"The young patriarch was right—someone's trying to test our strength!"
A veteran Amamiya Jōnin muttered under his breath, eyeing the stunned Koizumi Dalang surrounded by clan ninjas. With a wave of his hand, the Amamiya forces surged forward like a tide.
Dalang froze for a moment, then bolted. A Jōnin on the run? Shameless. He left several shallow wounds behind, but it was enough. Koizumi narrowly escaped, realizing that discretion was indeed the better part of valor.
Back at the Koizumi estate, Dalang patched his injuries with a grin, only to be reminded by his younger brother about the Amamiya clan's seizure of Yicheng. Rage flared instantly.
"You idiot! How can you call the Amamiya a small family? I'll be embarrassed for days after listening to your nonsense. And I'll never let you forget it!" Dalang barked, slapping his brother across the face.
The younger sibling had no choice but to fume silently. Chūnin-level, no authority—his complaints fell on deaf ears.
What the Koizumi clan had witnessed was just a single ripple in the Amamiya's carefully laid net across Uiseong. The clan had repelled every intrusion, every attempted test of their strength. The most challenging encounter came when an elite Jōnin arrived—but Douren intercepted him, using the second stage of Flying Thunder God to toy with the intruder before vanishing into the night.
By the second day, whispers spread through Uiseong: the Amamiya were no small clan. Families that had come to probe their strength had barely escaped with their lives. From that point onward, no one dared stir trouble in the city.
Using fear and deterrence, the Amamiya strengthened their hold, consolidating power until, a month later, Uiseong was entirely theirs.
"The Uiseong operation is complete. Next, we train a new generation of shinobi… then our strength will only grow," Douren mused, lying on the roof and staring at the clear blue sky.
Looking back on the past month, Douren reflected on the nature of power. Without absolute authority, conspiracy can topple kingdoms. The Baimu and Kagenami clans had fallen not just to strength, but to clever planning—and he had orchestrated it all.
A thought stirred within him: time to move again. He had traveled before in the Land of Fire, but then he was too weak to venture far. Now, with Flying Thunder God mastered, nothing in the world could stop him.
Douren sent a request to Patriarch Amamiya Gen.
"You want to travel through the Land of Fire?" Gen asked, brows furrowed.
"Yes. The family is stable, developing steadily. My presence isn't needed right now, so I want to continue growing stronger."
Gen paused, considering the weight of those words, then nodded.
"Be careful. The masters of this era are like clouds—unpredictable. Offend no one without reason."
"I understand," Douren replied, already turning to prepare.
After a day of rest and final preparations, Douren bid farewell to the patriarch and set out on his second journey through the Warring States. His path first led him to Beidou in the northern Fire Country.
This region had once been dominated by the Hagyi Clan, a major family that fell victim to the wars between Senju, Uchiha, and Hagyi. The Yuyi Clan, too, had been crushed at the Five Gods Gate Bridge, leaving only a few surviving Jōnin to maintain the remnants of their once-great power. In a matter of months, smaller families had divided up nearly all of Yuyi's territory.
Douren sighed. "How many of these so-called prestigious families really last? Senju and Uchiha survived longer, but most others vanished without a trace. Power is fleeting, and even the mighty can fall within years. The Amamiya clan itself was nearly destroyed not long ago, yet here we are—stronger than ever."
He shook his head, a smirk forming. "Well, one thing's clear: nothing lasts forever. Cherish today, fight tomorrow, and keep moving forward."
A sudden voice nearby made him startle. Douren scanned the source and spotted a pool, calm and unremarkable… except for a lone frog sitting on the surface.