The clamor of the exercise faded, and the training ground returned to silence.
Obito Uchiha was still chattering away about their victory, gesticulating wildly as he boasted about how he had gone head-to-head with Kakashi.
Rin Nohara stood beside him, smiling gently, listening to his tall tales while tending to his scrapes.
Roy said goodbye to the two of them and walked home alone.
On his face was the gentle smile that had become second nature, politely responding to greetings from classmates along the way.
But beneath that perfect mask, his mind was calmly reviewing every detail of the battle just fought.
The plan had worked.
Yet he didn't like the feeling.
The entire strategy's success hinged on precise predictions of Kakashi and Obito's personalities.
Kakashi's pride, Obito's impulsiveness.
If either of those key points had gone wrong—if Kakashi had chosen a more cautious team advance, or if Obito hadn't held on for those critical dozen seconds—the outcome would have been completely different.
To stake victory on the personalities of others was, in itself, a massive risk.
When it came down to it, his own raw strength was insufficient.
If he possessed Kakashi's speed and power, he wouldn't need all these elaborate schemes; he could simply bulldoze his way through.
He needed greater strength, greater speed, and a hidden trump card that was more concealed and decisive.
"Wait."
A flat voice came from the alley behind him.
Roy stopped and turned around.
The setting sun split the alley's entrance into light and shadow.
Kakashi Hatake stood in the darkness, only his silver hair catching the light. In his hand, he still held that well-polished kunai.
"Is something the matter, Kakashi-kun?" Roy's tone and expression remained unchanged, as natural as if he were greeting an ordinary classmate.
Kakashi stepped out from the shadows.
He didn't look directly at Roy at first, his gaze falling on the kunai in his own hand. "That plan of yours wasn't bad."
"Just luck," Roy replied humbly, deflecting all the credit. "Obito and Rin worked hard."
"Luck?" Kakashi's gaze finally lifted, fixing squarely on Roy's eyes.
They were eyes that didn't belong to a child, devoid of emotion, filled only with pure scrutiny. "You calculated my attack route, calculated how much time Obito could buy, even calculated the optimal distance for Rin's healing. That's not luck. That's intelligence analysis."
Roy's heart tightened slightly.
This future Copy Ninja possessed a sharpness of perception far beyond what he showed on the surface.
"I just did what I had to do." Roy's smile remained flawless. "As the team leader, making the plan was my responsibility. Winning was the result of everyone's efforts." He deflected all credit onto the team and duty—an explanation no one could fault.
Kakashi fell silent.
He stared at Roy for a full ten seconds.
He tried to find even a flicker of emotion, a trace of hidden pride or calculation, on that gentle, harmless face.
But he found nothing.
Roy's eyes were clear and open, like a smooth mirror, reflecting back only Kakashi's own cold expression.
"Is that so." Kakashi finally looked away. "At the graduation exam, I won't give you another chance to win through tactics like this."
With that, he didn't linger. He turned and, in a few quick steps, vanished beyond the roofline.
Roy stood where he was, the smile slowly fading from his face.
A glint.
Today, after all, he had revealed a sliver of it.
Though he had wrapped that edge in the guise of "tactical acumen," for a sharp-nosed hound like Kakashi, it was enough to catch a whiff of something unusual.
This was a warning.
He needed to accelerate.
Before graduation, he had to forge Thunder Annihilation into a weapon truly ready for combat.
Back in his apartment, Roy didn't start his mental training as usual.
He spread out his notebook, filled with plans, and on the page dedicated to Thunder Annihilation training, he circled a phrase heavily in red.
Activation time.
This was his biggest vulnerability.
From constructing the chakra circulation, to drawing out Armament Haki, to merging the two, the entire process required nearly four seconds of absolute focus.
On a battlefield where moments decided life and death, four seconds was enough for him to die a hundred times.
He had to compress this time to less than one second.
It would be dancing on a razor's edge, pushing his body to its absolute limits.
Compressing time meant the energy conduction process would become more violent, the clash between the two powers more intense. The strain on his meridians would multiply exponentially.
But he had no choice.
The secret training ground in the Forest of Death.
Roy stood gripping a fine steel short sword in front of the remaining rock formation.
He closed his eyes, not rushing to begin.
He rehearsed the entire energy conduction process repeatedly in his mind, breaking down every step, every detail, searching for points of optimization.
The chakra circulation could be built faster.
He didn't need to cover his whole body. He only needed to form a temporary, small-scale, explosive circulation in the specific meridians of his right arm.
The extraction of Armament Haki could be more decisive.
He had to suppress his instinctive fear of that violent energy, using stronger mental force to extract it in an instant.
The crucial part was the merging of the two.
He could no longer use a gentle wrapping, that was too slow. He needed to use the chakra circulation to collide with the Haki, forcibly completing the attachment at the moment of impact.
It was dangerous. Like trying to encase an explosive in a shell at the very instant of detonation.
Roy opened his eyes, all hesitation gone.
He began his first attempt.
A small-scale chakra circulation instantly formed in the meridians of his right arm, twice as fast as before.
Immediately, with a burst of mental force, he tore a strand of Armament Haki from the Thunder Dragon's power.
Then, impact.
Boom!
An unprecedented, searing pain exploded inside his right arm. Before he could even channel the energy into the short sword, the chakra circulation collapsed on the spot. That uncontrolled strand of Armament Haki, like a runaway wild horse, rampaged through his meridians.
"Pfft!"
Roy spat out a mouthful of blood, dropping to one knee, cold sweat instantly soaking his back.
A fiery, burning pain lanced through the meridians of his right arm; the entire limb went numb.
Failure. Total failure.
He lay on the ground, coughing violently, his vision flickering black. But he didn't rest. Roy pushed himself up with his left hand, gritting his teeth against the agony, and began analyzing the cause.
The force of the impact had been too great. The intensity of the chakra circulation hadn't been enough to withstand that level of shock. He needed to reinforce the resilience of the "container."
For the next few months, the same scene repeated on this training ground almost daily.
Failure after failure, spitting blood, damaged meridians.
Roy was like the most stubborn craftsman, using his own body as an anvil and pain as a hammer, forging the weapon named Thunder Annihilation over and over again.
Fine bloodstains often marked his right arm, slight internal bleeding from meridians pushed past their limit.
He concealed it all perfectly with long sleeves.
At school, he remained the same gentle, cheerful Roy. No one knew what torment he endured each night.
Until a month before the graduation exam.
Late at night, in the same training ground. Roy stood holding the short sword, his expression calm before the rock. His aura was far steadier than months before.
He closed his eyes again.
Chakra circulation instantly formed. Armament Haki decisively torn free.
Impact!
This time, the chakra circulation did not collapse.
It trembled violently, but thanks to the resilience forged through months of grueling practice, it endured the shock.
A concentrated, dark energy instantly appeared along the blade of the short sword.
From closing his eyes to the energy's attachment.
The entire process took one and a half seconds.
Roy opened his eyes and swung the short sword.
A black flash of blade light streaked by.
The remaining rock before him was cleanly split down the middle, the cut surface smooth as a mirror.
He gazed at his handiwork and slowly exhaled a turbid breath.
Finally... This was the true edge.