Chapter 1: Fallen leaves languished on the ground

At the end of Konoha Chronicle 36, the situation in the shinobi world gradually deteriorated.

Sunagakure accused Konoha of maliciously snatching his share of the mission, and Konoha accused Sunagakure of crossing the Rain Country and plundering the Fire Country border.

The friction between Konoha and Sandgakure continues, Iwagakure and Kumogakure have ambiguous attitudes, and Kirigakure is also secretly mobilizing armed forces.

The Kingdom of Rain, located between the three kingdoms of Earth, Wind, and Fire, was forced to become a buffer zone and victim of the fighting between the great powers.

Lead-colored clouds have spread across the sky, making this weeping country even more lonely and sad.

Only homeless wild dogs crouched beside the carrion and bit into it.

"Konan, follow..."

"Woo!" The wild dogs raised their ears alertly, bared their teeth and looked at the misty fog.

In the distance, there seemed to be footsteps coming, mixed with low murmurs.

Until the clouds flashed with branch-shaped thunder, and the world was dyed gray and white.

In the distance, in a desolate scene, two haggard figures staggered out of the rain and fog, their ghostly white faces illuminated by the light.

"Yahiko, I'm so cold..."

"Bear it a little longer... If we can't find anything, we'll go back."

The tattered and wide raincoat covered up the thin and short figure, and the eyes under the shadow were still bright. The little face with a yellowish look is very childish, and he looks like he is only five or six years old.

There is an orange-haired boy called "Yahiko" and a blue-haired girl called "Konan".

The two children's eyes kept scanning the surroundings.

But most of the houses on the left and right are dilapidated. In the mud with broken walls, you can only vaguely see corpses, maybe men and women, maybe old people and children, dilapidated and soaked in the mud, rotting and smelly.

Apparently, the settlement had been slaughtered.

White bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no rooster crow in the thousands of miles.

Whenever they see a broken and rotting corpse, Konan will tighten her face and purse her lips subconsciously, while Yahiko's eyes show sadness and fear.

The pale faces with residual fear were gradually engraved deeply in his mind.

"Yahiko, look there..."

It wasn't until Konan pulled his sleeve that Yahiko came out of his trance and looked in the direction she pointed.

He saw an alley and saw figures in the alley.

It was a strange corpse wearing a gray vest with its head raised.

"I actually found it!"

Yahiko's face was filled with joy. After making sure that no one was around, he quietly slipped into the alley.

The moment he stepped into the alley, the rain curtain that was pressing heavily on his shoulders seemed to be suddenly cut off.

"Huh!"

Yahiko let out a sigh of relief subconsciously.

Konan looked up and subconsciously touched her throat.

She didn't know if it was an illusion, but she felt a chill.

Looking up, there was only the raging wind and the darkness covered by the tent, not even the light of the moon could be seen.

"It's the body of a Sunagakure chunin!"

The uncontrollable exclamation beside her interrupted Konan's inexplicable loss of consciousness.

She retracted her gaze from above and lowered her head to look at the figure.

I saw that the corpse wearing the Sunagakure forehead protector was lying on its back, with a kunai inserted into the left eye socket, exposing the texture of the muscles and the ruptured scarlet blood vessels.

The dazzling blood flowed down its face and down its body, forming a reddish mirror reflecting the blurry alleyway.

"There must be one!"

Yahiko, a boy of four or five years old, was squatting in front of the corpse. He did not feel disgusted by the smelly corpse. Instead, he put his hand into its arms with a look of anticipation.

It can be seen that this is not the first time he has done this kind of thing. He is as skilled as those wild dogs that eat corpses.

In fact, he was doing exactly the same thing as a wild dog.

If you can find some good things from the corpse of the ninja, you can go to the capital of the Kingdom of Rain to exchange for some food. If you can't find it, you can only steal it…"

Konan stood quietly aside and looked quietly at the corpse.

"...It's so scary." After a long silence, she murmured in a low voice.

Seeing that the corpse maintained a ferocious and dazed expression until death, Konan could almost imagine how the other party was killed.

Is the force that goes straight through the head a stab?

If you want to penetrate the head, you have to at least hit it, right?

First, insert the short knife into the eye socket, and then punch or kick it to forcefully penetrate it.

There was even a look of vigilance on the face of the Sunagakure ninja, which meant that he carefully stepped into the alley, but was killed by someone before he could even react.

Thinking of this, Konan felt a little uneasy and looked around, but could not find the source of her uneasiness.

The icy cold mixed with the smell of blood was inhaled into the lungs, and the weak, vague moonlight reflected the ground.

There are mottled walls on both sides of the alley, covered with damp water stains and moss. Spiders are waiting on the dark webs, as if waiting for food to fall into the webs. Two short figures are reflected in the compound eyes.

The entire alley was extremely quiet, as if they were the only ones left in the world. The rain curtain at the entrance of the alley was like a door, locking the two lost beasts in a cage.

Yahiko didn't notice Konan's uneasiness, lowered his head and fumbled around, and suddenly his eyes lit up.

"Found it!" He whispered in surprise, and took out a ninja bag, "Konan, look, there are shurikens and explosive tags in it…"

"Hey, why don't you have that special steel wire? It's very useful..."

Yahiko was talking excitedly.

But before he could finish speaking, Konan interrupted with a trembling voice:

"Ya, Yahiko! Did you hear it?"

"...What did you hear?" Yahiko couldn't help but be startled, raised his head and asked.

Konan was seen staring blankly at the violent storm outside the alley.

It seemed that I heard some sound, hidden in the howling of the rain and wind.

It seems like...

click... click...

No, no, it doesn't seem like it, there is just some kind of sound.

That's when this idea popped into Yahiko's mind.

The sky was suddenly dyed a blazing white color by the lightning that tore through the clouds.

In the rain and fog in the distance, a dazzling white light reflected three shadows on the ground, slender like ghosts.

Kaka! Click!

They could hear the strange sounds getting closer and closer, and the two of them were instantly swallowed up by a wave of fear.

boom! !

A thunderclap followed the falling lightning.

Both Konan and Yahiko were suddenly awakened, and their young faces instantly turned pale.

They heard it clearly and they realized it.

What does that familiar voice mean?

"Sunagakure's puppet master!!"

Yahiko reacted, grabbed Konan's clothes, turned around and ran away.

But just as he stood up and took a step.

Uh-huh!

In the peripheral vision, a black cold light suddenly passed in front of him.

At this moment, Yahiko could even smell the faint fishy smell.

Ding!

But in the next second, a subtle and crisp hitting sound was heard, and the kunai glowing with cold light suddenly deviated from its original throwing trajectory.

It flew just in front of Yahiko and penetrated the wall beside him, causing cracks.

"Ya, Yahiko..." Konan's little face was extremely pale, and she was holding on to the corner of Yahiko's clothes.

"Gudong!" (swallowed sound)

Yahiko's whole body was frozen in place like a stone, his mouth was slightly open, his throat was rolling up and down, and his breathing was stagnant.

The crystal liquid, whether it was sweat or rain, slid from the temples down the cheeks to the chin, and finally dripped to the ground and broke into splashes.

"I...it's okay..." He raised his trembling hand and touched his nose.

Feeling the tingling sensation and the moist feeling on the fingertips, his pupils trembled slightly, the hairs all over his body stood up, and he even felt the urge to urinate between his buttocks.

Almost!

Almost died!

This was the first time he felt the fear of death so close.

But, that sounds just now...

click!

click, click!

Before Yahiko could recover from his trance, two figures walked out of the rain curtain with the strange sounds gradually becoming clearer.

Both of them were wearing hats, and one of them had long yellow hair. The blood-stained kunai was still spinning on his finger, and blood and rainwater gathered on the tip of the kunai and splashed out.

The other man had a hideous scar on his face and was carrying a human-shaped thing wrapped in a tarpaulin, and the weird sound came from behind him.

"What." Seeing the thin and short Yahiko, the yellow-haired Sand ninja was also stunned, and then frowned and complained, "It turns out they were just two brats."

"Did you just see that they were two brats?" A scar-faced sand ninja was a little surprised and said, "I thought you saw it, so you became merciful and missed."

The expression of the yellow-haired sand ninja suddenly became a little ugly, and he cursed: "Fart! I clearly aimed at his head!"

The scar-faced sand ninja just thought he was quibbling, smiled, and looked at the corpse in the alley.

"That idiot actually died here..." As he spoke, he looked at Yahiko and Konan and said indifferently: "I remember Lord Kazekage said, try not to hurt civilians?"

Hearing this, Yahiko and Konan were startled. After a moment, there was a look of hope in his eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous." The yellow-haired Sand Ninja sneered with some disdain, "Don't forget, you killed a group of Rain Country civilians on your first A-level mission."

"Maybe, Among the group civilians you killed, there were these children's parents..."

After saying that, he turned his head suddenly and threw the kunai in his hand instantly.

In an instant, Yahiko and Konan who were moving froze in place, and the kunai was accurately pierced at their feet.

"Be good." The yellow-haired sand ninja showed a joking smile, like a cat playing with a mouse with its paws, and slowly walked towards Yahiko and Konan.

The scar-faced sand ninja didn't stop him. He just touched the scar on his face. It seemed to be a little painful. He couldn't help but warned in a cold voice, "Be more agile and help me collect that idiot body."

Hearing that the two will not show any mercy, Yahiko and Konan's hopes were extinguished, and the hope in their eyes turned into despair.

The shadows of the trees beside him seemed to be swaying one by one, and they sneered coldly at the two people who were stubbornly resisting.

Even the feeling of the cold wind entering his collar became more profound. The coldness that penetrated into his bones made Yahiko's hand holding the collar turn white, and his chest heaved violently, like a broken bellows.

"Why?" he murmured in a trembling voice.

He didn't understand why the battle of ninjas involved civilians, and he didn't understand why the war between the great powers would drag the Kingdom of Rain into the flames of war.

The Country of Fire and the Country of Wind, Sunagakure Village and Konoha Hidden Village all seem to be fighting for their own "justice".

The reason why Sunagakure launched the war was to promote fair distribution of resources.

"Fairness", what a "just" and "correct" reason.

However, they just want to live. Is this wrong? If this is wrong, then who is right?

"Are these your last words?" Hearing the murmur of the kid in front of him, the yellow-haired sand ninja who had already walked to the alley raised his eyebrows and seemed a little troubled,"Unfortunately, even if you ask me, I don't know how to answer you."

After the words fell, the yellow-haired sand man stepped out with his unstoppable footsteps and gently stepped into the curtain made of falling rain at the entrance of the alley.

Snap.

Konan, who had only a look of defeat on her face, was suddenly stunned, her eyes stagnating in the pool of blood under the dead ninja.

Looking from her angle, the blood-colored water surface looked like a mirror, but reflected a pair of dark blue eyes.

Like a predator quietly watching its prey under the deep pool.

Even in a daze, Konan seemed to see those eyes slightly curved, as if... smiling?

laugh?

Who's laughing?

Before she could raise her head to see clearly, her sight was blocked.

In front of her eyes was Yahiko who wanted to stand in front of her and opened his arms to protect her, as well as the kunai raised by the ninja and the ferocious smile on his face.

"Hey, kid, in your next life, pray that you won't be born in a small country."

The words fell, but the moment he tried to wave his arm, nothing happened.

There was no warm blood splashing out like before, nor was there that refreshing feeling that made him crave.

This situation made the yellow-haired Sand Ninja stunned for a moment, and his eyes slightly turned to look at his arm.

He saw that on his arm holding the kunai, the sleeve slowly tore open, and the skin underneath cracked with a circular red line...

When the blood was splashed, the arm slipped down, and gradually separated from the shoulder, revealing smooth and neat fractures with delicate skeletal and muscle textures.

Pain is generated in the cerebral cortex. So, after a person is directly injured, how long does it take for the pain information to be transmitted to the cerebral cortex, and how long does it take for a response to occur?

The answer is, one second.

In the absence of highly tense nerves, it takes close to a second to react.

But from extreme stillness to extreme movement, it only takes a moment of youth.

Before anyone could react, the black shadow was already like a falling maple leaf, falling behind the prey from the darkness above, and its toes landed on the pool of blood, causing a ripple.

When the predator hiding in the dark is exposed to the moonlight, the first thing that people notice is not his face, but the cold light that reflects the moonlight.

Poof!

The blade was very fast, and there was no pain when it passed, only cold death.

Almost instantly, the head of the yellow-haired Sand Ninja rose into the sky and fell to the ground like a bowling ball. There was a crunching sound like a watermelon falling to the ground, and a trail of blood rolled out on the ground.

There was still a trace of doubt on face of the person whose head fall, and it rolled down into the stagnant water with eyes closed, with two dumbfounded little ones reflected in its eyes.

And the blood on the separated neck also bloomed like a fountain, causing a blood rain to fall on Konan and Yahiko.

But soon, the front was shrouded in shadow, and the smelly rain of blood stopped falling.

"It's a good habit to like to ask 'why', but unfortunately, you have chosen the wrong person."

A somewhat childish voice came from above the head, but the first impression given to Yahiko and Konan was that of gentleness.

"..."

As if they hadn't recovered from that scene, the two of them raised their heads in a daze, and met a pair of dark blue eyes.

"The majority of people in this world are like fallen leaves. They can only float, tumble, and tremble helplessly in the air. Finally, they languish helplessly on the ground and become the nourishment for the next generation."

"Only a few people can be like this. Like the stars moving in a predetermined orbit, the unpredictable wind of fate cannot blow them, and their hearts have a predetermined journey."

It was a young man, wearing a black robe, holding an umbrella in his hand, with clear joints in his hands, and a smile in his eyes.

Konan couldn't tell for a moment whether the blue light reflected in those eyes was the stars or the rain.

I just feel that the dark rainy night has become brighter, the heavy rain is pouring, and my heart is turbulent, like a closed valley suddenly opening up, and the strong wind is blowing in endlessly.

(end of this chapter)

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