Chapter 5: A Simple Rule
The incident, when it came, was small and brutal. Three of Kaido's lowest-ranking thugs, members of the "Pleasures" who were cursed with permanent, unnerving smiles, swaggered into town. They were drunk on cheap sake and arrogance.
They kicked over a food stall belonging to an old man, laughing as the meager vegetables scattered in the dirt. They cornered a young boy, snatching a small, carved wooden toy from his hands and tossing it back and forth while the boy cried. It was the casual, mundane cruelty of those with absolute power over those with none. The villagers simply averted their eyes, shuffling away, their bodies coiled in fear and shame.
O-Tsuru, who was watching from the doorway of her shop, made a small, distressed sound. Tobirama was inside, sharpening a wood-cutting axe with a whetstone. He heard her. He saw the scene.
He had spent his life creating rules. Rules for the Academy, rules for the ANBU, rules for the structure of the village. All of it, every law and system, was built upon one foundational principle: to protect the weak from the strong, to create order where there was chaos. These smiling thugs were the embodiment of everything he had fought against.
He set the axe down. He walked to the door, stepping out into the grimy street. He did not run. He did not shout. He simply walked toward the three men, his presence a sudden, cold weight in the square.
"Having fun?" one of them sneered, turning to face him. He had a horse's jaw and ears, a trait from a faulty artificial fruit. "Look at this one. Think you're a samurai, old man?"
Tobirama stopped a few feet from them. He did not fall into a familiar fighting stance. He simply stood there, his hands loose at his sides.
"There is a rule," Tobirama said, his voice quiet, yet it cut through the air with chilling clarity. "You do not terrorize children."
The lead thug laughed, a grating, joyless sound. "And who's going to enforce it? You?" He lunged, throwing a clumsy, powerful punch.
Tobirama moved. It wasn't a flash of teleportation, just a simple, impossibly fast sidestep. The punch met empty air. As the thug stumbled past, Tobirama's hand shot out. It was not a punch, but a precise, rigid chop—a shuto—to the side of the man's neck. There was a sickening thud. The thug's eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed in a heap, unconscious.
The other two froze, their drunken smiles faltering. Before they could even draw their crude swords, he was on them. For the second, a swift, brutal kick to the knee joint, shattering the bone with an audible crack. The man screamed and went down. For the third, an open-palmed strike to the solar plexus that drove the air from his lungs in a single, explosive gasp, leaving him on his knees, choking and helpless.
It was over in less than three seconds. It was silent, efficient, and utterly terrifying in its precision. He had not used a shred of chakra. This was pure, unadulterated Taijutsu, the foundational art of a shinobi master.
He stood over the three broken men. He looked at the crying boy, then bent down, retrieved the wooden toy from the dirt, and placed it back in the child's trembling hands.
The entire square was deathly silent. The villagers stared, their mouths agape. They had just seen one man dismantle three of their oppressors without breaking a sweat. It was a moment of incredible, cathartic victory.
But as Tobirama turned and walked back towards the tea house, he saw the look in their eyes change from awe to a new, more terrible fear. He had enforced his rule. But in doing so, he had broken theirs: the unspoken, absolute rule of Wano. Never, ever fight back. He had just painted a target on the back of this entire town.