Leaving the Village

"Orochimaru-sama, there are apples, eggs, and Military Ration Pills prepared for you in here."

Two days later, at the village entrance.

Mikoto had come to see Kamizuki and the others off.

Handing the package to Orochimaru, Mikoto continued, "The eggs are cooked, so you should eat them first on the road. Apples do not keep for long. I know you dislike cold food, and these Military Ration Pills can be heated without melting..."

"That's enough. You're nagging like a mom." Kamizuki clasped his hands behind his head and curled his lip disdainfully.

"Thank you, Mikoto." Orochimaru narrowed his eyes slightly, and a trace of warmth could be seen in them.

He turned to Kamizuki. "Kamizuki-kun, you should truly be grateful to have a younger sister like Mikoto. She has saved you from quite a few beatings."

They were clearly twins, yet their personalities lay at opposite extremes.

At the Ninja Academy, Kamizuki was practically a little tyrant. He lashed out at anyone he disliked, with Nawaki and the Hyuga clan suffering the most.

Fortunately, he mostly ignored civilian ninja. Otherwise, he really would have been bullying the entire school.

Though come to think of it...

Ignoring them counted as a form of bullying too, didn't it?

This time, he had applied for leave from the Ninja Academy under the excuse of traveling out to conduct business. The dean approved it immediately, as though he could not wait to send away a plague god.

"Huh? There's one for me too?"

Sakumo accepted the package, and Mikoto bowed. "Thank you, Hatake jonin, for looking after my brother. When you return safely, please allow me the chance to properly thank you."

"Haha, you're too polite. Just call me Sakumo!"

Sakumo nudged Kamizuki with his heel and said with a laugh, "Kamizuki and I get along quite well. If Orochimaru had not beaten me to it, I really would have wanted to take him as my disciple!"

Indeed, in terms of fighting style, Sakumo would have been a more suitable teacher for Kamizuki.

Kamizuki had considered that before, but he had been thinking about the future.

Compared to combat techniques that could be made up for, he cared more about the various kinds of help Orochimaru could offer him—especially in matters of wisdom.

As for Kamizuki's own brain... everyone had their strengths. It was better to trust a professional.

Now it was his turn.

"The red bag has Military Ration Pills, the white bag has dry provisions, the purple bag has jerky, and the vegetables are..."

"Do you have enough money on you? Only eat the Military Ration Pills in emergencies. If conditions allow, stay in a nearby town..."

"It isn't peaceful outside. Travel on the main roads during the day, and at night, don't..."

Kamizuki impatiently dug at his ear. He had expected this yesterday, but Mikoto was even more annoying than he had imagined.

"Hey! What's with that impatient look!"

Mikoto pointed at Kamizuki's nose, one hand on her hip. "Have you even been listening to what I'm saying?"

"I'm listening, I'm listening. Are you done yet?"

"It's not like I'm going to the battlefield. Why are you making such a fuss?"

Mikoto went over every detail for a long time. Finally, she untied a blade-shaped object wrapped in black cloth from behind her back.

There was sorrow in her eyes as she forced out a faint smile.

"Dad thought you would not become a ninja, so he gave this to me and told me to protect you properly."

"Originally, I wanted to wait until you became a ninja..."

Kamizuki pulled back the black cloth, revealing a long sword with a black-and-red scabbard.

Their father had been the Uchiha clan's finest swordsmith, while their mother had been a veteran jonin. They had left the siblings a considerable inheritance. Even without the clan's pension, the two of them would not have had a difficult life.

As for how they died...

As ninja, it was not strange to die at any time.

Clang—

The blade left its sheath, revealing a flash of crimson cold light.

Blood-red patterns slithered like snakes across the silver-white blade, giving it a cold, eerie, dreamlike beauty.

Kamizuki curled his lip. "Tch, that sloppy guy could forge such a beautiful sword? That's rare."

"This was Dad's most satisfying work. Its name is 'Crimson Blade.'" Thinking of something as she looked at it, Mikoto smiled softly.

Their mother, Hizuki, had died during a mission. Not long after that, their father had wasted away in grief.

Kamizuki had been furious.

Furious that his father had failed to protect their mother, furious that the man had abandoned the two siblings just like that and cowardly chosen to run away.

Kamizuki had been four that year.

He gradually came to understand that his father simply could not bear that pain. It had crushed the life out of him.

After a moment of silence, Mikoto smiled.

"The person you care about most must be me, right, Brother?"

"You've lost your mind. The person I care about most is myself."

Kamizuki poked Mikoto's forehead with a finger, then hung the long sword at his waist. "I'm leaving."

"Meow!"

"What about me? I haven't said goodbye to little Mikoto yet!"

A pair of cat paws tugged at Kamizuki's hair as a cat struggled out through a gap in the enormous package.

Her fur was completely black, with only her four paws covered in a layer of snow-white fluff. Her round golden eyes were bright and gentle.

She was an elegant, slender female cat. Humanlike anger filled her eyes as she slapped Kamizuki across the face with a paw.

"You little bastard, watch where you're going! You nearly crushed me to death!"

She had been dozing on Kamizuki's shoulder just now. When the shadow of that huge package covered her, Lulu vaguely caught sight of her great-grandmother.

Kamizuki could not use the Summoning Technique, so he could only adopt a companion-bond arrangement like the Inuzuka clan.

This ninja cat named Lulu was the child of Hizuki's ninja cat. Her mother had sent her over not long ago.

Sometimes, she even followed Kamizuki to school to bully Inuzuka Tsume's Kuromaru.

Kamizuki grabbed the black cat by the scruff and tossed her onto the package. "Stop clinging to me all the time. One day, you'll get flattened into a cat pancake."

"Hmph! I'm going to cling to you!"

Lulu the black cat held her head high. "Without Lady Lulu, a guy like you with no Chakra can't do anything!"

"Sure, sure. You're the greatest."

Kamizuki gave a perfunctory reply, turned and waved, then caught up with Orochimaru and Sakumo, who were not far ahead.

--

Before long, Orochimaru stopped at a crossroads. He was headed in another direction.

"Sakumo, I'm counting on you."

Without much small talk, Orochimaru gave them a brief farewell and parted ways with the two of them.

Watching Orochimaru walk away, Kamizuki's gaze darkened slightly.

Orochimaru had never told him the details of his mission, but each of Orochimaru's trips had grown longer, along with the strange atmosphere within the village...

It was now the middle of Konoha Year 30. Kamizuki vaguely remembered that the Second Shinobi World War officially began around Konoha Year 32.

A war that engulfed several ninja villages had its prelude. It was not as though everyone suddenly began fighting the moment Year 32 arrived.

Ordinary people in Konoha could not sense it, but the ninja burdened by an increasing number of missions had already caught the scent of gunpowder.

The root cause of the Second Shinobi World War was the widening economic gap between the nations after the First War. The militant factions in each country advocated expanding outward to ease domestic economic pressure.

As events developed, the Land of Rain became the battlefield for Konoha, Sunagakure, and Iwagakure. Dissatisfied with this, Hanzo, the leader of Amegakure, declared war on the three great nations, officially beginning the Second Shinobi World War.

This war had far-reaching consequences.

Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru fought the demigod Hanzo and earned the title of Konoha's Sannin.

During a battle against Sunagakure, Sakumo killed Sasori's parents.

Nagato's parents were killed by Konoha ninja.

Nawaki accidentally entered an Explosive Tag formation and died, while Dan Katō succumbed to severe injuries, directly affecting the Sannin's states of mind.

Tsunade developed hemophobia, Orochimaru began obsessing over the true meaning of life, and Jiraiya became even more desperate to find the Child of Prophecy.

Was it coming...

An inexplicable excitement welled up in Kamizuki's heart.

He would not ponder profound questions like the nature of war. So long as humans lived, they would never stop fighting.

All I have to do is win in the struggle. That's all!

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