After more than a month of recuperation, Yahiko's injuries had finally healed completely. On a morning when the first light was still faint, Yuehua Ai and the others once again set out through the drizzle in search of the Sannin.
Because they had lost more than a month, Yuehua Ai changed their route before they departed.
By now, the war in Amegakure was nearing its final stage. Not only had the large-scale battles disappeared, but even small skirmishes were becoming less frequent. In recent days, reports of ninja deployments had also dropped sharply.
In Yuehua Ai's original plan, he had taken into account that small-scale battles would still be fairly frequent during the war. He thought that powerful ninja like the Sannin would generally be assigned to break through enemy defenses, requiring them to move constantly across the battlefield. They would appear unexpectedly to provide support in one small battle after another, turning the tide and gradually tipping the scales of victory in Konoha's favor.
The war's progress and the ninja deployments had both fallen within Yuehua Ai's calculations. If they had kept to their original route, they would have had a good chance of running into the ninja moving between battlefields. The boys' route passed through the junctions connecting the various battlefields, allowing them to avoid direct combat as much as possible while also maximizing their chances of encountering the Sannin.
But ideals were lofty, while reality was harsh. When the boys reached their second destination, they had the miserable luck of running into the rogue ninja Xiangyuan.
Although they had all managed to survive in the end, every one of them was injured. Yahiko had been hurt the worst, and his condition was too severe to withstand the jolting of the journey. With no other choice, they had to wait for him to recover. The whole delay had cost them more than a month, and the situation in the war had changed considerably during that time. As the boys drew closer to the battlefield, they could no longer find any refugee settlements where they might learn the latest news.
After more than a month's delay, the original plan no longer suited the situation. With fewer small-scale battles and most fighting dying down, Yuehua Ai's plan had lost its purpose. Even if they reached their destination as planned, they would be unlikely to encounter any deployed ninja and might instead be caught up in a skirmish.
Since the original plan had become subject to too many uncertainties, Yuehua Ai decisively abandoned it and came up with a new route.
As Yuehua Ai remembered it, the winner of the Second Shinobi World War had already been decided. Kumogakure had launched a surprise attack on the Land of Earth from behind, forcing Iwagakure to recall its ninja from the Amegakure front to defend their homeland against the Cloud Ninja. Early in the war, although Amegakure had become a battlefield, the Rain Ninja had not entered the conflict between the three great nations. This left Sunagakure in the awkward position of facing Konoha alone.
The outcome of the fighting on the Amegakure front was easy to imagine. With Iwagakure no longer holding them back, Konoha had almost completely crushed Sunagakure in the early battles. After suffering enormous losses, Sunagakure could do little more than struggle to hold back Konoha's advance. Fortunately, by then the Shinobi World was engulfed in fighting on all sides. Not only the Five Great Shinobi Villages of the Five Great Nations, but also numerous smaller countries and villages were being swept into the widening conflict. Since Konoha's battles were not limited to Amegakure, once the village had gained a decisive advantage there, its leaders decided to send some of their ninja to other fronts.
Konoha's shift in strategic focus finally gave Sunagakure, which had been struggling desperately in Amegakure, a chance to catch its breath. Later, when Hanzo saw that Konoha had reduced the number of troops committed to the front, he decided to have the Rain Ninja join the war between Sunagakure and Konoha, hoping to profit from the conflict. With the Rain Ninja's support, Sunagakure finally escaped its steady retreat and began a prolonged war of attrition with Konoha.
A war of attrition meant fewer large-scale battles, with most fighting reduced to small engagements or skirmishes. This brought relative stability to the battlefield in Amegakure. Small conflicts remained frequent, but the major battles that had once been like meat grinders finally disappeared. This relatively peaceful period lasted through the years when Yuehua Ai was born.
Konoha had long since emerged as the winner on this battlefield. The resistance put up by Sunagakure and the Rain Ninja over the years, and the countless battles it caused, served mainly to help the various sides claim the spoils of war and strengthen their influence, preparing them to claim their share of the spoils in the future.
Those future spoils were the contracts and missions that would come from all the nations. The stronger a village was, the more contracts it could secure and the more bargaining power it had with its clients. The existence and survival of a shinobi village had never depended on how strong or numerous its ninja were, but on the contracts and missions entrusted to them by people from all over.
Unable to get any information, Yuehua Ai couldn't judge how the battle was progressing. He only knew that the war in the Land of Rivers was nearly over. Once the war ended, the great shinobi villages would gradually withdraw their ninja from the battlefield.
The overall course of the war had long been set and could no longer be reversed. Since there was no way to predict where a skirmish might break out, the only way to find the Sannin, besides leaving it to fate, was to wait for them in one place.
Yuehua Ai's new plan was to head to the border between Amegakure and the Land of Fire and wait there. If Konoha recalled its ninja, those who received the order might pass through the border between the two countries. That was their last chance, so they would have to wait there.
After Yuehua Ai briefly explained his new plan, everyone nodded in agreement. When they set out that morning, they took the route laid out in the new plan.
The new route was much shorter than the old one. To avoid missing the Sannin and reach their destination as soon as possible, Yuehua Ai had chosen the shortest, most direct roads he could. Though the route was simple and almost entirely straight, the terrain along the way was far more treacherous than before.
Their original route had made use of known roads between villages and towns wherever possible. But this route was sparsely populated, and they would have to cross forests many times, as well as pass through several cliffs and ravines. The journey was fraught with danger, but the boys had made up their minds, and none of them backed down.
"The poison gas here is incredible. It's almost solid!" Yahiko's muffled voice rang out. He wasn't the only one wearing a heavy gas mask; all the boys were bundled up in thick protective suits.
Yuehua Ai reached out and swept his hand through the air. The ghastly green gas around him seemed to cave in like gelatin, only to be quickly replaced by gas flowing in from elsewhere.
Yuehua Ai looked up at the surroundings. Even with his eyesight, he could see only a few dozen meters ahead. Visibility was extremely poor—not because his gas mask was in the way, but because a strange green gas filled the entire forest.
The gas was so dense that the higher they went, the thinner the green haze became. Closer to the ground, it grew thicker. At their feet, it looked almost like flowing water.
After looking around, Yuehua Ai understood what the strange gas was. It had to be the miasma of the forest. The miasma came from the dead branches and leaves of the trees, which rotted and fermented on the ground. Since the forest was sheltered from the wind and rained constantly, much of the miasma produced by the decay dissolved into the rainwater and dripped back down. This area was like a sealed jar, preventing the miasma from escaping. It continued to build up and ferment, growing more potent over the years.
By now, the miasma was almost like gelatin, and the poison it contained was more than ordinary people or animals could withstand. Fortunately, this sort of environment was common in Amegakure, so the protective suits made there had been designed with it in mind.
The boys' protective suits were still intact, allowing them to travel safely through the forest, where no birds or animals could be seen.
The boys trudged through the mud, sinking in with every other step. The mud in this forest was poisonous too, but their protective suits were airtight and covered them from head to toe, including their feet.
Aside from the boys' footsteps and the patter of raindrops, there wasn't a third sound in the forest. The long silence could easily become oppressive, but fortunately, their heavy gas masks didn't block out sound, so they could still talk.
"Little Ai, do you think those three Konoha ninja will teach us ninjutsu?" Yahiko asked as they walked. After spending more than half a year together, he had realized that this little brat Yuehua Ai knew the most among them. He was also more outgoing and talkative than Nagato. Apart from his languid tone, Yahiko liked everything about him.
"Who knows? No one can predict the future. We haven't even found them yet, so there's no point thinking too much about it!" Yuehua Ai adjusted the helmet on his head. He genuinely couldn't say what the future held. Anime was anime, and the difference between the two-dimensional world and the real one was huge. Besides, he was an unexpected variable among them. He had no confidence at all that they would find the Sannin.
"How can you say there's no point? I'm just planning ahead," Yahiko replied, unconvinced.
"If we really do meet Konoha ninja, how will they treat us?" Nagato still had a thorn in his heart when it came to Konoha.
Yuehua Ai shrugged. "It's hard to say. Actually, whether we run into Konoha ninja or ninja from another country, the situation should be about the same. If they're ordinary ninja, they'll probably ignore us, though they might question us for information. If we run into some twisted ninja, like that Rain Ninja we met before, then we might be in serious trouble!"
At the mention of twisted ninja, Yuehua Ai pictured an eerie man with long black hair and narrow eyes, dressed in a kimono. The rogue Rain Ninja they had met before could only be called disturbed, not twisted. And speaking of twisted, there were few people in Naruto who could match Orochimaru.
They were looking for the Sannin so they could learn ninjutsu from Jiraiya. At the time, Jiraiya was still with Orochimaru and Tsunade. If they really ran into him, they might get to see Orochimaru and Princess Tsunade as well. But they had to make sure they didn't run into Orochimaru alone. Without Jiraiya there, a war orphan like Yuehua Ai might be involuntarily "set free" by him.
"Why do we have to look for those three Konoha ninja? We've run into other ninja along the way. Couldn't we follow them and learn from them?" Konan bit her lip as she voiced the question that had been troubling her.
"Of course not. We need to follow powerful ninja. Those three Konoha ninja were able to fight Hanzo. How could other ninja possibly compare?" Yahiko answered quickly before Yuehua Ai could say a word.
Yuehua Ai shook his head at Yahiko's reply. "Yahiko's right, but he's not entirely right."
"What do you mean?" Everyone looked puzzled.
"When it comes to learning ninjutsu, the stronger the teacher, the better the results aren't necessarily. Every ninja has their own strengths. The best teacher is someone who knows how to tailor their instruction to the student."
"The reason we're looking for Konoha ninja is that they tend to be relatively kind. Meeting them is much safer than meeting ninja from other villages."
"Besides, following those three Konoha ninja is the only way we might be accepted as their students. You have to understand that ninja aren't free to do as they please. The low-ranking ones can't disobey their superiors. They neither have the authority nor the courage to take in orphans from an enemy country like us. Only powerful ninja have enough freedom to act according to their own wishes."
"If we meet those three and they want to take us in as students, then they'll do it. No one can stop them. If they don't want us, they'll simply ignore us."
"But if we run into some other ninja and ask them to teach us, being ignored would be the best-case scenario. They'd be more likely to kill us without a second thought. That's why I think following those three Konoha ninja is our best option."
"So that's how it is." Everyone suddenly understood.
Yahiko felt a little frustrated. When he had decided to look for the Konoha Sannin, he hadn't thought it through. He had only known that they were powerful enough to stand up to Hanzo, and that if he learned from them, he would eventually become strong enough to stand on his own.
Only after hearing Yuehua Ai's words did he suddenly realize how impulsive and thoughtless he had been all along. He had gotten an idea into his head and led everyone on a journey to find the Sannin without giving any of the other factors much thought.
The realization that he had been so irresponsible toward his companions filled him with guilt. Though he hadn't considered things carefully, at least the goal he'd chosen had turned out to be right by sheer luck. With Yuehua Ai there to analyze and sum things up, they could still make the best decisions.
Yahiko took a deep breath. He had been far too hasty in making that decision. As the leader of the group, it was his responsibility to protect every one of his companions. He had to consider them with every decision he made.
I won't be so impulsive again! Yahiko quietly clenched his fist and made up his mind.
Yuehua Ai hadn't expected his words to affect Yahiko so deeply. But after reflecting on himself, Yahiko had indeed become more mature and steady. He had also begun to plan ahead, and Yuehua Ai was pleased with many of the arrangements and plans he made during the journey that followed. He couldn't help marveling at Yahiko's sudden transformation.
Over the next two months, the four boys finally reached their destination after overcoming one danger after another.
During that time, as they traveled through various battlefields and perilous places, they had faced countless dangers. For instance, while crossing a gorge, they had the terrible luck of encountering a landslide and a mudslide. If Nagato's Rinnegan hadn't awakened at the critical moment, they might have been buried underground.
The boys had encountered plenty of natural disasters over those two months, but they had faced just as many dangers caused by people. Since they were traveling along the edges of battlefields, ninja often laid traps there—dummy traps, pit traps, explosive traps, and more. Fortunately, they were cautious. They had been injured a few times at first, but none of the injuries were serious.
Day by day, with the protection of Nagato's Rinnegan, the boys finally reached their destination.
Once they arrived, all they could do was wait and search. Every day, they split up and hid in different places beside roads that were bound to be used, quietly watching and looking for their targets.
After nearly half a month of waiting in ambush, just as disappointment was steadily wearing away their patience, Konan suddenly sent word one midday.
The Konoha ninja the boys had been searching for over three months had finally reappeared in their sight, after they had overcome countless obstacles along the way.
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