I Punch the Tailed Beast Ball

”If you want money, I’ll give you enough for an ordinary person to live on for the rest of his life.

If you don’t want to stay ordinary, I can teach you shinobi arts and make you a ninja.”

Hearing Obito’s words, Yoshida Ichirō froze on the spot.

There was no doubt that either option would change his life completely.

If he chose ”enough money for a lifetime,” he’d never again have to eat while enduring people’s pitying stares, despite the fact that he did work odd jobs.

Ichirō didn’t know exactly how much ”enough for a lifetime” was. A million ryō? No, surely not, that was way too much...

If he chose to learn shinobi arts, he’d no longer be just a normal kid; he’d have power far beyond ordinary people. At the very least, when he played ninja games, he wouldn’t always be forced to play the rogue-nin anymore.

Ichirō wrestled with the decision.

He even pinched his own cheek, hard.

It hurt. He wasn’t dreaming. A real ninja had shown up to change his life, only it wasn’t the father he’d imagined, but his father’s friend.

”That man... is he really dead?”

Ichirō didn’t answer Obito directly; instead he asked whether his father was truly gone.

Obito fell silent.

Of course he was dead, Obito was the one who killed him, impaling him with sharp Wood Release spikes.

But seeing the faint hope sparkling in Ichirō’s eyes, Obito hesitated; sometimes the truth was simply too cruel.

And even if Ichirō learned the truth, what could he do? Nothing.

After a pause, Obito said, ”I can’t be certain. But you should prepare for the worst, he’s probably gone. If he were alive, he would have come home to see you.”

For a child that young, the blunt truth would be too harsh. Obito chose to hide it for now; maybe when Ichirō was older, he’d tell him everything. The boy had a right to know, just not yet.

”I choose the second one,” Ichirō said.

”I want to learn to be a ninja, find that irresponsible man and punch him in the face.”

”You’re sure?” Obito asked, then reminded him tactfully: ”Don’t hold out too much hope of finding him. I haven’t heard any news of him in a long time; he may have died somewhere.”

”You said you weren’t sure, didn’t you? Dead is dead, if he died, I’d be happy; I’d get an extra bowl of rice,” Ichirō muttered.

Obito was momentarily speechless. Such filial piety...

But he quickly regained composure. ”If you want to be a ninja, you’ll have to work. Most children start the shinobi academy at five or six. The well-off begin lessons even earlier. At your age”, Obito knew Ichirō was eight, ”the gifted ones have already become full genin.”

(At that same age, Uchiha Itachi and Yakushi Kabuto were already chūnin.)

”I’ll work hard,” Ichirō said earnestly.

Given a chance to change his life, he would seize it. Even after losing both parents, his father missing, his mother gone, he’d survived; that alone proved his grit.

Obito nodded, told him when daily training would start, left a little spending money (”Too much on a kid is dangerous,” he thought), and departed.

---

Obito had another task: the mission Nagasawa had assigned, investigate Akatsuki and check on Nagato. That didn’t conflict with teaching Ichirō.

Nagasawa wanted intel on Akatsuki’s move to Ta no Kuni; Obito needed the old membership files anyway. Although the current Akatsuki was very different, the leadership was the same; there might still be records of former members. If those records existed, everything would be easy, otherwise he’d be searching a haystack for needles, not even knowing their names.

Using Kamui, Obito slipped into Akatsuki’s old base in Amegakure, only to find it abandoned and empty.

”They all moved? Cautious indeed,” Obito muttered, frowning.

Given Nagasawa’s earlier intel, Nagato was probably in the Land of Fields, running that so-called Hikari-gakure (Village of Light). Obito returned briefly to tell Ichirō training would start tomorrow, then set off for Ta no Kuni.

In Ta no Kuni

Nagato’s recent display of power had filled the Feudal Lord with a strange confidence. Maybe, just maybe, Ta no Kuni could rise and surpass its tiny neighbors.

The lord agreed to give Nagato any site he wished; the nearby residents would simply become villagers of the new shinobi settlement.

Nagato didn’t stand on ceremony, he picked a location at random. The village wouldn’t be hidden; after all, it was a legitimate shinobi village on the surface.

Construction began in earnest. Any village needed a Kage-style tower, the tallest building so its leader could overlook everything. Recruitment ran in parallel.

Because the lord and his ministers hyped him relentlessly, ”Yahiko of Ta no Kuni” and Hikari-gakure became household names. Everyone heard that a mighty, righteous ninja had founded a village to raise the nation’s strength.

Curious ninjas from Ta no Kuni flocked to join, around sixty arrived in the first wave. Among them was Nida Ryūsei.

Ryūsei wasn’t from a shinobi clan; his father was a wealthy merchant. He’d learned ninjutsu from a wandering rogue-nin, who charged very little and asked only that his art not die with him. Ryūsei repaid the kindness, burying the man and visiting his grave yearly.

When he’d tried to organize a shinobi study group, few clan shinobi would attend, he was a ”wild ninja,” not one of them. He became disillusioned with Ta no Kuni: a corrupt lord, a pitiful shinobi scene.

”If we keep this up,” he’d thought, ”our nation will vanish from the map.”

But suddenly Yahiko appeared, founding Hikari-gakure under official sanction. Ryūsei had to see this man. If Yahiko was a fraud, Ryūsei would travel the world, learn elsewhere, then come back to rebuild Ta no Kuni. If Yahiko had substance, Ryūsei would stay and serve.

Yet when he saw Yahiko, piercings everywhere, young, almost flamboyant, Ryūsei’s heart sank. Could someone dressed like this be reliable?

Many others felt the same. Some couldn’t hide their disappointment; they assumed Yahiko must have tricked the feudal lord.

While they whispered, Nagato (as Tendō Pain) remained expressionless, until the murmuring grew loud. He spoke:

”You seem dissatisfied.”

”No, no... It’s just that your reputation is so grand,” blurted a blunt-spoken ninja. ”Seeing you in person, the rumors feel exaggerated.”

”Rumors exaggerated?”

Pain’s face twisted into a faintly disdainful smile.

Did these small fry dare compare him with minor village leaders? Laughable.

He wasted no words, chakra exploded from him, a tidal wave of killing intent crashing over the assembled ninjas.

Ryūsei broke into a cold sweat; under Pain’s pressure he couldn’t even twitch a fingertip.

Everything has changed, he realized. Yahiko isn’t less than the rumors, he’s stronger!