"Damn it, why is there a jōnin here!"
"Yukino…"
Border of the Land of Fire.
A furious roar echoed through the forest, startling a few birds into flight.
Uchiha Eiya leaned against a tree trunk. His left arm hung limp at his side, blood dripping from his fingertips.
He glanced at the comrade pounding the ground not far away and sighed inwardly.
Ten minutes earlier, his squad had been ambushed.
Their teammate Yukino, adept at genjutsu and medical arts, hadn't had time to retreat and was captured alive.
That female ninja who always smiled softly had slipped him a pouch of special military ration pills before the mission, smiling as she said, "Just in case."
Now the "just in case" had arrived.
A faint scarlet flickered deep in Eiya's black eyes. A single-tomoe Sharingan turned slowly.
He wasn't native to this world.
Half a year ago, an accident had thrust him into it, as a member of the Uchiha clan.
The Uchiha held one of the ninja world's top bloodline limits—the Sharingan.
Together with the Senju led by the First Hokage, they brought an end to chaos and founded Konoha.
By rights, he should have been glad of his identity.
But he knew the original story of Naruto all too well, including what lay ahead.
After the Nine-Tails' rampage, the Uchiha were suspected as the culprits and forced to the village outskirts, their rift with Konoha widening by the day.
Until a night three years from now, when the man named Uchiha Itachi, at the behest of Konoha's leadership, slaughtered the entire clan.
Eiya Uchiha had not joined the Police Force; he had entered a ninja squad to carry out missions for Konoha.
In outsiders' eyes he was an oddball—an Uchiha who leaned toward supporting Konoha and kept his distance from the clan's hardliners.
No one cared.
He was sixteen, and besides awakening a one-tomoe Sharingan, he was still an unremarkable chūnin.
Only basic Fire Release and taijutsu—no presence at all in a Konoha full of elites.
Barring surprises, he would die in that night of calamity too.
Eiya knew the massacre would only be the beginning.
Even if he survived by luck, he would still face Danzō and the Konoha leadership, the Akatsuki, and the Fourth Great Ninja War.
To seize his fate, he had to become strong.
At least strong enough not to lose to Uchiha Itachi.
"I'm still too weak…"
Eiya clenched his fists.
Three years can change a person.
Leave aside those two cheat-coded monsters, Naruto and Sasuke.
Even Sakura, a civilian-born laggard, would grow rapidly under Tsunade's tutelage and even take part in kage-level battles.
As an Uchiha, his potential and ceiling far surpassed Sakura's.
He had to stand out in missions, to catch the eye of the clan or Konoha's leadership.
To earn a chance.
Reality: their first B-rank mission had ended in an ambush.
Yukino had been taken. What awaited her would be brutal interrogation.
Once her value was squeezed dry, everyone here knew what end awaited a beautiful kunoichi.
They themselves were seriously wounded, their fighting strength slashed.
Amid the heavy silence, a figure dropped soundlessly from the treetops.
Tall and lean, face set hard.
"We shook the pursuit, but that doesn't mean we're safe."
"If you've got time to chat, use it to recover."
Shio hesitated, then couldn't help asking quietly, "Captain Satō, the mission…"
"Retreat."
Satō's tone didn't waver, as if stating the most ordinary fact.
Shio's face went ash white. "By the rules, we can request reinforcements from Konoha…"
Satō cut him off, expressionless.
"Don't forget where we are—on the Land of Fire's border. The enemy may not be just this one Kumogakure squad."
"To be safe, we abandon the mission and return to the village to report. That is the correct move."
"What? Abandon the mission!"
Shio lurched to his feet. "But Yukino—"
Satō's eyes turned razor-sharp. "What then? You want our whole squad to die here for one woman?"
"Or should we send Konoha blundering into action without intel?"
"Face reality. She's gone."
Shio's fists creaked, then loosened under his captain's cold gaze and dropped, powerless, to his sides.
Two years ago, Kumo and Konoha halted hostilities and entered talks. The Cloud tried to abduct Hinata, failed, and forced Hyūga Hizashi to his death.
It had rocked the ninja world.
Now relations between Kumo and Konoha were brittle and sensitive.
The Hokage would never provoke Kumo over an ordinary chūnin and risk lighting the fuse of war.
Eiya watched in silence, his expression sinking.
Satō was a Konoha jōnin and their squad captain.
In this rigidly hierarchical world, his word was law.
But it wasn't the outcome Eiya wanted.
No mission completed, no useful intel, hadn't even seen the enemy's faces.
If he slunk back to the village like this, he could already hear what Konoha—and his own clan—would say about him.
"Give up, just like that?"
"So the clan hardliners were right. In the end, I'm just trash…"
He looked at Shio's hunched back, at Satō's cold profile, and remembered Yukino's despairing eyes as she was taken.
His breath suddenly grew heavy for no reason he could name.
A nameless impulse flared up, like fire raging in his chest.
"Hey. What are you standing around for?"
Up ahead, Satō turned slightly, impatience in his eyes.
"Abandon the mission?" Eiya lifted his head and met his gaze.
"Sorry. I refuse."
Captain Satō snapped around, eyes like blades. "What did you say?"
"Didn't you hear me?"
Eiya straightened slowly, a near-manic smile tugging at his lips. "I said—I refuse to retreat."
Shio stared, frozen.
Satō's face darkened.
"Uchiha Eiya, do you know what you're saying? This is an order."
"An order?" Eiya gave a low chuckle. "Rule Three of the shinobi code—missions above all, right?"
"But if you can toss your comrades aside that easily, what's the difference between a so-called shinobi and trash?"
Satō's gaze went glacial.
"You questioning my judgment? Or are you planning to imitate that fool, Sakumo Hatake?"
"Save her? Do you have that kind of power?"
Boom.
A rush of pleasure surged through Eiya, as if a shackle deep in his soul had shattered.
[Condition met: defied a superior's order. Indulgence System activated.]
[Openly challenged shinobi rules. Indulgence level: S.]
[Issuing reward…]
[Obtained: Sharingan evolved to three tomoe.]
[Obtained: Lightning Release: Armor, B-rank.]
[Obtained: chakra capacity increased by 30 percent.]
Listening to the voice in his mind and feeling the changes within, Eiya's smile widened.
He swallowed his last military ration pill and met Satō's eyes with open defiance.
"No. I'm telling you—"
"I'm done!"
The final word fell—and blinding lightning detonated.