Don't Stay Here Anymore

A gentle, slightly hoarse voice interrupted Hyuga Seisen's thoughts.

He came back to himself and saw Keiko's hands paused over the knot at his collar, her eyes filled with concern.

"Your wound... has opened up again."

Keiko explained softly, guilt and heartache in her voice.

Hyuga Seisen looked down and realized that the bandages around his body had already been stained through with quite a bit of bright red blood.

The fighting and exertion just now had worsened his injuries.

"Sorry to trouble you."

He nodded, relaxed his body, and let Keiko tend to him.

Keiko's movements were gentle and practiced as she carefully untied his bloodstained clothes and removed the old bandages.

"I still don't know your name, Lord Shinobi."

Keiko kept working as she struck up a conversation.

"Hyuga Seisen. Just call me Seisen."

"Yes, Lord Seisen."

Keiko readily went along with it, though she still kept the honorific. Then she asked with concern, "How did you end up fighting that beast and getting hurt so badly?"

"There was an accident during a mission."

Hyuga Seisen brushed it off vaguely, then asked, "Why were you living alone at the foot of this mountain? And how do you know how to treat injuries?"

Watching how skillfully she applied the medicine, Hyuga Seisen found it rather strange.

Keiko's hands paused slightly at his words, and she sighed.

"My husband and I... originally practiced medicine in a nearby village. We had been living fairly well."

"But over the past two years, for some reason, bandits in the area have become more and more rampant."

"A few months ago, the small village where we lived was massacred by bandits. The whole village was gone."

"Eri and I escaped only because we had gone out to gather herbs, but my husband..."

At that point, Keiko's expression filled with sorrow. Her eyes misted over, and tears silently slid from the corners of her eyes.

"I had no choice but to bring Eri into these mountains to hide. At least... it's safe here for now."

After hearing that, Hyuga Seisen understood as well, his heart turning cold. Bandits running rampant along the border... this is clearly a sign that a great war is about to begin.

Judging by the timing, the prelude to the Third Shinobi World War was probably about to begin.

In that war, the Land of Fire would fight one against four and nearly have the fighting brought to its doorstep. The new generation would suffer severe casualties.

At this point, every nation was likely already stirring. Once war broke out, the border would become a meat grinder.

"You can't live here anymore."

Hyuga Seisen suddenly spoke with absolute certainty.

Keiko froze for a moment and instinctively looked at the dilapidated house. "Y-Yes, the house is already like this. It needs repairs before it..."

"I mean you should move to the central region of the Land of Fire."

Hyuga Seisen cut her off, his expression stern.

"M-Move? To the central region?"

Keiko looked bewildered. "But... but we don't know anyone there..."

Hyuga Seisen looked at her. "You know medicine. You shouldn't have any trouble making a living anywhere."

"As long as you don't live too close to Konoha Village..."

"Huh?" Keiko was completely confused. "Shouldn't Konoha be the safest place? There are so many shinobi there."

"That's exactly what makes it the most dangerous place," Hyuga Seisen said.

During the Third Shinobi World War alone, enemies had attacked it twice.

And later there would be the Nine-Tails, Orochimaru, Pain, the Ōtsutsuki...

Not to mention the incidents never covered in the main storyline that appeared in other side stories.

Over the next twenty or thirty years, Konoha Village would be destroyed more than ten times.

It could be considered plagued by disasters.

Being the protagonist wasn't easy either!

But there was no need to tell Keiko any of that.

Fortunately, she didn't ask further and merely nodded as if she half understood.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

A series of slightly muffled strikes drew both of their attention.

They turned toward the sound.

Little Eri was sticking out her tiny backside as she laboriously swung a kunai far larger than her little hand.

Again and again, she smacked the bald man's forehead with it.

All the while, she kept muttering, "Bad guy... bad guy, making Mama sad."

"Beat you to death..."

The little girl's fierce, earnest appearance was truly adorable.

Hyuga Seisen couldn't help but chuckle softly.

Keiko, meanwhile, pressed a hand to her forehead, both exasperated and amused. "Eri-chan, come over here. Why do you play with everything?"

"Eri isn't playing." The little girl raised her head, her tiny face deadly serious as she spoke in her sweet childish voice. "Eri is helping Mama vent her anger."

"Alright, alright. Then thank you for your hard work, Eri-chan. Once you've vented enough, come over here, okay?"

"Just two more hits, then I'll be done..."

Thirty kilometers outside Konoha Village, in a dense forest.

"Still not here?"

A shrill voice rang out from the grass.

"I haven't sensed anything, Big Brother! How about we come out first? Lying here is uncomfortable." Another, more simple-minded voice replied.

"Shut up! Endure it!" the shrill voice whispered sharply.

"But Big Brother, there are so many bugs in the grass. My butt itches... they're crawling everywhere."

The dull, honest voice replied, accompanied by rustling scratching sounds.

The shrill voice fell silent for a moment before saying, "Then... then let's come out first."

The grass shook, and two dull-looking figures emerged.

One was short and stocky, with several pockmarks scattered across his round face. His eyes were full of confusion and ignorance.

The other was tall and thin, with narrow eyes, high cheekbones, and several scrolls tucked at his waist.

The tall, thin one was Yizhong Ren, while the short, fat one was Yi Zhongwu. The two brothers made their living through robbery and bounty missions.

The moment he stepped out of the grass, Yi Zhongwu saw his big brother holding a mission scroll, his face grave as he checked something against it.

He cautiously moved closer. "Big Brother, don't tell me we've been tricked?"

Yizhong Ren waved a hand.

"Don't worry. I spent one hundred thousand ryo to buy the whereabouts of this academy student. The black market wouldn't do something so damaging to its reputation."

"One hundred thousand ryo?"

Yi Zhongwu cried out, "You spent one hundred thousand ryo on information about an academy student? How much could he possibly be worth?"

"Look at how shortsighted you are."

Yizhong Ren glared at him irritably, stuffed the scroll into his arms, and said, "Read it yourself. Catching a student with the Byakugan earns us a net profit of nine hundred thousand ryo. Isn't that far better than selling a few orphans?"

Yi Zhongwu clumsily unrolled the scroll. His eyes immediately widened, and even his breathing quickened. "Big Brother, we're rich..."

"Of course!" Yizhong Ren said proudly. "Listen carefully. When the fighting starts, kill everyone except that Byakugan brat."

"Byakugan?" Yi Zhongwu looked completely lost.

"That's right. The Hyuga Clan's eyes are different from normal people's. They're white. Don't kill him. If he dies, he won't be worth anything."

"Oh!" Yi Zhongwu nodded honestly.

Then he suddenly blinked his confused little eyes and stared blankly in a certain direction through the forest. "Big Brother, I think there really was a guy with white eyes. He zoomed... right past us."

"What do you mean, right past us?" Yizhong Ren frowned, not quite catching his brother's muttering.

Yi Zhongwu scratched his head honestly. "In my senses, that white-eyed kid you mentioned seemed to have just run past from that little path over there."

"A... little path?" The surprise on Yizhong Ren's face instantly froze, turning into astonishment. "Where the fuck did a little path come from?"