The target fell over and let out a last bellow before it died, blood pouring from the hole that had been made in its side. The as yet unnamed weapon which worked by using an explosive powder to propel a metal slug through a metal tube which had had its interior rifled had worked perfectly.

It was a simple concept really, and quite easy to manufacture using his father's factory. He honestly didn't know why nobody seemed to have come up with it before considering how easy it was. There even seemed to be a ready made niche in the market for it that was just waiting to be filled. If he could get his father to mass produce them, this as yet to be named device would render ninjutsu obsolete. The power that had been in the hands of the Shinobi elite for centuries because of the near mystical abilities they possessed would be in the hands of Civilians like him where it belonged.

His father didn't agree with his vision, and had actually taken his weapon away from him and tried to destroy it with his bare hands when he caught him practicing with it. There had been a look of crazed fear in his eyes as he did so. As he yelled at his father for being a backwards idiot, the man frantically scanned the trees and bushes, as if searching for any ninja who might be lurking about despite the fact that they had much better things to do than spy on the son of a man who made farming equipment.

He tried to grab the weapon he'd created out of his father's hands only to have his father who had never laid a hand on him his entire life belt him over the head with it.

"I won't let you get your mother and your sisters killed over this foolishness!" his father yelled as he hit him several more times with the weapon he'd created.

"Foolishness? !" he yelled back. "You crazy old man, that weapon's not foolishness, it's the future!"

"Do you think you're the only one who came up with this idea?" his father yelled back as he slammed the weapon against a rock trying to bend the barrel. "Dozens, maybe hundreds of people who were even more brilliant than you have created these before. Do you know where they ended up?"

"Don't know, don't care." he yelled back, nursing the lump that was rapidly forming on his head.

"I'll tell you where they ended up!" his father screamed. "They all died! Them and their families with them! The Ninja don't like the competition, and what they don't like they eliminate. If I let you continue with this foolishness, all of us, me, you, your mother, and your little sisters would be dead before you could even get two of these made."

He spent the night destroying the weapon so thoroughly that there was no trace of its prior existence by dawn while his father buried the ox he had rather thoughtlessly slaughtered not even daring to use the hide or the meat for fear that someone would discover how the animal had been killed. The dream which had formed as he held the weapon he'd created had died a quick death, but there was no point in pursuing power if you weren't going to live long enough to enjoy it. The only hope he and his family had left was that the ninja wouldn't discover what he'd created and, considering how good their information gathering skills were, that was a slim one at best.