At the border where the Land of Fire met the Land of Rain.
A somewhat dilapidated village stood there.
The entire village survived by farming. If war broke out, its villagers would become homeless refugees.
People who lived off the land feared droughts and floods most of all. Either could reduce their harvests, or leave them with nothing at all.
And this year was a drought year. Many villagers had already begun to despair, but no matter how desperate they became, no one would care. They could only fend for themselves.
To both the Land of Fire and the Land of Rain, these villagers were refugees. Taking them in offered no benefit, and without benefit, there was no point.
Just as the villagers were sinking into despair, the arrival of two people gave them hope.
Both newcomers wore clothes bearing the Uchiha Clan Crest.
Although they were Ninja, neither acted superior to the ordinary villagers.
These two were none other than Uchiha Itachi and Shisui Uchiha, who intended to travel throughout the Land of Fire.
After leaving Konoha, their initial destinations had been the villages and towns surrounding it.
Although those settlements were not as prosperous as Konoha, their ordinary residents had enough to eat and clothes to wear.
But the farther the two traveled toward the outskirts of the Land of Fire, the more they saw how difficult life was for ordinary people.
No... for those people, it could not be called living. They were merely surviving.
The two entered impoverished villages, hoping to spread their red ideology.
But reality taught them a lesson.
These impoverished ordinary people had no room for notions of right and wrong or values. All they cared about was food.
Knowledge, ideology, and the like meant nothing to them.
It was then that Itachi