The Demigod of the Ninja World and the Legendary Sannin

"Yes, that's it—a dream!" Yahiko looked at the group with burning eyes, his entire being radiating a soaring, passionate spirit, much like a raging flame.

"Do you have a dream, Nagato?" Yahiko turned his face toward Nagato and asked.

Among the four, Konan was a girl and Yuehua Ai was still too young, so whenever Yahiko thought of these questions, he always turned first to Nagato, who was closer to his own age.

"A dream..." Nagato murmured. To be honest, he had never really thought about dreams or the future.

Yahiko didn't care about Nagato's reaction and continued on his own: "I don't want to end my life in such mediocrity. I have a grand dream!"

Yahiko glanced at Nagato, then shifted his gaze, lifted his chin, and fell silent for a moment. Looking toward the distant sky, he brought his arm to his chest, clenched his fist tightly, and shouted, "I want to conquer the world!"

Nagato stared blankly at Yahiko. "Conquer... the world..."

Sensing Nagato's gaze, Yahiko nodded firmly. "Exactly!"

The boy spread his arms wide as if to embrace the heavens and the earth. "If I can stand at the pinnacle of the world, then we won't have to suffer like this anymore."

"Perhaps," Nagato replied uncertainly.

"Although things are much better now, I don't want to keep going on like this. If I can't achieve something great, I won't have the face to face the parents who gave birth to me."

"If we can stand at the pinnacle of the world, we can do whatever we want!"

After pondering Yahiko's words for a moment, Nagato nodded. "If that were the case... it would truly be like a god... perhaps... that might even put an end to war."

"Of course!" Yahiko said with conviction, then turned to Konan. "Right, Konan?"

"Mm." Konan nodded with a smile, her gentle, bright eyes curving into crescent moons.

"What do you think, Ai?" Yahiko continued to ask.

"Me?" Yuehua Ai wasn't very interested in the boys' questions. At that moment, he was admiring the beauty of Konan's smile. In his heart, he considered the conversation between Yahiko and Nagato to be nothing more than the naive, immature fantasies of boys. Ruling the world? That sounded exactly like the declaration of a villainous boss! A dream was not reality, after all; in this era where life hung by a thread, where would the capital to realize such a dream come from?

However, Yuehua Ai felt a sense of familiarity with Yahiko's words about dreams. This conversation between the boys seemed to have appeared in the anime as well. Although he had a special attachment to Naruto in his past life, his illness had prevented him from spending much time on it, and he could only recall the rough plot. Even though he was now following the characters from the story—and was even with the legendary Child of Prophecy and the third Six Paths—Yuehua Ai felt that his own presence might trigger a butterfly effect. As for the fate of these boys, he truly dared not be certain of what would happen in the future.

As for dreams, Yuehua Ai certainly wanted to stand at the pinnacle of the world and possess the power to dominate the ninja world. Furthermore, he wanted to achieve immortality. In a world that possessed miraculous powers like ninjutsu, immortality was quite possibly achievable.

"My dream—"

Just as Yuehua Ai was organizing his thoughts to speak, a whistling sound suddenly cut through the air. A kunai, trailing a burning flame, slammed into the ground right beside them.

Yuehua Ai's pupils contracted sharply. When he saw that a piece of paper covered in complex markings attached to the kunai was half-consumed by fire, a blinding white light instantly flooded his vision. The moment he closed his eyes, Yuehua Ai realized what that burning paper was: an explosive tag. It was this very thing that had fallen from the sky shortly after his birth, taking the lives of his parents in this life.

"BOOM!" A massive explosion erupted. The group only had time to let out a cry of alarm before they were thrown far away by the shockwave.

"Ah..." The boys curled up on the ground one by one. The blast of the explosive tag and the impact against the ground left them with significant shock and injuries, and the intense pain in their bodies forced them to groan.

Yuehua Ai had been thrown nearly three meters away by the shockwave. As he slammed into the ground, his throat felt scorched and tasted of iron. For a moment, his little head buzzed, and the world spun before his eyes. He felt a stinging sensation on his face, and when he touched it with a trembling hand, he saw that it was covered in blood.

When the kunai was shattered by the explosion, a piece of shrapnel had grazed Yuehua Ai's face, leaving a three-centimeter-long gash on his fair, tender skin. Although it bled profusely, the injury wasn't too severe. For Yuehua Ai, this was something to be thankful for; if a piece of the kunai had struck his head during the blast, well, who knew if he would be able to transmigrate again.

Before the group could fully regain their consciousness or stand up, they saw several more kunai trailing flames landing in the nearby stone forest.

"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!"

Violent explosions rang out in succession. Huge rocks were blasted apart, and thick stone pillars in the forest snapped. Stones flew through the air, and the boys dared not stand up, instead remaining curled on the ground, burying their heads as deeply as they could beneath their arms.

When the explosions subsided and the gray smoke cleared, the group finally dared to stand up slowly. Looking around, they saw that their surroundings were in ruins.

Aside from being thrown by the initial shockwave, Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan had only been struck by a few falling rocks, but they were otherwise fine. Among the four, Yuehua Ai was the most severely injured; his face covered in blood looked quite terrifying.

Although this sudden crisis was frightening in its intensity, it hadn't caused any major harm to the four of them. If one had to speak of a loss, it was the dog Nagato had raised, named Little One. Because it had been closest to the center of the explosion, when the group saw it again after the crisis, it was already lying on the ground in the distance, lifeless.

"Little One..." Nagato bit his lip and pulled Little One into his arms. Tears streamed down his face uncontrollably, and though he called out again and again, his choked, tearful pleas could not wake the dog.

The name "Little One" had long since become a misnomer. When Nagato first found it as a puppy, it had indeed been a tiny thing, but after following Nagato all this time, its size was nearly rivaling Yuehua Ai's.

It had been over two years since Nagato had picked up Little One, a duration even longer than the time he had spent with Yahiko and Konan. He had always viewed Little One as a member of his family, yet today...

Konan sat curled on the ground, and standing before her was a small figure—Yuehua Ai. Konan wiped the blood from Yuehua Ai's face with a strip of cloth, her heart aching as she fought back tears.

Yuehua Ai managed a grin with the uninjured side of his face, patting Konan's head in comfort. "I'm fine."

Konan nodded, but tears spilled out regardless. Yuehua Ai didn't realize how heartbreaking his blood-stained, innocent smile looked to others.

"To think a battle would break out so close by... damn it. Hmm—wait... that's Hanzo!" Yahiko, who had been the first to stand up, saw that the others were out of immediate danger and cautiously crawled toward the direction from which the kunai had been thrown.

Rounding a rock, he found himself overlooking an area resembling a basin, and he was positioned at the highest point on its edge.

Yahiko hid his form and peeked at the two sides fighting in the center of the basin. He discovered that one side consisted of three young Konoha ninja, while the other was a ninja from Amegakure, wearing a gas mask and standing atop a giant Salamander summon.

Yahiko didn't know the identities of the three Konoha ninja, but as for the latter—the powerful ninja wearing that signature gas mask—even though he had never seen him before, his identity was obvious. He was the ruler of Amegakure, the ninja known as the Demigod: Hanzo!

The battle between the two sides was intense. Gray-green poison gas filled the sky, and the earth was constantly being torn apart by the ninja. The scope of the battle was only expanding, and Yahiko, not daring to observe for too long, retreated after a few hurried glances.

The boys were still within the battlefield of the two warring parties, which was extremely dangerous. Yahiko, having retreated, saw Konan tending to Yuehua Ai's wounds and Nagato weeping while holding Little One, and he hurriedly gestured for them to leave.

"But... but Little One..." Tears and rain blurred Nagato's face.

"There's no time to worry about Little One, we have to get out of here!" Yahiko said in a low voice, his brow furrowed. He pulled Nagato up and followed behind Yuehua Ai and Konan as they ran into the distance.