The road stretched before them, winding through thick forests and endless plains. The remnants of the temple, the broken rule of a false god, faded behind them like a forgotten dream.
Taji had stopped asking questions. Renzō did not fill the silence.
The world spoke in its own way. The whisper of the wind through the trees. The distant murmur of a river carving its path through stone. The crackle of a small fire when night fell and the stars reigned over the sky.
It was enough.
The time period they walked in was one of transition.
The great clans of old had long since fallen into legend. The era of warlords, of blood-soaked battlefields and endless conquest, was fading into memory.
But the peace that followed was fragile.
Villages had begun to settle into hidden places, forming the early roots of what would one day become the great Shinobi Nations. Lords and rulers still fought over borders, and men still killed for power, but the world no longer belonged to them alone.
It belonged to something new.
The whispers of a system—one that would train warriors not for war, but for duty—had begun to spread. A system where shinobi would no longer be just mercenaries, but soldiers bound to their villages.
The Hidden Villages were rising.
And yet, there were those who did not belong to any of them.
Men like Renzō, who carried power but did not seek to rule.
Men like the false god, who tried to hold onto a world that no longer existed.
And boys like Taji, caught in between, looking for something to hold onto.
They arrived at a town just before dusk.
Unlike the last village, this place was alive with movement. Merchants called out from crowded stalls. Blacksmiths hammered steel into shape. Farmers hauled sacks of rice and grain through the streets, their eyes weary but determined.
This was not a place ruled by fear. It was a place building something.
Taji's eyes widened at the sight. He had never seen a town so full.
Renzō simply observed.
Then, his golden eyes flickered toward something else.
A presence.
No… several.
Hidden among the crowd, moving like shadows beneath the surface of a calm river. Their chakra was restrained, controlled—but not absent.
Shinobi.
And they had already noticed him.
Renzō did not change his pace. He simply walked forward, letting the world shape itself around him. If they wished to act, they would.
Taji, oblivious, pulled on his sleeve. "Can we eat first?"
Renzō exhaled softly. "If that is what you need."
The boy grinned and ran ahead toward the food stalls.
The sage followed.
And somewhere in the shifting crowd, the watchers decided what to do next.
The world was changing.
And even though Renzō did not seek to shape it, he was walking straight into its heart.