"Let the blood of those three little brats open the curtain for the seven of us!" Juzo Biwa grinned viciously, licked his lips, and slowly removed Kubikiribōchō from his back.
"Not a bad idea!"
Jinin Akebino laughed and nodded, then said, "How about the seven of us compete and see who can kill those three brats first and claim the first prize of this performance?"
Before he had even finished speaking, he lightly pushed off with one foot and leaped from the mountaintop. Like a hunting eagle bathing in moonlight, he plunged toward the ground.
"What a sly bastard!"
The other six paused for a moment before hurriedly leaping down from the mountaintop and chasing after him with curses.
It seemed they all agreed with Jinin Akebino's suggestion.
On a path through the woods, three young boys were strolling slowly toward Konoha, completely unaware that danger was approaching.
Or rather, no one would have expected them to encounter an enemy attack so close to Konoha.
They chatted as they walked. In the quiet forest, the war at the border of the Land of Fire seemed incredibly distant from them at that moment.
"Hey! Genma, Ebisu, when will we be able to go to the battlefield and kill some enemies?" Might Guy, with his thick eyebrows and large eyes, hugged his bowl-shaped hair and complained to the two companions beside him.
He was a Genin of Konoha.
Although he was only proficient in Taijutsu and was not very good at anything else, he still firmly remembered his father's teachings.
"Even if you can't use ninjutsu or Genjutsu, as long as you master Taijutsu, you can still become an outstanding shinobi!"
Motivated by those words, he had worked hard to train his Taijutsu all this time.
Over the past few years, Konoha