2 The Great Bread Run

They run away from another shop after carrying out a successful operation.

"Bread! Get your bread here! Fresh and hand-made!" shouted a fat-looking merchant as he tried to get the attention of the people who were passing the street where he had his stall set up.

"What in the world is he saying? There no other option for making bread other than his hands..." a child mumbled quietly.

"Too bad he won't be keeping his bread for long," another voice added in a very confident tone.

"He's known to not treat others very well and only cares about money," a final voice added, "Here goes operation: Get your bread up."

In that instant, three children could be seen making their way out of the alley of the street on the other side of the road.

They all turned to each other and nodded their heads at each other as a determined look appeared on both their faces.

About ten minutes later...

"RUNNNNNNN!" Kiyoshi shouted at the top of his lung as he could be seen dashing through the streets as fast as he could. And in his hands was a box that was covered by a single worn out cloth and through the holes of the cloth, it could be seen that Kiyoshi was carrying bread.

"THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'M DOING YOU IDIOT!" Haru's voice barked back from right behind Kiyoshi as he was also seen running for dear life, also with a box of bread in hand.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" the voice of the fat merchant sounded from behind them as he tried to run after the two kids but as he ran, his breaths became more and more ragged and he quickly lost his breath due to his size. He did not have the speed or the agility to keep after those kids.

Kiyoshi and Haru did not stop running and in no time at all, they had successfully escaped from the man's pursuit.

"FUCK!" the merchant exclaimed angrily as he finally caught his breath. Angry and humiliation filled him as he knew that he had lost at least a dozen batches of bread, even worse was that one of the boxes that they had stolen was of a batch that he had made last night. It was a set that could still be sold for another week.

He turned around and began to make his way back to his stall, his mood turned completely sour and enraged as he could not believe that he had been stolen from by two kids who weren't even a quarter his age.

'Oh, if I ever get my hand on those kids ever again!' he thought as his fists involuntarily clenched up.

He soon made it back to his stall and sat down grumpily on his chair. But as soon as he did so, he found that the store looked emptier than he had expected... He immediately took a count of the bread that he had on display and found that they were still all present if the amount that Kiyoshi and Haru has stolen was also accounted for.

But then why did he have a disturbed feeling in his gut?

Everything is still here, all the bread from last week on display are all here...

Crap!

In that instant, the merchant's face changed into another worried expression as he hurriedly flipped over the cloth that was covering the bottom of the table and as soon as he saw what was underneath, his face completely dropped as he once again shouted in anger.

The other two boxes of bread that he had made yesterday had also disappeared!

In that instant, he knew that he had been tricked.

Those children had known that he had a fresh pair of bread hidden under his table. That means that the first two were the distraction for the main operation which was to steal his precious fresh bread.

There was a third child involved!

Seeing this, the merchant dropped back into his seat in defeat as he realised how badly he had been swindled.

Crash!

Just as his butt made contact with the seat, the back legs of the chair immediately gave up as it fell backwards. Sending the merchant falling backwards uncontrollably and he fell directly on the floor, with the back of his head hitting the floor first.

As he fell, the impact caused him to immediately pass out due to the headfirst collision.

The impact of the merchant falling on the ground was heard throughout the street and everyone turned to look at him.

And that was all they did. Look. Not a single one of them turned to help, only to look for a few seconds before they all continued walking and making their way forward. They saw that the merchant had fallen on his head and simply passed out.

But while all the adults and families were walking past the merchant, numerous amount of children that seemed to be homeless, judging from their lack of shoes and proper clothes, suddenly began to come out from all the alleyways of the street and they all began to run straight to the merchant's stall as they stole the bread, their daily bread for the next few days.

Meanwhile, back at the run-down old shack, three boys could be seen with wide smiles on their faces.

"HAHAHA! That's a whole four boxes of bread! All for us!" Haru shouted in glee as he saw the stack of boxes. His eyes glistened in hunger and utter joy as he high-fived the other two.

"It's not just four boxes but three of the boxes as all freshly made bread that will be able to last us another week as well!" Kiyoshi corrected as he also did the same.

"Well done Haru, Kiyo. That distraction was perfect! Who would have expected that the merchant would have made some fresh new bread the day before we robbed him! Hahaha!" Ryuuya laughed happily as grabbed the other two and pulled them together by swinging his arms on their shoulders.

"Tonight! We eat good!" they all shouted happily as they danced around the boxes.

Night soon came and the shack was quickly filled with the sounds of loud snoring from Haru. The snores were so loud that it kept Kiyo up and he was not able to get any sleep.

He soon got up with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Jeez. With every snore, he makes the whole building rattle. If he grows any louder in the next few years, he will end up causing the whole house to cave in."

However, just as he said that, a light smile appeared on his face as he looked at Haru.

The dude was literally doing a banana split in his sleep with one arm hanging out above his head while the other seemed to have gotten trapped under his body. With each breath he took, his nostrils seemed to flare out due to the sheer volume of air that he inhaled.

Kiyoshi soon ended up walking out of the house as quietly as he could. As soon as he went outside, he was greeted by the serene sound of silence as a night breeze calmly blew past his ears, whirling up small amounts of sand and dust from the ground in the process.

A calm expression appeared on Kiyoshi's face as he slowly lied down and began to stargaze, looking straight up at the sky.

'What a beautiful night sky...' he thought as his mind relaxed and he began to ponder on his thoughts.

"Couldn't sleep?" he suddenly heard. Turning his head to see who was speaking, he found that Ryuuya had also come out of the house.

"Not with Haru's beautiful musical concert, no," he replied as he got back to staring at the sky.

Seeing Kiyoshi look so peaceful, Ryuuya let out a smile as he went to Kiyoshi and also joined him in laying down.

The instant that he lay down, his eyes seemed to slightly widen in amazement at the beautiful starry night sky that was in front of him.

"Doesn't it ever get you wondering?" Kiyoshi's voice sounded, "How nature is able to have things so beautiful like the stars in the sky and things so ugly like humans..."

Ryuuya let out a light chuckle as he spoke, "Haha. That's such a Kiyo thought."

"Who says that humanity is such an evil thing? Don't you have me and Haru?"

Hearing this, a smile appeared on Kiyoshi's face as he spoke, "I guess so.

However, a deep sigh quickly followed as Kiyoshi continued, "But I can't help but think: We will get older and as we get older, what are we going to do? We can't simply keep going with just stealing bread for the rest of our lives..."

At this, even Ryuuya was not able to immediately come up with a reply as he let out also let out a sigh, "You do make a good point... I know that we can't keep stealing bread for the rest of our lives... But all I have in this world after my parents died, was just Haru. And now I have you as well. You guys are my family."

Ryuuya's tone of voice suddenly changed to a more confident one as he placed his hand on Kiyo's shoulder and smiled, "I do not know what to do about our future. Neither do I know anything about what to do to get us all a better life. But if there is something that I know about the future, it is that I will not leave you guys."

Hearing this, Kiyo was left speechless as he could not fathom the amount of trust and camaraderie that he had found in the two friends that he had made.

It had been a year since he accepted their offer to stay with him. And in that period, he had grown to really like the two boys and their teamwork became something to admire. Through their guidance and friendship, Kiyoshi's skills in stealing and planning caught up to them.

In this one year, Kiyoshi had realised that these two boys had, in his heart, taken the place of his family.

An extremely warm smile appeared on Kiyo's face as he stared up at the sky and replied, "Right back at you. I'll make sure that we become great. Names so great that not just this village, but the rest of the other great villages would also know of our names."

(A/N: Question, do you guys read the author's thoughts at all? Or would you all rather have me put down the author's thoughts on the chapter itself so you don't have to go and tap on the thought box?)

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Anyways, that's chapter two. A very big change from the original eh? At this point, you would've seen Chiyo but nope, I have decided to do something else first.

I have completely taken out the system aspect btw... I feel like it adds too much of a predictability for the readers. But do let me know if you want a system. I can add it back as long as the comments say so before the start of the next arc.

Alongside this, I have such amazing jutsu coming in. Electromagnetism release will still remain. But I realised how broken it is. So changes will have to be made on when or how it appears.

Would you rather it appear sooner or later? (Sooner means that I will downgrade it a lot while later means that it will have an even stronger reveal)

I hope you have a great day! Please add it to your library and give my other novel, Legend of Zo, a read.