Land of Earth, Iwagakure, Tsuchikage's office.
The air was as solid as a boulder.
"Trash! All of you are trash!!!" Ōnoki's roar, rage and heartache compressed to the limit, boomed like buried thunder, making the windowpanes buzz.
His small body floated in midair. The old face, furrowed like craggy rock, flushed a dark purple from pain and humiliation. The chin strap of the Tsuchikage hat dug into his jaw, leaving him short of breath, half from fury, half from poverty.
In his fist, he crushed a rain-soaked urgent scroll just delivered from Ame, his knuckles blanching gray-white from the pressure.
It was not that he did not want to smash something to vent. He looked at the bare floor, with only a few old planks still half clean, then at the few intact clay teacups on the shelf.
The Land of Earth was broke enough to ring hollow. Ōnoki had served as Tsuchikage for decades. Pinching every coin was the only way to keep the village's veneer of dignity. How could he bear to break anything valuable? Break it and you have to buy a new one. With what? The money saved could buy how many explosive tags?
"Thirteen hundred elites!" Ōnoki's voice shook with pure heartache. "Two battalions! Three top-tier sealing teams! Sent to crush three half-dead Konoha remnants trapped in Ame!"
The more he spoke, the angrier he got, spittle flying. "And the result? Beaten by a single red-haired brat barely into his teens, alone!" He slashed the scroll through the air like a spear. "He tore open my line? He butchered that idiot Akagan? He even wrecked the core sealing barrier? And in the end, he took them and ran?"
He did not throw a cup, but his free hand clawed at empty air, as if he could seize the invisible loss and shove it back where it came from.
"He ran!" he howled again, voice going hoarse, like a poor householder staring down a bill from hell. "You pack of useless pastries! Do you have any idea how many years it took to train thirteen hundred elites? How much grain they ate?" He choked, despairing. "Now they are dead, and my Land of Earth's treasury mice are starving!"
The jōnin couriers wanted to sink through the floorboards. Running a poor village was hard. They shared their Tsuchikage's pain, and feared being burned to ash by his wrath.
Ōnoki panted, his small frame trembling. He glared at the characters on the scroll. Each word stabbed his emaciated wallet. The cold descriptions exploded in his mind:
Battle-hardened elite jōnin decapitated before they could even scream. Every thread led back to the bolded name, Ryo, Kamiyama Ryo, the red-haired monster who appeared from nowhere and single-handedly shredded his encirclement plan.
"Monster." Ōnoki squeezed the word through his teeth, the weight of loss and the prospect of medical and pension expenses grinding his heart to paste.
"Konoha… really are blessed… Thirteen-year-old monster, one man against a thousand, and he could still ferry people out with the Flying Thunder God." He let out a few dry wheezes, like a broken bellows, a grim, self-mocking sound. "Flying Thunder God… damned expensive… space-time ninjutsu you can only run on money."
He sagged back into the old wooden chair that symbolized the Will of Stone. Anger ebbed, replaced by the tidal weight of economic loss and debts to come.
Konoha was a factory for prodigies. And Iwa? The next generation, any reliable sprouts? The jinchūriki? Still in cultivation, with terrifyingly low success rates. No money meant everything was hard. A cold, heavy anxiety cinched his chest.
"Listen up." Ōnoki's tone recovered a Tsuchikage's chill, more frugal steel than fury. "Notify all frontline units. From now on…" He paused, as if the order to come scalded his tongue. "Upon encountering that red-haired devil, Kamiyama Ryo, within mission parameters…" He ground his molars, each word clinking like coins on stone. "Authorize strategic retreat. Avoid meaningless casualties. Preserve combat power. Do not record mission failure." Finished, he slumped like a bellows gone flat.
"Strat… egic retreat?" one jōnin blurted before he could stop himself. How was that different from allowing them to run? When had proud Iwagakure stooped so low?
"Yes, run!" Ōnoki slapped the desk. Dust sifted down. "But this is not over!" His eye flared with venom. "If I cannot outspend him on shinobi, I will outspend him on bounties. Let every gutter rat in the underworld grind him down."
He raised one desiccated finger. His voice hammered the number that would set the shadow world boiling. "Issue a top-level wanted order to all exchange houses. Target, Konoha genin, Kamiyama Ryo, alias Red-Haired Devil. Bounty—"
The office seemed to be sucked dry of air.
"One hundred million ryō, dead or alive!" Ōnoki shouted the figure, his heart bleeding. "One hundred million. Make sure every hungry wolf in the shinobi world knows his name, and his price!"
A poor man gone ruthless, weaponizing the underworld's greed to drown the red-haired beast that had cost Iwa a fortune. Save every coin you can, claw back every coin you can.
"O… one hundred million?" The jōnin finally lost composure. Their minds blanked. That sum would drive the entire underworld mad.
Ōnoki waved a pained hand, shooing them like flies. "Yes, a hundred million. Move. Do not waste time. The faster it spreads, the better." Inwardly, he was already calculating. Move fast, maybe he could shave the intermediaries' fees.
---
Land of Fire border, Konoha forward camp, Command Pavilion.
Smoke hung thick. The air was heavy as water.
Hiruzen held a report whose ink was barely dry. He had forgotten to draw on his pipe. The ember pulsed and dimmed. Beneath his usually gentle, farmer-like face ran lines of bleakness and unwilling awe.
The report came from Orochimaru, concise to the bone, each word like a blood-stained blade.
[Ryo broke a thousand with one rider.
Frontally crushed an Iwa elite regiment, approximately 1,000, including 13 elite jōnin.
Killed the commander Akaiwa.
Shattered composite defensive ninjutsu and the core barrier, suspected S-rank area slash.
While mortally wounded, left shoulder through-and-through, thigh laceration to near bone, massive blood loss, compounded with Iwa neurotoxin, forcibly triggered an incompletely mastered Flying Thunder God Technique and precisely extracted three critically wounded comrades, Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya.]
Every word strained the ceiling of Hiruzen's definition of genius.
"Thir… teen…" He finally took a deep pull. The bite in his lungs could not quell the cold creeping over his heart. This was not genius. This was demonic. A monster howling amid battlefield ruins.
This report alone could rip the thin veneer of balance among the Five Great Nations and pin Konoha at the center.
He closed his eyes. A memory from months ago rose, clear as glass, the red-haired boy calmly transcribing the Flying Thunder God scroll before him. His mood then? Satisfied with the exchange price. Pleased that Tsunade had taken a promising pupil. A lofty, cautionary regret at a boy overreaching for a forbidden art, warning him the Flying Thunder God was deadly to practice, that he should consider…
Now, that warning, in the face of this blood-inked dispatch, seemed ridiculous, pathetically feeble. The kid hid too deep. Deep enough to chill the bone.
"This boy…"
Such power, at thirteen. If he grows. If he goes out of control. If he harbors resentment… would he become the next Uchiha Madara? The next catastrophe threatening Konoha and the shinobi world's balance?
His eyes snapped open, hawk-sharp. He crushed the dark thought under iron will.
No. He must not think that way. He is Tsunade's disciple. And who is Tsunade? His own direct disciple, Konoha's princess.
Which means, he is my disciple's disciple. Ties of lineage. Chains of tutelage.
He risked his life to save Konoha's three main pillars, Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Tsunade.
This power, in the end, is Konoha's power. He must stabilize it, soothe it, bind it close.
His gaze slid to the last line, mortally wounded, still comatose. A subtle, tangled note flickered in his heart. Was it pain, or a guilty breath of relief? He could not tell. Perhaps both. These wounds, this coma, briefly tamped down the primal fear his political instincts felt toward such monstrous power, and bought him time.
"No more hesitation." Hiruzen's eyes hardened. The Hokage's decisive chill snapped into place. With power like this, how could he remain a mere genin? A glorious victory would be tainted by the insult of a hero with too low a rank.
He slapped the desk. Ash leapt. His words cut fast as drawn steel. "My order. Urgent dispatch. Immediately to the Ame front."
An ANBU appeared, dropping to one knee.
"Konoha genin, Kamiyama Ryo." Hiruzen's voice was iron, beyond dispute. "While executing a top-secret mission on the Ame front, he encountered a large-scale, premeditated Iwa ambush. Our core strength was encircled. At that critical instant, Ryo took charge, slew the enemy commander, shattered their line, and broke a thousand with one blade. With peerless valor and resolve, he rescued Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Tsunade, the village's top assets. His merit is unparalleled and shines upon Konoha, worthy of a star that expands our borders."
He drew a breath, already seeing shocked elders, but his tone did not waver. "On the basis of his unmatched strength and the indelible, tide-turning service rendered to the village, all procedures are waived. All precedent is set aside. The chūnin exams are dispensed with. Effective immediately, Ryo is promoted to Konoha chūnin. The order takes effect at once. Publish to all of Konoha and announce to our allies."
Chūnin was only the first step, the bare minimum to preserve the faces of Konoha and the Hokage. A thirteen-year-old monster genin was a joke. Next, and quickly, he would need undeniable battlefield justifications to push this boy to jōnin, rightfully and publicly. That was the key.
The inked command became a black streak in the sky, borne by a hawk toward the smoke-wreathed front.
Silence returned. Only the tiny crackle of burning tobacco remained.
Hiruzen lifted the report again, still warm with blood. His muddied eyes fell once more on the name that punched through paper, Ryo.
Power is a double-edged sword. When its shine grows too blinding, can the hand that grips it still be at peace? Hiruzen's fingers tightened, just a hair, on the pipe.
---
Konoha forward camp, battlefield medical zone, private ward.
The thick scent of medicine braided with blood. The white tent walled off the outside clamor, leaving only the hush after survival.
On the simple cot lay a figure wrapped in layer upon layer of bandages. A thin spear of sunlight slipped through the canvas seams to fall on his striking red hair, lending him a hint of life. His face was as pale as fresh snow. His lips were cracked. Only the faintest rise and fall proved life still clung to him.
Kamiyama Ryo. The Red-Haired Devil. Konoha's newly minted chūnin.
He had been unconscious for three full days.
At his bedside, a figure in a purple shinobi uniform, stained with a little blood and dust, kept silent watch.
Uchiha Mikoto.
Right now, all her focus was on that young face, too quickly covered in scars.
Three days.
Mikoto's black eyes were veined with red. Her cheeks had grown a touch hollow, marked by worry and sleepless fatigue. In her slender, steady hands, a warm cloth, nearly cooled to dryness, moved with care, avoiding the terrifying punctures and jagged rents, gently wiping the clammy sweat from Ryo's brow.
Every accidental brush of her fingertip brought a tiny tremor. She dampened the cloth again and moistened his cracked lips. Her motions were feather-soft, as if she feared to disturb his sleep, or to worsen wounds that even Tsunade-sama had needed her full strength to stabilize.
Across the camp, the legend of the Red-Haired Devil already boiled over, and his chūnin promotion stirred waves among the high ranks. But for Mikoto, keeping vigil here, those identities and honors meant nothing.
The cloth paused at his neck. There, a shallow line, grazed by a rock blade, faintly showed beneath the bandage. Mikoto's fingertips flinched, then did not touch it. She only smoothed the last bit of moisture with the hem of her sleeve.
Her gaze rested on his sleeping face, worry, guilt, an unspoken ache, and the tiniest, secret thread of joy. For this moment, Ryo belonged to her, however briefly, and not to her best friend Kushina alone.
The wire in her heart eased a fraction in the quiet, medicinal air.
In the ward, only two breaths whispered.
Motes of dust drifted through the bar of light.
Suddenly, Ryo's lashes quivered. His pale lips stirred.
Mikoto held her breath and leaned in.
(To be continued.)