The Possibility of Becoming a Ninja (Part 1)

Sitting quietly on a large rock, Chiba stared into space, lost in thought.

Four days had passed since Xia Mu had dealt him that crushing blow.

Over the past few days, after going through initial confusion and disappointment, Chiba had finally begun to calm down.

After thinking it over again and again, Chiba had finally come up with a few possible ways forward.

What Xia Mu had said was true. For ordinary people, the chance of becoming a ninja was practically zero, and even if they did become ninjas, they would probably end up as cannon fodder.

But that didn't apply to Chiba, because he couldn't be measured by the standards of an ordinary person.

After all, Chiba's mind contained a rough outline of the story that would unfold over the next few decades.

In the entire Naruto world, surely there were people from civilian backgrounds who had become powerful?

Of course there were, and more than one.

In the future, three Kage Level powerhouses would stand at the pinnacle of the Ninja World, right here in the Land of Rain.

Yahiko, who founded the Akatsuki and rose to prominence in the Land of Rain, forcing Hanzo, who was known as a demigod, to seek outside help and resort to trickery just to deal with him.

Konan, the divine angel with her unique paper-control ninjutsu, who could even wield six hundred billion Explosive Tags to unleash devastating power.

Nagato, wielder of the Rinnegan—the most powerful ocular jutsu—who commanded more than ten Kage Level fighters and could even destroy Konoha, the strongest ninja village, all by himself.

All of them were civilians born in the Land of Rain.

And the reason they had a chance to become powerful was undoubtedly their shared teacher: Jiraiya, one of Konoha's top fighters and one of the Sannin.

Who was Jiraiya? He was one of the legendary Sannin, nicknamed the Mad Demon, a student of the Third Hokage, and the teacher of the Fourth Hokage. Later, he even taught Naruto, the protagonist of the entire Naruto series.

Jiraiya really was a bit of a goofball, but all those impressive titles were proof enough of his strength.

And it was only thanks to Jiraiya's careful guidance over three years that they achieved what they did later.

There was no doubt that the three of them were lucky. Whether Jiraiya took them on out of guilt toward the Land of Rain or happened to have business that kept him there, the fact remained that he became their teacher at just the right time.

Of course, in Chiba's eyes, rather than saying the three of them were lucky to find a good teacher, it was more accurate to say that their path to becoming ninjas had been inevitable all along.

It was all because of Nagato.

Nagato possessed the powerful physique of the Uzumaki Clan. Uchiha Madara and Zetsu, two of the Ninja World's most formidable villains and schemers, chose him to bear the Rinnegan and serve as their tool for collecting the Tailed Beasts and bringing them back to life.

Though Nagato himself didn't know it, he had long since become a pawn in Madara and Zetsu's scheme to realize their ambitions.

To carry out their plan, they couldn't very well let Nagato go without learning chakra.

That meant Nagato had been destined to become a ninja from the very beginning.

Even without Jiraiya, some suitable figure or another—Jiraiya the Second, Jiraiya the Third, and so on—would have become his teacher.

With Zetsu guiding things from behind the scenes, the right person would always turn up at the right time to teach him.

Yahiko and Konan had simply been lucky enough to benefit from Nagato and get the chance to become ninjas themselves.

Of course, they were just as unfortunate in that they had become pawns for someone else.

Whether becoming someone else's pawn was a good thing or not, it was at least a shortcut to the path of power.

Without a doubt, Chiba, who had nearly given up hope of becoming a ninja, was tempted.

Judging by the fact that the war had only recently begun, Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan probably hadn't yet set out to find a teacher. If Chiba could find them now, then becoming a ninja alongside them would be the natural next step.

Of course, the biggest difficulty was figuring out where they were.

The Land of Rain was a small country, but it still covered a vast area. Finding a handful of people in such a large country was like searching for a needle in a haystack—practically impossible.

After all, there wasn't much about their childhood in Naruto, and the story never specified where they lived.

If Chiba really searched the towns one by one, the odds of finding them would be next to nothing.

What was more, the Land of Rain was in the middle of a war. Even if he wanted to search, he couldn't cross so many battle zones to do it. Acting recklessly would only get him killed.

However, after spending the past few days combining the information Xia Mu had gathered about the Land of Rain with a few details Chiba knew himself, he had begun to form a few theories.

First of all, as far as Chiba knew, the town where Yahiko and the others lived was relatively peaceful and was probably some distance from the battle zones.

Why did he think so? He had reached that conclusion based on what he had seen and heard in the few small towns he had passed through over the past couple of days.

Going by Nagato's recollections, the town where they had lived as children had been fairly well supplied. When they stole things, there had been plenty of small merchants in the market selling bread, meat, and all kinds of goods.

There was no way such stable conditions could exist in a battle zone or anywhere close to one.

The caravan had passed through two small towns over the past couple of days. In places so close to the battle zones, the whole town was practically lifeless. Not only were there no merchants selling anything, but even ordinary people had fled long ago.

Only a handful of people remained in town: those without the money or means to travel far, and elderly people living alone who could no longer get around easily.

From this, it was clear that the place where Yahiko and the others lived was one of the Land of Rain's rare peaceful areas.

Chiba also believed that no matter how overconfident Zetsu was, he wouldn't leave someone as important as Nagato trapped in a battle zone. If a ninja somehow killed him by accident, who would Zetsu have to blame?

And now the Land of Rain, the Land of Fire, the Land of Earth, and the Land of Wind were all locked in a chaotic war. Were there really any peaceful places left?

There were.

According to the map, the Land of Fire lay to the east of the Land of Rain. That was the direction Konoha was attacking from.

The Land of Wind lay to the south and southeast. That was where the Sand Ninja were attacking from.

The Land of Earth lay to the west and northwest. That was where the Rock Ninja were attacking from.

That left only two areas in the Land of Rain that could still be considered more or less peaceful: a narrow stretch between the north and northeast, and part of the region between the south and southwest.

Nagato's parents had been killed by Konoha Ninja before he became a drifter. Judging by that, if he had really wandered into a peaceful area, it had to be this stretch in the north and northeast of the Land of Rain.

And that was exactly where Xia Mu's group of refugees was heading.