Nice.

Using kunai in the fields is a nice nod towards what real life ninja were like.

I like how the guy speaks of the wars and strife they’ve caused while also claiming it’s to achieve peace. Totally deluded into not realizing he’s the reason there isn’t peace. Without Black Zetsu’s manipulation, the spread of chakra manipulation likely would have largely ended most war. No need to fight for resources and fertile land when you can make it with Not!Magic. Sure, there’d still be conflicts due to people obeying leaders who may turn out petty or something, but a journey can only be completed one step at a time.

Old ninja are scary as fuck.

Wooooo man! I just finished reading the whole thing in the span if two days and I've got to say I love what you've written!

I'm genuinely excited to read the next chapter!

The only fic that makes a bijuu truly scary and really damn deadly.

I like his connection to Sakura linking to his learning about friendship and love recently. And I like that Danzo isn't depicted as a dumbass traitor to the village he's fanatically devoted to. Fanatics can cause a lot of harm in the name of whatever they believe in, but actively assisting in the blatant destruction of what they're fanatically obsessed with protecting is not among that.

Appreciating what you have is important. Focusing on what you can have over what you want is also important. This story does make a lot of good points for people to remember.

I like Sakura's anger more than Naruto's in this subject. More anger for him not training them despite his fears than lumping him in with a different group. THAT is justified anger and good reason for it. He should very much have sucked it up and trained them and accepted that they had made their own choices and that, really, he'd just be making them more likely to get killed by botching their training.

I like how Naruto has ironically learned a very ninja-like sense of...er..."morality". It's actually very good for his profession, but at the same time bad he doesn't understand that when not on a mission he shouldn't be thinking that way.

Actually, I just realized that you wrote Naruto as treating his daily life as though each day is itself a mission. That living in the village is like living in enemy territory. Which for him, it is. That was very clever.

I like the scrapped ending but I agree with scrapping it. I think that it clashes too much with the Naruto you've built up thus far in this pretty kickass story. It was very jarring and seemed like it came from a different story.

Projecting is somehow the same no matter why or what? That is a batshit insane argument. The villagers projecting their fear of the kyuubi on Naruto is bad and wrong. Kakashi projecting his fear of everyone he cares about getting killed in front of him after a lifetime of exactly that happening over and over and over again is very reasonable, justified, and sympathetic. The villagers shun Naruto because they fear the kyuubi. Kakashi basically sabotaged his teams' training out of fear they'd be killed in front of him if they grew strong enough to be sent out of the village. Like LITERALLY everyone single other person he ever cared about except Gai.

Naruto feeling that the difference between the villagers' projection and Kakashi's doesn't matter and are equal is utterly ridiculous and crazy. Projecting is bad but only a little. What is being projected matters far, far more whereas projecting in and of itself is minor.

If they'd kept it a ninja village and only accepted people willing to become ninja and their families (at the cost that all their children would also become ninja) then the village wouldn't be having these problems. Most ninja never had a problem with Naruto. Some did, but even those who did usually kept disciplined professionalism and understood that how they felt about him was undeserved.

The best solution would be to kick out everyone who is not a ninja or a family member of a ninja and require those civilians who remain to always have their children at least graduate the academy. And extend the academy slowly until it basically becomes a pre-school through high school academy so graduates are roughly chuunin level. You'll keep the constant stream of graduates because duh, they'll still be graduating in waves just as they do currently, but they'll be better trained and more intelligent. Then they can either choose to go fully into active duty or enter the reserves and take up a supporting occupation such as blacksmith or something.

I like this different take on Danzo.

The Hokage is right, but only half right. What Kakashi thought about Hiruzen was true and correct. What Hiruzen said about Kakashi is also true and correct. I'm not sure why you have Kakashi acting surprised, though, since in the previous Meanwhile chapter he had acknowledge and accepted that very thing.

To be fair, canon Konoha does seem to drag itself into heroics quite often. In the anime or manga, coming across a murdered body would definitely result in the team deviating to hunt down the killers and ultimately lead to Konoha helping Wave (while complaining about it but doing so regardless). Konoha in the canon tries to be the professional and talks about the coldness and callousness needed in shinobi, yet can't stop themselves from helping others who need them that they come across.

If you go out of your way to help those in need, how will you get paid? The training takes up all day of every day, so you can't have other jobs. If you help people freely, why should anyone ever hire you? Then you have no reason to be a ninja and they won't have you when they need you because you won't be a ninja and so won't have the power to help them.