The Selfish Brat, Shamelessly Pretending to Be Innocent

Boom!!

Rain poured down as thunder exploded.

One, two, three, four…

Six or seven hunched figures staggered over like drenched scavenger vultures, their eyes unanimously locking onto Yun Chuan and the other two, greedily staring at their packs.

"They must still have food."

"Look at that little brat, so pale and tender…"

"My daughter is dying. Please, give me something to eat."

They kept murmuring their deepest desires, seeming to whisper beneath the cover of the rain.

It sounded like cold wind rustling through leaves, but to Yahiko and Konan, it was more like demons whispering through clenched teeth as they suppressed their cravings.

"Damn it!"

Yahiko gripped an old, rusted Kunai with a sharpened tip in both hands. Veins bulged across the backs of his hands as he roared viciously, "What do you want?! We traded our lives for this food. No, we can’t give it to you…"

His face was filled with rage and sorrow, but his wildly trembling hands around the Kunai and his chest heaving like bellows spoke of his despair and agony.

Just as Yun Chuan had said, this was "reality."

A world engulfed by endless war, a country beyond saving…

He had thought the Lord of the Land of Rain and the leader of Amegakure could protect everyone, only to discover that there was no place for people like them at all!

Even if he could protect this food, was he supposed to keep scraping by afterward, living like a rat or a stray dog?

At that thought, the bone-deep chill and despair made Yahiko’s hand around the Kunai turn pale and powerless.

Then, among the refugees gathered around them, someone finally lost his patience.

"Give it to me!!"

In Yahiko’s widening pupils, a figure rushing toward him was reflected.

It was the man who had said his daughter was starving to death and begged for food.

In that instant, Yahiko, who had already tightened his grip on the Kunai, froze.

The sharp, terrifying roar that should have been brief seemed to stretch into an endless thread in his ears.

"How pitiful," someone said. "The unfortunate always create people even more unfortunate than themselves."

A well-defined hand suddenly entered Yahiko’s brownish-yellow pupils.

Every finger was like a tough bamboo joint as it lightly pressed against that man’s face.

"Don’t!" Yahiko’s pupils trembled as he shouted instinctively.

But it was already too late.

Or rather, Yun Chuan did not care.

Who do you think you are? Who do you think I am?

Crack, crack, crack!!

The sound of bones breaking slipped through the rain and entered their ears without the slightest concealment.

The man did not even have time to scream before the skull caught in Yun Chuan’s grip gradually warped and cracked.

Finally, it exceeded its limit. With a sharp crack, it shattered in the rain, red-and-white fluid splashing out and spattering across Yahiko’s stunned face.

In a single exchange, the man before them had become a corpse.

At that moment, the people who had gathered around them heard the resounding crack of bones and witnessed that incomparably brutal and vicious scene. They all shuddered violently.

However, this was only the beginning.

Hiss!!

Before they could react, Yun Chuan lightly turned his right hand, gripping the short blade in a reverse hold before swinging it at the people in front of him.

In an instant, several heads flew into the air, their faces still bearing greedy expressions.

Only after a brief silence did they fall like harvested wheat, scarlet blood blooming like fountains.

In the blink of an eye, only a small, frail figure remained before him, staring at Yun Chuan with a face full of terror, trembling without pause.

"…Why?"

A sickly flush gradually rose on Yahiko’s pale face. He trembled as he looked back at Yun Chuan, whose expression remained calm, and asked in a dry voice, "They… they only wanted to live. How could you…"

At that, Yun Chuan lowered his gaze slightly, and a hint of disappointment appeared in his eyes as he looked at him.

So this was the original founder of Akatsuki?

What an immature little brat.

Living in this hell on earth, an immature little brat like him would have died from his naivety sooner or later if he had not met Nagato, even if Hanzo had not killed him.

Because this was the Ninja world. This was hell on earth.

After witnessing this world with his own eyes, that was the deepest realization Yun Chuan had reached.

The core of the Ninja world was "war," tangled, endless "hatred," not so-called "bonds."

In this world, fighting people to the death was normal. Killing was as ordinary as eating. There were also Rogue Ninja, mountain bandits, human experiments, factional struggles, the destruction of nations and clans…

Peace?

That was a luxury only great nations had the ability to enjoy.

They occupied the richest and broadest lands in the Ninja world. Even Sunagakure, the poorest among them, possessed resources, ninjutsu, secret arts, and foundations that smaller nations could never hope to reach…

Bonds?

That was a subject only "protagonists" were qualified to discuss.

They lived in homelands protected by powerful sealing barriers, and among their abundant ninjutsu and secret arts, there was always something suitable for them. Even when they left their villages to carry out missions, they had teachers protecting them.

Great nations did not wage war within their own borders. Instead, they used smaller nations as chessboards, shifting the dangers faced by their own countries onto those smaller nations.

Even so, even Tsunade, the Ninja with the greatest medical skill, lost her lover Dan Katō to war. Even with Orochimaru personally protecting him during the war, Nawaki still accidentally stepped into a trap and was blown to death.

And they were still powerful Ninja from great nations, yet they suffered all kinds of tragic separations and deaths. Not to mention the civilians of small nations, who lacked even the strength to fight back.

Before war, civilians were far too fragile.

Under the threat of hunger and fear of death, killing others to seize grain required there to be grain to seize in the first place!

If there was no food, what would they do?

Thud!

"No, no, don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!"

Before Yahiko could continue questioning him, the sole survivor suddenly dropped to his knees. Prostrating himself on the ground, he trembled as he screamed, "I didn’t eat any! I didn’t eat the meat! Only they did! Really, don’t kill me!!"

Those words struck Yahiko’s head like lightning.

The faint color that had returned to his face vanished again, leaving it deathly pale as he blankly stared at Tsukimiri Yun Chuan, whose expression remained calm.

A father and daughter on the brink of starvation, eyes and faces that no longer seemed human…

So you had already seen through it?

"A selfish, immature brat, praying for everything to go as he wishes while shamelessly pretending to be innocent."

Yun Chuan narrowed his eyes slightly and sneered. "Perhaps you think that after the rain ends, everything will become clean again. Whether good or bad, it can all begin anew. But I can tell you now."

"No matter how long this rain lasts, it is only rain. The next day will still become filthy."

Konan stood silently behind them, quietly gazing at the hell on earth in the distance. Something she had always held onto in her heart seemed to shatter silently at that moment.

The flower of hope could not bloom in a place soaked in blood.

With that thought, Konan looked at the figure before her.

What was the place where he came from like?