"I finally found an animal with so much spirit. How could I let him get away?" Ye Wuji thought. In his previous life, he'd wanted a pet, a dog or a cat to keep him company, but it had never worked out. First, the orphanage didn't allow pets, partly because they were afraid of disease and partly because they worried the animals might hurt one of the children. Besides, when Ye Wuji was very young, he'd spent his time collecting scraps. He simply didn't have the time to care for a pet.
"This time, I'm not letting him get away." Ye Wuji took a quick look around and immediately figured out which way the dog had gone.
Having learned his lesson after getting lost last time, Ye Wuji chased after the dog while leaving a marker every so often. About ten minutes later, he caught sight of it.
The dog was running straight ahead, without turning once. Even when its freshly bandaged wound started bleeding again, it didn't stop.
"Strange. It's ignoring the pain. Where exactly is it trying to go?" Watching the dog sprint ahead, Ye Wuji grew curious. I've left markers, anyway. I might as well see what it's up to.
Ye Wuji followed the dog for nearly three hours. By then, its pace had slowed. It was small to begin with, and its injuries made it hard to run fast. Even so, it kept moving forward. Eventually, Ye Wuji was gritting his teeth in frustration. Let's see how long you can keep this up. In the end, Ye Wuji was the one who had to find a place to rest before setting off after it again.
Watching the dog nearly disappear from sight, Ye Wuji slowly rose from his perch in the tree, ready to follow. Just as he was about to move, the intermittent clang of metal rang out. Ye Wuji immediately hid again. He knew that sound well: weapons clashing. A while ago, he'd practiced with Minato using real weapons.
Then came an excited cry: "Hua!" A very pleasant girl's voice followed, then two sharp "thunks," and finally a "pfft"—the sound of something piercing flesh. A moment later, a cry of pain rang out. It was the girl's voice from earlier. It seemed she'd been hit.
After that, the sounds stopped. But a moment later, the clanging began again. Ye Wuji thought it over, then slowly crept toward the noise.
Along the way, Ye Wuji saw quite a few people dressed as shinobi lying on the ground. Judging by the blood around them, they'd been dead for some time. The Forehead Protector lying nearby bore four curved lines: Kirigakure. Every body on the ground belonged to a Mist Ninja.
Ye Wuji didn't touch the bodies. He really wanted to search them—if he was lucky, he might even find some Mist Ninja techniques. But the sounds of battle still came from up ahead, and he didn't know which side had the advantage. If the Mist Ninja won, they wouldn't leave their comrades' bodies behind. If Ye Wuji disturbed them, they'd definitely notice. The nations of the Naruto World all had a habit of retrieving their shinobi's corpses, and Konoha's Anbu even seemed to have a "leave no body behind" rule. They did this to stop others from learning things from the bodies, such as commonly used techniques, training methods, and codes. In some cases, they could even uncover another country's Kekkei Genkai. That was the most important reason.
After Ye Wuji went a little farther, he could just make out several figures ahead.
The moment he spotted them, Ye Wuji grew even more cautious. This wasn't practice with Minato. One careless mistake, and he could be dead in an instant.
At first, after seeing the Mist Ninja corpses on the ground, Ye Wuji had wanted to turn back immediately. But he was just too curious about what had happened up ahead to leave those Mist Ninja dead.
So Ye Wuji decided to go take a look. They were in the middle of a fight, and as long as he was careful, he probably wouldn't be spotted. If things looked too dangerous, he'd leave at once.
Ye Wuji carefully concealed himself in a tree. The battlefield lay just ahead. Some of the surrounding trees had fallen, while others were still burning. That must have been caused by Fire Release. I didn't expect the Mist Ninja to use Fire Release too, Ye Wuji joked to himself.
Only then did Ye Wuji turn his attention to the two people fighting. One was an adult, the other a boy about Minato's age. When Ye Wuji got a clear look at the boy, his mind went blank, as if he'd been struck by lightning.
Ye Wuji stared at the boy's eyes. They were ringed with concentric circles, like ripples. The Rinnegan! Ye Wuji cried out inwardly. It was the most powerful dōjutsu in the Naruto World, something he'd once only dreamed of.
Those unmistakable eyes, together with that bright red hair, left no doubt: it was Nagato, one of Akatsuki's founders, the Six Paths of Pain who wore the "Zero" ring. He was also a possessor of all chakra natures.
Ye Wuji looked to one side. Sure enough, a blond boy was guarding a girl with pale purple hair. Most of her body was stained red with blood. It was Konan. She was sitting on the ground, holding the dog Ye Wuji had just seen. So it really was the three of them: Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan.
The organization Akatsuki, which would later become famous throughout the Shinobi World, had been founded by these three. At first, Akatsuki was a mercenary group created to bring peace to the Shinobi World and free people from war. Unfortunately, Madara later manipulated them. Perhaps he'd been influencing them from the very beginning, starting when he gave Nagato the Rinnegan.
Konan seemed gravely injured and could only sit there. Yahiko's unsteady stance showed that he was nearly done for, too. As for Nagato, who was still fighting, things looked grim judging by how badly the Mist Ninja had him on the defensive. The Mist Ninja seemed to have reservations, though. He only circled Nagato and kept him occupied. Several times, Ye Wuji could see that he had a chance to kill or seriously injure Nagato, but he let it go. Ye Wuji had no way of knowing why. About five Mist Ninja stood nearby, but they all seemed badly injured, and two more shinobi lay beside them, looking even worse. So the five simply watched rather than joining the fight. They were probably guarding the shinobi on the ground.
The Mist Ninja feinted, then retreated to his side. Nagato also fell back to stand in front of Konan and Yahiko.
"Lord Hétián, are you all right?" As soon as the Mist Ninja retreated, one of the shinobi asked.
"I'm fine." The Mist Ninja watched Nagato and answered. Then he asked, "How are Caobu and Shangben?"
"Lord Shangben is beyond saving. Lord Caobu's life is safe for now, but he needs to be taken for treatment as soon as possible. If we wait too long, I'm afraid..." He didn't finish, but Hétián knew what he meant.
"I never expected that we'd run into the legendary Rinnegan while hunting down a rogue ninja. What rotten luck..." Hétián trailed off.
"What? Lord Hétián, that's the legendary Rinnegan? That kind of eye really exists?" The few shinobi couldn't help crying out when they heard the words "Rinnegan."
"Yes, sir. I'm not questioning you, but that's supposed to be the eyes of the Sage of Six Paths. Can someone really have eyes like that?"
Hétián shot him a glance before replying, "Those eyes look exactly like the ones described in the records. Besides, if those aren't the Rinnegan, how do you explain a child—whose strength you've all seen—being no more than an elite Chunin, yet still managing to reduce our three squads to this state?
"Damn, it really is the legendary eye. We had three squads led by Jonin, and nearly all of us were wiped out here. If they hadn't been protecting that dog at the start, giving us an opening, we'd all be down already."
"Sir, what should we do now? It looks like they can't stop us if we leave," one subordinate suggested.
"Sir, I think we should kill them. This is the Rinnegan, after all. If we can bring it back to the village, we'll have done a great service. And look at them—they're nearly finished. The only one left is that Rinnegan brat. Even if the Rinnegan really is powerful, he doesn't look capable of using it anymore. This is our chance, sir."
"Damn it, do you think I can't see that he's nearly done? But he's been on the verge of collapsing from the start, and he still took down Caobu and Shangben. Are you telling me to gamble on this? And don't forget: if something happens to me, you're finished too. What about our mission? You know what will happen when we return to the village without completing it."
"Exactly. Are you asking our captain to risk his life, just like your captain Shangben did?" another shinobi nearby chimed in.
"But sir, you said yourself that we still have a mission. Look at us now—can we even complete it? You know the punishment for failing a mission in Kirigakure. But if we bring back the Rinnegan, that should count as making up for it. Or are you hoping to become a rogue ninja? Your family is still in the village, after all," the shinobi who had spoken first said.
"You have a point," Hétián said.
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