The change began on a rainy afternoon.
That day, Yahiko went to town to “scout out the area” as usual, but when he came back, his expression was not quite right.
He placed the few stolen dry flatbreads from inside his shirt onto a stone, and instead of bragging about his achievements like he usually did, he squatted by the campfire and remained silent for a long while.
Luna noticed his abnormality.
After a long time, Yahiko finally raised his head and spoke his first sentence:
“There are so many refugees in town.”
Refugees.
This word was like a stone, smashing into the midst of the four people.
“Where are they from?” Konan put down the paper in her hand and asked softly.
“I don’t know.” Yahiko shook his head, “There are people everywhere, dragging their families along, and some are even injured. They said fighting has broken out in the west, and several small nations are fighting. I didn’t hear clearly which specific countries they are.”
“War…” Konan repeated the word in a low voice, her purple eyes dimming slightly, “It’s starting again.”
She said “again.”
Luna sat in the corner, hugging her knees, without interrupting.
Her heartbeat was a bit fast because she knew what the “war” in Yahiko’s mouth meant—the Second Shinobi World War was beginning to unfold.
Over the next few days, the situation became increasingly obvious.
First, the people in town increased.
The originally deserted streets were crowded with unfamiliar faces; they carried ragged bundles, held the hands of sallow and emaciated children, and their eyes carried a confusion and fear that Luna had never seen in her past life.
Then, supplies decreased.
The cured meat and salted fish hanging at the entrance of the grocery store were gone, replaced by a tattered wooden board that read “Temporarily Closed.” The door of the rice shop was tightly locked, and its windows were nailed shut with boards, as if afraid of being smashed open by someone.
Yahiko’s “job” became increasingly difficult.
Sometimes he went out all day, and when he came back, his hands were empty, having stolen nothing.
“There are too many people grabbing things.” He sat by the campfire, his voice somewhat muffled, “Those refugees are even better at grabbing things than I am; they rush straight into the shops to take things and leave, and the owners can’t stop them at all. Once, I saw a group of people smash open the door of the rice shop and run off with a bag of rice each…”
He didn’t continue, but Luna could read the unsaid words from his expression.
In such chaos, the advantages of children like them vanished completely.
Adults shoved them aside, refugees pushed past them, and some even guarded their belongings vigilantly upon seeing them approach.
Because people even more desperate than them were pouring in.
Two days later, a corpse appeared in the town.
An old man was curled up under the eaves at a street corner, his clothes soaked through by the rain, his face ashen.
No one paid attention to him; pedestrians walked around him as if they hadn’t seen him at all.
Luna saw that corpse from afar.
It was the first time she had seen a dead person in this world—not an image from anime, not a 3D model from a game, but a real, cold body of a once living person.
Her stomach churned violently, and she almost vomited on the spot.
She turned around, walked away quickly, and forced herself not to look back.
But the appearance of that corpse pierced into her mind like a thorn, unable to be pulled out no matter what.
That night, Yahiko called the three people together.
His expression was a seriousness Luna had never seen before; his usual playful smile and signature bright grin were gone.
He squatted by the campfire and drew a simple map in the mud with his finger.
“We have to move.”
His first sentence made the air grow a bit heavier.
“It’s no longer safe here.” Yahiko pointed at the map on the ground, “The town is getting more and more chaotic, refugees are still pouring in this direction, and I heard that the Three Great Nations might also start fighting. If the major nations truly enter the war, the Land of Rain will definitely be dragged into it.”
Konan remained silent without refuting.
Nagato lowered his head, the firelight casting mottled shadows of light and dark across his face, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“I’ve been to a place.” Yahiko’s finger pointed to an area further away from the town on the map, “There is a forest over there, and deep inside the forest is an abandoned shrine. I used to hide from the rain there before. Although it’s dilapidated, at least it doesn’t leak, which is better than this cave. Besides, it’s far from the main road and not easy for people to discover.”
He raised his head and looked at the three people:
“Shall we move there, what do you think?”
The cave fell silent for a few seconds.
Then Konan nodded first: “I agree.”
Nagato also nodded along.
The gazes of the three fell on Luna at the same time. Get faster updates on g.com.
Yahiko’s analysis was not wrong, and was even more accurate than what she knew, because she knew that this war would be far more tragic than he imagined.
The Third Shinobi World War would involve all the Five Great Nations, reducing countless small nations to scorched earth, and the Land of Rain would furthermore be reduced to a battlefield for the three major nations.
The reason Jiraiya would appear in the Land of Rain was simply because he passed through here during the war.
“I agree too,” she said.
Yahiko let out a sigh of relief, revealing his first smile in the past few days.
“Alright, then we set off early tomorrow morning.”
The next day, before the sky was completely bright, the four of them set off.
Their luggage wasn’t much: a broken pot, a few changes of clothes, the stack of paper treasured by Konan, and a small bag of rice and salt that Yahiko had risked stealing yesterday.
Luna wrapped the Kunai given by the system in a ragged cloth, stuffed it into her bosom, right against her skin.
The rain was still falling.
The Land of Rain was always raining.
They walked along the muddy path, heading all the way in the direction away from the town.
The raindrops hit their faces, flowing down their collars into their necks, feeling cold and chilly.
The mud on the road covered their shoes and trouser legs, making a squelching sound with every step they took.
Luna walked in the middle of the group, with Yahiko leading the way in front, Nagato bringing up the rear, and Konan walking beside her, shoulder to shoulder.
She looked at the winding path ahead in the gray rain curtain, feeling somewhat in a trance in her heart.
She remembered a sentence she saw online in her past life: War does not turn ordinary people into heroes; it only turns ordinary people into refugees.
Right now, they were refugees.
That’s not right, they were even worse than refugees.
Refugees at least had a home to escape to, whereas the four of them had no home right from the beginning.
They were merely trying hard to find a place to temporarily hide amidst an approaching storm.
Luna gripped the Kunai tightly in her bosom and continued walking forward.
Within the rain curtain, four small figures left a string of footprints of varying depths on the muddy road, which were quickly washed away and blurred by the rain.