Within the Land of Rain.
The sky was slightly overcast, dark clouds drifting overhead. The rumble of thunder lent the scene a solemn air.
In a secluded spot in Amegakure,
a brown-haired boy was training hard.
"Ha!" "Hah!"...
A few wooden posts stood in front of him. The boy kicked and struck them with all his might. The ropes wrapped around one side of the posts had grown worn and frayed, but his small face remained resolute as he kept at it.
He had left Konoha and come to this village, where he had seen too many things that overturned everything he had once believed.
White bones littered the ground, famine spread across the land, and countless people had been displaced by war.
Had people who smiled just like the villagers of Konoha once lived in those ruined little houses...?
If they had, then who had destroyed their homes and left them cold corpses...? Konoha?
Nawaki was still too young to dare think about that question.
Rumble—
"Patter, patter..."
With a sudden rumble of thunder, a light drizzle began to fall.
In the gloomy curtain of rain, Nawaki slowly stopped kicking and striking. The fine rain soon soaked his hair and clothes.
He tilted his small face, his expression troubled, and gazed up at the sky through narrowed eyes, letting the raindrops fall gently against his cheeks.
Had this village always been like this...? How many times had it rained now...?
Ko... Konoha... Did it really need to go to war with this village that was always weeping...?
At the thought, Nawaki slowly lowered his head, a nameless confusion clouding his face.
Since following Minato here, everything he had seen along the way had made him realize that the path he had always believed in was wrong...
Hadn't his grandfather's