Amegakure.
Rain shrouded it all year round, and metal drainage pipes covered its buildings, making it feel like a forest of steel.
Cold and oppressive.
A sour, rusty smell hung in the air.
People in raincoats hurried through the streets, their slightly numb expressions tinged with a quiet determination to survive.
The clouds of war had lifted years ago, yet peace remained distant.
Its unusual geographical location had turned the Land of Rain into a haven for rogue ninja. Chaos was the norm in this country.
East District, Iron Rain Avenue.
The village's largest commercial street was packed with establishments, including ordinary businesses like restaurants, gift shops, adult entertainment venues, soaplands, and izakayas.
There were also weapons shops selling Shuriken, Kunai, and Senbon, as well as apothecaries selling soldier pills, antidote pills, and the like.
The Silver Fish Pavilion.
Aoki Tsuki was eating charcoal-grilled salted fish with his three teammates at a place he frequented.
For no other reason than that the food was good and affordable.
"Mieko, hurry and turn the salted fish over. It's going to burn."
"Yeah, yeah..."
The girl with a brown ponytail pursed her lips and reluctantly turned the metal skewers, glancing at the face of the boy sitting across from her out of the corner of her eye.
"Hmph, you've only just become captain and you're already ordering people around."
Though he was only fifteen, his increasingly well-defined features and long, pale blue hair made him look more and more handsome.
He was resting his chin on one hand, his gaze wandering through the crowd.
Mieko followed his gaze to the proprietress, Kikuno Momo, and the surging curves hidden beneath her orange cartoon-cat apron.
She knew he was no different from the other male customers, all loyal patrons of the shop.
She looked down at her own chest. Even with another ten years, she had no confidence she could catch up.
"Ryōta, Shinichi, the fish is ready. Hurry up and eat. We still have a mission later!" Mieko urged them in an unfriendly tone.
"Oh, okay, Miss Mieko."
Ryōta and Shinichi reluctantly looked away and each picked up a skewer of grilled fish, eating absentmindedly.
The two had only recently become Genin and had joined the team as reinforcements.
Neither their strength nor their combat experience could compare with Aoki Tsuki, the captain, or Mieko, a core member.
They didn't dare disobey their seniors.
At that moment, Aoki Tsuki looked at the married woman he could only have seen on Kuaiyin in his previous life, his heart full of emotion.
The things he had experienced in the mere two months since transmigrating into the world of Naruto were more thrilling than the previous decades of his life put together.
He had gone from vomiting nonstop after his first kill to feeling no ripple of emotion, from panicking and forgetting his hand seals in battle to using ninjutsu in an instant.
Having mastered the Water Release: Water Clone Technique, he could say without modesty that he was already part of Amegakure's backbone.
When he first discovered he had transmigrated to Amegakure, he had been utterly terrified. Only after discovering he had a cheat did he relax.
His cheat was that hard work would be rewarded by heaven.
Whether it was ninjutsu or a skill, as long as he found the right method and direction and persevered, he would succeed sooner or later.
Depending on the difficulty, for example, if he meditated every day to sense natural energy, he could master Senjutsu by keeping it up without interruption for several years.
In other words, as long as he wasn't lazy, he could keep growing stronger for as long as he lived.
Surviving in Amegakure was no easy task.
Hanzō, who had suffered defeat in the Second Great Ninja War, was suspicious of everyone and everything. Even if Tsuki outlived him, there was still the rice-carrying Pain afterward.
First, he would develop quietly while showing an appropriate amount of his already limited talent, striving to become Hanzō's guard and gain access to ninjutsu resources.
Then, before this broken ship sank, he would hurry and get a ticket to the next one.
Amegakure was made of iron; its village leaders came and went like water.
It didn't matter who was in charge.
That was the survival plan Aoki Tsuki had made for his period of weakness.
He coughed softly twice, drawing everyone's attention to himself.
"Ryōta, Shinichi, welcome to my team. Our guiding principle is to keep ourselves safe and play everything cautiously. Understood?"
"Understood!"
Ryōta and Shinichi exchanged a glance and quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Amegakure had never lacked orphans, and there were many expendable people like them. Plenty of captains treated their subordinates' lives as stepping stones to promotion, and the death rate was frighteningly high.
Meeting a captain who didn't recklessly chase merit meant they could live a little longer.
"Everyone, introduce yourselves. What you like, what you hate, your dreams, that sort of thing..."
"I'll go first. Just call me Ryōta. I like three-color dango, hate rainy days, and my dream is to find a pretty, big... wife."
As the rugged-looking Ryōta spoke, he stole a glance at the proprietress nearby, his cheeks reddening without his noticing.
He had only hurriedly decided on that dream just now.
Aoki Tsuki nodded. One look was enough to tell the kid had a lively disposition.
"Mm, that's a good dream. Down to earth."
Shinichi silently looked down on Ryōta, then followed at an unhurried pace. "My name is Shinichi. I like grilled meat and hate sweet things. My dream is to become a Jonin."
Though he was clearly a boy, he wore his hair in a bun, like a little Daoist priest. Compared with the darker-skinned Ryōta, he was much fairer.
"Not bad. You're ambitious. Mieko, your turn."
After giving his assessment, Aoki Tsuki turned to his female assistant.
"Ah, do I have to say it too?"
Mieko sighed. As she saw it, dreams were things you could only dream about.
Before teaming up with Aoki Tsuki, she had been through several teams, and barely anyone in them had survived.
Once you were dead, what meaning did any of it have?
"Of course you do. You're a core member of our team," Aoki Tsuki said seriously.
"All right. My name is Mieko. I like sukiyaki and hate soldier pills. My dream is... hmm, to become a skilled medical ninja and live a stable life."
Aoki Tsuki wasn't surprised that Mieko wanted to move to a desk job. She was already the team's sensory ninja and also served as its medical ninja.
Though she only knew the simplest battlefield first aid, in a place like Amegakure, that made her a rare talent.
"My turn. My name is Aoki Tsuki. I like salted fish and hate everyone more handsome than me. My dream is to become the head of Amegakure's... guard."
"That dream is rather... unusual."
Mieko offered her lukewarm assessment.
Many ninja in Amegakure worshipped Hanzō, regarding him as the savior of the Land of Rain.
But Hanzō was famously cautious, and earning his trust was no easy task.
"As expected of our captain," Ryōta hurriedly said in flattery.
Shinichi nodded in agreement. Without some strength, who would dare say they wanted to become Lord Hanzō's guard?
Seeing that they had nearly finished eating, Aoki Tsuki got up to pay. The bill came to over a thousand ryō, and the proprietress generously rounded it down.
"Little Tsuki, leaving already? Won't you stay a little longer?" Kikuno Momo asked from beside the counter.
"No, we have a mission later, Sister Mimoto."
"Oh, business comes first. Do your best."
As Kikuno Momo spoke, she clenched her small fist in encouragement.
Her husband was a member of Hanzō's guard unit, and supposedly a captain at that. One reason Tsuki came here to eat so often was to become a familiar face.
Aoki Tsuki swallowed. Perhaps the fish had been too salty. "Mm, I'll definitely work hard. Goodbye."
He nodded to Kikuno Momo, then turned and left the Silver Fish Pavilion with his teammates.
The group headed out of the village.
"The rain seems to be getting heavier again," Ryōta couldn't help complaining.
He hated rainy days.
"Rain is the village's barrier, and it's also our weapon." Aoki Tsuki reached up and pressed down the conical hat on his head. "Get used to it," he said in a low voice.
"Mieko, tell us about this mission."
"Yes!" Mieko's expression turned serious.
Their captain was usually easygoing, but once he started a mission, he acted swiftly and decisively.
"Our target is a weapons smuggler named Ogawa Kōhei, who operates around Bishui Town in the southeastern Land of Rain.
He sells weapons to the local rogue ninja forces. The village wants us to kill him. It's a C-rank mission."
Mieko took a photograph from her ninja tool pouch. It showed a fat-faced man with a small mustache.
She passed the photograph around the team, making sure everyone remembered what the target looked like.
This was Ryōta and Shinichi's first mission, and their expressions immediately grew grave when they heard they had to kill someone.
For them, who had only just become Genin, the pressure was considerable.
Aoki Tsuki saw this but offered no words of comfort. Amegakure was nothing like Konoha, where so many socialites and relatives of high-ranking officials and dignitaries from the Land of Fire lived.
Here, nobody issued D-rank missions like finding cats and dogs, picking up trash, or doing housework to help you get used to life as a ninja.
Amegakure placed greater emphasis on cultivating and discovering individual talent. Its ninja were regarded as a resource by various countries for their mastery of assassination, and the commissions they received were mainly assassination missions.
What made Ogawa Kōhei most deserving of death was that he wanted to do business without paying the village.
If he didn't want to pay, they could only send him to his death.
"Tell me what each of you specializes in. I'll work out a tactical plan."
"Captain, I specialize in Taijutsu," Ryōta said first.
His build, sturdier than that of his peers, was enough to show his exceptional strength and give him a slight advantage in Taijutsu combat.
Shinichi reached back and touched the umbrella on his back. "I specialize in hidden weapons," he said in a low voice.
Compared with the outgoing Ryōta, he was more introverted and rarely spoke up unless asked.
Aoki Tsuki nodded slightly. Ninja relied on Chakra to enhance their speed and strength, and Kunai and Shuriken were their main means of fighting.
Ninjutsu, even the most basic kind, came at a cost. It had to be obtained from the village in exchange for something, passed down through the family, or worked out on one's own for use alongside hidden weapons.
For example, Amegakure's most popular hidden-weapon ninjutsu, Ninja Art: Rain Shower Senbon.
It relied on a mechanism and Senbon installed in an umbrella beforehand to deliver a wide-area attack, somewhat like the Torrential Rain Pear Blossom Needles.
People who used this sort of technique typically carried several umbrellas on their backs and unleashed a single barrage.
If that didn't finish the job, they had to run.