End of Year 36, Konoha Calendar At the end of Year 36 of the Konoha Calendar, the situation across the shinobi world was steadily deteriorating.
Sunagakure accused Konohagakure of deliberately stealing missions that rightfully belonged to them, while Konoha accused Sunagakure of crossing through the Land of Rain to raid the borders of the Land of Fire.
Friction between Konoha and Sunagakure grew more intense by the day.
Iwagakure and Kumogakure remained deliberately ambiguous in their stance, while Kirigakure was quietly mobilizing its military forces in the shadows.
Caught between the three great nations—the Lands of Earth, Wind, and Fire—the Land of Rain had become little more than a buffer zone and a sacrificial battlefield for the great powers.
Lead-colored storm clouds stretched across the heavens, making the perpetually weeping country feel even more desolate.
Only packs of stray dogs, with nowhere left to go, crouched over rotting corpses and tore at the flesh.
“Konan…
keep up.” The dogs suddenly pricked up their ears and bared their fangs toward the curtain of mist.
Somewhere in the distance, footsteps echoed faintly through the rain, accompanied by soft murmurs.
Then a jagged bolt of lightning split the clouds overhead, washing the world in stark shades of black and white.
Through the rain emerged two gaunt figures, stumbling across the desolate landscape.
Their pale, ghostlike faces were briefly illuminated by the flash.
“Yahiko…
I’m cold…” “Just hang on a little longer…
If we can’t find anything, we’ll head back.” Oversized, tattered raincoats concealed their frail, undersized bodies.
Beneath the shadow of their hoods, however, their eyes still retained a spark of life despite their dirty, malnourished faces.
One was an orange-haired boy named Yahiko.
The other was a blue-haired girl named Konan.
The two children carefully scanned their surroundings.
Most of the nearby buildings had already collapsed into ruins.
Among broken walls and muddy streets lay countless corpses—perhaps men and women, perhaps the elderly or children.
Their mangled bodies floated in the mire, swollen with decay and reeking of death.
It was obvious.
The settlement had been completely massacred.
Bleached bones littered the wilderness, and not a single rooster’s crow could be heard for miles.
Whenever Konan’s eyes fell upon another decomposing corpse, her lips unconsciously tightened into a thin line.
Yahiko, meanwhile, couldn’t hide the sorrow and fear in his eyes.
One terrified, lifeless face after another etched itself into his memory.
“Yahiko…
look over there.” Only after Konan tugged on his sleeve did Yahiko snap back to reality.
Following the direction she pointed, he looked toward a narrow alley.
There…
A body.
It was slumped against the wall, wearing a gray flak jacket with its face turned toward the sky.
“We actually found one!” Joy flashed across Yahiko’s face.
After making sure no one else was nearby, he quietly slipped into the alley.
The instant he stepped beneath its entrance, the pounding rain pressing down on his shoulders suddenly stopped, as though cut off by an invisible barrier.
“Haa…” He let out an unconscious sigh of relief.
Konan, however, looked upward.
She instinctively touched her throat.
For some reason, a chill crawled across her skin.
Yet above her, there was nothing except the howling wind and the dark tarps stretched overhead.
Even the moonlight was completely hidden.
“It’s the body of a Sunagakure Chunin!” Yahiko’s barely restrained exclamation pulled Konan from her thoughts.
She lowered her gaze.
The corpse wore a Sunagakure forehead protector and lay flat on its back.
A kunai had been driven straight into its left eye socket, exposing torn muscle and ruptured crimson blood vessels.
Fresh blood had flowed down its face before pooling beneath the body into a shallow, reddish mirror that reflected the blurred outline of the alley.
“Please…
let there be something…” Yahiko crouched beside the foul-smelling corpse.
Instead of recoiling in disgust, he eagerly reached into the dead shinobi’s clothing.
It was obvious this wasn’t his first time.
His movements were as practiced as the wild dogs scavenging the dead.
In truth…
What he was doing wasn’t much different.
If a fallen shinobi still carried anything valuable, he could trade it for food in one of the Land of Rain’s towns.
If not…
Then stealing would be their only option.
Konan stood quietly beside him, silently staring at the corpse.
“…It’s terrifying.” After a long silence, she whispered the words almost unconsciously.
The dead shinobi’s face was frozen in a mixture of rage and bewilderment.
She could almost picture how he had died.
Could that kind of force have been delivered with nothing more than a thrust?
No…
To drive a kunai completely through someone’s skull would require an overwhelming impact.
First, the blade would have been thrust into the eye socket.
Then, with a punch or a kick, it would have been hammered straight through the skull.
Even now, traces of vigilance remained on the man’s face.
Which meant…
He had entered the alley cautiously.
Yet before he could even react— Someone had already killed him.
The realization sent unease creeping through Konan’s heart.
She glanced around the alley, searching for the source of that inexplicable feeling.
Cold air tinged with the metallic scent of blood filled her lungs.
A faint, wavering patch of moonlight flickered across the wet ground.
The walls on either side of the alley were stained with age, slick with moisture and moss.
Spiders waited silently in their webs stretched across the darkness, like patient hunters awaiting prey.
Their clustered eyes reflected the tiny figures of the two children.
The alley had fallen into absolute silence.
It was as though the rest of the world had disappeared, leaving only the two of them behind.
The curtain of rain at the entrance resembled the bars of a cage, trapping two lost little animals inside.
Yahiko noticed none of Konan’s growing anxiety.
Still rummaging through the corpse, his eyes suddenly lit up.
“Found it!” He pulled out a ninja tool pouch, unable to hide his excitement.
“Konan, look!
There are still shuriken and paper bombs in here…
Huh?
Where’s the special steel wire?
That stuff’s really useful…” Yahiko continued speaking excitedly— Before Konan interrupted him, her voice trembling.
“Y-Yahiko…
did you hear that?” “…Hear what?” He looked up in confusion.
Konan stared blankly toward the raging storm beyond the alley.
Somewhere beneath the roar of rain and wind…
There was another sound.
A faint sound.
Click…
Click…
The answer was no.
It wasn’t as if there was a sound.
There was something.
The instant that thought crossed Yahiko’s mind— A bolt of lightning tore through the storm clouds, bathing the world in blinding white.
Far beyond the curtain of rain, the brilliant flash cast three elongated shadows across the ground like wandering spirits.
Clack…
Clack…
Clack…
Now they could hear it clearly.
The strange mechanical sound was drawing closer.
A tide of terror instantly swallowed the two children whole.
BOOM!!
A deafening peal of thunder exploded overhead.
Yahiko and Konan both jolted awake from their daze, their young faces turning deathly pale.
They recognized it.
And they understood exactly what that familiar sound meant.
“A Sunagakure puppet master!” Reacting instinctively, Yahiko grabbed Konan’s sleeve and turned to flee.
But the moment he took his first step— Whoosh!
A streak of cold black light flashed past the corner of his eye.
For an instant, Yahiko could even smell the faint stench clinging to it.
Clang!
Then, in the very next moment, a crisp metallic ring echoed through the alley.
The gleaming kunai abruptly veered off its original course.
It skimmed past Yahiko’s face by mere inches before burying itself in the wall beside him, leaving spiderweb cracks in the stone.
“Y-Yahiko…” Konan’s face was as white as paper as she clutched desperately at his clothes.
Gulp.
Yahiko stood frozen like a statue.
His mouth hung slightly open as his throat bobbed, his breathing completely stalled.
A droplet of water—whether rain or sweat, he couldn’t tell—slid from his temple, traced down his cheek, and fell from his chin to shatter against the ground.
“I…
I’m okay…” His trembling hand slowly reached up to touch his nose.
The sharp sting…
The dampness on his fingertips…
His pupils trembled violently.
Every hair on his body stood on end.
His legs nearly gave out beneath him.
He had almost died.
For the first time in his life, death had brushed so close.
But…
That sound…
Clack…
Clack…
Clack…
Before Yahiko could gather his thoughts, the strange noise grew louder as two figures emerged from the rain.
Both wore broad straw hats.
One was a long-haired blond shinobi, casually spinning a bloodstained kunai around his finger.
Rainwater and fresh blood ran together before dripping from its tip.
The other had a vicious scar running across his face.
Slung over his back was a waterproof bundle shaped unmistakably like a human body.
The eerie clicking sound came from whatever was concealed inside it.
“Huh?” The blond Sunagakure shinobi blinked in surprise when he saw the two frail children.
“So it’s just a couple of brats.” “You only noticed that now?” The scar-faced shinobi looked at him strangely.
“I thought you realized they were kids and deliberately missed.” The blond’s expression darkened immediately.
“Bullshit!
I was aiming right at the boy’s head!” The scar-faced shinobi merely chuckled, treating it as nothing more than an excuse.
His gaze shifted toward the corpse lying in the alley.
“So that idiot ended up dying here…” Then he looked at Yahiko and Konan with complete indifference.
“If I remember correctly, Lord Kazekage said we should avoid harming civilians whenever possible.” Hearing those words, hope flickered in the children’s eyes.
“Don’t make me laugh.” The blond shinobi sneered.
“Have you forgotten?
Your very first A-rank mission ended with you slaughtering an entire group of civilians from the Land of Rain.” “Who knows…” He grinned maliciously.
“Maybe their parents were among them.” The instant he finished speaking, he suddenly whipped around.
A kunai shot from his hand.
Yahiko and Konan had just begun to move— The blade buried itself in the ground directly at their feet.
Neither dared move another inch.
“Stay right where you are.” The blond wore the smile of a cat leisurely toying with trapped mice as he slowly walked toward them.
The scar-faced shinobi made no attempt to stop him.
He simply rubbed the scar on his face, as if it still ached.
“Make it quick,” he said coldly.
“We’ve still got to recover that idiot’s body.” Every trace of hope vanished from Yahiko and Konan’s faces.
Despair took its place.
The swaying shadows of the trees seemed like rows of silent spectators, mocking their futile resistance.
Even the freezing wind slipping beneath their collars felt sharper than before.
The cold pierced straight into Yahiko’s bones.
His fingers tightened around his raincoat until his knuckles turned white.
His chest rose and fell like a broken bellows.
“…Why?” His voice shook.
He couldn’t understand why battles between shinobi always dragged civilians into the slaughter.
He couldn’t understand why the wars of the great nations had turned the Land of Rain into a battlefield.
The Land of Fire.
The Land of Wind.
Konohagakure.
Sunagakure.
Each side claimed to be fighting for its own sense of justice.
Sunagakure had started the war in the name of creating a fairer distribution of resources.
Fairness.
Such a righteous…
Such a flawless reason.
But all they wanted was to survive.
Was that really wrong?
And if even that was wrong…
Then who was right?
“So that’s your last question?” The blond shinobi raised an eyebrow.
“I wish I could answer you.” “But I can’t.” His footsteps never stopped.
He stepped through the curtain of rain hanging over the alley entrance.
Tap.
Konan suddenly froze.
Her eyes settled on the pool of blood beneath the dead shinobi.
From where she stood, the crimson surface reflected the world like a mirror.
Within it…
She saw a pair of deep blue eyes.
They were like the eyes of a predator lurking beneath the surface of a silent lake, patiently watching its prey.
For just an instant…
She thought those eyes curved ever so slightly.
As though…
They were smiling.
Smiling?
Who?
Before she could look up— Her vision was blocked.
Yahiko had instinctively stepped in front of her, spreading his arms to shield her.
The enemy shinobi raised his kunai.
A cruel grin spread across his face.
“Heh…
kid.” “If there’s a next life…” “Pray you aren’t born in a small country.” He swung.
Nothing happened.
No warm spray of blood.
No satisfying sensation of flesh splitting beneath his blade.
His expression stiffened.
Instinctively, he glanced toward his raised arm.
The sleeve slowly split apart.
A thin crimson line circled his upper arm.
Then— Blood erupted.
His arm slid cleanly from his shoulder.
The severed surface was impossibly smooth, every strand of muscle and every contour of bone cleanly exposed.
Pain originates in the brain.
Even after suffering a fatal wound, it takes less than a second for the signal to reach the mind.
Less than a second for the body to react.
Yet the transition from absolute stillness…
To absolute motion…
Requires only a single instant.
Before anyone present could even comprehend what had happened— The shadow hidden above drifted downward like a falling maple leaf, landing silently behind its prey.
Its feet touched the blood-covered ground.
Ripples spread outward.
When the hunter concealed in darkness finally stepped into the moonlight, what drew the eye first wasn’t his face— But the blade reflecting a single sliver of moonlight.
Slash!
The strike was impossibly fast.
There was no pain.
Only cold death.
The blond Sunagakure shinobi’s head flew into the air.
It hit the ground like a bowling ball, landing with the sickening crack of a smashed watermelon before rolling through the rainwater, leaving a trail of blood behind it.
Even in death, confusion remained frozen on his face.
His lifeless eyes stared blankly at the stunned children.
Meanwhile, blood burst from his severed neck like a crimson fountain.
A rain of scarlet splashed over Yahiko and Konan.
Then— A shadow stepped before them.
The bloody rain stopped.
“Wondering why is a good habit.” “But you asked the wrong person.” The voice overhead was surprisingly youthful.
Gentle.
Yahiko and Konan slowly looked up, still too stunned to process what had just happened.
They met a pair of deep blue eyes.
“Most people in this world are like fallen leaves.” “They drift helplessly through the wind, tumbling wherever fate carries them before finally settling upon the earth…
becoming nourishment for the next generation.” “But a select few are like stars moving along their destined paths.” “The unpredictable winds of fate cannot move them.” “The road within their hearts has already been decided.” Standing before them was a young man dressed in black robes.
One hand held an umbrella.
His long, slender fingers gripped the handle lightly.
A faint smile rested in his deep blue eyes.
For a moment, Konan couldn’t tell whether the blue reflected in those eyes came from the stars…
Or from the rain.
She only knew that the dark, storm-filled night suddenly seemed brighter.
Rain poured endlessly from the heavens.
Her heart surged like a valley whose walls had suddenly broken open, allowing an unstoppable gale to rush inside.