And so, the Uchiha twin stars—Yorin and Shisui—cheerfully accepted the escort mission, guarding a large shipment as they set out for the Land of Rain.
Before departure, Shisui asked around about the Land of Rain and felt more and more that this job would be rough.
After the Third Shinobi World War, the Land of Fire was already crawling with bandits.
The Land of Rain, far poorer, was worse.
Amegakure had once brimmed with ambition. Hanzō of the Salamander had launched wars with the strength of a small, battered nation, challenging the great powers again and again to build a Hidden Rain hegemony.
Now, it was all gone.
For Konoha, losing a war wasn't fatal; grit your teeth, lick your wounds, and with the Land of Fire's recovery and self-renewal, there would be a day to rise again.
For the Land of Rain it was different. Even if they had won each time, the spoils wouldn't have covered the costs; they would still have collapsed from overexertion.
And they didn't win.
Once the foremost village below the Big Five, once home to a "demigod," all that glory was dust. The Land of Rain was little more than a ruin calling itself a country.
Roads broken, towns desolate, people displaced. The village that once guarded the nation had become a bandits' den, living by stripping the last grains from the people and ambushing caravans.
Their leader—once ambitious, tolerant, and appreciative of youth—had become a man who lay down and gave up, short-sighted and small.
Under a gray sky, rain turned everything to sludge. Corpses and near-corpses, the starving, watched the Uchiha's caravan with empty eyes, too drained even to beg.
"So, small nations should stick to a small nation's path. War is an expensive game; they can't afford it."
Looking at the road, Yorin sighed.
Shisui was silent.
It wasn't his country, not his village. Still, seeing fellow humans so mired in pain and sorrow weighed on him.
So he didn't answer Yorin's comment. Instead he asked, "Then we're guarding this shipment… because we expect Rain shinobi to rob us?"
"More or less," Yorin said. "The people are all broke. No fat left to skim. If they don't rob us, they'd have to rob the daimyo and nobles."
"Ah, that…"
"Be honest, Shisui—doesn't it seem easier to rob the daimyo and nobles than us?"
"Does it? It does—no, wait—uh, it does."
The thought tangled Shisui's mind.
Attacking, plundering daimyo and nobles wasn't even a concept he carried.
How could you strike at the daimyo? That felt wrong… but then, was robbing commoners and merchants right?
Of course not.
Then why did Rain shinobi plunder commoners and traders yet spare the daimyo and the nobles?
Rank, status, tradition, and other messy things.
Was that right? While commoners lived in misery, nobles and the daimyo kept luxury intact—special caravans supplying every indulgence… and as chaos ruined the poor, they absorbed land, sold people into servitude, and profited off disaster as naturally as breathing.
The economy of the Land of Rain had collapsed, yet its daimyo and a few nobles grew richer. And the Rain shinobi blustered but didn't dare touch them.
Was that really right?
Shisui's head was a mess. It felt like he was about to level up, and he let out a pained sigh.
"Think it through yourself."
Yorin patted his shoulder and said no more.
The rain fell on; the caravan creaked forward, wheels slogging through clotted mud. Drivers and merchants kept their heads down and mouths shut.
The tech tree in this world was bizarre, like some knucklehead dreamed it up. Some Hokage office work used laptops; some merchants hauled cargo with oxen. "A bright future for everyone."
"Too many gaps to exploit," Yorin muttered. "Scientific ninja tools—before building floating fortresses, how about a few pickups to fix logistics? No pickups? Then three-wheelers? Honestly…"
By the Boruto era, tech would explode. Rail-cars powered by "lightning" would replace horses. Chakra-powered machinery—scientific ninja tools—would usher in industry and capitalism. Wealthy merchants, new capitalists, would eclipse the fading daimyo and nobles.
But what about shinobi?
In that new age, how should shinobi define their place?
Just drift along, or move first, grasp the pulse of the era, and become its true masters?
Yorin wasn't especially brilliant. His edge was knowing where things were headed.
Once you know the right answer, you just fill in the bubbles. Right, Obito?
...
A figure in a whirl-pattern mask watched the caravan from afar. Beside him, a strange half-black, half-white being asked cautiously:
"Do we attack? If we seize that cargo, the kid will be pleased, right, Obito… I mean, Lord Madara?"
The masked man didn't answer; he drifted into memory.
Yorin had once pinned hopes on Obito.
Back then, Obito's wits weren't exactly sharp.
"Everyone—shinobi—don't actually have to kill each other."
"The world has enough resources. Wealth, land, grain—there's enough. The problem is a few hog too much."
"Nobles and daimyo are trash for the pile."
"One day I'll change the world, Obito. When that day comes, will you join me—or stand in my way?"
...
"Hey, hey, Lord Madara, are we doing this or not? They're about to pass, you know? Lord Madara? Lord Madara?"
The synthetic chatter jolted Obito back.
"No."
He answered without hesitation. "No need."
"Because you saw old acquaintances—your former comrades? I thought you'd severed ties with the village."
"Shut up! I just don't want to stir up snakes!"
Yorin no longer factored into his calculations—not since he'd gained that eye. Shisui, though, was another matter.
"Got it," the other said, and fell silent. The two withdrew together.
Space split; the masked man and the two-tone creature vanished. Obito stopped dwelling on the past. He already had his answer:
"I'll save this world in a better way, Yorin."
He answered Yorin's old question in his heart, no longer stunned and tongue-tied:
"And it's not me blocking you. If you block me, I won't hold back."