"What the hell is wrong with this world?"
In a hot spring town of the Land of Fire, Ishii Kiyosuke clenched his fists as he watched his uncle—who had merely bumped into a passing shinobi—get stomped into the mud with his head pinned under the ninja's foot, forced to grin and beg as blood trickled from his mouth.
Ishii Kiyosuke, just an ordinary civilian from the Land of Fire, had no great talents or skills. His parents had died young, leaving behind little besides a dilapidated house... and a parcel of land that his uncle had taken over, promising to return it once Kiyosuke came of age.
But life had never once smiled upon Ishii Kiyosuke. It had only ever shoved him deeper into the abyss.
In this godawful world, he could still remember what his father once said.
"Kiyosuke, if you can become a shinobi... then we'll be able to live with full bellies every day." That was his father's greatest hope.
Back then, he hadn't even known what a shinobi was—just that it sounded amazing. He'd grown up believing it was something miraculous.
But when he took the test to see if he could become a ninja, he was judged to lack the ability to mold chakra.
"What does that mean?" he'd asked, desperate.
He still remembered the official's cold, indifferent reply:
"It means you'll never become a shinobi."
Then the man turned and walked away, taking with him the last of his parents' savings.
Kiyosuke had collapsed to his knees that day, staring up at the sky in helpless despair.
Even more humiliating—right after him, another boy had taken the test and passed. The same official who had sneered at Kiyosuke suddenly broke into a sycophantic smile.
That was when he realized: some people are born divine, born to stand above, while others are born as dirt—to grovel and scavenge in the mud.
This world was sick. Rotten to its core.
His heart burned with fury. Why? Why couldn't he be a shinobi? Why did he have to be the one left in the dirt?
"My lord~ What an honor to have your foot on my worthless face~ I hope I didn't dirty your sandals..." his uncle wheezed, even as blood dripped from his gums.
The ninja sneered, pressing down harder.
"You disgusting worm. Do you even realize how close you came to damaging my ninja tools?!"
Kiyosuke's uncle lost more teeth under the pressure, but still forced a broken grin.
A woman stood watching the scene silently, revulsion in her eyes.
"No wonder... no wonder he said this world is sick," Yamanaka Mai thought, her anger bubbling just beneath the surface. She wanted to leap out and kick that shinobi's skull in. Just from his wiry frame, she could tell he wasn't even strong.
But she held back—because of the mission Nara Kazuki had entrusted her with.
This kind of filth might just be the key. These people, boiling with resentment, could be the fuel for a new movement.
"Civilians can never fight shinobi. It's an insurmountable wall—like a rabbit trying to hunt a ninken." Kazuki's words echoed in her head.
Not yet. Now wasn't the time. The organization needed ninja—warriors who could resist the world itself. Mere masses of civilians wouldn't be enough.
"We need the Dawari," Kazuki had said. Mai didn't know what that meant, exactly. But she trusted him.
So she stayed hidden in the crowd, watching with cold eyes.
Blood ran from Kiyosuke's uncle's scalp where the ninja's sandal had split it open, but the man only groveled harder, even as more teeth were kicked out of his mouth before the shinobi finally strutted away—cheered by the respectful fear in the eyes of the townsfolk.
Kiyosuke watched it all with fury gnawing at his guts. But he said nothing. He couldn't. Not even to his uncle—who, after all, had stolen his land and lorded over him for years.
Now that same man crawled in the mud like a dog.
He retrieved his two broken teeth from the dirt, cradling them with care as if they were treasures, then limped off under the pitying gazes of the villagers.
Kiyosuke had heard that Konoha had techniques to regrow teeth, but the hospital fees were astronomical. They couldn't afford it. His uncle's eldest son had died simply because they couldn't afford medicine.
He watched his uncle stumble away. He watched the people around him, all numb, all used to this kind of abuse, as if it were normal.
What the hell had happened to this world?
Still, life had to go on.
He returned to his crumbling home with the meager rations he'd worked so hard for.
It was a broken place, but he loved it. It was all he had. His childhood, his parents' voices, the warmth that had once filled these walls.
Now... it was empty. Kiyosuke dropped to his knees and wept, clutching the few heirlooms his parents had left behind.
He couldn't even become a ninja. He couldn't honor their dream. Couldn't protect anyone.
A thunderous knock jolted him upright.
"The brat from the Ishii family!"
He wiped his face in a panic and stood.
The whole wooden shack rattled from the pounding. Dust fell from the ceiling onto his head.
Kiyosuke shook it off mechanically. He knew better than to let it settle—too hard to clean later.
"Those damned mutts again…" he muttered under his breath, fury flaring, but he forced on a smile and slapped his cheeks before answering the door.
Two enforcers stood outside. One held a ledger and a coin pouch, a short sword slung at his waist.
No... not a sword. A dog's fang, in Kiyosuke's eyes.
These mongrels used those blades to leech the blood and bone from commoners like him.
But no one dared say that out loud.
These bastards might kiss the feet of shinobi—but when facing civilians, they strutted like kings.
"Ah, Lord Okamoto! What brings you here today?" Kiyosuke grinned his fake grin, eyes falling to the ledger in Okamoto's hand. His stomach sank.
He was still on the list.
"D-rank mission. Pay up," Okamoto said casually. The other thug yawned as he buckled his pants.
Kiyosuke's hands trembled. He'd just seen another name crossed off. His wasn't.
"This... this isn't right," he thought bitterly.
"You seem... upset," Okamoto said, narrowing his eyes.
"I—I'm just excited!" Kiyosuke blurted. Okamoto snorted, holding out the coin pouch.
Kiyosuke ground his teeth... and took off his shoe.
Yamanaka Mai frowned as she watched.
She knew how these things worked—how the Fire Daimyō distributed mission quotas to the shinobi villages, how the missions got assigned to towns like this, and how the villagers were forced to pay, regardless of who the missions actually helped.
It was a pretext for war. A means of economic control.
Now she understood why Kazuki had said they needed the Dawari—those with both hatred and potential. The system was broken. Rotten.
Kiyosuke didn't know all that. He just knew that being assigned a D-rank mission meant the crushing weight of another debt.
D-rank missions cost five thousand ryō at minimum.
Five. Thousand. Ryō.
He lowered his head. Tears welled in his eyes. That amount could feed him well for months.
He'd heard what these D-rank missions really were—finding cats and dogs, babysitting, helping farmers. But the "clients" weren't him.
He paid, but got nothing.
"A bento with meat costs fifty ryō…" he thought in agony. Five thousand could buy him a hundred.
He'd already paid last month. By the rules, this month shouldn't be his.
But rules only existed for them to break. They could invent new ones whenever they wanted—and punish anyone who objected.
So he pulled out the grimy money he'd hidden in his shoe. It reeked, but he handed it over anyway.
Okamoto wrinkled his nose. "Don't hide it in there next time. Stinks."
Kiyosuke forced another smile.
He watched them move to the next house—Aunt Musashi's.
She stood at the door, head bowed. Still pretty despite the hollow look in her eyes. Her husband had been drafted for a supply run and never returned.
Now she was a widow with a child. How was she supposed to survive five thousand ryō?
Kiyosuke wanted to say something. But remembered her kindness—and stayed silent.
What could she do?
To her, five thousand was a death sentence.
He shut his door and slumped, drowning in despair.
And yet… life had to go on.
"Do you want to change all this?" Yamanaka Mai whispered, crouched on the rooftop, rehearsing what she'd say next.
She was here on Kazuki's orders. One mission was to recruit—seek the Dawari. The other, to eliminate a bandit group nearby.
But that could wait.
She needed allies. Fighters. People with nothing left to lose.
"I wonder how the captain's doing?" Kazuki mused, sipping tea as he sat in a chair, eyes distant.
After Sarutobi's lesson that morning, he'd worked on his stealth skills. The results? Disappointing. By nightfall, Hiruzen's mimicry bar still sat at zero.
Maybe building a shadow army of Kage-tier clones would take longer than expected.
"We need to speed up the Rewind Point gains," Kazuki muttered, tapping the table.
He had a plan—but to execute it, he'd have to stoke the flames further under the Uchiha clan.
And whether it would succeed... even he wasn't sure.
Plans rarely survived first contact with reality.
Still, he had to try. At worst, he'd earn another Rewind Point.
The only question was: how many Uchiha would survive?
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