The life simulation faded, leaving Shimura Yuta alone in the silent house. His eyes fell upon the birthday cake, its six candles standing like lonely sentinels. A hollow ache welling up in his chest.
He was a proud member of the "Tomato Orphanage."
His mother was lost to him from the beginning, a casualty of childbirth. His father, a Jonin, had followed two years ago, slain on a mission when Yuta was only four.
His inheritance was this modest house in the Shimura clan compound, a substantial sum of money, and the village's survivor benefits. Nothing more.
Well, perhaps "a substantial sum of money" was an overstatement. It was enough, at least, to ensure he wouldn't grow up in the kind of desperate poverty that Naruto lived in.
Yuta leaned forward and blew out the candles with a soft breath, then sighed. The silence pressed in.
His father, Hiroshi, had been a quiet man. His near-constant missions meant they'd shared barely a handful of conversations a month. Still, four years of shared space leaves a mark. The loss was still a cold and heavy stone in his gut.
"Kakuzu..." Yuta whispered, the name a venomous sigh.
His father's comrade hadn't known the killer's name, but the description was unmistakable.
The murderer was the rogue ninja from Takigakure, the one who was infamous for attacking the First Hokage–Hashirama Senju–himself.
Yuta could practically reconstruct the event from the fragments of the story he heard.
His father's team, returning from a successful mission, had passed by an underground exchange. And Kakuzu ambushed them.
Despite the surprise, his father—an elite Jonin—had fought brilliantly, even landing what should have been a killing blow.
But the Kakuzu they faced was already a monster, empowered by the stolen forbidden technique of his village: the Earth Grudge Fear.
Believing the fight won, his father had lowered his guard. It was then that Kakuzu, cheating death itself, had struck the final blow.
Konoha's response had been swift, but Kakuzu, a man of grim legend and unknown abilities, had already vanished into the shadows beyond the Land of Fire.
And so, a purpose crystallized in him.
Shimura Yuta's goal was set: to live a stable life in this shinobi world, and to kill Kakuzu, avenging his father.
Driven by this resolve, Yuta walked into his father's study. The room still smelled faintly of old paper and ink. There, neatly stored, was his father's collection of ninjutsu scrolls.
The majority were Wind and Fire Release techniques. While his own chakra affinity meant the absence of Lightning Release scrolls was a slight disappointment, Yuta felt a thrill nonetheless.
Among them were several advanced A-rank jutsu.
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough (C-rank). Wind Release: Vacuum Bullet (C-rank). Wind Release: Vacuum Great Bullet (B-rank). Wind Release: Dragon Whirlwind Tornado (A-rank)...
As his eyes scanned the meticulously labeled scrolls, a latent instinct stirred within him. This was it—the "Innate Release Proficiency" from his simulations.
Committing the hand seals for the Wind Release: Great Breakthrough to memory, Yuta stepped out into the small courtyard.
He took a steadying breath, focused his chakra, and performed the sequence.
A gust of wind erupted from his lips, slicing through the air and striking the solitary tree at the garden's center. With a sharp crack, the trunk was sheared clean in two.
Yuta stared, a sharp breath hissing through his teeth.
His success wasn't the surprise; the simulations had burned the muscle memory for this C-rank technique into him. The power, too, was as expected.
It was the target.
A cold dread washed over him. This tree... his father had planted it the year his mother died.
Every birthday, no matter where he was or what he was doing, Hiroshi would return home and stand before this tree in silence for hours.
And now, Yuta had neatly cut his father's memorial in half.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
'It's not... dead, is it? Probably... not?'
If this tree died by his hand, the guilt would be a weight on his soul. Practicing jutsu at home was clearly a terrible idea.
The official training grounds it would have to be.
—
As Yuta stood grappling with his arboreal manslaughter, two figures on a nearby street paused.
The halt was initiated by the younger man, Danzō, who turned his head toward the source of the sound—the distinct sound of a tree succumbing to a blade of wind.
Such a minor disturbance would normally be beneath his notice, but the chakra signature that had preceded it… that was interesting.
Danzo turned back, his silence a clear command for the man beside him—the current head of the Shimura clan.
The Clan Head, well-versed in reading the Hokage's advisor, immediately provided a dossier-perfect report.
"The disturbance likely came from the residence of Shimura Yuta. His father was Shimura Hiroshi, the Jonin we lost to an unknown assailant two years ago. The mother died in childbirth six years prior. No other individual lives at that address."
'Shimura Hiroshi.'
Danzo recalled the man. A capable, dependable elite Jonin. His loss had been… inconvenient.
'So, it's Hiroshi's son.'
Danzo's single visible eye narrowed slightly, his expression inscrutable.
The Clan Head remained silent, awaiting his cue. Though the leader of the clan, he was acutely aware of the power dynamic; Danzo, the Hokage's right hand, operated on a different plane entirely.
"Come," Danzo stated, his voice flat. "Let's see what's going on."
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