Boom!
The words struck Genya Yamagami's mind like the sharpest thunderbolt.
He suddenly turned his head, his body trembling uncontrollably, his teeth clenched, and making a grinding sound.
The worst possibility that he had never dared to think about and had desperately tried to avoid was confirmed by his mother in such an absurd and cruel way.
The last glimmer of hope was shattered.
After a long while, a scalding liquid finally broke through the dam of his eyes and slid down his young but weathered cheeks.
He looked at the woman before him, his voice hoarse, a mixture of endless pain and despair: "Mom… this is the last time I'll call you mom."
A rage of fire burned in his chest, threatening to consume him. He wanted to roar, to smash everything in front of him, even… But when he looked at that face, which was still familiar but now just an empty shell, all his violent impulses were suppressed by a deeper sense of powerlessness.
He couldn't bring himself to touch that face, even though his mother was no longer the one living beneath it.
Without pausing, he turned and strode away, slamming the creaking, broken wooden door shut.
The cramped room fell dark again, leaving only Yoko staring blankly at the air, continuing her numb, incomprehensible babbling.
...
Genya Yamagami returned to his more modest single room in the police force's dormitory area.
He didn't turn on the light. Using the faint daylight filtering in from the window, he silently walked to the bedside, bent down, and dragged an old but sturdy wooden box out from under the bed.
Upon opening the box, there weren't many miscellaneous items inside; only two things were carefully arranged.
A scabbard and a musket with a slightly rough construction, but a gleaming barrel.
The katana was the standard weapon issued to him as part of the military police force, but the musket was not standard equipment. He collected parts during his duty and free time and painstakingly pieced them together in the abandoned workshop of the police force.
He took out the two items, and the cold metallic touch from his palm strangely suppressed the surging heat in his heart.
Without glancing at the shabby room again, he turned and left without looking back.
The poisonous fire of revenge burned through his heart, but the cold reality was like a bucket of cold water poured over his head.
The Holy Church... Its tentacles are spread throughout the Land of Hot Water, and it is by no means something that an ordinary police officer who cannot use Ninjutsu can shake.
His impulsive anger will only drive him deeper into darkness, like a moth, disappearing without a trace.
He needs power, a tremendous power that can tear through the layers of hypocrisy.
His older brother and younger sister are gone, and the family is too broken to be pieced back together.
But at the very least, he couldn't let the tragedy that happened to him easily befall others.
This thought, though faint, was tenacious, barely igniting a glimmer of light in the ashes of despair.
To become stronger… Where to go?
He can refine chakra; that energy does indeed flow within his body.
Ironically, no matter how he tried, he couldn't release this energy through any form of Ninjutsu, as if he were born lacking a crucial conversion component.
The path of the ninja was closed to him.
So, the remaining choice seems to point to one place: the Land of Iron, a neighboring country near the Land of Hot Water, which coexists with the ninja system and emphasizes honing Taijutsu and mastering Kenjutsu.
As he walked away from the town, the morning light was faint, but it couldn't dispel the gloom in his heart.
As he passed an old telephone pole, a brand-new advertising poster stood out against the mottled wall, catching his eye.
The poster features a middle-aged man with a refined demeanor and gentle face, dressed in a magnificent official robe, with a perfectly appropriate smile.
Prime Minister Abe!
As the head of all officials in the Land of Hot Water, this powerful minister took control of the government after the aging Daimyo gradually withdrew from politics, and spearheaded the economic recovery of the Land of Hot Water after the Second Shinobi World War.
Looking at that hypocritical face, the suppressed anger in Genya Yamagami's chest surged up again.
The Holy Church is so rampant in the Land of Hot Water, bewitching people, extorting money, and killing people. He absolutely does not believe that the high and mighty rulers are completely unaware or even uninvolved!
"Traitor to the nation!"
He squeezed out those words through gritted teeth.
He reached out, gripped the glossy poster tightly with his five fingers, and ripped it in half!
He crumples up the scraps of paper and throws them into the muddy ditch by the roadside, as if getting rid of a piece of disgusting filth.
He tightened his pack on his shoulder, gripped the hilt of his sword at his waist and the musket in his arms, and strode off toward the north, toward the Land of Iron, a land known for its steel, snow, and bushido, resolutely and without looking back.
Has already received divine grace and ascended to the afterlife... to enjoy the blessings of the holy son's immortality in a paradise without pain...
On the way, the howling wind and snow kept hitting the boy's face, but what made him feel colder than the snow was his mother's last words.
The blessing of immortality?
The boy took a deep breath, his eyes becoming resolute.
This journey was solely to seek a master and learn the arts. The road was long, the future uncertain.
When he returned, he would exhaust everything to slay the traitor to the nation and sever all ties!
...…
The Land of Iron, outside the Akazonae City.
A snowstorm swept across the wilderness, reducing visibility to less than ten meters, turning the world into a chaotic gray-white expanse.
The gale howled, lifting the thick snow from the ground and forming twisting snow dragons that existed only for fleeting moments.
Within this raging curtain of nature, a discordant metallic sound stubbornly pierces through the wind and snow!
"Clang! Clang! Bang!"
The fierce collisions of weapons rang out, at times crisp, at times dull, at times explosive, tearing through the wailing wind and snow with immense force and rhythm.
Suddenly…
"Bang!!"
A tremendously heavy bang exploded, like a heavy hammer hitting a solid anvil!
A burly, tall figure stumbled backward from the center of the battle, his feet carving two deep furrows in the snow before being swallowed up by the churning snow and disappearing from sight.
However, Soichiro Yagyu, who had knocked his opponent back with a single blow, showed no sign of relief; instead, his expression became even more serious.
The dark iron rod in his hand drooped slightly, and a distinct, high-frequency vibration emanated from its shaft.
In that head-on clash just now, the opponent's strength seemed to have become much stronger than in their previous encounter!
Before he could think it through, amidst the swirling snow, a powerful, even excited shout, like the thunder of a war drum, boomed out: "My blood is boiling! Let's continue!"