal, ﬁnal battle. I swear!

Now then, how the hell do we get back? The world is saved, but this planet

doesn’t seem to have a back door. Luckily that’s all being taken care of at

home, for Hagoromo has called upon prior Kage to aid in the summoning

of all Nine Biju plus the four of them - and Madara

[1]

. The evil that plagued

and steered the Shinobi world towards violence is no longer present and

the shackles are o to welcome in a new era of Shinobi. Hagoromo brings

them back and congratulates them on saving the world: “Welcome to the

end of your predecessors”

[2]

Hashirama walks over to his rival, friend and brother for one last time. He

has been stripped of everything: his eyes, his Biju, his loyal pawns. Nothing

remains but to look around and see that Hashirama’s dream persists, and his

was squashed. He thinks perhaps it is the correct way to bestow things to

the next generation, using our own time to do everything we can to make

their future task a little easier

[3]

. Hashirama oers to have a drink as war

buddies when they go into the afterlife, and this is the completion of

something Madara had said to him when they were stone skipping

[4]

Madara thinks that sounds pretty ﬁne by him

[5]

Naruto says goodbye to his father, and he wants his mum to know she

doesn’t have to worry - he’s doing just ﬁne. Thus completes the

resurrection and resolve of the Old King, with the issues of his time now

over and the world ready to embark on a new era of rule. You cannot leave

problems in the belly of the whale, for they have to be brought forth, to

which it was Naruto and Sasuke’s eorts that culminated in this victory.

365

Von Neumann records an apt quote from Ernst Barlach, in regards to the

Hero being the one who has to awaken the sleeping images of the future

[6]

but this makes him the bringer of the New Law, inadvertently painting him

as the enemy of the old ruling system, culture and existing court of

conscience

[6]

. Both Naruto and Sasuke mark this period of transition, which

as we’ve noted primarily occurs through love or power, with each choosing

to specialise, but the latter still cannot commit to a project which integrates

what came prior. Sasuke’s words about retribution and the assassination of

the Kage inside the Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi snaps everyone out of their utopian

dream and they realise there is still malice lurking. Hagoromo can see the

ways of Indra are still present, as he asked him what it is he wanted to do

when the war is over, as he was unsure whether this success with his fellow

reincarnate had broken the curse that lies between them. But Naruto says

this time isn’t gonna go the way of Indra and Ashura, for “I ain’t Ashura and

Sasuke ain’t Indra either”

[7]

Many had written o this development of Sasuke’s as just another

hair-brained scheme due to awakening a little more power and a touch

more insight; however, he has been plotting about what a village is and

how this all ﬁts into a puzzle for some time, with his quest for truth being

earlier than his talk with the Four Hokage. In every case, this “suddenness”

was really just a moment that tipped their past guilt, pain and anger over

the edge into a new order. When Danzo couldn’t lift his hand and accept

being a decoy, that was when he devoted himself to eradicating emotions,

but this was based on the feeling he had to sacriﬁce himself in the spirit of

the Shinobi. For Obito, he grew up without parents, without much natural

talent or many friends and losing Rin was the ﬁnal curtain on a world

without hope. If only Sasuke could see these life stories he may have had a

more complete picture of what to do.

The ﬁnal valley

366

If history is about to resolve itself, then it’s ﬁtting that the last “Izanami” left

to undo is the battle they had at the ﬁnal valley four years ago. Last time

they had seen the hate and the darkness in one another, but could they

really read each other’s mind? Through countless tribulations, the

recognition of the other has grown, as both lived out the life of the other.

Naruto says some wise words from Itachi, that only the one who is

acknowledged by all can become Hokage. This idea of revolution isn’t the

work beﬁtting a leader, and one aspect of this match is ironing out what it

means to assume that position

[8]

. Sasuke sees that people will make

sacriﬁces for the village, with his brother being the archetypal maxim of

that idea, and he sacriﬁced his entire clan for this ethereal something.

He looks at Itachi’s life and his sacriﬁces show that the village is a

centralised monolith which subjects must dedicate themselves to, but he

doesn’t want them to resolve their own problems like his late brother did.

This can cause pain and anguish should it go wrong - especially since he is

the one who’s circumnavigated Samsara: “I myself will deal with everything

personally. I will handle all of the Shinobi problems. I shall also dispense all

judgement and punishment. I’ll concentrate all hatred upon myself and

bring together every single village under my control”

[9]

. He shall remain

hated, for he doesn’t see another way, and that is what he shall take from

Itachi's example

[10]

, despite his ﬁnal words being that he wished he would’ve

just told Sasuke everything from the start

[11]

The reason Sasuke believes this leads to accurate moral reﬂection and a

right to govern is because it looks to be the only tool available for applying

negation and scrutiny towards his own actions, which goes back to the

“negative awakening of the ego” in Chapter 19. He implies that he can focus

hatred from all aspects of people’s lives onto him, which would have to be

of such intensity to have unanimity amongst everyone, that it matches the

367

likes of Pain, Madara, Kaguya and so on

[12]

. Indra has come to understand

the necessity of having an obstacle, a joint enemy and in never leaving this

post it should mean their teamwork will never dissipate. However, he

would never allow himself to be surmounted for he is Hatred, and admits to

Naruto he would have to dabble in immortality

[13]

. He doesn’t play the role

of obstacle completely, he just becomes the tyrannical King.

Sasuke is inheriting shades of the very man he despised in Danzo,

acclimating to a life of total surveillance, lies, mass sacriﬁce and

international manipulation which cost him the brother he wishes to

exemplify; in typical Danzo fashion he doesn’t care if nobody else agrees,

and he has no interest in imbuing the Village Identity into his people.

He also claims that their recent collaboration versus Kaguya “doesn’t always

go well”

[14]

, just like the founders of the Leaf village - but he cannot see the

lessons that have developed from history, precisely because he’s had enough

with the past. If someone were to grow strong and challenge his throne but

were killed in the process, then hatred would arise from their death. Then

people would take out their pain on others, and Sasuke is no longer the

centre of attention. Is he going to increase the suering amongst his

populace to retain their “teamwork”? The village would disintegrate. Even

if subjects were to avoid making a fuss, this is no guarantee of survival since

people like Madara would either render people in his likeness, as he did

with Obito for the sake of his goal, or he would throw people into the

Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi, so evil will have a plan for you regardless of what

choice you make. Eventually you will become a problem out of just Being.

Power has far-reaching tendrils, and this is exactly how Naruto thought

when he ﬁrst joined the battleﬁeld

[15]

, but he had his arrogance reigned in

with this simple advice: you can’t do it all yourself, you have to let others

ﬁght their own battles, and you cannot force an individual into being saved;

368

what’s more, Sasuke has assumed the form of Madara that Itachi had

warned Naruto about if he stayed on that path. The two of them take each

side of Itachi, and this is the second source of contention; whenever Sasuke

heard his words he thought they were lies, and whenever Naruto saw his

actions he came to know that it wasn’t his motivation to kill them, he just

couldn’t ﬁnd another way. Both of them have disregarded one aspect, but

Itachi is both a criminal and a hero, but being ardent in separating those

two is where we get problems on deciding what he is.

It is a battle of one wishing to throw away the past, and the other who sees

it as tantamount that it carries on: “I learned everything I know from the

people of the past! Especially about how to ﬁgure out what to do after

making a mistake!”

[16]

. When he spoke with the sage, Sasuke said Naruto

was the last one he had to cut down, because to him, he remains his closest

friend

[17]

. The last bond remaining to achieving his goal. Both of them were

able to say that because they were friends it merited their ambition, which

is the last crossover left to ﬂesh out.

Fight’s on!

Last time it was Naruto who hopped over to Madara’s statue, but here we

see in the manga he got smacked o of Hashirama’s

[18]

, whereas in the

anime their ﬁrst exchange was when they ran and met in the middle, which

was to signify their status as equals.

They gear up to their symbolic maximums very quickly as Sasuke already

has his fully transformed Susanoo ﬁghting the Tailed-Beast transformation;

once again, acknowledgment of the other arises early and it’s what precedes

the most violent parts of the ﬁght. They scale their strikes with the

Susanoo’s Chidori and Kurama’s Biju bomb, the ﬁngerprints of their

humanity present in this godly battle

[19]

. In the ﬁrst match, this exchange

369

caused Naruto to reﬂect separately on the other, whereas now they jointly

enter the Talk No Jutsu space.

Sasuke’s journey has seen him wriggle out of the clutches of Orochimaru

and have the soundness of mind to use him in the resurrection of the Kage.

He climbed out of Itachi’s and Obito’s grip and the solace of the caves they

tried to seat him in and now he stands as an individual. He shall take his

ﬁnal step into the shadows by using his own Susano’o as the vessel to ingest

all the chakra from the nine Tailed Beasts.

To counter this, Naruto does his usual shadow-clone jutsu but applied to

his Kurama transformation, and Sasuke comments that this is really just a

coverup for his loneliness

[20]

. He’s trying to make the case that he’s all talk

and his words and philosophy don’t add up, which was certainly true for a

time. Nobody would cheer for him, train with him and he could use them

in tandem with the transformation techniques he learned for dierent

forms of entertainment, but this ultimately covered up the fact he was

lonely; what his clones have come to represent now though is the support

for others he never had, going beyond Hashirama’s thousand-hands

Buddha, for the clone is a person they can talk to and Naruto will no doubt

remember all their conversations.

This jutsu has been there since the beginning and relied on the power of

hatred to get their numbers into double or triple digits, but he stands now

as the antithesis of the incarnate of hatred - as the golden fox. On the

outside the shift in combat styles is minimal, but his mentality has

developed astronomically and due to Sasuke’s eye for actions above words

he doesn’t notice this.

The ﬁnal echelon of this struggle is reached, and Naruto pours the nature

energy he has accrued up to the base, with all the clones recombining into a

370

single multi-handed, multi-headed form

[21]

which represents the Asura to

Sasuke’s Indra

[22]

. A thunderbolt is ﬁtting for the highest level of combat

between any of the reincarnations, and this is the exchange which blows

them both to bits and sends them crashing to the ground, the heads of the

statues of Madara and Hashirama obliterated.

They have expended their most powerful jutsu, and now they’re drained

they revert back to being human. I guess now is the time to mention that

this is the middle section of Sai’s picture book, for it was the ﬁnality of

everything they had learned, all prior skills and abilities condensed in that

moment, and now the story goes backwards, as we’re seeing Amaterasu and

the control of the Nine-Tails cloak, things in mid to late Shippuden, then

the Rasengan and the Chidori, until they go right back to punching each

other in the face - like it was in their ﬁrst ever ﬁght when they were ﬁve

years old. Sasuke had learned a new trick or got a new set of eyes each time

whilst Naruto tried to hold hands with people on the other side - with a

couple notable exceptions. For Sai it was realising that he couldn’t apply a

lack of emotion like he had done the entire book to the ﬁnal section, and

the eureka moment was realising the tricks he had used for getting through

Hell had to cease when it came to his brother. I think the ending here is a

little more graphic than the peaceful scene Sai had imagined, but

nevertheless they both have smiles on their faces.

Every single one of their traditional Rasengan-Chidori exchanges till now

were “horizontal”, by which I mean they were struck at equal level, but this

last one is vertical which may serve as a ﬁtting way to tie this up as their

very ﬁrst clash was on top of the hospital

[23]

- the only other time Sasuke

was above and Naruto below, and that has been repeated presumably to

show completion. The same black sphere swells and dissolves into white

light, and the statues of Madara and Hashirama dissolve in the blast

[24]

signifying the end of history. Sasuke comes to and takes a brief look down,

371

seeing that it’s truly over. Neither of them can move or they’ll bleed out and

die, so all that’s left is to ask why the hell would he go this far.

Naruto says the same answer, saying it since they were kids, but what

exactly does that word mean to him? To put it succinctly... “when I see you

take on stu and get all messed up… it kinda … hurts”

[25]

. The bond is real,

tangible but hard to formalise, and yet Sasuke knows exactly what he

means. It has a weird quality, which like Itachi’s, allows him to remember

parts of his childhood that were tucked away somewhere deep: “the more I

watched you being idiotic and getting yelled at over and over … It started

weighing on my mind. That’s when I wondered… if your weakness was

rubbing o on me. Afterwards, every time I’d see you, I’d think more and

more about you. Seeing you desperately trying to bond with others made

me recall my family… [...] I began to see a shadow of my own family in team

7… that’s why every time I saw you suering… Yeah, that’s right … I too felt

pain. When I understood your hurt, I ﬁnally saw you as a comrade”

[26]

Later, he also says that he understands what Naruto meant when he

imagined this was what it was like to have a brother, but surely he knows

since he had one; in this moment of accepting Naruto, he clariﬁed his bond

with Itachi because he reconciled both sides of him and he ﬁnally gets what

having a brother feels like

[27]

, as when Naruto said “it hurts seeing you get

all messed up”, it was the same instinctive pain he felt for his biological

brother despite everything that had happened between them, and he cried

for him once he knew the truth. In the corresponding anime episode,

Sasuke is looking at Naruto’s memories, including his interactions with

Itachi. There he resonates with his words, and it’s him that he sees before

realising the mistakes he’s made.

They awaken and Naruto ﬁnds that he still can’t move, but as soon as he can

it’s back to ﬁghting! Sasuke chuckles, as he obviously hasn’t seen the

372

massive psychological shift that’s taken place. He admits to his friend that

he’s lost, but Naruto snaps at him saying this wasn’t about winning or

losing, it was about getting him to stop sulking and jabbering on about

hatred

[28]

. To allow his friend to ﬁnally accept their bond, and no matter

what he will never cut him o, but that’s not what Sasuke meant when he

said he lost - for he surrendered in the battle of ideals as well.

But how can he be sure that he won’t waver or attack the village again?

Naruto just looks at him as even he’s tired of repeating the same thing,

though he’s always thought Sasuke was a little bit dim.

This is the ﬁrst time in Sasuke’s life that he could just Be, with the veil of

Maya totally lifted. Since he was a child he always had to be someone:

whether it was looking up to and adopting the image of his older brother,

then the Avenger, then Orochimaru’s vessel, an Uchiha fanaticist and now

Indra’s reincarnation - when was he ever Sasuke Uchiha? He can ﬁnally see

every side of himself, but in that clarity is a moment of guilt.

He doesn’t mind if he dies here, just transplant the Rinnegan to Kakashi or

whoever and the Inﬁnite Tsukuyomi can be stopped, and he will put an end

to himself

[29]

. No chance! His goal is to get all Shinobi to cooperate with

each other, including him of course, but “Just because you want that doesn’t

mean others will agree to it”

[29]

. Right in the spirit of who he was after

leaving the Final Valley the ﬁrst time, breaking away from his brother’s

words

[30]

, but Naruto knows that Shinobi can stop ﬁghting amongst

themselves not just when there is an antagonist in front of them, but when

there is love between them.

We ﬁnally see the results of their injuries and they’ve both lost an arm,

marking the end of cycles

[31]

. The same arm that has launched Chidori and

Rasengan countless times since the ﬁnal valley plays against what Kakashi

373

says after picking Naruto up at the end of the ﬁrst series: “when I watch the

river ﬂow by, it’s like it’s showing me that the battle like it, will never cease.

Like the two men who built Konoha village, whose statues loom over us,

Naruto and Sasuke as long as they live the cycle will continue”

[32]

They get patched up, and Sasuke is about to head o on his travels. Naruto

takes out his old headband, and he can ﬁnally come to see what Naruto was

on about: “Now we’re able to claim each other’s pain. And after seeing the

world via my travels I believe this concept can be applied to even bigger

things than just us. But it’s not something that can be done as easily as you

were able to. I never assumed it would be simple, just like it wasn’t with the

two of us”

[33]

“It's kind of like a prayer, to keep enduring until it comes to be, no matter

what. And to those whom that task falls on, perhaps that is what it means …

to be a ninja”

[34]

. To endure, with faith in oneself for the sake of the journey

of the individual, and to traverse your way whilst entwining with and

supporting others; the symbol of Sasuke’s headband is the primary call to

adventure. In the end, when you take any principle, you can always say

there is a path that is an exception to that rule, and thus the only principle

you could ever ascribe to all is to live. That is the Way itself, and faith is the

prayer that the principle of your life will come from that striving.

I would like to end this side-by-side with Naruto with a special quote from

Alan Watts, someone who popularised and taught westerners Eastern ways

of thinking for decades: “Let’s suppose that you were able every night to

dream any dream you wanted to dream. And you would naturally as you

began on this adventure of dreams you would fulﬁl all your wishes. You

would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive… and after several

nights you would say “Well, that was pretty great.” But now let’s have a

surprise. Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control. Where something’s

374

gonna happen to me and I don’t know what it’s gonna be. Then you would

get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further

arc gambles as to what you would dream. And ﬁnally, you would dream…

where you are now”.

375

Appendix 1: ‘Naruto is the worst character in Naruto’

This is an additional section which will serve as a response to the video

with the above title

[1]

. It falls under the guise of the general ‘Naruto is a

fraud/hypocrite/bad representative of the values he espouses’ theme,

though there is nothing in particular about this video other than it being

the most recent articulation of this train of thought that spurs a response.

The analysis starts by saying that this is the classic case of a child which

starts with nothing and goes from zero-to-hero by the end

[2]

. This is

partially true. Naruto starts with nothing in regards to having no parents,

friends and so forth - but he already has a demon that is sealed within him,

and in fact he feels the weight of all those aforementioned absences. It isn’t

just a journey of additions and improvements, as it is about accepting what

oneself is - and this message starts from accepting oneself as primarily

human and not a tool, as per the Land of Waves, and continuously scales to

the end of Shippuden as embracing the multi-textured nature of one’s

humanity.

The video splits Naruto’s themes into two main categories:

Fate

Forgiveness

- Fate of your power

- Fate of your social standing

This already implies that Naruto didn’t start with nothing, as he is

described to have both incredible power, and high social standing due to

the nature of his birth to the Fourth Hokage. This paradox is remediated

however when he says that Naruto is only a good example in the ﬁrst series

and “loses his way” when it comes to Shippuden

[3]

. The reason Naruto gets

376

demoted is because he can no longer be said to have acquired his power

through hard work, but this fails to contextualise why he works hard. Yes,

in the ﬁrst arc he wanted to become a good Hokage and have everyone look

up to and respect him, but carrying that idea beyond the Land of Waves

would be an oversimpliﬁcation. That arc closes with his desire to work

hard to become an individual and to follow his own Path, which scales to

the idea of challenging typical Confucian ideas over societal harmony,

which is what the Neji ﬁght is actually about

[4]

. It’s not a battle of hard work

versus genius as he says

[5]

, but how a sprinkle of Taoism goes a long Way.

Hard work isn’t even the sole benefactor for Lee either, since he is lauded as

a genius by Kakashi for opening the Eight Gates by sheer Will, and Guy can

see he is a genius of hard work. The dierence is that Lee shows a type of

genius which one can develop. What’s more, the concept of hard work is

always subset to an ideal or philosophy that a character holds, and every

character is meant to be an embodiment of an ideal that goes into battle

with another to resolve their disagreements.

In the Naruto vs Neji match, Neji ﬁghts as the personiﬁcation of the

philosophy of determinism, and repeatedly calls the proctor to stop the

match since things are “preordained” to be in his favour, but the arguments

he makes do not align with his humanity. He cannot see into the future

despite his attempt to do so against Hinata, and he doesn’t abide by the

destiny of a branch family member as he learns their own jutsu, despite

never being born into their caste. That is his hard work, which as a concept

as such beneﬁts everybody’s philosophy, but the plight of Naruto(the manga)

is about ﬁnding an answer which resonates with every kind of individual,

and thus comes the incorporation of religion, mythology, folklore -

everything, in order to ﬁnd it. Since hard work is one part of the universal

solution, and that is illustrated very simply in Lee, people have conﬂated

377

him to be the preeminent symbol that watchers should align themselves

with.

Looking at his ﬁght with Gaara, we have to scale up from this idea of power

to the need that every character has to arm their own nindo. Many

remember vividly the extent to which Gaara broke Lee’s arms and legs

amongst the torrential downpourings of sand, but what was the one thing

Gaara wasn’t able to break? His resolve to ﬁght for and maintain his own

Ninja Way. Likewise, Lee shatters Gaara’s personality despite not issuing

serious damage, so when it comes to the development of the self, Lee can be

proud of this result.

In the Danzo does it section, I highlight how one can forever remain locked

in seeing Naruto’s eorts and ways of sagely rule through the lens of

power

[6]

, which is reiterated explicitly with Hagoromo’s ninja creed and

Indra’s eorts to use chakra’s power for the development of ninjutsu away

from the spiritual practices. But this doesn’t stop watchers and readers from

being appalled by the introduction of reincarnates as, once again, it has

been viewed through the lens of power, and not scaled to see the realisation

that Naruto’s teachings of forgiveness, perseverance and unity amongst all

peoples is applicable even to the hatred that’s manifested since the start of

Shinobi. The creator says in regards to the power bequeathed by the Sage

that it was ‘from doing nothing’

[7]

, but then why is Sasuke’s newfound

Rinnegan ability called the Amenotejikara? Because his consistent

symbolism as Amaterasu trapped in the cave of illusions, false pretences and

lies is ﬁnally over because of his personal striving for truth. The reason

Naruto was graced with the adornments of a Bodhisattva is because of his

same commitment to truth-seeking, but from the bottom-up perspective of

individuals, whereas Sasuke converses with the prior Kage and government

ocials for a top-down understanding.

378

I can completely understand why the last few segments of the war arc to the

end of Shippuden have been misunderstood ad inﬁnitum because the rapid

developments aren’t padded with explanations, nor are the power-scaling

dynamics of the anime kept sane by the end; it seems Kishimoto wanted to

make sure the key religious elements of Shintoism and Buddhism were

incorporated, which really became noticeable when Itachi uncorked the

Izanami on Kabuto for example. When push came to shove during the ﬁnal

chapters he cared more about the development of a cogent spiritual

message than the thoroughness of the Ninja world he created; taking this

into consideration, it is baing that one critique after another highlights

none of the religious and mythical signiﬁcance not just as a means of

character development but narrative development as well

[8][9][10]

The premises were laid out in the ﬁrst series, as we track Naruto’s

increasing attachment to the nine tails and how it began to be his crutch

when ﬁghting, most noticeably against Sasuke at the ﬁnal valley. This idea

of attachment is what he shall be wrestling with in the early Shippuden

chapters, as he believes it to be acceptable if it contributes to saving his

comrades. But after injuring Sakura, and potentially killing villagers whilst

possessed by Kurama against Pain, he can ﬁnally put his need to be attached

to one side. With this came the advent of the principle of forgiveness, but

all of the themes that were listed in the video only serve as the bedrock for

Naruto’s connection to others. It isn’t the magic button that saves the

world, but it’s something Naruto has to do if he wants to help the other

person, and when it came to the Waterfall of Truth it was the thing he had

to oer himself to truly understand the pain of his embittered, dark

personality. From there he could cross to the other side and continue his

work against hatred.

While this is all well and good, “revealing that Naruto was the

reincarnation of a literal God means he has no right to lecture anybody on

379

fate”

[11]

. That’s right, but he has every right to lecture people on their

destiny and where they shall end up, because nobody can assume your pain

and he’s never tried to push aside someone’s life experience, he just objects

to the fact that this would have the ﬁnal say on their life story. With the

examples that are cited, Naruto never wanted Gaara to feel the

consequences of ostracisation via his father and went above and beyond to

help him, and he continued to risk his life for Tsunade which helped her

overcome her fear of blood and so forth. Naruto accepts that people start

life at dierent points of auence and fortune, but that is only half of the

puzzle for getting people to work together - and every instance of the

divine has been in mutual collaboration

[12][13]

The last thing I’m going to address is the theme of ‘Fate via social standing’.

The ﬁrst series made a big deal of the Uchiha and the Hyuga clans and the

status they enjoyed as being top dogs of the Leaf, and the power which

coincides with their Kekkei Genki. Moreover, the social standing one has

will have a proportionate eect on the power one has, and thus the themes

of fate, power and status seem to marry with no problems at all. But as the

series develops, we see that the nature of the villains that are introduced

follow the same dynamics of The Journey to the West, whereby people with

dierent upbringings, social status and power are termed villains, but when

Sun Wukong can ﬁnd a way to walk the path of redemption with them, no

matter what their initial circumstances were, there is a path to peace,

collaboration and individuation

[14]

In fact, the video states the enormity of genius like Itachi’s, but who was it

that he looked up to the most? Naruto. When he interrogated him about

his resolve to Sasuke before his death, he was able to answer a question of

ultimatums that he had failed when being asked a similar thing by Danzo

[15]

Again, who was it that the genius Neji Hyuga came to ﬁnally understand

when he gave his life? Naruto. I’m not going to argue whether or not the

380

entire death was written for Hinata and Naruto’s relationship, I’m just

going to focus on the matter at hand. Neji said that he ﬁnally realised why

his father felt it freeing that he would die, because it came with the ability

to love others enough to sacriﬁce oneself for them, which surmounted the

diculty he had in accepting his own path. The pattern repeats for other

generations as well, as Madara was the greatest genius in the series, and

even he acquiesced to Hashirama’s ideals for example

[16]

In conclusion, this debate will probably go on as long as this manga is still

talked about, but I hope this segment and the chapters I’ve referenced go

some way to reimagining these themes in a broader context beyond status,

power, fate and so forth. A world where genuine prosperity is possible shall

not be a dream, and I for one trust in this knucklehead.

381

Sources

First Series

Chapter 1: Land of

Waves

1. Naruto, Chapter 1

Volume 1,pg.27,28

2. Ibid., Chapter 1

Volume 1, pg.10,28

3. Ibid., Chapter 1

Volume 1,pg.40

4. Ibid., Chapter 1

Volume 1,pg.47

5. Naruto Anime

Proﬁles,pg.42

6. Naruto, Chapter 1

Volume 1,pg.49,50

7. Ibid., Chapter 7

Volume 1,pg.183

8. Ibid., Chapter 7

Volume 1,pg.184

9. Ibid., Chapter 8

Volume 2,pg.12-14

10. Ibid., Chapter 8

Volume 2,pg.19

11. Ibid., Chapter 8

Volume 2,pg.24

12. Ibid., Chapter 8

Volume 2,pg.24

13. Benesch, Chapter

1: Before Bushido:

Considering Samurai

thought and identity,

pg.19

14.Ibid., Chapter 1:

Before Bushido:

Considering Samurai

thought and

identity,pg.21

15. Naruto, Chapter 2

Volume 1, pg.75

16. Tamamo-no Mae

17. Bushidō: An

Ethical and Spiritual

Foundation in Japan,

A Code of Behavior

for Bravery in Battle

18. Benesch,

Introduction, pg.2

19. Cummins, The

Book of Bushido: The

real guide to ancient

samurai chivalry,

Introduction,What is

Bushido, House

Rules, pg.4

20. Benesch, First

Explanations of

Bushido in the Meiji

Era, pg.42

21. Ibid., pg.42,43

22. Ibid., pg.56-61

23. Turbull, Ninja AD

1460–1650,

Introduction: The

elusive Ninja, pg.5

24. Benesch, Chapter

1: Before Bushido:

Considering Samurai

thought and identity,

pg..20

25. Turnbull, Ninja:

The True story of

Japan’s Secret

Warrior Cult, pg.10

26. Ibid., pg.126

27. Ibid., pg.130

28. Meyer, In the

Underworld, Gozu,

Mezu

29. Naruto, Chapter

33, Volume 4, pg.118

30. Howes,

Introduction,pg.2

31. Naruto, Chapter 11

Volume 2, pg.75

32. Naruto(English

Anime), Ep.7, ~2.mins

382

33. Turnbull, Ninja

AD 1450 - 1650,

pg.5,6

34. Ibid., pg.13

35. Naruto, Chapter 11

Volume 2,pg.76

36. Ibid., Chapter 12

Volume 2,pg.93

37. Ibid., Chapter 5

Volume 1,pg.130

38. Ibid., Chapter 13

Volume 2, pg.108

39. Ibid., Chapter 13

Volume 2,pg.116

40. Clements, The

Proud Do Not

Endure, pg.103

41. Naruto., Chapter

14 Volume

2,pg.131-133

42. Miyamoto,

Musashi. The

Complete Musashi,

Introduction

43. Miyamoto

Musashi. The

Complete Book of Five

Rings, Scroll of Fire,

Holding Down on the

Headrest

44. Ibid., Change

from the Mountain

to the Sea

45. Ibid., Scroll of

water, A Single

Cadence for Striking

Your Adversary

46. Naruto, Chapter

16 Volume 2,pg.173

47. Ibid., Chapter 17

Volume 2,pg.198

48. Smyers,

Introducing Inari,

Origins and Early

Histories,pg.15

49. Picken, Part II,

Chapter 4: Kami not

named in the

Japanese

mythology,pg.110

50. Smyers,

Introducing

Inari,pg.14

51. Ibid.,

Introducing Inari,

pg.12

52. Ibid.,

Introducing Inari,

pg.13, Chapter 5: A

God of One's Own:

Individualizing Inari,

pg.150,151

53. Ibid., Introducing

Inari,pg.16

54. Ibid., Introducing

Inari,pg.17,18

55. Ibid.,

Symbolizing Inari the

fox, Inari and the

Fox: Theories of the

Association, pg.73-81

56. Ibid., Introducing

Inari, pg.21

57. Naruto, Chapter

18 Volume 3,pg.18

58. Ibid., Chapter 22

Volume 3,pg.6

59. Ibid., Chapter 20

Volume 3,pg.62

60. Ibid., Chapter 23

Volume 3,pg.111-113

61. Ibid., Chapter 23

Volume 3,pg.122

62. Ibid., Chapter 23

Volume 3,pg.124

63. Ibid., Chapter 23

Volume 3,pg.123

64. Ibid., Chapter 25

Volume 3,pg.158

65. Ibid., Chapter 25

Volume 3,pg.161

66. Ibid., Chapter 25

Volume 3,pg.164

67. Ibid., Chapter 27

Volume 3,pg.190

68. Ibid., Chapter 27

Volume 3,pg.200,201

69. Ibid., Chapter 27

Volume 3,pg.202

70. Ibid., Chapter 27

Volume 3,pg.203

71. Ibid., Chapter 29

Volume 4,pg.31

72. Ibid., Chapter 29

Volume 4,pg.33

73. Yamamoto, Book

Two,pg.152

74. Naruto, Chapter

29 Volume 4,pg.10

75. Miyamoto

Musashi, The

76. Naruto, Chapter

32 Volume 4,pg.87

383

Complete Book of Five

Rings, Scroll of water,

the Strike of

nonthought

77. Ibid., Chapter 32

Volume 4,pg.95

78. Naruto, Chapter

32 Volume 4,pg.97

79. Ibid., Chapter 32

Volume 4,pg.99

80. Ibid., Chapter 33

Volume 4,pg.110

81. Ibid., Chapter 33

Volume 4,pg.117

82. Ibid., Chapter 32

Volume 4,pg.91

83. Ibid., Chapter 33

Volume 4,pg.120-121

Chapter 2: Sasuke’s

Rebirth

1. Campbell,

Supernatural Aid,

pg.59

2. Naruto, Chapter 47

Volume 6,pg.30

3. Toshio, Chapter 2:

Drama That

Transcends National

Boundaries, pg.12

4. Naruto, Chapter 46

Volume 6, pg.13

5. Toita, An

Appreciation, pg.66

6. Naruto, Chapter 47

Volume 6,pg.32

7. Toita, The

Audience, pg.67

8. Naruto,Chapter 47

Volume 6,pg.44

9. Ibid., Chapter 47

Volume 6,pg.45

10. Ibid., Chapter 48

Volume 6, pg.55,56

11. Ibid., Chapter 49

Volume 6,pg.74

12. Toita, The

Audience, pg.69

13. Naruto, Chapter

49 Volume 6,pg.75

14. Ibid., Chapter 49

Volume 6,pg.76

15. Toshio,

Theatricality and

audience

involvement give rise

to the

hanamichi,pg.45

16. Naruto(English

Anime),

Episode 29,19 min

17. Powell,

Introduction,pg.4

18. Toshio, The

stylized beauty of a

fusion of the arts,

pg.109,110

19. Naruto, Chapter

55 Volume 7,pg.7

20. Toita, Costume

Color, pg.97

21. Campbell, Part 1:

The Adventure of the

Hero, Chapter 1:

Departure,pg.44

22. Ibid., Chapter 1:

Departure,pg.46

23. Toita, The Actors,

pg.31

24. Naruto, Chapter

56 Volume 7,pg.31

25. Ibid., Chapter 56

Volume 7, pg.29

26. Ibid., Chapter 56

Volume 7, pg.44

27. Naruto Anime

Proﬁles,pg.169

28. Naruto, Chapter

56 Volume 7,pg.45

29. The Epic of

30. Ibid., Tablet I:

31. Ibid., Tablet II:

32. Ibid., Tablet Ill.

384

Gilgamesh, 1. The

Standard Version of

the Babylonian

Gilgamesh Epic: 'He

who saw the Deep',

Tablet II: The

Taming of Enkidu,

pg.16,17

The Coming of

Enkidu, pg.4-8

The Taming of

Enkidu, pg.18-20

Preparations for the

Expedition to the

Forest of Cedar,

pg.28

33. Ibid., Tablet V.

The combat with

Humbaba, pg.41

34.Naruto, Chapter 64

Volume 8,pg.19

35. Ibid., Chapter 65

Volume 8, pg.36

36. Ibid., Chapter 66

Volume 8, pg.58

Chapter 3: Bushy

Brows

1. Shonen Jump Vol 4

#6. Viz Media,pg.4

2. Naruto, Chapter 36

Volume 4,pg.173,174

3. Naruto, Chapter 37

Volume 5, pg.16

4. Ibid., Chapter 37

Volume 5,pg.22

5. Ibid., Chapter 37

Volume 5, pg.24

6. Naruto(English

Anime), Episode 22,

~10min

7. Naruto, Chapter 37

Volume 5,pg.17

8. Ibid., Chapter 37

Volume 5,pg.12

9. Miyamoto

Musashi, The Book of

Five Rings, The Book of

Family Traditions on

the Art of War, No

Sword, Truth and

Untruth

10. Naruto, Chapter

84 Volume 10,pg.53

11. Ibid., Chapter 21

Volume 3,pg.75

12. Ibid., Chapter 37

Volume 5,pg.24

13. Ibid., Chapter 51

Volume 6,pg.115

14. Ibid., Chapter 53

Volume 6,pg.151-156

15. Ibid., Chapter 52

Volume 6,pg.129,130

16. Ibid., Chapter 53

Volume 6,pg.164,165

17. Ibid., Chapter 57

Volume 7, pg.54

18. Ibid., Chapter 58

Volume 7,pg.80

19. Ibid., Chapter 59

Volume 7, pg.96

20. Ibid., Chapter 82

Volume 10,pg.8,9

21. Ibid., Chapter 83

Volume 10,pg.30

22. Ibid., Chapter 83

Volume 10,pg.32

23. Ibid., Chapter 83

Volume 10, pg.40

24. Miyamoto

Musashi, The Book of

Five Rings, The Book of

Family Traditions on

the Art of War, No

Sword, Great

Potential and Great

Function

385

25. Naruto, Chapter

84 Volume 10, pg.59

26. Ibid., Chapter 84

Volume 10, pg.60

27. Ibid., Chapter 84

Volume 10,pg.57,58

28. Ibid., Chapter 86

Volume 10, pg.83

29. Ibid., Chapter 86

Volume 10,pg.95

30. Ibid., Chapter 87

Volume 10,pg.105

Chapter 4: Hinata

vs Neji

1. Naruto, Chapter 77

Volume 8,pg.103

2. Ibid., Chapter 78

Volume 9, pg.107

3. Ibid., Chapter 78

Volume 9,pg.113

4. Ibid., Chapter 78

Volume 9, pg.115

5. Ibid., Chapter 78

Volume 9, pg.117

6. Ibid., Chapter 78

Volume 9, pg.120

7. Ibid., Chapter 84

Volume 10, pg.54

8. Ibid., Chapter 78

Volume 9, pg.121

9. Ibid., Chapter 105

Volume 10,pg.111

10. Ibid., Chapter 80

Volume 9, pg.149

11. Ibid., Chapter 80

Volume 9, pg.157

12. Ibid., Chapter 95

Volume 11,pg.103

13. Ibid., Chapter 96

Volume 11,pg.114,115

14. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy,pg.62

15. Naruto, Chapter

97 Volume 11, pg.135

16. Ibid., Chapter 97

Volume 11,pg.138

17. Naruto(English

Anime) Episode 8,

6min

18. Naruto, Chapter

97 Volume 11,pg.134

19. Shida,pg.240-270

20. James, Wonderful

Tea-Kettle

21. Ibid., pg.18,19

22. Davisson,

Tsukimono – Yokai

and Animal

Possession

Chapter 5: Naruto

vs Neji

1. Naruto, Chapter 78

Volume 9,pg.116

2. Wright, Ninigi

3. Naruto, Chapter 78

Volume 9,pg.111

4. Friday, Karl F. The

First Samurai: The Life

and Legend of the

Warrior Rebel, Taira

Masakado, pg.48

5. Mass, Part one:

The Heian Legacy,

pg.33

6. Ibid., Chapter 4

Family and

Inheritance under the

late Bakufu, pg.94

7. Ibid., pg.95-97

8. Mass, Part One:

The Heian Legacy,

pg.32

9. Szczepanski, The

10. Vaporis,

11. Wu, Lovell.,

12. Naruto, Chapter

386

Four Tiered Class

System

Beginnings,pg.12

Chapter 8, pg.74

100 Volume 12, pg.16

13. Ibid., Chapter 100

Volume 12,pg.18

14. Ibid., Chapter 101

Volume 12,pg.34

15. New World

Encyclopaedia, Neijia

16. Lonelychina,

Neijia

17. Wu, Lovell.,

Chapter One, pg.9

18. Ibid., Chapter

Two, pg.17,18

19. Banerjee.

20. Wu, Lovell.,

Chapter One, Added

note by the author:

The original Chinese is

a quotation from

Confucius, The

Analects, pg.3

21. Ibid., Chapter

Seven,pg.67

22. de Visser, Chapter

I, The fox in

China,pg.5: excerpted

from J.J.M De

Groot’s The Religious

System of China

23. Wu, Lovell.,

Chapter

Twelve,pg.115

24. Ibid., Chapter

17,pg.147

25. Ibid., Chapter

18,pg.153

26. Naruto, Chapter

99 Volume 11, pg.182

27. I Ching Online,

About I Ching (Yi

Jing), Subsection:

Lines

28. Stanford, Yijing,

section 4 : The

Ontology of Change

29. Laozi, chapter

76,pg.155

30.

D’Ambrosio,pg.360

31. Naruto, Chapter

102 Volume 12, pg.55

32. Ibid., Chapter 101

Volume 12,pg.44

33. Ibid., Chapter 101

Volume 12,pg.45

34. Ibid., Chapter 102

Volume 12,pg.49

35. Ibid., Chapter 102

Volume 12,pg.55

36. Ibid., Chapter 102

Volume 12,pg.59

37. Ibid., Chapter 102

Volume 12,pg.51,52

38. Ibid., Chapter 102

Volume 12,pg.55

39. Rogers, Chapter:

Some Hypotheses

Regarding the

Facilitation of

Personal Growth,

pg.38

40. Naruto., Chapter

102 Volume

12,pg.55,63

41. Ibid., Chapter 103

Volume 12,pg.67

42. Rogers, pg.38

43. Naruto., Chapter

104 Volume 12, pg.101

44. Ibid., Chapter 668

Volume 69,pg.205

45. Ibid., Chapter 105

Volume 12,pg.115

46. Ibid., Chapter 105

Volume 12,pg.117

47. Ibid., Chapter 105

Volume 12,pg.122

48. Ibid., Chapter 526

Volume 56, pg.36

49. Ibid., Chapter 105

Volume 12,pg.125

50. Ibid., Chapter 692

Volume 72, pg.35

387

Chapter 6: Sasuke

vs Gaara,

then Naruto vs

Gaara

1. Naruto, Chapter

109 Volume 13,pg.18

2. Ibid., Chapter 125

Volume 14,pg.152

3. Ibid., Chapter 125

Volume 14,pg.154

4. Ibid., Chapter 127

Volume 15,pg.18

5. Ibid., Chapter 127

Volume 15,pg.18,19

6. Ibid., Chapter 111

Volume 13,pg.53,54

7. Ibid., Chapter 111

Volume 13,pg.54

8. Ibid., Chapter 112

Volume 13,pg.83

9. Ibid., Chapter 111

Volume 13,pg.64

10. Ibid., Chapter 134

Volume 15 pg.153,154

11. Ibid., Chapter 125

Volume 14,pg.149

12. Ibid., Chapter 125

Volume 14,pg.154

13. Ibid., Chapter 127

Volume 15,pg.20

14. Ibid., Chapter 127

Volume 15,pg.21,22

15. Ibid., Chapter 128

Volume 15,pg.39

16. Ibid., Chapter 129

Volume 15,pg.48

17. Ibid., Chapter 129

Volume 15,pg.51

18. Ibid., Chapter 129

Volume 15,pg.52

19. Ibid., Chapter 129

Volume 15,pg.62

20. Ibid., Chapter 129

Volume 15,pg.65

21. Ibid., Chapter 130

Volume 15,pg.73

22. Ibid., Chapter 130

Volume 15,pg.68

23. Ibid., Chapter 130

Volume 15,pg.69

24. Chapter 131

Volume 15,pg.92-94

25. Genesis, 4:3

26. Genesis, 4:7

27. Genesis, 4:11

28. Larrimore,

Introduction, pg.2-3

29. Naruto, Chapter

547 Volume

58,pg.47,48

30. Ibid., Chapter 548

Volume 58,pg.67,68

31. Ibid., Chapter 133

Volume 15,pg.137,138

32. Katharine

Hepburn.

33. Naruto, Chapter

134 Volume 15,pg.147

34. Ibid., Chapter 133

Volume 15,

pg.139-141

35. Ibid., Chapter 146

Volume 17 pg.37,38

36. Ibid., Chapter 134

Volume 15,pg.152,153

37. Ibid., Chapter 135

Volume 15,pg.172

38. Davisson, Zack.

Kori no Tatakai –

Kitsune/Tanuki

Battles. Section:

Danzaburō Danuki

and the Tanuki of

Sado Island

39. Ibid., Section:

Kitsune/Tanuki

Battles

40. de Visser,

Chapter II: The fox

and the badger in

Japanese Iaws,

divination and

Iegends, pg.74

41. Naruto, Chapter

138 Volume 15,pg.58

42. Ibid., Chapter 138

Volume 16,pg.63

43. Others, Chapter:

Original Sin, Will

Storr, pg.43

44. Ibid., pg.50

388

45. Naruto, Chapter

138 Volume 16,pg.63

46. Chapter 138

Volume 16,pg.64

Chapter 7: Sannin

Showdown

1. Naruto, Chapter 144

Volume 15,pg.181

2. Ibid., Chapter 144

Volume 16,pg.183

3. Ibid., Chapter 145

Volume 17,pg.25

4. Ibid., Chapter 60

Volume 7,pg.127

5. Ibid., Chapter 146

Volume 17,pg.37

6. Ibid., Chapter 145

Volume 17,pg.20,21

7. Cummins, Samurai

and Ninja[...], Part II:

The Samurai, pg.79

8. Naruto, Chapter

400 Volume

43,pg.201, Chapter

401 Volume

43,pg.212,213

9. Ibid., Chapter 146

Volume 17,pg.32

10. Akatsuki Hiden,

Chapter 1:

Hypericum

11. Naruto, Chapter

144 Volume 16,pg.178

12. Ibid., Chapter 147

Volume 17,pg.60

13. Ibid., Chapter 153

Volume 17, pg.174

14. Ibid., Chapter 153

Volume 17, pg.185

15. Ibid., Chapter 158

Volume 18, pg.94

16. Ibid., Chapter 158

Volume 18, pg.92

17. Naruto(English

Anime) Episode 90,

16min

18. Naruto, Chapter

158 Volume 18,

pg.103

19. Ibid., Chapter 163

Volume 19, pg.19,20

20. Ibid., Chapter 162

Volume 18, pg.171

21. Ibid., Chapter 167

Volume 19,pg.103,104

22. William, Jiraiya,

or the magic frog.

pg.126-140

23. Jiraiya, Goketsu

Monogatari. Carved

woodblocks and

descriptions.

24. Jiraiya, Goketsu

Monogatari. Kabuki

play

Chapter 8: Sasuke

leaves the village

1. Naruto, Chapter 172

Volume 20,pg.23

2. Ibid., Chapter 173

Volume 20,pg.29

3. Ibid., Chapter 173

Volume 20,pg.30

4. Ibid., Chapter 173

Volume 20,pg.34

5. Naruto(English

anime) Episode 99,

2min:41sec -

3min:5sec

6. Naruto, Chapter

173 Chapter 20,pg.42

7. Ibid., Chapter 173

Volume 20,pg.43

8. Ibid., Chapter 174

Volume 20,pg.62

9. Ibid., Chapter 38

Volume 5,pg.39,40

10. Ibid., Chapter 101

Volume 12,pg.40

11. Ibid., Chapter 175

Volume 20,pg.72

12. Ibid., Chapter 176

Volume 20,pg.100,101

389

13. Ibid., Chapter 176

Volume 20,pg.89

14. Ibid., Chapter 176

Volume 20,pg.95-97

15. Ibid., Chapter 177

Volume 20,pg.109

16. Ibid., Chapter 177

Volume 20,pg.111

17. Ibid., Chapter 177

Volume 20,pg.113

18. Ibid., Chapter 178

Volume 20,pg.144

19. Ibid., Chapter 178

Volume 20,pg.145

20. Ibid., Chapter 179

Volume 20,pg.155,156

21. Ibid., Chapter 179

Volume 20,pg.163

22. Chapter 180

Volume 20,pg.175

23. Ibid., Chapter 180

Volume 20,pg.181

24. Ibid., Chapter 180

Volume 20,pg.176

25. Ibid., Chapter 181

Volume 21,pg.19

26. Ibid., Chapter 181

Volume 21,pg.25

27. Ibid., Chapter 182

Volume 21,pg.36

28. Ibid., Chapter 183

Volume 21,pg.57

29. Ibid., Chapter 184

Volume 21,pg.69

30. Ibid., Chapter 184

Volume 21,pg.73,74

31.Wilkinson, The

Complete Gods and

Goddesses, Reptile,

Amphibian and Fish

Deities, pg.221

32. Naruto, Chapter

47 Volume 7,pg.37,38

33. The Story of Osiris

and Isis

34. Hart, Chapter : O,

Osiris, pg.123

35. Naruto, Chapter

201 Volume 23, pg.32

36. Ibid., Chapter 201

Volume 23,pg.41

37. Ibid., Chapter 201

Volume 23,pg.41

38. Ibid., Chapter 202

Volume 23, pg.49

39. Ibid., Chapter 206

Volume 23,pg.130

40. Ibid., Chapter 211

Volume 24, pg.60

41. Ibid., Chapter 211

Volume 24,pg.50

42. Ibid., Chapter 201

Volume 23,pg.34,44,

Chapter 202 Volume

23,pg.63

43. Ibid., Chapter 342

Volume 38,pg.63

44. Ibid., Chapter 213

Volume 24, pg.95

45. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24, pg.172

46. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24, pg.173

47. Gladwell, Part

One, Spies and

Diplomats: Two

Puzzles, Chapter 2:

Getting to know der

Fuhrer,pg.28-36

48. Naruto, Chapter

217 Volume 24,

pg.179

49. Ibid., Naruto,

Chapter 217 Volume

24, pg.181

50. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24, pg.182

51. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24,

pg.182,183

52. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24, pg.184

53. Ibid., Chapter 199

Volume 22,pg.185

Chapter 8: Sasuke

leaves the village

390

1. Naruto, Chapter 172

Volume 20,pg.23

2. Ibid., Chapter 173

Volume 20,pg.29

3. Ibid., Chapter 173

Volume 20,pg.30

4. Ibid., Chapter 173

Volume 20,pg.34

5. Naruto(English

anime) Episode 99,

2min:41sec -

3min:5sec

6. Naruto, Chapter

173 Chapter 20,pg.42

7. Ibid., Chapter 173

Volume 20,pg.43

8. Ibid., Chapter 174

Volume 20,pg.62

9. Ibid., Chapter 38

Volume 5,pg.39,40

10. Ibid., Chapter 101

Volume 12,pg.40

11. Ibid., Chapter 175

Volume 20,pg.72

12. Ibid., Chapter 176

Volume 20,pg.100,101

13. Ibid., Chapter 176

Volume 20,pg.89

14. Ibid., Chapter 176

Volume 20,pg.95-97

15. Ibid., Chapter 177

Volume 20,pg.109

16. Ibid., Chapter 177

Volume 20,pg.111

17. Ibid., Chapter 177

Volume 20,pg.113

18. Ibid., Chapter 178

Volume 20,pg.144

19. Ibid., Chapter 178

Volume 20,pg.145

20. Ibid., Chapter 179

Volume 20,pg.155,156

21. Ibid., Chapter 179

Volume 20,pg.163

22. Chapter 180

Volume 20,pg.175

23. Ibid., Chapter 180

Volume 20,pg.181

24. Ibid., Chapter 180

Volume 20,pg.176

25. Ibid., Chapter 181

Volume 21,pg.19

26. Ibid., Chapter 181

Volume 21,pg.25

27. Ibid., Chapter 182

Volume 21,pg.36

28. Ibid., Chapter 183

Volume 21,pg.57

29. Ibid., Chapter 184

Volume 21,pg.69

30. Ibid., Chapter 184

Volume 21,pg.73,74

31.Wilkinson, The

Complete Gods and

Goddesses, Reptile,

Amphibian and Fish

Deities, pg.221

32. Naruto, Chapter

47 Volume 7,pg.37,38

33. The Story of Osiris

and Isis

34. Hart, Chapter : O,

Osiris, pg.123

35. Naruto, Chapter

201 Volume 23, pg.32

36. Ibid., Chapter 201

Volume 23,pg.41

37. Ibid., Chapter 201

Volume 23,pg.41

38. Ibid., Chapter 202

Volume 23, pg.49

39. Ibid., Chapter 206

Volume 23,pg.130

40. Ibid., Chapter 211

Volume 24, pg.60

41. Ibid., Chapter 211

Volume 24,pg.50

42. Ibid., Chapter 201

Volume 23,pg.34,44,

Chapter 202 Volume

23,pg.63

43. Ibid., Chapter 342

Volume 38,pg.63

44. Ibid., Chapter 213

Volume 24, pg.95

45. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24, pg.172

46. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24, pg.173

47. Gladwell, Part

One, Spies and

Diplomats: Two

Puzzles, Chapter 2:

Getting to know der

Fuhrer,pg.28-36

48. Naruto, Chapter

217 Volume 24,

pg.179

391

49. Ibid., Naruto,

Chapter 217 Volume

24, pg.181

50. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24, pg.182

51. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24,

pg.182,183

52. Ibid., Chapter 217

Volume 24, pg.184

53. Ibid., Chapter 199

Volume 22,pg.185

Chapter 9: Naruto

vs Sasuke

1. Naruto, Chapter 218

Volume 25,pg.11

2. Redford,

Amulets,pg.13

3. Naruto, Chapter

218 Volume 25,pg.5

4. Dunn, The Eyes

Have It

5. The Eye of Horus:

The Connection

Between Art, Medicine,

and Mythology in

Ancient Egypt,

Wisdom ⅛

6. Naruto, Chapter

218 Volume 25, pg.17

7. Ibid., Chapter 218

Volume 25, pg.9

8. Ibid., Chapter 218

Volume 25,pg.20

9. Ibid., Chapter 121

Volume 14,pg.77,

Chapter 122 Volume

14,pg.80

10. Ibid., Chapter 122

Volume 14,pg.80

11. Ibid., Chapter 219

Volume 25,pg.45

12. Ibid., Chapter 220

Volume 25,pg.55

13. Ibid., Chapter 220

Volume 25,pg.62,63

14. Ibid., Chapter 220

Volume 25,pg.64

15. Ibid., Chapter 221

Volume 25,pg.71

16. Ibid., Chapter 221

Volume 25,pg.78

17. Ibid., Chapter 223

Volume 25,pg.114

18. Ibid., Chapter 223

Volume 25,pg.120

19. Ibid., Chapter 225

Volume 25,pg.162

20. Ibid., Chapter 225

Volume 25,pg.164

21. Ibid., Chapter 225

Volume 25,pg.165

22. Ibid., Chapter 227

Volume 26,pg.16

23. Ibid., Chapter 227

Volume 26, pg.17,18

24. Ibid., Chapter 227

Volume 25,pg.25

25. Ibid., Chapter 228

Volume 26,pg.45

26. Ibid., Chapter 229

Volume 26,pg.48

27. Ibid., Chapter 228

Volume 26,pg.35

28. Ibid., Chapter 229

Volume,pg.56

29. Ibid., Chapter 229

Volume 26,pg.60

30. Ibid., Chapter 229

Volume 26,pg.58

31. Ibid., Chapter 227

Volume 26,pg.20-23

32. Ibid., Chapter 228

Volume 26,pg.35

33. Ibid., Chapter 229

Volume 26,pg.62

34. Ibid., Chapter 229

Volume 26,pg.62,63

35. Ibid., Chapter 27

Volume 3, pg.188-191,

197-199

36. Ibid., Chapter 218

Volume 25, pg.20-22

37. Ibid., Chapter 230

Volume 26,pg.71

38. Ibid., Chapter 1

Volume 1,pg.48

39. Ibid., Chapter 122

Volume 14,pg.94,95

40. Ibid., Chapter 122

Volume 14,pg.87

392

41. Ibid., Chapter 122

Volume 14,pg.85

42. Virtue Helps People

Rise Above Despair and

Resentment.

43. Hate and meaning

in life: How collective,

but not personal, hate

quells threat and spurs

meaning in life

44. Ibid., Abstract

45. McGilchrist,

Chapter 2: What do

the two hemispheres

‘do’?,pg.55

46. Ibid., pg.39,40

47. Naruto, Chapter

464 Volume 50,pg.15

48. McGilchrist,

Chapter 2: What do

the two hemispheres

‘do’?, pg.55

49. Ibid., pg.71

50. Ibid., pg.62

51. Naruto, Chapter

231 Volume 26,pg.93

52. Ibid., Chapter 539

Volume 57,pg.80

53. Ibid., Chapter 233

Volume 26,pg.128

54. Ibid., Chapter 234

Volume 26 pg.162,163

55. Ibid., Chapter 237

Volume 27, pg.44

56. Ibid., Chapter 238

Volume 27, pg.48,49

393

Shippuden: Pre-War

Chapter 10:

Kazekage Rescue

Mission

1. Fauliot, Samurai

Wisdom Stories,

Chapter 3: The

Samurai and the Zen

Cat, pg.9-11

2. Naruto, Chapter

249 Volume

28,pg.95,96

3. Ibid., Chapter 252

Volume 28,pg.154

4. Ibid., Chapter 262

Volume 29,pg.177

5. Ibid., Chapter 252

Volume

28,pg.163-166

6. Ibid., Chapter 259

Volume 29,pg.123

7. Ibid., Chapter 264

Volume 30,pg.31

8. Yamamoto, Book

Three, Pertaining to

Death and War,

aphorism 6-21 ,

pg.258-259

9. Ibid., Hagakure in

context,pg.14

10. Ibid., Hagakure in

context,pg.29

11. Ibid., Book One,

aphorism 113, pg.97

12. Popova, Walter

Benjamin[...]

13. Burke, Edmund.

Part II , Section I,

pg.72

14. Naruto, Chapter

359 Volume 39,pg.181

15. Ibid., Chapter 264

Volume 30.pg.33

16. Ibid., Chapter 359

Volume 39,pg.186,187

17. Hegel, Introductory

Lectures on Aesthetics,

Chapter V, Division

of the Subject, pg.80

18. Naruto, Naruto,

Chapter 359 Chapter

39,pg.181

19. Nietzsche, The

Will to power, pg.482

20. Naruto, Chapter

267 Volume

30,pg.100

21. Ibid., Chapter 264

Volume 30,pg.42

22. Ibid., Chapter 265

Volume 30,pg.54

23. Pinch,pg.189

24. Hart, S, pg.142

25. Naruto, Naruto,

Chapter 264 Volume

30,pg.45

26. Garlinghouse,

Mummiﬁcation: The

lost art of embalming

the dead

27. Wilkinson, The

Complete Gods and

Goddesses, pg.233,234

28. Naruto, Chapter

275 Volume 31,pg.76

29. Ibid., Chapter 278

Volume 31,pg.137

30. Ibid., Chapter 278

Volume 31,pg.138,139

31. Ibid., Chapter 278

Volume 31,pg.141

32. Ibid., Chapter 280

Volume 31,pg.178

33. Ibid., Chapter 271

Volume 30,pg.171

34. Ibid., Chapter 273

Volume 31,pg.44,45

35. Ibid., Chapter 279

Volume 31,pg.151

36. Ibid., Chapter 274

Volume 31,pg.62

394

37. Ibid., Chapter 262

Volume 29,pg.180

38. Ibid., Chapter 279

Volume 31,pg.154

39. Ibid., Chapter 279

Volume 31,pg.150,152

40. Ibid., Chapter 279

Volume 31,pg.154

Chapter 11: Team

7-ish

1. Naruto, Chapter 281

Volume 32,pg.24, 25

2. Ibid., Chapter 285

Volume 32,pg.95,96

3. Ibid., Chapter 285

Volume 32,pg.98

4. Ibid., Chapter 285

Volume 32,pg.99,100

5. Ibid., Chapter 286

Volume 32,pg.111

6. Ibid., Chapter 286

Volume 32,pg.114

7. Ibid., Chapter 288

Volume 32,pg.155,156

8. Ibid., Chapter 288

Volume 33,pg.156

9. Ibid., Chapter 292

Volume 33,pg.58

10. Ibid., Chapter 288

Volume 32,pg.158

11. Yamamoto, Book

One,pg.42

12. Ibid., Hagakure in

context, pg.26

13. Cummins, Iga and

Koka Ninja Skills Part

II , An Iga and Koka

Commentary on Sun

Tzu’s use of spies,

PREFACE TO THE

YOKAN DENKAI

MANUAL – A

STUDY ON THE

USE OF SPIES

14. Naruto, Chapter

289 Volume 32,pg.167

15. Yamamoto,

Hagakure in

Context,pg.31,

Hagakure Hierarchy,

pg.281

16. Naruto

Shippuden(English

Anime), Episode 41

17. Naruto, Chapter

293 Volume

33,pg.66,67

18. Ibid., Chapter 296

Volume 33,pg.125

19. Ibid., Chapter 299

Volume

33,pg.177-180

20. Ibid., Chapter 307

Volume 34,pg.151

21. Yamamoto,

Hagakure in

context,pg.30-31

22. Ibid., Foreword,

pg.7

23. Naruto, Chapter

301 Volume 34,pg.32

24. Ibid., Chapter 303

Volume 34,pg.62,64

25. Ibid., Chapter 303

Volume 34,pg.64

26. Ibid., Chapter 507

Volume 60,pg.52-54

27. Ibid., Chapter 507

Volume 54,pg.55

28. Ibid., Chapter 303

Volume 34,pg.75

29. Ibid., Chapter 304

Volume 34,pg.85

30. Ibid., Chapter 304

Volume 33,pg.94

31. Ibid., Chapter 303

Volume 34,pg.66

32. Ibid., Chapter 303

Volume 34,pg.67

33. Ibid., Chapter 309

Volume 34,pg.175

34. Ibid., Chapter 292

Volume 33,pg.47,48

35. Ibid., Chapter 309

Volume 34,pg.182

36. Ibid., Chapter 311

Volume 35,pg.45

37. Ibid., Chapter 319

Volume 35,pg.185

38. Ibid., Chapter 338

Volume 37,pg.160

39. Ibid., Chapter 340

Volume 38,pg.22

40. Ibid., Chapter 342

Volume 38,pg.63

395

Chapter 12:

Culmination of the

Uchiha

1. Naruto, Chapter

343 Volume 38,pg.76

2. Ibid., Chapter 343

Volume 38,pg.81

3. Ibid., Chapter 344

Volume 38,pg.86

4. Ibid., Chapter 344

Volume 38,pg.85

5. Ibid., Chapter 344

Volume 38,pg.95,96

6. Ibid., Chapter 345

Volume 38,pg.110,

Chapter 346 Volume

38,pg.123

7. Ibid., Chapter 232

Volume 26,pg.112,113

8. McIntee, The

Vengeful Nephew,

Horus vs Set

9. Ibid.,

10. Wilkinson, Toby.

Part II, BATTLE

NARRATIVES,

Section 3: Piankhi

Stela, King

Peftjauawybast pays

homage

11. Pinch, pg.108

12. Naruto, Chapter

579 Volume 61,pg.64

13. Wilkinson, The

Complete Gods and

Goddesses Reptile,

Amphibian and Fish

Deities, pg.221

14. Naruto, Chapter

343 Volume

38,pg.78,79

15. Faulkner, pg.168

16. Flood, Śiva and

tantric religion,

pg.150

17.

Redford,Introduction

, pg.xii,xiii

18. Naruto, Chapter

56 Volume 7,pg.29

19. Wilkinson, The

Complete Gods and

Goddesses, Reptile,

Amphibian and Fish

deities, pg.227

20. Wilkinson,

Reading Egyptian Art.

pg.43

21. Redford, pg.13

22. Bingham,

Tonatiuh, pg.128

23. Waterﬁeld, The

Ascent of the

Olympian Gods,pg.11

24. Naruto, Chapter

366 Volume 40,pg.134

25. Ibid., Chapter 367

Volume 40,pg.138

26. Ibid., Chapter 367

Volume 40,pg.15

27. Ponsonby-Fane,

pg.11

28. Naruto, Chapter

371 Volume 41,pg.26

29. Ibid., Chapter 380

Volume 42,pg.17

30. Ibid., Chapter 384

Volume 42,pg.91

31. Ibid., Chapter 385

Volume 42,pg.104,105

32. Ibid., Chapter 385

Volume 42,pg.105

33. Ibid., Chapter 385

Volume 42,pg.107

34. Ibid., Chapter 386

Volume 42,pg.122

35. Ibid., Chapter 386

Volume 42,pg.130

36. Foster, Part II:

Yokai Codex, Section

5. Wilds, Subsection:

Oni Demon or Ogre

396

37. Ibid., Naruto,

Chapter 386 Volume

42,pg.132

38. Ibid., Chapter 388

Volume 42,pg.156

39. Ibid., Chapter 389

Volume 42,pg.185

40. Ibid., Chapter 391

Volume 43,pg.31

41. Roberts, G, Gao

Yao, pg.50 & Q,

Qilin, pg.102

42. Ibid., L, Lei

Gong, pg.71,72

43. Ibid., pg.72

44. Naruto, Chapter

391 Volume 43,pg.37

45. Ibid., Chapter 391

Volume 43,pg.40

46. Ibid., Chapter 392

Volume 43,pg.44

47. Gadeleva, pg.167,

in mention of

Motoori Norinaga’s

Kojiki-Den

48. Naruto, Chapter

392 Volume

43,pg.44-52

49. Ibid., Chapter 658

Volume 69,pg.16-17

50. Ibid., Chapter 466

Volume 50,pg.47

51. Gadeleva, pg.168

52. Naruto, Chapter

392 Volume 43,pg.55

53. Takeshi, pg.5

54. Davis, Chapter

One: The Period of

the Gods, Ama-terasu

and Susa-no-o

55. Ibid., Davis,

Susa-no-o and the

serpent

56. Naruto, Chapter

392 Volume

43,pg.52,58

57. Ibid., Chapter 393

Volume 43,pg.69

58. Smyers,

Introducing Inari,

pg.23

59. Naruto, Chapter

392 Volume 43,pg.58

60. Gadeleva, pg.172

61. Naruto, Chapter

395 Volume 43,pg.111

62. Ibid., Chapter 396

Volume 43,pg121

63. Ibid., Chapter 453

Volume 48,pg.194

64. Ibid., Chapter 394

Volume 43,pg.92

65. Ibid., Chapter 396

Volume 43,pg.131

66. Ibid., Chapter 397

Volume 43,pg.143-145

67. Ibid., Chapter 398

Volume 43,pg.154

68. Ibid., Chapter 398

Volume 43,pg.162

69. Ibid., Chapter 399

Volume

43,pg.178,182,183,186

70. Ibid., Chapter 399

Volume 43,pg.187

71. Weiss,

Introduction, pg.2

72. Naruto, Chapter

400 Volume

43,pg.196

73. Ibid., Chapter 401

Volume 43,pg.212

74. Ibid., Chapter 401

Volume 43,pg.213

75. Ibid., Chapter 401

Volume 43,pg.216

76. Ibid., Chapter 401

Volume

43,pg.219,221-222

77. Ibid., Chapter 402

Volume 43,pg.241

78. Ibid., Chapter 404

Volume 44,pg.40

79. Ibid., Chapter 416

Volume 45,pg.73

80. Ibid., Chapter 416

Volume 45,pg.74

81. Ibid., Chapter 416

Volume 45,pg.75,76

397

Chapter 13: The loss

of a teacher

1. Naruto, Chapter

366 Volume

40,pg.126

2. Ibid., Chapter 366

Volume 40,pg.129

3. Ibid., Chapter 367

Volume 40,pg.153

4. Ibid., Chapter 369

Volume 40,pg.185,186

5. Ibid., Chapter 370

Volume 41,pg.11

6. Ibid., Chapter 370

Volume 41,pg.20

7. Ibid., Chapter 370

Volume 41,pg.21

8. Ibid., Chapter 370

Volume 41,pg.23

9. Ibid., Chapter 373

Volume 41,pg.63

10. Second Databook,

Character Files, Itachi

Uchiha

11. Naruto, Chapter

371 Volume

41,pg.38-40

12. Ibid., Chapter 371

Volume 41,pg.37

13. Ibid., Chapter 372

Volume 41,pg.56

14. Ibid., Chapter 373

Volume 41,pg.68

15. Ibid., Chapter 373

Volume 41,pg.68,69

16. Ibid., Chapter 373

Volume 41,pg.70

17. Ibid., Chapter 374

Volume 41,pg.85

18. Chapter 374

Volume 41,pg.87

19. Ibid., Chapter 374

Volume 41,pg.91

20. Jarus, Tsar Bomba

explosion

21. Naruto, Chapter

376 Volume

41,pg.127-129

22. Ibid., Chapter 376

Volume 41,pg.129-131

23. Ibid., Chapter 378

Volume 41,pg.155

24. McKenna, 1hr:21

25. Naruto, Chapter

379 Volume

41,pg.177-180

26. Ibid., Chapter 379

Volume 41,pg.179

27. Ibid., Chapter 379

Volume 41,pg.188

28. Ibid., Chapter 449

Volume 48,pg.117

29. Ibid., Chapter 381

Volume 42,pg.31

30. Ibid., Chapter 381

Volume 42,pg.35

31. Ibid., Chapter 381

Volume 42,pg.38

32. Ibid., Chapter 382

Volume 42,pg.59

33. Ibid., Chapter 404

Volume 44,pg.32

34. Ibid., Chapter 405

Volume 44,pg.54

35. Ibid., Chapter 405

Volume 44,pg.55

36. Ibid., Chapter 406

Volume 44,pg.75

37. Peters,

38. Naruto, Chapter

407 Volume 44,pg.91

39. Ibid., Chapter 408

Volume 44,pg.109

40. Ibid., Chapter 410

Volume 44,pg.142

41. Ibid., Chapter 560

Volume 59,pg.93,94

42. Ibid., Chapter 79

Volume 9,pg.139

43. Ibid., Chapter 47

Volume 6,pg.42

44. Ibid., Chapter 645

Volume 67,pg.137

45. Ibid., Chapter 427

Volume 46,pg.83

46. Volker, pg.168

47. Chapter :

Endgame, Subsection:

Secrets of the Fruit

48. Roberts, Yi,

pg.143

49. Yang, Chang’e,

pg.88

50.

Pregadio,pg.687,688

51. Ibid., Liu Haichan,

pg.686

52. Ibid.,

Overview,pg.79

398

53. Ashkenazi,

Deities, themes and

concepts, pg.156

54. Naruto, Chapter

415 Volume 45,pg.58

55. Ibid., Chapter 416

Volume 45,pg.68,69

56. Ibid., Chapter 416

Volume 45,pg.65

57. Ibid., Chapter 416

Volume 45,pg.76,

Chapter 373 Volume

41,pg.69

Chapter 14: Pain

1. Naruto, Chapter 421

Volume 45,pg.160

2. Ibid., Chapter 421

Volume 45,pg.171

3. Ibid., Chapter 424

Volume 46,pg.26,27

4. Ibid., Chapter 428

Volume 46,pg.105

5. Ibid., Chapter 429

Volume 46,pg.117

6. Ibid., Chapter 428

Volume 46,pg.113

Chapter 429 Volume

46,pg.115

7. Wikitionary

translation

8. Naruto, Chapter

429 Volume 46,pg.117

9. Ibid., Chapter 430

Volume 46,pg.143

10. Ibid., Chapter 430

Volume 46,pg.149

11. Ibid., Chapter 432

Volume 46,pg.173

12. Ibid., Chapter 432

Volume 46,pg.174,176

13. Ibid., Chapter 450

Volume 48,pg.141

14. Jung, Four

Archetypes, On the

Psychology of the

Trickster-ﬁgure,

pg.160

15. Ibid., pg.161

16. Ibid., pg.178,179

17. Naruto, Chapter

434 Volume 47,pg.36

18. Ibid., Chapter 435

Volume 47,pg.48,49

19. Ibid., Chapter 435

Volume 47,pg.60

20. Ibid., Chapter 436

Volume 47,pg.67,68

21. Ibid., Chapter 436

Volume 47,pg.68

22. Ibid., Chapter

436 Volume

47,pg.69,70

23. Ibid., Chapter

436 Volume 47,pg.71

24. Ibid., Chapter

436 Volume 47,pg.73

25. Ibid., Chapter

436 Volume 47,pg.77

26. Ibid., Chapter 436

Volume 47,pg.77,78

27. Ibid., Chapter 437

Volume 47,pg.82

28. Ibid., Chapter 437

Volume 47,pg.89

29. Ibid., Chapter 437

Volume 47,pg.91,92

30. Ibid., Chapter 437

Volume 47,pg.92

31. Ibid., Chapter 437

Volume 47,pg.94

32. Ibid., Chapter 438

Volume 47,pg.100,101

33. Ibid., Chapter 438

Volume 47,pg.114

34. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy, Part III,

Chapter 2, Section II,

pg.257,262

35. Jung, Mysterium,

Chapter VI: The

Conjunction, pg.457

36. Jung, Alchemical

Studies,pg.321,322

399

37. Jung, Mysterium,

Chapter VI:

Conjunction Section

10: The self and the

bounds of

knowledge, pg.544

38. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy, Part III,

Chapter 4: The Prima

Materia,

section:V,pg.338-339

39. Naruto, Chapter

297 Volume

33,pg.140-142

40. Ibid., Chapter 439

Volume 47,pg.125,126

41. Chesterton,

Orthodoxy, Section

VIII: The Romance

of Orthodoxy

42. Jung, Mysterium,

Chapter III: The

Personiﬁcation of the

opposites, Sulphur,

pg.125,126

43. Naruto, Chapter

439 Volume 47,pg.127

44. Ibid., Chapter 439

Volume 47,pg.133

45. Ibid., Chapter 440

Volume 47,pg.138

46. Ibid., Chapter 440

Volume 47,pg.144

47. Ibid., Chapter 440

Volume 47,pg.147

48. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy, Chapter

4: Prima Materia,

Subsection IV: The

king and the king’s

son, pg.330,331

49. Ibid., pg.329

50. Etymology

Dictionary, King

51. Naruto, Chapter

441 Volume 47,pg.162

52. Ibid., Chapter 441

Volume 47,pg.166

53. Ibid., Chapter 443

Volume 48,pg.20,21

54. Ibid., Chapter 443

Volume 48,pg.20

55. Ibid., Chapter 444

Volume 48,pg.33

56. Ibid., Chapter 444

Volume 48,pg.41

57. Ibid., Chapter 445

Volume 48,pg.45-47

58. Ibid., Chapter 445

Volume 48,pg.51

59. Ibid., Chapter 445

Volume 48,pg.57

60. Ibid., Chapter 446

Volume 48,pg.66

61. Ibid., Chapter 446

Volume 48,pg.75

62. Ibid., Chapter 446

Volume 48,pg.69

63. Ibid., Chapter 373

Volume 41,pg.74

64. Naruto, Fourth

Data Book, pg.127

65. Naruto, Chapter

447 Volume 48,pg.83

66. Ibid., Chapter 448

Volume 48,pg.108

67. Ibid., Chapter 448

Volume 48,pg.109

68. Ibid., Chapter 448

Volume 48,pg.109,110

69. Ibid., Chapter 303

Volume 34,pg.77

70. Ibid., Chapter 435

Volume 47,pg.59

71. Ibid., Chapter 434

Volume 47,pg.42

72. Ibid., Chapter 444

Volume 48,pg.28

73. Mark 8:31

74. Naruto, Chapter

449 Volume

48,pg.121,122

75. Ibid., Chapter 447

Volume 48,pg.93

76. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy, Chapter

5: The lapis-christ

parallel, pg.428 ,

excerpt taken from

Orthelius’ theology of

the lapis

77. Jung, Psychology

78. Naruto, Chapter

79. Dostoevsky,

80. Ibid., pg.214

400

and Alchemy, pg.167

448 Volume 48,pg.96

pg.211

81. Naruto, Chapter

545 Volume 58,pg.15

82. Matthew 4:4

83. Dostoevsky,

Project

Gutenberg,pg.318

84. Marconi, Chapter

1: It is Christ who

lives in me, pg.30-31

85. Ibid., Chapter 2:

Made to Image and

Imitate the Triune

God, pg.47

86. Naruto, Chapter

448 Volume 48,pg.115

87. Ibid., Chapter 446

Volume 48,pg.67

88. Ibid., Chapter 448

Volume 48,pg.111

89. Ibid., Chapter 552

Volume 58,pg.47

90. Ibid., Chapter 450

Volume 48,pg.136

Chapter 15: Danzo

does it

1. Naruto, Chapter

450 Volume

48,pg.150

2. Ibid., Chapter 450

Volume 48,pg.152,153

3. Ibid., Chapter 450

Volume 48,pg.153

4. Liu, Chapter 9:

The Ruler’s

Techniques, 9.1

5. Hanfeizi, Way of

the Ruler,pg.17

6. Ibid., Introduction

pg.5

7. Ibid., Introduction

pg.6,7

8. Stanford, Legalism

in Chinese Philosophy.

7. Epilogue: Legalism

in Chinese History

9. Huangdi Sijing,

Chapter 2: The

central concern of the

Four Texts: The Art

of Rulership, pg.22

10. Ibid., pg.26

11. Hanfeizi, Chapter :

Wielding Power,

pg.40

12. Ibid., The Ten

Faults,pg.50

13. Naruto, Chapter

457 Volume 49,pg.64

14. Liu., Chapter 9,

9.18

15. Naruto Meigen Shu

, Kizuna 2013.

16. Liu, Chapter 10:

Summary and Key

terms

17. Ibid., Chapter 10,

10.30

18. Ibid., Chapter 9,

9.17

19. Naruto, Chapter

461 Volume 49,pg.145

20. Ibid., Ibid.,

Chapter 461 Volume

49,pg.146

21. Liu, Chapter 16-17

Summary and Key

Themes

22. Dias, Part VI: The

tribalist,

section.2:The

Pier,pg.401

23. Naruto, Chapter

452 Volume

48,pg.185,186

24. Ibid., Chapter 453

Volume 48,pg.199

25. Ibid., Chapter 453

26. Ibid., Chapter 454

27. Ibid., Chapter 454

28. Ibid., Chapter 455

401

Volume 48,pg.200

Volume 49,pg.21

Volume 49,pg.20

Volume 49,pg.28

29. Klein, Chapter 1:

Puzzles about pain,

1.1 Imperativism, pg.1

30. Ibid., Chapter 3 :

Pain and Imperatives,

3.4 Pains as

imperatives, 3.4.1

argument,pg.34

31. Ibid., Chapter 11,

11.2, pg.142

32. Ibid., Chapter 11,

11.2, pg.145 - in

regards to the “Lost

Capacity” model used

to explain Pain

Asymbolia

33. Leviticus,

24:19-21

34. Matthew, 5:38-48

35. Miura, pg.107-112

36. Milgrom, Notes

24:17-22,

pg.2120,2121

37. Naruto, Chapter

446 Volume 45,pg.66

38. Ibid., Chapter 339

Volume 37,pg.176

39. Ibid., Chapter 455

Volume 49,10

40. Ibid., Chapter 457

Volume 49,pg.71

41. Ibid., Chapter 458

Volume 49,pg.96

42. Ibid., Chapter 460

Volume 49,pg.130

43. Ibid., Chapter 694

Volume 72,pg.4

44. Ibid., Chapter 457

Volume 49,pg.74

45. Ibid., Chapter 457

Volume 49,pg.70

46. Greene, Law

4,pg.33

47. Ibid., Law 5,pg.37

48. Naruto, Chapter

457 Volume 49,pg.74

49. Ibid., Chapter 469

Volume 50,pg.112

50. Ibid., Chapter 469

Volume 50,pg.111

51. Ibid., Chapter 470

Volume 50,pg.124

52. Ibid., Chapter 474

Volume 51,pg.13-15

53. Ibid., Chapter 474

Volume 51,pg.21,22

Chapter 16: The

Taka

1. Naruto, Chapter

475 Volume 51,pg.41

2. Ibid., Chapter 476

Volume 51,pg.48

3. Ibid., Chapter 476

Volume 51,pg.59

4. Ibid., Chapter 477

Volume 51,pg.75

5. Yano, Vol.1, pg.55

6. Ibid., Vol.1,pg.59

7. Ibid, Vol.1 pg.96

8. Naruto, Chapter

476 Volume 51,pg.61

9. Ibid., Chapter 478

Volume 51,pg.88

10. Ibid., Chapter 479

Volume 51, pg.115

11. Ibid., Chapter 480

Volume 51,pg.113

12. Ibid., Chapter 480

Volume 51,pg.135

13. Venkatesananda,

Chapter 1: Bala

Kanda: Boyhood

Rama, pg.63

14. Naruto, Chapter

481 Volume 51,pg.141

15. Ibid., Chapter 481

Volume 51,pg.142

16. Ibid., Chapter 481

Volume 51,pg.143

17. Ibid., Chapter 481

18. Ibid., Chapter 481

19. Ibid., Chapter 483

20. Ibid., Chapter 483

402

Volume 51,pg.144

Volume 51,pg.148,

Karin’s: Chapter 481

Volume 51,pg.138

Volume 51,pg.179

Volume 51,pg.180

21. Ibid., Chapter 484

Volume 52,pg.10

22. Ibid., Chapter 484

Volume 52,pg.11

23. Ibid., Chapter 484

Volume 52,pg.20

24. Ibid., Chapter 487

Volume 52,pg.69

25. Ibid., Chapter 485

Volume 52,pg.29

26. Ibid., Chapter 451

Volume 48,pg.163,164

27. Ibid., Chapter 487

Volume 52,pg.67,68

28. Ibid., Chapter 486

Volume 52,pg.59

29. Ibid., Chapter 470

Volume 50,pg.121

30. Ibid., Chapter 484

Volume 52,pg.13

31. Ibid., Chapter 484

Volume 52,pg.14,15

32. Ibid., Chapter 462

Volume 49,pg.160

33. Ibid., Chapter 486

Volume 52,pg.57

34. Ibid., Chapter 485

Volume 52,pg.40,41

35. Ibid., Chapter 486

Volume 52,pg.53,54

36. Buddhists.org,

The Middle Way

37. Siderits,

Dedicatory Verse, 15.

An Analysis of

Intrinsic Nature

38. Naruto, Chapter

366 Volume 40,pg.123

403

Shippuden : War and Post-War

Chapter 17: A

turtle, an octopus

and a waterfall

1. Naruto, Chapter

489 Volume 52,pg.97

2. Japanese Religions.

Past and Present, p. 51

3. Beinorius, pg.102

4. Bonnefoy, Japanese

Divination, pg.281

5. Naruto, Chapter

489 Volume 52,pg.110

6. Struck,

Introduction, pg.1

7. Naruto, Chapter

376 Volume

41,pg.124-129

8. Howland, Chapter

3: Platonic Interlude:

Eros and the God,

pg.61

9. Kennedy,pg.96

10. Naruto, Chapter

489 Volume 52,pg.111

11. Ibid., Chapter 490

Volume 52,pg.128

12. Ibid., Chapter 490

Volume 52,pg.129

13. Ibid., Chapter 490

Volume 52,pg.132

14. Miller, pg.306

15. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy, Section

II: Individual dream

symbolism in relation

to alchemy, pg.154,

dream:21

16. Ibid., Part II,

Chapter 3: The

symbolism of the

Mandala,Subsection

II: The Mandalas n

the dreams, pg.144

17. Jung, Mysterium

Coniunctionis, IV.

REX AND REGINA,

pg.283 aphorism:381

18. Yamada, Iikura.,

pg.55,56

19. Naruto, Chapter

492 Volume

52,pg.159

20. Ibid., Chapter 492

Volume 52,pg.161

21. Ibid., Chapter 492

Volume 52,pg.162

22. Ibid., Chapter 492

Volume 52,pg.166

23. Wu, Lovell.,

Chapter One,pg.2

24. Naruto, Chapter

492 Volume 52,pg.171

25. Ibid., Chapter 493

Volume 52,pg.174

26. Ibid., Chapter 493

Volume 52,pg.183

27. Ibid., Chapter 493

Volume 52,pg.186

28. Ibid., Chapter 494

Volume 52,pg.195,196

29. Ibid., Chapter 494

Volume 52,pg.197

30. Ibid., Chapter 494

Volume 52,pg.200

31. Ibid., Chapter 494

Volume 52,pg.203

32. Ibid., Chapter 494

Volume 52,pg.207

33. Ibid., Chapter 495

Volume 53,pg.15

34. Ibid., Chapter 495

Volume 53,pg.16

35. Ibid., Chapter 493

Volume 52,pg.178

36. Ibid., Chapter 495

Volume 53,pg.18

37. Ibid., Chapter 496

Volume 53,pg.27

38. Ibid., Chapter 496

Volume 53,pg.26

39. Britannica, Guru

Gobind Singh and

the founding of the

Khalsa.

40. Chapter 497

Volume 53,pg.55-58

404

41. Ibid., Chapter 498

Volume 53,pg.62

42. Ibid., Chapter 504

Volume 53,pg.172

43. Ibid., Chapter 498

Volume 53,pg.77

44. Jung, Four

Archetypes, Chp.2,

The Mother

Archetype,pg.15

45. Ibid., Psychology

of rebirth,pg.67,68

46. Naruto, Chapter

499 Volume 52,pg.94

47. Ibid., Chapter 534

Volume 56,pg.189

48. Ibid., Chapter 535

Volume 57,pg.9

49. Ibid., Chapter 535

Volume 57, pg.12,13

50. Ibid., Chapter 535

Volume 57,pg.14

51. Ibid., Chapter 535

Volume 57,pg.15

52. Ibid., Chapter 535

Volume 57,pg.16

53. Ibid., Chapter 495

Volume 53,pg.18

54. Ibid., Chapter 611

Volume

64,pg.63,64,69

55. Ibid., Chapter 467

Volume 50,pg.72

56. Jung, Four

Archetypes, Positive

aspects of the mother

complex,pg.33

57. Naruto, Chapter

501 Volume 53,pg.122

Chapter 18: Tests

of character

1. Naruto, Chapter

538 Volume 57,pg.62

2. Ibid., Chapter 538

Volume 57,pg.63

3. Ibid., Chapter 485

Volume 52,pg.31

4. Ibid., Chapter 482

Volume 52,pg.163,

Chapter 411 Volume

44,pg.158

5. Ibid., Chapter 540

Volume 57,pg.113

6. Ibid., Chapter 541

Volume 57,pg.123

7. Ibid., Chapter 541

Volume 57,pg.126

8. Ibid., Chapter 541

Volume 57,pg.128

9. Ibid., Chapter 541

Volume 57,pg.129

10. Ibid., Chapter 541

Volume 57,pg.128

11. Ibid., Chapter 541

Volume 57,pg.131

12. Ibid., Chapter 542

Volume 57,pg.136

13. Ibid., Chapter 542

Volume 57,pg.138

14. Ibid., Chapter 542

Volume 57,pg.137

15. Ibid., Chapter 500

Volume 53,pg.102

16. Ibid., Chapter 542

Volume 57,pg.143

17. Ibid., Chapter 542

Volume 57,pg.151

18. Ibid., Chapter 544

Volume 57,pg.172

19. Ibid., Chapter 539

Volume 57,pg.89

20. Ibid., Chapter 540

Volume 57,pg.102

21. Ibid., Chapter 505

Volume 54,pg.15,16

22. Dafni et al., in

regards to

Wright[237:182]

23. Folkard,

Introduction, pg.xix

24. Carter, Myths and

Mandrakes

25. Goethe, Part II,

Act I, An Imperial

Palace, Brightly Lit

26. Folkard, pg.427

27. Dafni et al., in

regards to [251:3],

[252:71]

28. Ibid., in regards

to [263: 240–241]

405

Room, pg.162,163

29. Naruto, Chapter

661 Volume Volume

69,pg.65

30. Snow.,

31. Riskin, Chapter 2:

Emergence,

Subsection 7: The

Homunculus and the

mandrake,pg.126,

commentary on

ﬁgure 7.2

32. Naruto, Chapter

679 Volume

70,pg.196,197

33. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy,

pg.338-339, &

Pain,pg.226

34. Jung, Alchemical

studies , II, The

Visions of Zosimos,

pg.60

35. Ibid., pg.60

36. Naruto, Chapter

293 Volume 33

pg.67,68, Naruto

Shippuden(English

Anime) Episode 39,

14min

37. Jung, Alchemical

Studies,pg.65

38. Jung, Mysterium,

Chapter IV: Rex and

Regina, Section II:

Gold and Spirit,

pg.262

39. Ibid., pg.263

40. Naruto, Chapter

505 Volume 54,pg.14

41. Murase, pg.8

42. Naruto, Chapter

548 Volume 58,pg.81

43. Ibid., Chapter 549

Volume 58,pg.84

44. Ibid., Chapter 549

Volume 58,pg.99

45. Ibid., Chapter 552

Volume 58,pg.142

46. Ibid., Chapter 552

Volume 58,pg.144

Chapter 19:

Madara enters

the war

1. Naruto, Chapter

559 Volume 59,pg.66

2. Ibid., Chapter 560

Volume 59,pg.84

3. Ibid., Chapter 560

Volume 59,pg.97

4. Ibid., Chapter 561

Volume 59,pg.104

5. Ibid., Chapter 561

Volume 59,pg.114

6. Ibid., Chapter 568

Volume 60 pg.54

7. Ibid., Chapter 562

Volume 59,pg.121

8. Ibid., Chapter 562

Volume 59,pg.122

9. Ibid., Chapter 563

Volume 59,pg.146

10. Ibid., Chapter 563

Volume 59,pg.147

11. Ibid., Chapter 563

Volume 59,pg.150

12. Ibid., Chapter 563

Volume 59,pg.152,153

13. Ibid., Chapter 564

Volume 59,pg.167

14. Ibid., Chapter 577

Volume 61,pg.32

15. Hegel,

Phenomenology of

Spirit, Culture and its

realm of

16. Naruto, Chapter

561 Volume 60,pg.105

406

actuality,pg.320,apho

rism.526

17. Neumann, Origins

and history of

consciousness. Part II:

The psychological

stages in the

development of

personality,A: The

The Original Unity,

Development of the

ego out of the

ouroboros

18. Naruto, Chapter

503 Volume

53,pg.167,168

19. Ibid., Chapter 567

Volume 60,pg.33

20. Ibid., Chapter 567

Volume 60,pg.35

21. Ibid., Chapter 568

Volume 60,pg.54

22. Wu, Cummins.,

Chapter 76:

Mind-Spirit dwells at

home, and demons

revert to nature;

Wood Mother

together subdues the

ﬁend's true self, pg.1

23. Ibid., Chapter 570

Volume 60,pg.86

24. Ibid., Chapter 570

Volume 60,pg.94

25. Ibid., Chapter 570

Volume 60,pg.98,99

26. Naruto

Shippuden(English

anime) Episode 217,

2min

27. Neumann, Origins

and history of

consciousness. Part II:

The psychological

stages in the

development of

personality. A: The

Original Unity, The

ego germ in the

original Ouroboric

situation

28. Strauss, Chapter

1: The totemic

illusion, pg.19

29. Jung, Modern man

in search of a soul,

pg.186

30. Naruto, Chapter

568 Volume 60,pg.58

31. Strauss, Chapter 1:

The totemic illusion,

pg.21

32. Naruto, Chapter

499 Volume 53,pg.94

33. Neumann, Origins

and history of

consciousness. Part II:

The psychological

stages in the

development of

personality. A: The

34. Naruto, Chapter

569 Volume

60,pg.79,80

35. Neumann.

Centroversion in

organisms on the

Ouroboric level.

36. Naruto, Chapter

572 Volume

60,pg.124-125

407

Original Unity,

Centroversion in

organisms on the

Ouroboric level

37. Ibid., Chapter 572

Volume 60,pg.130,131

38. Wilkinson, The

Complete Gods and

Goddesses of Ancient

Egypt, Avian Deities,

Thoth, pg.215

39. Budge, Thoth,

pg.401

40. Ibid., pg.400 &

401

41 .Ibid., pg.403

42. Naruto, Chapter

573 Volume 60,pg.139

43. Ibid., Chapter 594

Volume 62,pg.116

Chapter 20: The

dawn of

Ten-Tails

1. Naruto, Chapter

594 Volume 62,pg.124

2. Ibid., Chapter 594

Volume 62,pg.123

3. Yokai.com,

Daidarabotchi

4. Ame-no-Hitotsu

no Kami.,

5. Waterﬁeld,

Chapter: The Gods of

Olympus, pg.42

6. Jamison,

Introduction,pg.51

7. Lumpkin, Chapter

10, pg.34, in regards

to 1 Enoch 10:8

8. Lumpkin, Chapter

8, pg.29, in regards to

1 Enoch 8:1-2

9. Naruto, Chapter

595 Volume

62,pg.146

10. Ibid., Chapter 596

Volume 62,pg.155,156

11. Ibid., Chapter 596

Volume 62,pg.171

12. Ibid., Chapter 597

Volume 62,pg.185

13. Ibid., Chapter 598

Volume 63,pg.21,22

14. Ibid., Chapter 601

Volume 63,pg.77

15. Ibid., Chapter 602

Volume 63,pg.81

16. Ibid., Chapter 602

Volume 63,pg.84

17. Ibid., Chapter 603

Volume 63,pg.102

18. Ibid., Chapter 602

Volume 63,pg.92

19. Ibid., Chapter 603

Volume 63,pg.112,113

20. Ibid., Chapter 605

Volume 63,pg.143

21. Ibid., Chapter 603

Volume 63,pg.103,109

22. Ibid., Chapter 606

Volume 63,pg.160

23. Ibid., Chapter 606

Volume 63,pg.165

24. Goethe,

PROLOGUE IN

HEAVEN, pg.11

25. Ibid., PART I OF

THE TRAGEDY,

pg.35

26. Goethe, B.Taylor,

PART I, III, The

Study.

27. Goethe, Part II,

Act V, Faust’s Palace,

pg.298

28. Ibid.,

AUERBACH'S

WINE-CELLAR IN

LEIPZIG, pg.57

29. Ibid.,

AUERBACH'S

30. Ibid., FOREST

AND CAVE,pg.83,84

31. Ibid., Part One,

Evening, pg.71

32. Goethe, B.Taylor,

Part One, The

408

WINE-CELLAR IN

LEIPZIG, pg.58

Neighbor’s House

33. Goethe, Part One,

Martha’s Garden,

pg.89

34. Ibid., Part I,

BEFORE

GRETCHEN'S

HOUSE, pg.95

35. Ibid., THE

THRONE ROOM,

pg.124-131

36. Ibid., PART II,

Act I, PALACE

GARDEN, pg.155

37. Naruto, Chapter

458 Volume 49,pg.90

38. Goethe, Part II,

Act I, A Dark Gallery,

pg.159

39. Ibid., Part II, Act

III, Inner Court,

pg.241

40. Ibid., Part II, Act

III, A shaded grove,

pg.245

41. Naruto, Chapter

611 Volume

64,pg.63,64

42. Ibid., Chapter 615

Volume 64,pg.133,135

43. Ibid., Chapter 615

Volume 64,pg.139,140

44. Ibid., Chapter 660

Volume 69,pg.51

45. Ibid., Chapter 660

Volume 69,pg.47

46. Goethe., Part II,

Act V, Faust’s Palace

pg.283,284

47. Ibid., pg.288

48. Ibid., pg.289

49. Naruto, Chapter

616 Volume 64,pg.171

50. Goethe, Part II,

Act V, pg.292

51. Naruto., Chapter

653 Volume 68,pg.113

52. Goethe, Part II,

ACT V :

MOUNTAIN

GORGES, pg.305 -

with added note on

the translation as

referring to the

Eternal Feminine,

EXPLANATORY

NOTES, 12,110,

pg.329

53. Naruto, Chapter

653 Volume 68,pg.113

54. Ibid., Chapter 655

Volume 68,pg.145,146

55. Goethe, Part II,

Act V, Faust’s Palace,

The large outer

courtyard,pg.290

Chapter 21:

Brothers between

battle

1. Naruto, Chapter

575 Volume

60,pg.188,189

2. Ibid., Chapter 576

Volume 61,pg.13

3. Ibid., Chapter 576

Volume 61,pg.14

4. Ibid., Chapter 578

Volume 61,pg.57,58

5. Ibid., Chapter 579

6. Ibid., Chapter 579

7. Fourth Databook,

8. Naruto, Chapter

409

Volume 61,pg.71-73

Volume 61,pg.79

pg.136

580 Volume 61,pg.88

9. Champney, Part I:

Mythology and

Legend, Chapter II

The Labours of

Yamato,pg.45

10. McMullin, pg.278

11. Champney,

Chapter II The

Labours of Yamato,

pg.43

12. Naruto, Chapter

580 Volume

61,pg.90-93

13. McMullin, pg.276

14. Naruto, Chapter

580 VOlume

61,pg.94-96

15. Ibid., Chapter 581

Volume 61,pg.109

16. Ibid., Chapter 581

Volume 61,pg.110

17. Ibid., Chapter 582

Volume 61,pg.122

18. Ibid., Chapter 582

Volume 61,pg.123

19. Ibid., Chapter 582

Volume 61,pg.125

20. Ibid., Chapter

583 Volume

61,pg.135,136

21. Ibid., Chapter 583

Volume 61,pg.139

22. Ibid., Chapter 583

Volume 61,pg.142

23. Ibid., Chapter 583

Volume 61,pg.143

24. Ibid., Chapter 583

Volume 61,pg.148

25. Ibid., Chapter 584

Volume 61,pg.153

26. Ibid., Chapter 584

Volume 61,pg.155

27. Ibid., Chapter 584

Volume

61,pg.156,-158

28. Ibid., Chapter 584

Volume 61,pg.164

29. Ibid., Chapter 584

Volume 61,pg.161

30. Ibid., Chapter

584 Volume 61,pg.163

31.Ibid., Chapter 584

Volume 61,pg.169

32. Liu, Chapter One,

1.16

33. Ibid., Chapter 7:

Quintessential Spirit,

Summary and Key

Themes

34. Naruto, Chapter

667 Volume 69,pg.179

35. Ibid., Chapter 586

Volume 61,pg.192

36. Cartwright,

Izanami and Izanagi

37. Davis, Chapter I:

The Period of the

Gods, Subsection:

Izanagi and Izanami

pg.19

38. Frydman, Chapter

2: The Age of the

Gods,pg.35

39. Nihongi, The Age

of the Gods,pg.25

40. Cartwright, Yomi,

Susanoo &

Okuninushi

41. Naruto, Chapter

587 Volume

61,pg.208

42. Ibid., Chapter 587

Volume 61,pg.209

43. Ibid., Chapter 587

Volume 61,pg.211

44. Ibid., Chapter 587

Volume 61,pg.214

45. Cartwright, Yomi,

Susanoo &

Okuninushi

46. Harris, The Eye of

the Sun, pg.26

47. Ibid., pg.28

48. Naruto, Chapter

589 Volume 62,pg.34

49. Harris, pg.28

50. Ibid., pg.29

51. Naruto, Chapter

562 Volume 59,pg.121

52. Ibid., Chapter 518

Volume 55,pg.69

410

53. Ibid., Chapter 519

Volume 55,pg.83

54. Ibid., Chapter 532

Volume 56,pg.138

55. Ibid., Chapter 532

Volume 56,pg.140

56. Ibid., Chapter 532

Volume 56,pg.140,141

57. Ibid., Chapter 532

Volume 56,pg.142

58. Ibid., Chapter 532

Volume 56,pg.143,144

59. Ibid., Chapter 532

Volume 56,pg.147

60. Ibid., Chapter 532

Volume 56,pg.148

61. Ibid., Chapter 532

Volume 56,pg.97

62.

Stanford,Naturalism

63. Cooper, A., 1.

Placing teleological

behaviour, pg.6

64. Naruto, Chapter

678 Volume 70,pg.185

65. Ibid., Chapter 590

Volume 62,pg.57

66. Ibid., Chapter 590

Volume 62,pg.58,59

Chapter 22: What is

a village?

1. Naruto, Chapter

592 Volume

62,pg.79,80,81

2. Ibid., Chapter 592

Volume 62,pg.93

3. Ibid., Chapter 593

Volume 62,pg.101-103

4. Ibid., Chapter 593

Volume 62,pg.108-110

5. Ibid., Chapter 619

Volume 65,pg.32

6. Ibid., Chapter 625

Volume 65,pg.140

7. Ibid., Chapter 619

Volume 65,pg.29

8. Ibid., Chapter 619

Volume 65,pg.35

9. Ibid., Chapter 619

Volume 65,pg.34

10. Ibid., Chapter 386

Volume

42,pg.122-125

11. Ibid., Chapter 619

Volume 65,pg.38

12. Cummins,

Samurai and ninja,

Introductory

Observations, The

Honourable duel,

pg.12

13. Foster, Part II:

Section 5, Wilds,

subsection: Tengu,

Yoshitsune, and the

Arts of the Warrior,

pg.133

14. Naruto, Chapter

619 Volume 65,pg.40

15. Ibid., Chapter 621

Volume 65,pg.77

16. Ibid., Chapter 622

Volume 65,pg.83

17. Ibid., Chapter 622

Volume 65,pg.87

18. Ibid., Chapter 622

Volume 65,pg.89

19. Ibid., Chapter 622

Volume 65,pg.94

20. Ibid., Chapter 623

Volume 65,pg.103

21. Ibid., Chapter 623

Volume 65,pg.104

22. Ibid., Chapter 623

Volume 65,pg.113

23. Ibid., Chapter 624

Volume 65,pg.124

24. Ibid., Chapter 624

Volume 65,pg.125

25. Ibid., Chapter 624

Volume 65,pg.128

26. Ibid., Chapter 624

Volume 65,pg.130

27. Ibid., Chapter 624

Volume 65,pg.131

28. Ibid., Chapter 625

Volume 65,pg.137

411

29. Ibid., Chapter 625

Volume 65,pg.139

30. Ibid., Chapter 623

Volume 65,pg.103

31. Ibid., Chapter 307

Volume 34,pg.151

32. Ibid., Chapter 625

Volume 65,pg.146

33. Ibid., Chapter 625

Volume 65,pg.147

34. Japan Heritage Iga

and Koka, How the

Ninja Cultivated

Their Knowledge and

Skills

35. Cummins, Iga and

Koka Ninja Skills, Part

I : The skills of Iga

and Koka,

Concerning the

Origin of Shinobi

36. What is a ninja?,

Magic and Fire, two

skills of Iga-ryu

Ninjutsu | Part I : The

skills of Iga and Koka,

THE PRINCIPLE OF

FIRE HANDLERS

37. Japan Heritage Iga

and Koka, Subsection:

The Management of

the Ninja

Organizations

38. Naruto, Chapter

626 Volume

65,pg.154

39. Avalokiteshvara.,

Britannica

40. Buswell., Lopez.,

Entries A-Z, A, pg.82

41. Naruto, Chapter

626 Volume 65,pg.157

42. Reps., Senzaki.,

pg.166

43. Ibid., pg.186

44. Venkatesananda,

Bala Kanda Boyhood

of Rama., Ayodhya

Kanda, pg.51

45. Naruto, Chapter

681 Volume 70,pg.10

46. Ibid., Chapter 396

Volume 43, pg.7

47. Venkatesananda,

Bala Kanda Boyhood

of Rama, pg.60

48. Venkatesananda,

Yuddha Kanda,

pg.277

49. Ibid., Yuddha

Kanda, pg.289

50. Naruto, Chapter

626 Volume 65,pg.162

51. Ibid., Chapter 622

Volume 65,pg.80

52. Ibid., Chapter 623

Volume 65,pg.100

53. Ibid., Chapter 626

Volume 65,pg.163

54. Ibid., Chapter 626

Volume 65,pg.164

55. Frydman, Chapter

2: The Age of the

Gods, pg.40

56. Shinto, Japan

Guide

57. Doniger, Chapter:

Shinto, pg.1000

58. Naruto, Chapter

619 Volume 65,pg.39

59. History of the

Mohawk Valley

60. Sidis, Chapter 4 ,

Section 15, paragraph

61. Naruto, Chapter

626 Volume 65,pg.167

62. Ibid., Chapter 627

Volume 65,pg.180

Chapter 23: Squad 7

Reunited

1. Naruto, Chapter 631

Volume 66,pg.74

2. Ibid., Chapter 633

Volume 66,pg.107

3. Ibid., Chapter 634

Volume 66,pg.130,131

4. Ibid., Chapter 636

Volume 66,pg.168

412

5. Ibid., Chapter

638,639

6. Ibid., Chapter 640

Volume 67,pg.51-56

7. Ibid., Chapter 651

Volume 68,pg.65,66

8. Masuo., Elacqua

9. Naruto, Chapter

689 Volume 71,pg.177

10. Ibid., Chapter 642

Volume 67,pg.81,82

11. Ibid., Chapter 638

Volume 67,pg.23,

Chapter 639 Volume

67,pg.25, reappearing

at Chapter 641

Volume 67,pg.62

12. Castiglioni,

Between

Companionship and

Worship, pg.133

13. Ichimura, Fascicle

V, 7. The Sta

Topped by Pewter

Rings, pg.223,224

14. Wu, Lovell.,

Chapter 8,pg.74

15. Naruto, Chapter

373 Volume 41,pg.63

16. Ibid., Chapter 610

Volume 62,pg.45,

Chapter 634 Volume

66,pg.130

17. Hajime, pg.47,49

18. Castiglioni,

Between

Companionship and

Worship, pg.129-133

19. Nichiren

Buddhism Library.

Eye-Opening

Ceremony.

20. Naruto, Chapter

512 Volume 54,pg.140

21. Ibid., Chapter 447

Volume 48,pg.84

22. Cannon, Chapter

13: The Way of

Shamanic Mediation,

13.1: Healing and

Exorcism in Japanese

Shugendo

23. de Visser, Chapter

II:The fox .and the

badger in Japanese

Iaws, divination and

Iegends, pg.93

24. Exploring

Syncretism and

Shugendo

25. Castiglioni,

Introduction,pg.3

26. Ibid., The

Formation of

Shugendō Doctrinal

Teachings, pg.109

27. Ibid., The

Formation of

Shugendō Doctrinal

Teachings,pg.110

28. Naruto, Chapter

485 Volume

52,pg.30,31

29. Castiglioni, A

Critical History of the

Study of Shugendō,

pg.51,52

30. Ibid.,pg.37

31. Naruto, Chapter

589 Volume

62,pg.28,29

32. Wakabayashi,

Part II,Chapter 4:

Critique of Kamakura

Buddhism, pg.97-100

33. Ibid., Part

I,Tengudō, the Realm

of Tengu, pg.32

34. Ibid.,

Introduction, pg.XIV,

35. Makransky,

Chapter 13: Sources

of Controversy

Nonabiding Nirvana

and the Mahayana

Quest for Authentic

Reinterpretation of

the Four Noble

Truths, pg.346

36. Pittman,

Introduction, pg.2

413

37. Ibid., pg.157

38. Ibid., pg.220

39. YellowBridge,

Chapter:11

40. Naruto, Chapter

629 Volume 66,pg.41

41. Rinchen, pg.9

42. Nichiren

Buddhism Library,

Sahā world

43. Jones, Chapter 3:

The Development of

the concept of the

pure land, pg.33

44. Naruto, Chapter

647 Volume 67,pg.173

45. Ibid., Chapter 648

Volume 67,pg.17

46. Ibid., Chapter 648

Volume 67,pg.18

47. Ibid., Chapter 648

Volume 67,pg.20

48. Ibid., Chapter 648

Volume 67,pg.21,22

49. Ibid., Chapter 626

Volume 65,pg.163

50. Ibid., Chapter 648

Volume 68,pg.23

51. Fourth Databook,

pg.216,217

52. Yokai.com,

Jubokko, Subsection:

behaviour

53. Naruto, Chapter

646 Volume 67,pg.155

54. Ibid., Chapter 646

Volume 67,pg.158,159

55. Jung, Four

Archetypes, Aspects of

the Mother

Archetype,Conclusio

n, pg.48,49

56. Naruto, Chapter

650 Volume 62,pg.47

57. Sturlusson,

Appendices, 1: The

Norse Cosmos and

the World Tree

58. McCoy, Chapter

19: Odin’s discovery

of the runes

59. Neumann, Origins

and History [...] Part II,

The The Original

Unity The ego germ

in the original

Ouroboric situation

60. Ibid., Part 1: A,

III: The separation of

the World Parents:

The Principle of

Opposites

61. Naruto, Chapter

668 Volume

69,pg.205

62. Neumann, Origins

and History[...], Part II,

A: The Original

Unity , Development

of the ego out of the

Ouroboros

63. Naruto, Chapter

650 Volume 70,pg.59

64. Etymology

Dictionary, Hell

65. Sturlusson, 15.

THE ASH

YGGDRASIL, THE

NORNS AND THE

THREE WELLS

66. McCoy, Chapter

20: Why Odin Is

One-Eyed

67. Naruto, Chapter

508 Volume 54,pg.69

68. Ibid., Chapter 142

Volume 16,pg.145

69. Ibid., Chapter 628

Volume 66,pg.8-10,

Chapter 629 Volume

66,pg.25-30

70. Ibid., Chapter 651

Volume 68,pg.68

71. Ibid., Chapter 652

Volume 68,pg.94,95,

Chapter 654 Volume

68,pg.129-130

72. Ibid., Chapter 652

Volume 68,pg.98,99

73. Ibid., Chapter 653

74. Ibid., Chapter 653

75. Ibid., Chapter 653

76. Jones, pg.127

414

Volume 68,pg.115-117

Volume 68,pg.104,105

Volume 68, pg.108

77. Ibid., pg.19

78. Naruto, Chapter

653 Volume

68,pg.109

79. Ibid., Chapter 262

Volume 29,

pg.178,179

80. Neumann, Origins

and History[...], Part

1:C, Chapter 2

81. Naruto, Chapter

665 Volume

69,pg.142-145

82. Chapter 670

Volume 70,pg.32

83. Lachs.,

84. Naruto, Chapter

653 Volume

68,pg.106

85. Ibid., Chapter 655

Volume 68,pg.142

86. Ibid., Chapter 655

Volume 68,pg.147,148

87. Ibid., Chapter 655

Volume 68,pg.149,150

88. Ibid., Chapter 656

Volume 68,pg.155

89. Ibid., Chapter 656

Volume 68,pg.170,171

Chapter 24:

Endgame

1. Naruto, Chapter

659 Volume 69,

pg.36-42

2. Ibid., Chapter 664

Volume 69,pg.132-134

3. The Epic of

Gilgamesh, Tablet XI.

Immortality Denied,

pg.88

4. Naruto, Chapter

663 Volume

69,pg.114,115

5. Ibid., Chapter 665

Volume 69,pg.140,145

6. Ibid., Chapter 594

Volume 62,pg.125

7. Ibid., Chapter 564

Volume 59,pg.167

8. Ibid., Chapter 467

Volume 50,pg.77,78

9. Ibid., Chapter 614

Volume 64,pg.120

10. Ibid., Chapter 662

Volume 69,pg.83

11. Ibid., Chapter 577

Volume 61,pg.25

12. Ibid., Chapter 662

Volume 69,pg.95

13. Wilke, pg.418

14. Perry, pg.118

15. Chakravarty, pp.

27-33

16. Jamison, IV.18

(314) Indra,

pg.584,586

17. Ibid., Section:

III.48 (282) Indra,

pg.532

18. Naruto, Chapter

311 Volume 35,pg.44

19. Berry, Part 1:

Hinduism, Section 2:

Early development,

pg.20

20. Perry, pg.124

21. Ibid., pg.125

22. Hale, Journal.

pg.595

23. Hale, Motilal.

Chapter 2, pg.50

24. Jamison,

Introduction, pg.37

25. Burke, Isha

Upanishad,

commentary on

section 3

26. Ibid., Part 1: A,

Subsection II: The

Great Mother

27. Naruto, Chapter

671 Volume 70,pg.52

28. Ibid., Chapter 671

Volume 70,pg.50

415

29. Fourth Databook,

Shinobi Facts,pg.219

30. Kuji-Kiri and

Majutsu,pg.5

31. Kuji-Kiri and

Majutsu,Technical

Overview,pg.9

32. Hosak, Chapter

11: Kuji Kiri,

Performing the Kuji

Kiri, Practice 1: The

Nine-Sign Sword,

Applications

33. Yamasaki,

Chapter: The Secret

Activities, pg.114

34. Naruto, Chapter

672 Volume

70,pg.66,67

35. Ibid., Chapter 671

Volume 70,pg.62

36. Schumacher,

Subsection: Fear Not

Mudra, Description

37. Yamasaki,

Chapter: The Secret

Activities, pg.114

38. Naruto, Chapter

699 Volume

72,pg.172-173

39. Schumacher, Six

Element Mudra

40. Naruto, Chapter

699 Volume 72,pg.186

41. Schumacher, Six

Element Mudra

42. Kiyota, pg.34,35

43. Naruto, Chapter

673 Volume

70,pg.88,90

44. Rinpoche,

Introduction,pg.1

45. Nihongi, The Age

of the Gods,pg.49

46. Naruto, Chapter

674 Volume 70,pg.115

47. Ibid., Chapter 675

Volume 70,pg.124,125

48. Ibid., Chapter 675

Volume 70, pg.126

49. Jamison, V.63

(417) Mitra and

Varuṇa, pg.744

50. Naruto, Chapter

675 Volume

70,pg.127

51. Ibid., Chapter 676

Volume 70,pg.152

52. Ibid., Chapter 677

Volume 70,pg.162

53. Neumann, The

Great Mother, An

analysis of the

archetype, Chapter:

The transformative

mysteries, pg.55,56

54. Naruto, Chapter

677 Volume

70,pg.163

55. Ibid., Chapter 449

Volume 48,pg.117

56. Ibid., Chapter 678

Volume 70,pg.183

57. Ibid., Chapter 677

Volume 70,pg.168,169

58. Ibid., Chapter 678

Volume 70,pg.183

59. Ibid., Chapter 678

Volume 70,pg.186

60. Kojiki, Vol. II,

Section LXIX,pg.222

61. Keene, pg.330

62. Davis, Chapter

III: THE

BAMBOO-CUTTER

AND THE MOON-

MAIDEN, pg.66

63. Keene,pg.340

64. Davis, Chapter

III: THE

BAMBOO-CUTTER

AND THE MOON-

MAIDEN, pg.66

65. Keene,pg.348

66. Ibid.,pg.349

67. Ibid.,pg.351

68. Davis, Chapter

III: THE

BAMBOO-CUTTER

AND THE MOON-

MAIDEN, pg.79

416

69. Keene,pg.354

70. Liu, Chapter 6:

Surveying

Obscurities, Section

6.9

71. Bryce, pg.140

72. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy, The

Lapis-Christ

Parallel,pg.346

73. Neumann, The

Great Mother, An

Analysis of the

Archetype, The

phenomenon of

reversal and the

dynamic of the

archetype, pg.79

74. Johnson, pg.63

75. Naruto, Chapter

670 Volume 70,pg.35

76. Dien, Chapter

One, Subsection: The

Queen Mother of the

West, pg.7

77. Ibid.,pg.8

78. Wu, Lovell.

Chapter Five,

pg.48,49

79. Boruto, Chapter

55 Volume 14,pg.25

[not.vol no., no.from

chapter itself]

80. Cox, Chapter

One: The Art and

Science of Alchemy,

pg.26

81. Boruto, Chapter 55

Volume 14,pg.26

[not.vol no., no.from

chapter itself]

82. Grapard, pg.205

83. Naruto, Chapter

679 Volume

70,pg.205

84. Grapard,pg.207

85. Jung, Psychology

and Alchemy,pg.348

86. Jung, Alchemical

Studies, Chapter V, 14.

The tree as lapis,

pg.319

87. Naruto, Chapter

592 Volume

62,pg.79,80

88. Ibid., Chapter 652

Volume 68,pg.92,93

89. Ibid., Chapter 682

Volume 71,pg.47-50

90. Kojiki, Vol. I, Sect.

IX,pg.43

91. Fourth

Databook,pg.230

92. Naruto, Chapter

680 Volume

71,pg.7-11

93. Ibid., Chapter 683

Volume 71,pg.75,76

94. Ibid., Chapter 685

Volume 71,pg.107,108

95. Ibid., Chapter 681

Volume 71,pg.109

96. Ibid., Chapter 686

Volume 71,pg.134,135

97. Ibid., Chapter 687

Volume 71,pg.144,145

98. Ibid., Chapter 687

Volume 71,pg.146

99. Ibid., Chapter 564

Volume 59,pg.168

Chapter 25: The

ﬁnal, ﬁnal, ﬁnal

battle. I swear!

1. Naruto, Chapter

690 Volume

72,pg.204-207

2. Ibid., Chapter 691

Volume 72,pg.15

3. Ibid., Chapter 691

Volume 72,pg.16

4. Ibid., Chapter 622

Volume 65,pg.94

417

5. Ibid., Chapter 691

Volume 72,pg.11

6. Neumann, Origins

and history of

consciousness, Part I, B,

Subsection III: The

Slaying of the Father

7. Ibid., Naruto,

Chapter 692 Volume

72,pg.35

8. Ibid., Chapter 693

Volume 72,pg.59

9. Ibid., Chapter 694

Volume 72,pg.64

10. Ibid., Chapter 694

Volume 72,pg.103

11. Ibid., Chapter 590

Volume 62,pg.57

12. Ibid., Chapter 696

Volume 72,pg.102

13. Ibid., Chapter 696

Volume 72,pg.102,103

14. Ibid., Chapter 694

Volume 72,pg.69

15. Ibid., Chapter 694

Volume 72,pg.67

16. Ibid., Chapter 694

Volume 72,pg.72

17. Ibid., Chapter 694

Volume 72,pg.74,75

18. Ibid., Chapter 695

Volume 72,

pg.79,83-85

19. Ibid., Chapter 695

Volume 72,pg.95-97

20. Ibid., Chapter 696

Volume 72,pg.109

21. Ibid., Chapter 696

Volume 72,pg.115,116

22. Ibid., Chapter 671

Volume 70,pg.45,44

23. Ibid., Chapter 176

Volume 20,pg.88,89

24. Ibid., Chapter 698

Volume 72,pg.146,147

25. Ibid., Chapter 698

Volume 72,pg.150

26. Ibid., Chapter 698

Volume 72,

pg.152-154

27. Ibid., Chapter 699

Volume 72,pg.171

28. Ibid., Chapter 698

Volume 72,pg.158

29. Ibid., Chapter 698

Volume 72,pg.159

30. Ibid., Chapter 234

Volume 26,pg.161-163

31. Ibid., Chapter 698

Volume 72,pg.161

32. Ibid., Chapter 234

Volume 26,pg.159,160

33. Ibid., Chapter 699

Volume 72,pg.184

34. Ibid., Chapter 699

Volume 72,pg.185

Appendix 1: ‘Naruto

is the worst

character in

Naruto’

1. Naruto is the worst

character in Naruto,

https://www.youtube

.com/watch?v=R-Jvb

1Ln2sA

2. Ibid., ~2min40 -

3min

3. Ibid., ~3:50 - 4min

4. Naruto vs Neji,

pg.64-66,72-73

5. Naruto is the worst

character in Naruto,

16:30

6. Danzo does it,

pg.215-223

7. Naruto is the worst

character in Naruto,

28:27-28:31

8.Signiﬁcance of

Shinto mythology for

Sasuke: Battle between

brothers, pg.166-171

9. Signiﬁcance of

10. Signiﬁcance of the

11. Naruto is the worst

12. By knowing

418

Shinto and Buddhist

mythology for laying

the groundwork of

Hashirama and

Madara, What is a

village?, pg.319,320

Shugendo in addition

to the two central

religions Squad 7

Reunited, pg.327,334

character in

Naruto:24:36

thyself, he has come

to clarify parts of his

destiny in the manner

of Socrates: A turtle,

an octopus and a

waterfall, pg.242,243

13. Madara leaves the

conﬁnes of Indra’s

reincarnate which

means it is not

tethered to one’s

being:

Endgame,pg.349.

Chapter 670,pg.33

notes the aligned

circumstances and

how Hagoromo can

assist Naruto to ﬁnd

peace.

14. Naruto vs Neji,

pg.69,72

15. The Taka, pg.241

16. Naruto, Chapter

691 Volume

72,pg.16,17

419

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Index

Akatsuki Hiden, pg.96

Bunbuku Chagama, pg.61-62

Alchemy:

- Western alchemical

symbolism: pg.197-199,

207-208, 245, 401

- Eastern alchemy: pg.357-358

Bunpuku(Naruto), pg.287

Ameno-Hitotsu-no kami, pg.278

Bushido, pg.7-8, 136,145

Amenominaka, pg.362

Chang’e, pg.187-188, 357-358

Amenonuhoko, pg.299,327

Choju Kebutsu, pg.319

Amenotejikara, pg.352,378

Christ, pg.193,197-199,210

Ame-no-Tajikarao, pg.352

Cinnabar, pg.358

Amaterasu, pg.64-65, 160-164, 169

Conch(Shell), pg.329

Antisthenes, pg.243

Confucian(ism), pg.6,8,65,73,

Asura(Hinduism), pg.348-349, 352-353,

371

Deganawida, pg.324

Ashura(Naruto), pg.78, 239, 330-331,

347-348

Divine Tree, pg.186,262,264,329,

335-336,340,344

Avalokiteśvara, pg.319,323

Edo, pg.6,9-11,23,66,95,

Bodhisattva, pg.329,352,378

Elixir:

- Journey to the west, pg.70

- Jiraiya Monogatari, pg.101

- Chang’e, pg.187-188,357

- Kaguya-hime,pg.357

434

Enkidu, pg.35-36

Ignis Gehennalis, pg.198,264

Eye-Opening, pg.329

Inari(Shinto), pg.16-17

Gama-Sennin, pg.187-188

Indra(Hinduism), pg.278,347-348

Gamamaru, pg.207,243-245

Indra(Naruto), pg.239,271,318,330-331,

350,371,378

Garuda, pg.236

Inquisitor(Dostoyevsky), pg.208-209

Gedo Statue, pg.204-205,274,330

Isis(Egyptian Myth), pg.127,140,158,

362

Gilgamesh, pg.35-36,345

Izanagi(Naruto), pg.235,300-301

Gozu Tenno, pg.293-294

Izanagi(Shinto), pg.161,168,299-300,

327,362

Guan Yin:

- Journey to the West: pg.67,71

- Buddhism: 320,323

Izanami(Naruto), pg.298,301

Haibutsu Kishaku, pg.331

Izanami(Shinto), pg.299-300

Haichan, Liu., pg.187

Jintsuriki, pg.63

Haljō, pg.338

Jiriki/Tariki, pg.341

Hanfeizi, pg.216-217

Jiraiya(folklore), pg.101-102

Helios, pg.162

Kagutsuchi, pg.299

Homunculus:

- Alchemy: pg.264-265

- Mandrake H:pg.336-337

- pg.340

Kaguya(folklore), pg.355-358

Huainanzi, pg.215,219,221,298,357

Kitsune, pg.16-17,62-63,91,330

Humanism, pg.71,227,359

Kori, pg.62

435

Iga/Koka, pg.318,319

Osiris, pg.110-111,117,127,159-160,

201,342

Kusanagi, pg.157,170-171,293

Pythia, pg.243

Kusemono, pg.146

Rogers, Carl., pg.75

Lei Gong, pg.167

Kuchiyose, pg.63

Leviticus, pg.226

Samsara, pg.180,182,203-205,319-320,

332-334,354

Mahayana, pg.328,331-333

Set, pg.110,117,159,201,276,293

Makoto no kokoro, pg.323

Shakujo, pg.327-329,352

Massa confusa, pg.245,252

Shinbutsu bunri, pg.330

Maya, pg.353,373

Shini gurui, pg.136

Miyamoto Musashi, pg.14

Shugendo, pg.328-332,359

Mudang, pg.294

Socrates, pg.243

Munenori, pg.43,47

Stone, pg.197-198,263,265,357,360

Neidan, pg.188

Sun Wukong, pg.67,69-70,172,247,

273,358,380

Neijia, pg.68

Su sung, pg,169

Odin, pg.162,336-339

Susanoo(Naruto): pg.168,228

Oni, pg.165 Ushi-Oni, pg.246

Susanoo(Shinto): pg.160,168-174,

293-294,299-301,312,318,332

Onogoroshima, pg.299

Tamamo-no Mae, pg.6

Orochimaru(folklore):

- Jiraiya, pg.101-102

- Yamata[...], pg.170,318

Tanuki, pg.61-63,91-92,330

436

Taoism, pg.70-73, 186

Ten-Tails, pg.278,288,326,329,335-336

Tengu, pg.312,332-333

Thoth, pg.276-277,301-302

Totem, pg.274,275

Totsuka, pg.170-171

Tripitaka, pg.67,71,329

Truth-seeker, pg.327-328

Tsujigiri, pg.95

Tvashtar, pg.278,347

Uchihatashi, pg.311

Vritra, pg.236,348

Yasakani, pg.170

Yggdrasil, pg.336-337

Yomi, pg.169,299-301,362

Yomotsu Hirasaka, pg.362

Zanshin, pg.148

437