Naruto: I, the villain template, was hailed as a savior.

Chapter 1 Fallen Leaves Lay Weary on the Ground (New book, please add to your collection and vote!)

At the end of Konoha's 36th year, the situation in the ninja world gradually deteriorated.

Sunagakure accused Konoha of maliciously seizing their rightful share of missions, while Konoha accused Sunagakure of crossing the border between the Land of Rain and the Land of Fire to plunder.

Friction continues between Konoha and Sunagakure, Iwagakure and Kumogakure have ambiguous attitudes, and Kirigakure is also secretly mobilizing its armed forces.

The Rain Kingdom, located between the three great nations of Earth, Wind, and Fire, was forced to become a buffer zone and a sacrifice in the great power struggle.

Lead-colored clouds have spread across the entire sky, making this weeping land even more desolate and sorrowful.

Only homeless stray dogs lay prostrate beside the rotting flesh, tearing at it.

"Xiao Nan, keep up..."

"Woof!" The wild dogs pricked up their ears alertly, baring their teeth as they stared at the misty fog.

In the distance, footsteps could be heard, mixed with low murmurs.

Until the dark clouds flashed with branch-shaped lightning, the world was stained in two colors: gray and white.

In the distance, amidst a desolate scene, two withered figures staggered out of the rain and mist, their pale, ghostly faces illuminated by the light.

"Yahiko, I'm so cold..."

"Let's be patient a little longer... If we can't find anything, we'll go back."

His tattered, oversized raincoat concealed his thin, short figure, but his eyes, though in the shadows, still held a spark of light, and his sallow, disheveled face was still quite youthful.

An orange-haired boy named Yahiko, and a blue-haired girl named Minami.

The two children's eyes kept scanning their surroundings.

But the houses on both sides were mostly dilapidated. In those broken walls and mud, one could only vaguely see corpses, perhaps men and women, perhaps the elderly and children, rotting and stinking in the mud.

Clearly, the settlement had been completely wiped out.

The bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no cock crowing for thousands of miles.

Whenever they saw a mangled and rotting corpse, Konan would tense up and unconsciously purse her lips, while Yahiko's eyes would reveal sadness and fear.

One by one, pale faces still bearing the marks of fear were etched deeply into his mind.

"Yahiko, look over there..."

It wasn't until Konan tugged at his sleeve that Yahiko snapped out of his daze and looked in the direction she was pointing.

He saw an alley and a figure inside it.

It was a strange corpse wearing a gray vest, with its head tilted back.

"They actually found it!"

Yahiko's face lit up with joy. After confirming that no one was around, he quietly slipped into the alley.

The moment I stepped into the alley, the heavy rain that had been pressing down on my shoulders seemed to be abruptly cut off.

"call!"

Yahiko subconsciously let out a sigh of relief.

Xiao Nan looked up and then subconsciously touched her throat.

She felt a chill, though she wasn't sure if it was just her imagination.

Looking up, all I could see was the raging wind and the dim light shrouded by the tarpaulin; I couldn't even see the moonlight.

"It's the corpse of a Sand Village Chunin!"

An uncontrollable gasp from beside her interrupted Xiao Nan's inexplicable daze.

He withdrew his gaze from above and looked down at the figure.

The corpse wearing the Sand Village headband was lying face up, with a kunai inserted into its left eye socket, exposing the muscle texture and ruptured scarlet blood vessels.

The glaring blood flowed down his cheeks to his body, forming a pale red mirror reflecting the blurry alleyway scene.

"It absolutely has to be there!"

Yahiko, squatting in front of the corpse, felt no disgust at the stinking body; instead, he reached into its bosom with anticipation.

It was clear that this wasn't the first time he'd done something like this; he was as skilled as a pack of wild dogs gnawing on corpses.

In fact, what he did was no different from that of a stray dog.

If you can find something good on the ninja's corpse, you can go to the capital of the Land of Rain to exchange it for food. If you can't find anything, you'll have to steal it...

Xiao Nan stood quietly to the side, silently watching the corpse.

"...How terrifying." After a long silence, she murmured softly.

Seeing the corpse with a contorted, bewildered expression even in death, Xiao Nan could almost imagine how the person had been killed.

Was the force that pierced the skull from a stabbing?

To penetrate a head, you'd need at least a smashing blow, right?

First, stab the dagger into the eye socket, then punch or kick it, forcibly driving it through.

Even the Sand Village ninja's face showed a wary expression, meaning that he carefully stepped into the alley, but before he could even react, he was killed by someone.

Thinking of this, Xiao Nan felt uneasy and looked around, but couldn't find the source of her unease.

The icy chill mixed with the smell of blood was inhaled into the lungs, while the faint, indistinct moonlight reflected on the ground.

The walls on both sides of the alley are mottled, covered with damp water stains and moss. Spiders wait on their dark webs, as if waiting for food to fall into them, their compound eyes reflecting two short figures.

The alley was extremely quiet, as if they were the only ones left in the world. The rain curtain at the alley entrance was like a door, locking the two lost little animals in a cage.

Yahiko, oblivious to Konan's unease, was groping around with his head down when suddenly his eyes lit up.

"Found it!" he exclaimed in surprise, then pulled out a ninja tool pouch. "Konan, look! There are shuriken and explosive tags in here... Hmm, where's that special wire? That stuff is really useful..."

Yahiko was excitedly talking about something.

But before he could finish speaking, Xiao Nan interrupted him with a trembling voice:

"Yahiko! Can you hear me?"

"...What did you hear?" Yahiko was taken aback and looked up to ask.

Xiao Nan stared blankly at the raging wind and rain outside the alley.

It seemed as if some sound had been heard, hidden amidst the howling rain and wind.

Seems to be……

Clack...clack...

No, no, it's not just a sound, there's definitely some kind of sound.

The moment this thought popped into Yahiko's mind.

The sky was suddenly dyed a fiery white by the lightning that tore through the dark clouds.

In the distant rain and mist, a blinding white light cast three long, ghostly shadows on the ground.

Click! Crack!

They could hear it more clearly; the eerie sound grew closer and closer, and the two were instantly engulfed by a tidal wave of fear.

boom!!

A thunderclap followed immediately after the lightning struck.

Both Konan and Yahiko were suddenly awakened, their youthful faces turning deathly pale instantly.

They heard it clearly and realized it.

What does that familiar voice represent?

"The Puppet Masters of Sunagakure!!"

Yahiko realized what was happening, grabbed Konan's clothes, and turned to run away.

But just as he got up and took a step forward...

Swish!

Suddenly, a flash of cold black light streaked past Yu Guangzhong.

In that instant, Yahiko could even smell the faint fishy stench.

Ding!

But the next second, a soft, crisp striking sound rang out, and the kunai, gleaming with a cold light, suddenly deviated from its original throwing trajectory.

It flew past Yahiko by a hair's breadth and disappeared into the wall beside him, leaving a crack.

"Yahiko, Yahiko..." Konan's face was deathly pale as she clutched Yahiko's clothes tightly.

"Gulp!"

Yahiko stood frozen in place like a stone, his mouth slightly open, his throat bobbing up and down, and his breathing stopped.

A glistening liquid, whether sweat or rain, slid down her cheeks from her temples to her chin, finally dripping onto the ground and shattering into water droplets.

"I...I'm fine..." He raised his trembling hand and touched his nose.

Feeling the stinging sensation and the dampness on his fingertips, his pupils trembled slightly, the hairs on his body stood on end, and he even felt a sudden urge to urinate between his legs.

Almost there!

I almost died!

This was the first time he had ever felt the fear of death so closely.

But that sound just now...

Click!

Click, click!

Before Yahiko could recover from his daze, two figures emerged from the rain, accompanied by increasingly clear strange sounds.

Both men wore straw hats. One of them had long yellow hair, and a blood-stained kunai was still spinning on his finger. Blood and rainwater splattered from the tip of the kunai.

The other person had a hideous scar on his face and was carrying a humanoid figure wrapped in a waterproof cloth. The strange voice came from behind him.

"What?" Upon seeing the thin and short Yahiko and his companion, the blond-haired Sand Ninja was taken aback, then frowned and complained, "So they're just two brats."

"You only just realized they were two kids?" another scarred Sand Ninja asked, somewhat surprised. "I thought you saw them, which is why I held back and didn't hit them."

The blond-haired Sand Shinobi's expression immediately turned ugly, and he cursed, "Bullshit! I clearly aimed for his head!"

Scarface Sand Ninja took it as an excuse, smiled, and looked at the corpse in the alley.

"That idiot actually died here..." He glanced at Yahiko and the other two, saying indifferently, "I remember Lord Kazekage saying, 'Try not to harm civilians?'"

Upon hearing this, Yahiko and Konan paused for a moment, a glimmer of hope appearing in their eyes.

"Don't joke around." The blond sand ninja sneered with some disdain. "Don't forget, the first time you carried out an A-rank mission, you killed a group of civilians from the Land of Rain."

"Perhaps, among the civilians you killed were their parents..."

Having said that, he suddenly turned his head and threw the kunai in his hand.

In an instant, Yahiko and his companion, who had been moving, froze in place as the kunai was precisely planted at their feet.

"Be good, okay?" The blonde Sand Shinobu revealed a teasing smile, like a cat playing with a mouse with its paws, and slowly walked towards Yahiko and the other two.

The scarred sand ninja didn't stop him, but touched the scar on his face, which still seemed to be throbbing slightly. He coldly instructed, "Hurry up and do it. We still need to collect that idiot's corpse."

Hearing the two men's merciless conversation, Yahiko and Konan's hopes were extinguished, and the glimmer of hope in their eyes turned into despair.

The shadows of the trees beside them seemed to sway like figures, coldly mocking the two who were stubbornly resisting.

Even the feeling of the cold wind seeping into his collar became more intense. A chill that penetrated to the bone made Yahiko's hands, which were gripping his collar, turn white, and his chest heaved violently, like a broken bellows.

"Why?" he murmured in a trembling voice.

He didn't understand why ninja battles would involve civilians, nor did he understand why wars between major powers would drag the Land of Rain into the flames of war.

The Land of Fire and the Land of Wind, the Hidden Sand Village and the Hidden Leaf Village, all seem to be fighting for their own "justice".

The reason given by Sunagakure for launching the war was to promote the fair distribution of resources.

"Fairness"—what a "just" and "correct" reason!

But is it wrong for them to just want to live? If that's wrong, then who is right?

"Is this your last words?" Hearing the kid's murmur, the blond-haired Sand Shinobu, who had already reached the alley entrance, raised an eyebrow, seemingly troubled. "Unfortunately, even if you ask me, I don't know how to answer you."

As soon as she finished speaking, the blond-haired Sand Shinobu stepped out without stopping and gently entered the alleyway through the curtain woven by the falling rain.

pat.

Konan, whose face was now ashen, suddenly froze, her gaze fixed on the pool of blood beneath the dead ninja.

From her angle, the blood-red water surface was like a mirror, reflecting a pair of deep blue eyes.

Like a predator silently lurking beneath the deep, dark waters, watching its prey.

Even in her daze, Xiao Nan seemed to see those eyes slightly curved, as if...smiling?

laugh?

Who is laughing?

Before she could look up and see clearly, her view was blocked.

Before her stood Yahiko, who wanted to shield her with his arms outstretched, along with the kunai the ninja was holding up, and a ferocious smile on his face.

"Heh, kid, pray you're not born in a small country in your next life."

As soon as he finished speaking, nothing happened the instant he tried to swing his arm down.

There was no splatter of warm blood as before, nor the exhilarating feeling he craved.

This situation caused the blonde Sand Ninja to pause for a moment, her eyes slightly turning to look at her arm.

As he held the kunai, the sleeve of his robe slowly tore open, revealing a ring of red lines cracking the skin beneath...

As blood splattered, the arm slid down, gradually separating from the shoulder, revealing a smooth, neat cut with the bone and muscle textures clearly visible.

Pain is generated in the cerebral cortex. So, after a person suffers direct injury, how long does it take for the pain information to be transmitted to the cerebral cortex, and how long does it take for them to react?

The answer is, less than a second.

In a state of heightened tension and absent-mindedness, it takes less than a second to react.

However, the transition from extreme stillness to extreme movement takes only a fleeting moment.

Before anyone could react, the dark figure, like a falling maple leaf, landed behind its prey from the shadows above, its toes creating ripples in the pool of blood.

When a predator lurking in the shadows is exposed to the moonlight, the first thing people notice is not its face, but the cold glint of light that flashes in the moonlight.

puff!

The cut was swift; there was no pain as it passed, only the coldness of death.

Almost instantly, the blond-haired Sand Ninja's head flew into the air and crashed to the ground like a bowling ball, making a crisp sound like a watermelon hitting the ground, leaving a trail of blood on the ground.

The head, still bearing a trace of doubt, rolled into the puddle with its eyes wide open, reflecting the two stunned little ones in its gaze.

And from the severed neck, blood gushed forth like a fountain, causing a shower of blood to fall on Konan and Yahiko.

But soon, a shadow fell over them, and the foul-smelling rain of blood stopped falling.

"It's a good habit to like asking 'why,' but unfortunately, you've chosen the wrong person to ask."

The voice that came from above was somewhat childish, but it gave Konan Yahiko a gentle first impression.

"..."

Seemingly still reeling from that scene, the two looked up blankly, only to meet a pair of deep blue eyes.

"Most people in this world are like fallen leaves, helplessly floating, tumbling, and trembling in the air, eventually withering on the ground and becoming nourishment for the next generation."

"Only a few are like stars moving along a predetermined path, unmoved by the fickle winds of fate; their hearts follow a predetermined course."

It was a young man, dressed in black robes, holding an umbrella in his hand, his knuckles distinct, and a smile in his eyes.

Xiao Nan couldn't tell for a moment whether the deep blue light reflected in those eyes was stars or rain.

I felt the dark, rainy night suddenly brighten, the rain poured down, and my heart surged with emotion, as if a closed valley had suddenly opened up, and the wind blew in relentlessly.

(End of this chapter)