"Captain, you seem to care a lot about the common people." Nara Kazuki sipped his tea and casually placed a piece of meat on the grill.
The flames licked the surface of the meat, leaving seared marks.
"..." Yamanaka Mai didn't speak, but she gave a small nod. Kazuki glanced at her—seemed like his team captain had gone through something. He didn't know what it was exactly, but whatever it had been, it clearly changed the way she saw the world.
"Captain, do you remember what that lunatic in the Land of Grass said?" Kazuki's eyes narrowed as he looked at her, voice soft. A ripple passed through the dead-fish glaze of Mai's eyes.
Of course she remembered.
That madman who had stood in their way and shouted: "This world is sick—and the disease is ninja."
She'd been with the caravan at the time, had heard everything, and knew some of that lunatic's past. But why was Kazuki bringing this up?
Mai felt a flicker of confusion.
To her, people couldn't escape their class. Kazuki was a ninja, after all—he should be aligned with the shinobi system. But now, she wasn't so sure. Was Kazuki… like her? Did he sympathize with the common folk?
"We're ninja. We've got the biggest fists. So we make the rules. Everyone else has to follow those rules. Other villages make their own rules too. And since everyone wants the world to run their way—conflict is inevitable." Kazuki gave a small cough.
"So you look down on civilians too?" Mai's voice was calm again. Maybe she had misjudged him. Ninja never really respected civilians—at best, they treated them like livestock.
Kazuki sighed inwardly. Mai really was a bit slow on the uptake. Or maybe, just irrational when it came to this topic. In combat and tactics, she was sharp—a solid shinobi. But on this…
"Ninja and civilians are natural opposites. If you had the power to wipe out an entire village with ease, would you really let powerless people tell you what to do?" Kazuki curled his lip.
Let's be honest—most ninja were already behaving themselves surprisingly well by not committing mass murder just because they felt like it.
Give most civilians superpowers, and they'd start out playing Superman… but by day two, they'd be Homelander.
The only reason the shinobi world hadn't collapsed into chaos was because of the restrictions enforced by the villages and clans. Without that? Ninja would be monsters, capable of slaughtering ordinary people at will.
"..." Mai stayed silent for a long while, then nodded.
She wanted to argue—she wanted to say she wasn't like that. But any rebuttal would have sounded like desperate denial. She hated that.
"So yeah, as long as ninja and civilians both exist, civilians will always be second-class." Kazuki shoved a slightly burnt piece of meat into his mouth. It was a little charred, but still pretty good.
Mai clenched her fists. But this wasn't a problem she could solve. Not everyone could become a ninja. It took talent—and if that weren't the case, there wouldn't even be a distinction between the two.
Some kids couldn't even pass the Academy exams to become genin. They were stuck as glorified civilians—those poor bastards probably suffered the most.
"You got a solution?" Mai looked at Kazuki. If he was saying all this, then maybe he had an answer. But… was that even possible?
She had no idea how to fix this. Every one of the Five Great Villages ran on the same system. None had figured out how to make civilians equal to ninja. Even if there was a way, the cost would be massive.
"I might…" Kazuki grinned. Then he pulled Mai into a long, closed-door conversation—over an hour inside that booth.
Their topics ranged wildly: from "How to Fire the First Shot of Revolution", to "The People's Struggle Against the People", to "The Brutality of Class Warfare". And by the end of it, Mai looked dazed, thoroughly spun around.
Kazuki even got a system notification: [Mouth-no-Jutsu Progress +1].
He blinked. He hadn't expected to gain points from Mai of all people.
But that was good. It meant she was at least partially convinced.
Granted, "convinced" might be overstating it. More like… she agreed to tentatively consider his point of view.
Still, Kazuki could tell she wasn't fully onboard yet. She was hesitant—doubtful. Understandable. If she had just immediately fallen to her knees and pledged herself, he might've suspected he'd accidentally triggered some kind of hypnosis flag.
"...Aka-shika, your thinking is…" Mai coughed. Kazuki had dropped way too many radical ideas. She was honestly kind of overwhelmed.
"Captain, don't forget—you're the one who said you wanted to wipe out the families of everyone who betrayed you." Kazuki rolled his eyes. Oh, now she thinks he's extreme?
What was this?
Radicals accusing moderates of extremism?
"But still…" Mai bit her lip. She did want to help those people. But was this really the right way?
"Relax. That's our long-term goal. You understand what a long-term goal is, right?" Kazuki gave a helpless shrug. Mai hesitated, then nodded.
Kazuki smiled faintly.
He was still testing her, which was why he hadn't laid out the real plan yet.
She didn't know the full extent.
All he wanted, for now, was to have her eliminate a few corrupt merchants. Confiscate their wealth. Nothing too wild.
He hadn't even gotten to the part where they would overthrow the Daimyō of the Land of Fire.
If he dropped that bomb—saying he wanted to hang the Fire Daimyō from the Hokage Rock to dry out in the sun—Mai would probably think he'd lost his damn mind.
But Kazuki wasn't in a rush.
He'd keep planting ideas. Slowly. Steadily. Until she fully embraced the ideology.
Only then would the real plan begin.
Because when that day came—the greatest enemies wouldn't be nobles.
They'd be ninja.
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