Silent Ripples

The sudden skirmish in the northwest was like a stone cast into a calm lake, stirring a small ripple within the Uchiha Clan, though it was quickly swallowed by larger waves of unrest.

When the news reached the clan grounds, Uchiha Sou was at the training field practicing the chakra shape transformation of his Fire Style.

"Did you hear? The Third Patrol Squad got into a scrap with the Hagoromo clan in the northwest last night!"

"The Hagoromo? They actually dared to make a move? What was the outcome?"

"Heh, we won, of course! We slaughtered seven or eight of them and took two captives, while we only suffered two minor injuries! It's all thanks to the Third Squad spotting them early—apparently, some kind of alarm bell was triggered by accident..."

At the edge of the training field, several clansmen resting nearby were discussing the event with excitement.

The flame in Uchiha Sou's hand flickered and nearly spiraled out of control. He forcibly stabilized his chakra and extinguished the fire, though his heart began to beat uncontrollably fast.

The northwest... an alarm bell triggered by accident... the Hagoromo Clan...

Putting these key fragments together, he felt a sense of absurdity mixed with dread.

It couldn't... be that much of a coincidence, could it?

He immediately shook his head, casting aside the unrealistic thought. How could it be? He had only thrown a shuriken in the training field. He must be overthinking it; there were far too many coincidences on the battlefield.

Yet, that subtle unease remained like a tiny splinter lodged in his heart.

When he saw Izuna that afternoon, he noticed that Izuna seemed to be in a good mood.

"Tsang, you've heard, haven't you? About the situation in the northwest," Izuna said while wiping down his blade.

"I... I have heard, Uncle Izuna," Uchiha Sou replied, feeling somewhat guilty.

"Well done." A cold, sharp arc appeared at the corner of Izuna's mouth. "Those fence-sitters of the Hagoromo clan finally couldn't resist getting cozy with the Senju. Perfect. Now that we have a pretext, Big Brother has decided to use them to make an example."

Make an example? Uchiha Sou's heart skipped a beat. "Are we going to move against the Hagoromo Clan?"

"Not just move against them." A cold glint flashed in Izuna's eyes. "If we strike, we must hurt them so thoroughly that they never dare to harbor two hearts again! Kill the chicken to scare the monkey, and let the other small clans who are still watching from the sidelines see clearly the price of betraying the Uchiha!"

His tone was filled with lethal intent and confidence, as if the Hagoromo Clan were already within his grasp.

Watching Izuna like this, the words to warn him to "beware of Tobirama Senju" caught in Uchiha Sou's throat once more. The current atmosphere did not allow for anything that could be interpreted as cowardice or boosting the enemy's morale.

He could only lower his head. "Yes."

"Alright, don't dwell on it." Izuna sheathed his sword and patted him on the shoulder. "Your task is to keep getting stronger. You'll be coming with me for the operation in a few days."

"I'm going too?" Uchiha Sou was startled.

"Of course." Izuna looked at him with a meaningful gaze. "Only by seeing blood can one truly grow. You won't become a pillar of the Uchiha by staying in a greenhouse."

In the following days, the atmosphere within the clan became noticeably more grim and tense. More ninjas were mobilized, and the requisitioning of supplies became more frequent. A sense of impending storm hung over the clan grounds.

Uchiha Sou trained even more desperately. He knew that a real battle was completely different from the patrol and reconnaissance missions he had done before; it was a life-or-death struggle. He did not want to die, so he had to become stronger.

At the same time, he secretly paid closer attention to intelligence regarding the Hagoromo and Senju clans. He tried to piece together more details from the discussions of his clansmen and scattered bits of information.

He vaguely heard that Tobirama Senju had been appearing frequently in areas near the Hagoromo clan's border lately.

This news made the unease in his heart grow even stronger.

He tried once again to recall details from the original story, but aside from the outcome that "Izuna died at the hands of Tobirama Senju," the process remained a blur.

With no other choice, he returned to the corner of the training field.

He needed to verify—or perhaps, he needed a bit of psychological comfort.

He picked up a shuriken again, focused his mind, and recalled the feeling from that night—that subtle state of attempting to attach "intent" to the object and setting a "cause."

His target this time was simpler: to have the shuriken strike a small, lightly swaying bell hanging thirty meters away.

He took a deep breath, his single-tomoe Sharingan slowly rotating, and poured his heart and soul into that strange perception and "setting." He could feel his eyes heating up slightly, his mental energy slowly draining away.

Whoosh!

The shuriken flew out.

Its trajectory seemed to carry a peculiar rhythm, skillfully cutting through the interference of the evening breeze and precisely predicting the rhythm of the bell's sway.

Clang!

A crisp sound rang out.

The tip of the shuriken had grazed the edge of the bell at just the right moment, producing the sound.

Did it work?!

Uchiha Sou felt a surge of joy, but he immediately calmed himself. This might just be the result of his grueling shuriken practice and the observational power of his Sharingan; it was not necessarily the effect of that mysterious ability.

He tried it several more times; sometimes he hit, sometimes he missed by a hair. The success rate seemed unstable, and the fatigue in his eyes increased significantly after every attempt.

"It seems... I need more practice and... stronger ocular power?" He rubbed his throbbing temples, pondering to himself.

This ability seemed extremely weak and difficult to control, more like a minute deflection of probability rather than absolute mastery.

Could it really influence events as far away as the border? Uchiha Sou remained deeply skeptical.

A few days later, the order for the operation was finally issued.

Led personally by Uchiha Izuna, an elite team was drawn from the clan, targeting an important supply transit point of the Hagoromo clan. As a member of the squad, Uchiha Sou dressed in full gear, strapped on his ninja tool pouch, and stood among the assembled ranks.

Uchiha Madara came in person to see them off.

He looked at Izuna and said indifferently, "Finish this quickly."

Izuna smiled confidently, "Don't worry, Brother. Wait for my good news."

Madara's gaze swept across the team, pausing briefly on Uchiha Sou before he gave a slight nod without saying a word.

"Move out!"

At Izuna's command, dozens of figures merged into the night like ghosts, soundlessly sprinting toward the border.

Uchiha Sou followed within the ranks, feeling the wind whistling past his ears as his heart hammered with a mix of tension and anticipation.

This was his first time participating in an offensive mission of this scale.

He did not know what awaited him ahead.

He knew even less whether the butterfly wings he had inadvertently flapped had already triggered an even more unknown storm on this timeline.

He only knew that he had to survive.

Far ahead, the Hagoromo Clan's stronghold seemed oblivious to all this, remaining silent in the night.

Yet, in the deeper darkness further away, an elite squad led by Tobirama Senju was quietly altering its original patrol route based on intelligence about the Uchiha's potential path—intelligence that had been "accidentally" intercepted (or perhaps, deliberately guided to be intercepted?). They were advancing rapidly toward a predetermined ambush point.

The night deepened.

Invisible threads of causality seemed to weave together under the cover of darkness, pulling everyone toward that destined, yet perhaps already quietly diverted, conclusion.