Mist drifted through the trees like ghostly threads, weaving between trunks and rocks, clinging to every surface. In its silence, the forest held its breath — but Kaien didn't. He was running.
Not out of fear. Not out of urgency. But to test himself.
His sandals barely touched the ground. With every breath, chakra surged through his limbs, compressing and releasing in perfect sequence. His body became a flicker, a shadow dancing through the trees.
Swift Step.
Again.
Five meters. Then ten. Then a sharp turn — Gale Veil — his form rippling like water under moonlight.
He stumbled, nearly colliding with a low-hanging branch, and skidded to a stop on the moss. His hands braced against a tree trunk, panting. Sweat beaded down his temple.
"Not fast enough. Not yet."
A month ago, he'd been a regular human. No chakra, no bloodline. Just a guy watching Naruto clips during work breaks. Now he was dodging trees at sixty kilometers an hour with a chakra nature unique to a handful of characters in the show.
If this was a second chance, the world had given him a hell of a sandbox.
And a looming timer.
Kakashi's team… they should be arriving in a few days.Which means Zabuza. And Haku.Which means people are going to die.
He stood straight again, fists clenched at his sides.
"I need to do more than watch from the sidelines."
Later that morning, Kaien sat outside a decaying shrine deep in the woods, scribbling in a worn notebook he'd salvaged from a crate near the docks.
At the top of the page:OBJECTIVE: CREATE A SAFE ZONE— Build barrier system using Fuinjutsu.— Develop more Boil Release techniques.— Learn how to sense chakra and suppress mine.— Establish early contact with vulnerable populations (orphans, refugees).
He tapped the end of his brush against the wood.
Fuinjutsu was tricky — far more abstract than pure chakra molding. He didn't have any formal Uzumaki scrolls, and his current knowledge came from secondhand scraps and his own experiments. But it was starting to make sense.
Last night, he'd successfully made a tag that pulsed when someone stepped within ten feet of it. The chakra array was sloppy, but it had worked.
"If I can scale it, I can make an early-warning perimeter."
He unrolled a simple paper seal tag on the shrine's floor and drew a looping spiral — a detection anchor. Then four evenly spaced branches for the directional field. Chakra ink glimmered faintly as he activated it.
Nothing happened.
He frowned. "Too much chakra in the outer ring?"
He tried again. Less chakra this time. The tag sparked once — faintly — then settled into a soft hum. He tossed a rock into the clearing.
Beep.
A high-pitched whine emitted from the tag.
Kaien smiled.
By midday, he returned to the village, tucking the tag away in his inner sleeve. A few villagers gave him wary glances, though some nodded in silent gratitude. Word had spread about the bandits from two nights ago.
Kaien didn't deny it anymore. He didn't confirm it either. Let them think what they wanted.
As he passed En, the grizzled fisherman grunted and held out a bundle.
"Bandage wrap. You're leaking steam when you think no one's watching."
Kaien blinked, taking it with a small bow. "...Thanks."
En scratched his stubble. "You're not one of the mainlanders. Not really. Don't talk like 'em. Don't act like 'em."
"I don't come from anywhere you'd know," Kaien said quietly.
The old man nodded slowly. "Good. Then maybe you're not like the rest of them either."
That evening, Kaien sat by the riverbank sharpening a kunai — one of only two he owned, looted from a bandit's belt. Nearby, water dripped from moss-covered stone, soft and rhythmic.
He let his chakra trickle into his palm.
He focused.
Water chakra flowed outward — gentle, pliable, like the river beside him. Then came the fire. Harsh. Rigid. His control faltered, and he winced as his hand warmed rapidly.
"Balance," he muttered. "Not force."
He visualized the two natures as layers — not a collision, but a transition. Like steam rising off a bath.
He exhaled and let it go.
FWOOOSH.
Mist surged from his palm in a concentrated burst, hitting a nearby boulder and sizzling as it hissed over the surface. Boil Release — Steam Burst, as he was starting to call it — was effective at close range.
Still unstable.
He coughed once and wiped his arm with the bandage En gave him. His skin was red but not blistering this time.
"I'm getting there. One jutsu at a time."
Three days later.
Kaien stood on a mossy ledge overlooking the road that led from the northern docks to the central town. His seal tags — three of them, tuned to subtle chakra vibrations — pulsed faintly in his palm.
He wasn't alone.
A group of three men moved quickly along the road, half-hidden by the fog. Two carried blades. One carried a crossbow. All bore the black armband of Gatō's private militia.
They weren't looking for a fight. They were scouting.
Testing the perimeter. Probably looking for Tazuna. Or another target.
Kaien crouched, breath slow, then used Gale Veil to blur his form and leap silently from tree to tree.
The men paused when they heard a branch creak — too late.
Kaien dropped behind them.
"Shinobi—!" the crossbow man shouted.
Too slow.
Kaien used Swift Palm Barrage — three quick strikes: shoulder, elbow, gut. The man went down gasping.
One of the others slashed wildly. Kaien ducked low and slammed a Scalding Palm into his shin, burning through cloth and skin. The last man tried to run, but Kaien flickered into his path and swept his legs.
They were all down in under ten seconds.
Not dead.
But unconscious — and very burned.
Kaien stood there, steam curling from his arms, heart pounding.
He should've killed them. It would've been safer.
But something held him back.
He looked to the side of the road — where a child, no older than seven, peeked from behind a tree. His eyes were wide, terrified.
Kaien slowly pulled his hood up and turned away.
That night, En found him carving a symbol into a flat rock near the river — a mark Kaien had begun repeating on each seal.
The old man squinted. "That your name?"
Kaien looked up. "It's not for me. It's for what comes after."
En grunted. "Planning on staying long enough for there to be an after?"
Kaien's lips tugged into a faint smile. "Yeah."
The older man sat beside him in silence for a while.
Then he said, "You gonna ask for help when the mainland ninja come?"
Kaien looked at him, startled. "You know about them?"
En nodded. "Kakashi Hatake, Sharingan ninja. They're sending him with a genin squad. Gonna protect the bridge builder."
Kaien stared into the fire.
"I'll keep my distance. They'll do what they're supposed to."
"You planning on hiding forever?"
"I'm planning on building something they'll never understand."