Orange-red flames danced, roasting the massive bear paws as waves of sweet fragrance spread through the air.
"Gulp!"
Katsuki could not help swallowing. The smell was far too tempting.
This black bear was undoubtedly one of the dominant beasts in this forest. Who knew how many beehives it had raided? Its two paws had been soaked through to the bone with honey. They did not need any seasoning at all; simply roasting them like this was irresistibly enticing.
Kushina and Minato busied themselves grilling the meat, while Katsuki, Otoha, and Otome gathered firewood and helped where they could. None of them knew how to cook, after all. Kushina and Minato were the only ones proficient in that particular skill. Kushina had spoiled Katsuki's palate since he was little, while the Uchiha siblings were the sort whose fingers had never touched housework. They had never had to worry about cooking.
After being skinned, boned, and gutted, the enormous black bear still yielded three or four hundred pounds of meat. Yet after one meal, Katsuki's group of five had eaten roughly half of it. Katsuki ate the most by far; his stomach was practically a bottomless pit. Still, the others had long since grown used to his appetite.
"Today is the fourth day. We have three days left." Otoha lay flat on the grass. The area around them had already been smoked over with fire, driving away all the insects and ants.
"Three days? Even if you gave us thirty more days, we still couldn't beat Aunt Tsunade and the others." Kushina crouched beside the fire, propping her cheeks up with both hands, her face full of melancholy. Just one jonin's shadow clone had beaten them into a miserable rout. When would she ever become Hokage?
Perhaps the flames were too warm and made her drowsy. As Kushina spoke, her thoughts drifted away. Fortunately, no one else noticed, except for a certain blond boy.
Katsuki was doing one-handed push-ups. Even inside the training ground, he had not neglected his daily training. He kept at it every day. Come to think of it, it was his enormous appetite that kept the team hovering around the edge of hunger and fullness. He burned a lot of energy, so he ate a lot.
Otome had already fallen into a sweet sleep against Kushina's side. Minato sat cross-legged nearby, his fingers flashing as they intertwined, continuously honing the speed of his hand signs.
A week could feel long or short, but no matter what, the week-long special training finally came to an end.
The only teams that lasted until the end were Katsuki's team and Hyuga Tenzan's team.
They stepped through the iron gates and left that gloomy training ground, feeling as though they had finally been released after serving their sentences. Looking up at the dazzling sun in the sky, the glare hurt their eyes.
"Damn it, we're finally out." Otoha let out a long breath, and even his steps became much lighter.
Otome, unusually, did not pick at anything. Though they had only been separated from the outside by a wire fence, being inside and outside felt completely different.
"All right, kids. It's time to announce the results." Tsunade clapped her hands, drawing the attention of all eight of them.
Tsunade cleared her throat and narrowed her eyes as she surveyed the students, each wearing a different expression. "As for the final results... all eight of you did very well. You have all passed this assessment."
There were no cheers or excited shouts. Though they were children, they all remembered that passing the assessment meant they would be taking part in transporting provisions. In other words, they would be involved in the war, even if only as logistical support.
Tsunade and the others did not mind. There had never been innocence in the ninja world, only the cruelest iron and blood. If these little ones had been as lively as if it were New Year's, she would have been worried. Sending students with that mindset onto the battlefield would have been no different from murder.
Though sending students to the battlefield in the first place had already sparked criticism.
"One last reminder: gather at Training Ground 19 tomorrow morning at eight. Make your preparations." Tsunade tossed out those words and left in a body flicker. As for Jiraiya and Orochimaru, neither even showed his face. They had left everything to Tsunade.
If the students had been tremendously enthusiastic about joining the war before entering Training Ground 44—bringing glory to the village, sacrificing themselves for Konoha, the very thought making their blood boil—then after spending a week in this miserable forest, their overheated heads had cooled down.
People could die on the battlefield.
But whether they wanted to or not, the matter had already been decided. They had no power to resist what had been set in stone. Even with powerful clans behind them, they were little more than insignificant scraps in the eyes of those clans.
The five of them parted ways one after another on the road, each returning home.
Kushina and Katsuki ate outside before leisurely heading home. There, they found a Senju Clan servant waiting at the door. He had been sent by Tsunade to deliver supplies: two sets of black combat uniforms, knee pads, and elbow pads. Since they were not yet ninja, they did not have forehead protectors, but an exception had been made this time and they had been issued some, albeit only temporarily.
When they opened the Ninja Tool Bags, they found them packed with Shuriken, kunai, Explosive Tags, Flash Bombs, and more. Everything was complete. If the siblings had needed to prepare these things themselves, it would have taken quite some effort. Now that ready-made supplies had been delivered right to their door, it saved them a great deal of trouble.
When they got home, it was not yet dark. But after the siblings bathed and set their alarms, they each returned to their rooms to rest. Their nerves had been taut for an entire week; now they could finally get a proper night's sleep.
The alarm rang, and only then did Katsuki struggle out of bed. He pulled open the curtains. Dawn was just beginning to break...
Training Ground 19.
As the name implied, it was the nineteenth training ground built by Konoha. Since the village's founding, it had continuously expanded outward with the Hokage Building at its core. The number of ninja had also increased year by year. To meet the training needs of the huge ninja population, training grounds had been built one after another. Especially when the number of civilian ninja surged, the demand for training grounds became even greater.
Training Ground 19 was one of the earlier training grounds. Before dawn had fully broken, figures of all heights were already entering it.
Kushina and Katsuki were fully equipped, forehead protectors tied around their brows and Ninja Tool Bags hanging from their waists. Kushina had tied up her hair, and her red ponytail swayed back and forth like a brilliant streak of scenery. The moment she appeared at the edge of the training ground, she drew countless gazes.
One blond youth in particular hurried over to greet the siblings.
"Minato, who are these people?" Katsuki narrowed his eyes slightly. More than twenty people had already arrived at the training ground, most of them teenagers around fourteen or fifteen.
"The main force for this mission. They're all genin." Minato shrugged. "The few of us are probably just extras for this mission."
Fair enough!
Katsuki smacked his lips. That was true. Sending a group of students like them to the battlefield was already absurd enough. If they were also assigned a task like transporting supplies, then Konoha's higher-ups could only be said to have collectively lost their minds.
"But it's almost time. Why haven't Otoha and Otome arrived yet?"
Before you continue