Raizen raised his cup, let the burn settle in his throat, then finally asked the question he'd been dodging for years.
"Brother Ten… I haven't heard about the clan in a long time. What's it like now?"
Amamiya Tian let out a low breath, the kind a man gives when he's been holding back too much for too long.
"The clan? You're leading Konoha now. Your focus has been everywhere but home. Still… you should hear what happened to the Amamiya these past two years."
Raizen straightened, forcing himself to listen.
The story wasn't pretty.
In the early days of the Warring States, the Amamiya Clan had already been small, barely a few hundred when Raizen first reincarnated. Young shinobi, too green, too hungry, too desperate. As the clan grew, they brought in outside shinobi to survive, swelling to a peak population for a brief moment.
But that "peak" was a borrowed miracle.
Those outsiders—useful, loyal, but not truly Amamiya—made up most of the casualties in the countless wars that followed. And the wars never slowed. Raizen had dragged the clan through every battle needed to build Konoha. Every campaign demanded blood. Most of that blood was Amamiya.
"Now?" Amamiya Tian took another drink. "We only have a thousand left."
Raizen felt the words hit harder than the alcohol. He remembered the founding of Konoha, that fragile beginning. Back then, the clans who joined were few and weak. To win any war, Raizen had leaned heavily on his own people.
Too heavily.
Konoha grew stronger. The wars grew worse. And the Amamiya paid in bodies. Births couldn't keep up with battlefield deaths, and their numbers collapsed.
But Tian wasn't finished.
"Still… most of those who died were outsiders who joined us later," he said. "The original Amamiya bloodline is smaller, but stronger than before. Those who remain are true clan members, or outsiders who've fully become one of us."
Raizen blinked, surprised. "So the real clan… grew?"
"To put it simply, yes. Brutal, but true."
Raizen sat silent. The reality echoed too loudly.
Ninja clans died. That was the natural order. The Senju once dominated the entire era, yet in the future they vanished from Konoha's stage. The Kurama fell silent. The Hatake dwindled until only Kakashi remained. Even the mighty Sarutobi faded after the death of their Third Hokage.
Only a few clans survived intact—Hyūga, Akimichi, Nara, Yamanaka. Everyone else bled out under the weight of endless wars.
Without Raizen, the Amamiya wouldn't have stood a chance. They would've been wiped out by the Ueshi long before Konoha existed.
"Ninja clans eventually disappear," Raizen murmured. "Maybe one day even the Amamiya will follow that path."
He didn't say it dramatically. Just honestly.
But then he remembered something else.
"My library. How's the clan's training coming along?"
Amamiya Tian grimaced like a man choosing between ugly truths.
"We have chakra. We have all five basic natures. But no one's awakened anything like Dust Release or explosive clay. They can use elemental ninjutsu, but nothing truly exceptional."
Raizen wasn't shocked.
Dust Release needed more than chakra attributes—it demanded monstrous talent, the kind that only one Third Tsuchikage had in the entire Land of Earth. Plenty of shinobi had the right chakra mix. Almost none could shape it.
Talent ruled everything.
Just like Uchiha: everyone carried the same blood, but only a few ever awakened the Sharingan, and even fewer rose to the level of Rinnegan bearers like Sasuke.
Then Tian brightened slightly.
"There is one. A boy named Amamiya Shinsuke. He's shown real talent lately. Became Chūnin while still very young."
"Shinsuke…?"
Raizen searched his memories, then laughed under his breath.
The kid who used to be the 'dead last.'
The one who shocked everyone by taking first place in the Genin exams.
"Didn't expect him to rise that far," Raizen said, a genuine smile creeping in. "Guess one casual push from me really did create a protagonist template."