He walked for a long time.
The road stretched in silence, wide and dusty, lined with scattered bushes and fields cut too early.
The sky was overcast, threatening the light without fully stealing it.
The cart creaked under the weight of the wheat. The horse, old but docile, walked on without haste.
The old man held the reins with a tired hand, the other resting on his stiff leg.
Noa hummed softly, a wordless tune, her feet swinging in the air.
They had left at dawn.
They would reach the capital before nightfall.
The path seemed quiet.
Too quiet.
— And you, stranger, what are you looking for in the capital? the old man asked without turning.
Madara didn't reply right away.
— I'm no longer searching. I simply observe.
— Then you've got the eyes of a philosopher… or a man too old to keep fighting, he chuckled.
Madara closed his eyes briefly.
The wind had picked up, brushing the bent wheat and making the thorns crackle along the path.
A flock of crows took off from a nearby grove, like an ink stain on the grey sky.
He opened his eyes. The Sharingan had not yet awakened.
But already, he sensed something.
He raised his hand.
— Stop the cart.
The old man obeyed, surprised.
— What is it?
Madara stepped down slowly. He felt the dry soil under his foot, dust rising around him.
Noa fell silent. She watched him, confused but unafraid.
He walked a few steps. The creaking of the cart ceased.
The wind died too.
A strange, suspended silence settled.
Then... footsteps.
Muted laughter.
The crack of a bush.
Four men appeared on both sides of the road. Two in front, two behind.
Unshaven, filthy, their weapons trembling from either rage or impatience.
— Looks like we found ourselves some well-stocked folk, one of them sneered. Hand over the load, the wheat, the boots, and maybe we'll let you live.
Madara said nothing. He kept walking alone, between the two groups.
His silhouette stood out in the pale light.
Only his hair betrayed his coldness.
— Are you deaf?! another one barked.
— Wanna die here, old mutt?!
The Sharingan awakened.
Two red discs. Two frozen suns in black orbits.
The silence shattered.
The first bandit charged.
He raised his axe. Madara had already seen him die.
One step.
A pivot.
The elbow crushed the nose, then the throat. The man collapsed, never understanding.
The second drew an arrow.
Madara was already there. He tore the bow away, struck the throat, then the knee.
The body folded forward, broken.
A third lifted his sword.
Madara parried barehanded, twisted the blade, and drove it into the attacker's shoulder.
The last one ran.
Madara drew his sword.
A simple movement.
No shout. No warning.
He leapt.
In a second, he was behind the man.
The blade pierced him.
The body fell into the grass, still rustling from the failed escape.
Madara wiped the blade on the dead man's cloak and walked back to the cart.
"They hadn't come to kill.
But they had forgotten that some men kill in silence."
The old man was frozen.
Noa, speechless.
The sacks of wheat hadn't moved.
He climbed back into the cart.
Noa stared at him without blinking.
— Are you a warrior? she asked, as if it were a riddle.
Madara slowly sheathed his sword.
— No.
He sat at the back, eyes on the horizon.
— It's the road that's sick. Not me.
Silence returned, but it wasn't empty.
It carried the weight of things not yet understood, but already felt as true.
The old man took the reins again without a word. The cart rolled on, as if nothing had happened — or maybe as if everything had just begun.
Time Skip
The walls first appeared as a blurry line on the horizon.
Then the flags.
The guards.
The caravans in line.
The capital.
The old man showed a worn-out pass. The guard grunted but let them through.
The city was a torrent.
Shouts from merchants, hooves on stone, the smell of spices and sweat, children weaving through the crowds.
There were races Madara had never seen. Faces he didn't understand. Unknown symbols on the banners.
Noa's eyes sparkled in awe.
The old man grumbled about prices.
Madara stood still for a moment.
His gaze swept the crowd.
The shouting, the gestures, the overflowing stalls, the barefoot kids, the nobles in carriages, the stray dogs weaving between wheels.
All of it teemed with life. Raw. Instinctive.
A world overflowing.
There was no order. No balance.
But there was movement.
And for a man like him, born from a world petrified by war, that was enough to captivate.
"Even here… men ignore, despise, sell each other."
"But they keep moving."
His expression didn't change.
But something in him observed more carefully.
Not to understand.
Not to love.
But to see how long such chaos could endure.
They entered the city.
The streets twisted, the alleys sunk like veins into stone.
Nobles passed on horseback. The poor shrank against walls.
Guards kept order… in one direction only.
Madara had never seen such a concentration of life.
"He felt neither fascination nor rejection. Only a cold curiosity."
"This chaos… this crowd filled with life…
It's carried by dreams.
But they're all bound to be broken by naivety."
He stepped down from the cart, bowed one last time to the old man and his granddaughter.
She looked at him, unsmiling.
— Will you come back?
He didn't answer.
But he nodded slightly.
Then, without a word, he stepped into the maze of the capit