Next Bonus, 100PS!!
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What he saw was just a glimpse of the shinobi world.
And things were already this bad.
The other regions, the ones caught between Senju and Uchiha battle lines, or swept up in other clan conflicts entirely, had to be even worse.
Even during Kaguya's reign, things hadn't been this severe.
Manji had lived through that era. He remembered it clearly. Backward, yes. Primitive. But people could eat. They could survive. On a good day, they might even catch some wild game for dinner.
And under his watch? What did the people have?
Six Paths Dirt.
A heavy sense of reflection took hold of him, as if he were weighed down by a stone.
"What is the religion even DOING? Why haven't they opened the granaries??"
His face became stern.
Manji understood better than anyone how far the Six Paths faith had spread. The religion in his name reached every part of the shinobi world, rivaling anything he'd read about in history. There were grand temples with full donation boxes, abbots with political power, farmland set aside, storehouses full of grain, and treasuries rich with wealth.
In times of famine and war, these institutions were supposed to open their doors. Feed the hungry. Shelter the displaced. That was the entire point.
But every Six Paths temple Manji had passed on his journey sat with its gates sealed shut. The monks stayed inside. Not a single bowl of rice had been offered.
And at one temple, he'd caught the unmistakable smell of cooking human flesh drifting over the walls.
"Those bastards. Using my name to hoard wealth and lord over people, is that it?"
A thought crossed his mind. He stamped his foot twice.
"Shima!"
A flash of white light, and Shima appeared before him.
One look at Manji's face told her everything she needed to know. She bowed low without waiting to be addressed. "Grand Sage!"
"Do we have operatives embedded in the religious institutions?"
"Yes, Grand Sage! We do!"
"Send the order. Every Six Paths temple opens its storehouses immediately—food distribution to all affected civilians. No delays. No excuses."
"Yes! At once! The Grand Sage is merciful!"
Shima's heart squeezed. For the Grand Sage to be this angry, the situation on the ground had to be catastrophic.
The old Sage could never stand to see ordinary people suffer.
She disappeared in a streak of white light to carry out the order.
Within days, the Six Paths religious network mobilized across the shinobi world. Giant cooking pots appeared at distribution points in every region. Hot porridge, thin but steady, flowed out to the starving masses, giving the civilians clinging to life one weak thread of hope.
But it was only a thin thread.
Policy was one thing. Execution was another. How much actually reached the people at the bottom depended on the local abbots and their consent to comply. Some would follow orders faithfully. Others would skim. That was reality.
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Meanwhile, on the battlefield, the Senju-Uchiha war had ground to a stalemate.
The Uchiha fought with great force, their attacks relentless and precise.
But the Senju weren't finished.
They'd sent word to the Uzumaki, their blood relatives, and the Uzumaki had answered. With their bottomless chakra reserves and sealing techniques strengthening the Senju's battered lines, the defenders managed to stabilize. The two sides locked into a tense deadlock, neither able to break the other.
In the lull between engagements, Manji came alone to the outskirts of the Uchiha encampment.
He donned a simple straw cloak, standing in the falling snow with a crude fishing rod in his hands, line cast into a frozen river. His presence was so ordinary that he blended into the winter landscape like a rock or a bare tree—just an old man fishing in a snowstorm while the world tore itself apart around him.
Before long, footsteps snapped through the snow.
Uchiha Kitsune.
He had the Uchiha war fan strapped to his back, his brow knitted and irritation clear on his face. Days of attacking the Senju-Uzumaki defenses with no results had left him tense and restless. He came out here to clear his mind.
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Halfway through his walk, Kitsune's eyes caught something and stopped.
An old man was fishing in the middle of a warzone, in a blizzard.
Bodies lay rotting in fields nearby. Civilians were eating dirt. Shinobi fought and killed each other day and night. Yet this man sat by a frozen river with a fishing pole, as relaxed as if it were summer.
Surprise lasted only a moment before suspicion set in.
The Mangekyō Sharingan activated. Red light swept over the old man, searching for genjutsu, transformation jutsu, hidden chakra, or anything that might reveal a Senju spy in disguise.
Nothing.
There were no chakra changes. The old man's energy was completely normal, like any civilian. He had no weapons, no hidden seals, and nothing the Mangekyō could detect as a trick.
Kitsune relaxed a little. Maybe it really was just an old man.
His nerves were shot and his head hurt. Maybe talking to someone not involved in the war would help. He walked over.
Standing above the seated figure, Kitsune looked down and spoke. "Old man. You're out here alone. Aren't you worried about the danger?"
Manji turned his head. His gaze settled on Kitsune with an expression that gave away nothing.
"Kitsune. Good to meet you."
With those six words, the atmosphere between them seemed to grow colder.
Kitsune's entire body went rigid. Every alarm in his nervous system fired at once.
This unremarkable old man had just said his name.
He maintained his calm expression through sheer willpower, but his eyes sharpened like blades, glaring at Manji without blinking. "Old man. How do you know my name?"
"That's not important."
Manji looked away, back toward the frozen river. His fishing rod didn't move.
"I came here to fish because I wanted to speak with you."
"Who ARE you??"
All pretense evaporated. Kitsune ripped the war fan from his back and leveled its edge at Manji's throat, steel gleaming in the snow-filtered light.
He was certain now. This was not a civilian. No ordinary person would fish in a blizzard near a warzone, call a clan leader by name, and show no fear.
Kitsune underwent a surge of killing intent. He tightened his grip on the fan. One swing would be enough to end this threat for good.
The fan came down.
And stopped.
An invisible force clamped around his arm as if a mountain had landed on it. His muscles strained. Chakra flooded his limbs. The fan dangled in the air, inches from Manji's neck, and refused to move another millimeter.
Kitsune's pupils shrank. His heart slammed against his ribs.
Manji raised his eyes.
"Kitsune. Stop this war."
"If it continues, the shinobi world will collapse. Everything will burn. Everyone will starve."
"You grew up an orphan. You saw what this world does to children who have nothing. Do you really want to create more of them? Do you want that suffering to repeat, over and over, because you refused to stop?"
"SHUT UP!"
Kitsune's Sharingan flared so bright the snow around him seemed to glow red. His teeth clenched hard enough to crack teeth, and the words came through like steam escaping a pressurized vessel.
"You think you can lecture me, old man?? You people on the sidelines don't understand ANYTHING about what I'm building!"
"I'm going to unify this world! ALL of it! Every clan under one banner!"
"Once there's one authority, one nation, there won't BE any more wars! No more factions fighting! THAT is the only path to real peace!"
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