Time turned back.
Somewhere in the Shinobi World unknown to ordinary people.
Mist drifted slowly through the air like flowing water. Layers of cloud wreathed the mountains, pure white interwoven with pale blue, hazy and gentle, lending the entire landscape an ethereal stillness.
A mountain spring flowed quietly, its murmur soft and airy. The water was clear to the bottom, reflecting drifting clouds and faint daylight, untouched by the dust of the mortal world.
At the summit, two figures stood facing each other. One carried twin swords on his back, while the other... wore a very comical mask.
"The birth of a savior requires him to endure the suffering he is meant to endure. No salvation ever falls from the sky, nor does any god emerge without being tempered.
"All beings dream of a savior entering the world gently and soothing every hardship, yet they never stop to consider why only someone who has returned from the abyss can hold them all up.
"Fate has never been a tender gift, but an absolutely fair law of tempering. Anyone who wishes to deliver the world must first deliver himself from his own desperate straits. Anyone who wishes to save others must first taste all the world's coldness.
"Comfort cannot nurture compassion, nor can a smooth life forge a saint's heart. Those who have never endured despair alone naturally cannot understand the suffering of all beings. Those who have never been crushed and remade by fate cannot bear the weight of the world.
"Suffering is never punishment. It is a savior's coronation, the sole measure by which heaven and earth choose those who will deliver the world.
"Every upheaval, every loneliness, every misunderstanding and loss will be etched into his marrow, becoming the heart with which he will one day look down