Akira POV
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
When life throws you into another universe, one stitched together from novels and anime, you adapt. You reinvent. You survive.
But no amount of preparation, no training montage, no philosophical pep talk prepares you for the first time you take a life.
The blood hits your face first. Warm. Heavy. Too real.
Then the smell. Copper, iron, bile, something foul and intimate that crawls into your lungs and refuses to leave.
The body reacts before the mind can pretend otherwise. Bowels empty. Muscles slacken. Dignity evaporates in the dirt.
I had lived in 21st century Earth. I had seen death through screens, headlines, statistics.
Sanitized. Framed. Distant.
This is different.
The Wizarding World was dangerous, yes, but it was… civilized. Wands instead of blades. Duels instead of executions.
Rules, even when they were broken.
The ninja world has none of that.
Here, killing is not an exception. It is a skill.
The Sharingan makes it worse.
Photographic memory, they call it. A gift. A blessing.
A curse.
Faces replay behind my eyes when I blink. The exact moment surprise turns into understanding. The sound of steel cutting through flesh. The wet finality of it. Silence afterward, broken only by leaves whispering like they know what I've done.
Silence amplifies everything.
I want to vomit. My body begs for it.
But I don't.
I stand straight. I breathe evenly. I keep my face calm.
Morale matters. A leader who breaks infects the whole team.
After every kill, I burn the body.
Not out of strategy.
Out of desperation.
The smell lingers otherwise. Blood and bile cling to the air, to my skin, to my thoughts. My senses feel too sharp, too alive, like the world is punishing me for noticing it.
I am afraid.
Not of dying.
Of continuing.
I plan obsessively. I keep moving. I bury myself in tactics and contingencies, anything to avoid thinking about the people I've killed.
I wonder how much of this I can endure before something inside me erodes beyond repair.
At what point do I stop being human?
And if that happens… will whatever I become follow me back?
If I ever return to the Wizarding World, will these ghosts cross over with me?
The songs lie.
The legends lie.
Jutsu look beautiful from a distance. Techniques sparkle in stories.
But when it truly begins, when blood soaks the ground and the fan finally catches what it was waiting for, there is nothing cool about it.
Only survival.
And the quiet fear of what survival costs.
Ninjas have turned slaughter into an art form.
And I happen to belong to a clan that prides itself on being the artists.
Their eyes are weapons.
Their bodies are weapons.
Even their way of thinking is engineered to reduce another human being into a problem that needs solving permanently.
Everything about us is optimized for killing.
That is what makes it feel like such a terrible waste.
All this perception, all this precision, all this inherited power, and its highest calling is destruction. To end stories before they reach their next page. To erase people so efficiently that history barely notices the gap.
As these thoughts churned quietly inside me, I waited.
The trap was set.
The forest held its breath.
Then I felt it.
A familiar presence. Cold. Slithering.
A snake emerged from the undergrowth, scales brushing softly against leaves that had already seen too much. A summon. Its eyes met mine without fear. Tied to its body was a small scroll.
I took it.
The snake vanished.
The note was written in my sensei's hand.
Akira-kun,
Welcome to the world of kill or be killed.
Life is fragile here, and misery is abundant.
Take comfort in the fact that it was not your life that ended today.
You get to live another day. Kill for another day.
Perhaps, when the war finally ends, you may look back on this as a reminder of what you gained, and what you lost, by making your village's life safer.
As for now, have seen the dance of puppets.
I read it once.
Then again.
The words were not cruel. They were not kind either.
They were practical.
That somehow made them worse.
No condemnation. No reassurance. Just acceptance. As if the erosion of the soul were a necessary toll, like mud caked on sandals after a long march.
I folded the note carefully and tucked it away.
This world does not ask whether you want to become a weapon.
It only asks whether you function.
And today, when the bait is taken and steel sings again, I will answer the only way this world understands.
Not because I want to.
But because I am still alive.
And here, that is reason enough in this fucked up world.
Focus.
Puppets.
I force my thoughts into order.
Wooden constructs. Chakra threads. Projectiles. Senbon. Blades. Poison almost guaranteed. Their movements are precise, inhumanly so, because hesitation belongs to the puppeteer, not the puppet.
Their weakness is obvious. Cut the strings, kill the master.
The problem is reaching the master.
The Sharingan should help. Chakra flow does not lie. Wood may mimic flesh, but it does not breathe. Does not circulate chakra naturally. The puppets glow wrong under my eyes, like corpses pretending to dance.
But no power is absolute.
Could they counter my eyes?
Yes.
Smoke screens. Reflective surfaces. Multiple chakra signatures layered to confuse perception. Some clans even route chakra through decoys, making the false look real and the real look distant.
Still… heat.
Wood does not generate body heat.
Unless they've found a way to fake that too.
I won't gamble on theory.
I summon Tom.
His scales glinting faintly, tongue tasting the air like a scholar reading a forbidden text.
"Tom," I murmur, tossing him a prepared ration. "Snack first."
He accepts it with dignity.
"There are enemies here who think they can fool a snake's senses by pretending to be wood," I continue. "I need you to educate them. Nothing dramatic. Just direct your kin. Detect. Bite."
I pause.
"Leave the ones you've already seen before. They'll carry my scent. And yours."
Tom's tongue flicks once. Agreement.
Then he melts into the forest.
I breathe out slowly.
If they've hidden their chakra, masked their heat, and tricked my eyes, then they've still forgotten one thing.
Instinct.
And snakes were hunting before shinobi ever learned how to kill politely.
Now, we wait..
____
Meanwhile, somewhere in the forest
"Fufufu…"
Orochimaru reclines along the thick branch of a towering tree, posture lazy, senses anything but. He has been watching for quite some time now.
Every feint.
Every retreat.
Every counter-ambush.
Akira's battlefield control is surgical. The boy does not charge. He arranges. He lets the enemy exhaust themselves chasing ghosts while Nawaki plays his role perfectly. Loud. Provocative. Just reckless enough to be convincing.
And Nawaki… following orders.
That alone is worth a report.
They really have grown, Orochimaru thinks, lips curling upward. How delightful.
Then his gaze sharpens.
Puppets.
A specialist squad.
Most genin would panic. Most chunin would misstep.
Akira adapts.
He sends his summoned snake to engage the puppeteers.
Clever.
Very clever.
"But cleverness alone is never enough," Orochimaru murmurs.
His clone slips away soundlessly, chakra masking itself perfectly as it approaches the battlefield from an oblique angle.
"Now then, Akira-kun," Orochimaru whispers, eyes gleaming with interest. "What will you do when the puppeteer is not the true threat?"
______
Nono Yakushi POV
I am Nono Yakushi.
I heal.
I prepare traps.
I observe.
Espionage is not something I learned. It is something that was carved into me.
The Foundation took me from an orphanage before I learned how to cry properly. What followed was discipline without warmth, obedience without questions, and silence treated as virtue. By the time I entered the Academy, I already knew how to listen without reacting and remember without recording.
Now I am part of a squad. Orochimaru Squad, directly under Hokage. I was surprised when I was chosen as a candidate, I thought I would be given espionage roles to another village..
Officially, our mission is simple enough. Investigate the Land of Rivers. Establish Konoha's foothold while the higher-ups negotiate with Dynamo. Mapping, sabotage prevention, intelligence gathering.
Unofficially, I have another mission.
I am here to observe my teammates.
The Uchiha.
The Senju.
To report to Danzo-sama whether their actions, decisions, or growth pose a threat to the village.
Senju-san is easy to read. Too easy. Loud emotions, visible intentions, an honesty that borders on recklessness. His lack of maturity should worry me, but instead it feels… refreshing. There is no double layer to peel back. What he is thinking leaks into his posture, his voice, his impatience.
Uchiha-san is the opposite.
An enigma.
Danzo-sama warned me about him before the mission. Observant. Calculating. Dangerous in ways that do not announce themselves. When he requested the Super Beast Drawing Scroll for me, I understood the test immediately.
I already knew the technique.
But I pretended I did not.
I learned it "quickly."
Efficiently.
Gratefully.
I even liked the gesture. That surprised me.
Now we are deep in enemy territory, and Akira-kun has taken control of the battlefield without formally taking command. His methods are… unconventional.
Using Senju-san as bait.
Deploying irritating, disorienting bombs not to kill but to enrage.
Drawing enemy squads out of formation, forcing emotional responses, punishing aggression with counter-ambush.
These tactics were not taught in the Foundation.
They are messy. Psychological. Improvised.
And extremely effective.
I have watched enemy movements collapse into confusion. Orders break down. Discipline frays. Fear spreads sideways rather than forward. Akira-kun does not just eliminate enemies. He destabilizes them.
This is not brute force.
This is battlefield psychology.
I should be alarmed.
Instead, I find myself cataloging details with professional admiration. Timing. Placement. The way Akira-kun anticipates not what the enemy should do, but what they will do when humiliated or provoked.
I will have to report this to Danzo-sama.
That thought settles uneasily in my chest.
Because for the first time since joining a squad, I am no longer sure whether what I am witnessing is a threat to the village…
Or a glimpse of something the village will one day depend on.
Right now, I follow orders and survive to return back to my orphanage back in Konoha.. The missions should pay me quote enough for all my brothers and sisters to survive the war.. Danzo sama promised me aid...
_______
Nawaki Senju POV
I am Senju.
Nawaki Senju.
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be like my grandfather. I wanted to protect the village. I wanted my grandmother and my sister to stop looking at me like I was something fragile that might break if the wind blew too hard. I wanted them to let me fight.
And now I am.
Just… not the way I imagined.
This isn't heroic. There's no glorious charge, no clash of titans. It feels more like poking a hornet's nest, sprinting for your life while the swarm screams behind you, and then turning back only when they're scattered and confused enough to be crushed one by one.
I hate this method.
I still did it.
I remember Akira, the obnoxious Uchiha, saying it in that calm, irritating voice of his.
We are a few. They are many. If we fight head-on, it's suicide. We even the numbers first. We level the field.
I didn't like it. I still don't.
And don't get me started on his obsession with hiding the real body and sending Shadow Clones instead. Tch. Cowardly tactics. That's what I thought.
Then I ignored his advice once.
The chili powder.
The itching bombs.
I still wake up angry just remembering it.
Lesson learned.
Shadow Clones are… useful. Really useful. But when they dispel all at once, it feels like my skull is splitting open from the inside. Memories crash together. Pain stacks on pain. My vision swims, my temples throb, and for a moment I feel like collapsing.
But I don't.
I endure it.
For the team.
For the village.
For the future I've promised myself.
Because I'm a Senju.
Because one day, I will become Hokage.
And when that day comes, I will end this madness. I will end wars so no one has to run like bait through a forest ever again. No more traps. No more deception. No more children learning how to die efficiently.
That's what I believe.
Even if, for now, I have to fight in ways I despise to survive long enough to make it real.