The morning mist had yet to fully disperse, and the Hidden Leaf Village was still shrouded in a thin layer of damp air. Uchiha Sou led five young shinobi from his clan through the slowly awakening streets toward the planned site of Training Ground 3. The young people still wore traces of wonder and excitement at their newly built home on their faces. They walked briskly, quietly chatting about training in new jutsu or the dishes the cafeteria had introduced the night before.
Sou walked silently at the front, but his senses spread over the surroundings like an invisible web. He could "hear" all kinds of morning sounds: the creak of vendors setting up their stalls, the gentle voice of a mother calling her child to breakfast, the rhythmic hammering coming from Kage Rock in the distance... The symphony of "everyday life" woven from it all was still an unfamiliar melody he had to get used to.
As Madara's nephew, he had endured more of the Warring States Period's brutality than his peers, and felt the pain of losing loved ones more deeply. The sight of Uncle Izuna falling beneath Tobirama Senju's blade was like a wound that would never heal, branded deep in his soul. He wrapped that hatred in layer upon layer of cold reason, turning it into an almost fastidious ability to observe and discern. He regarded this newborn Konoha with a measure of detached caution, as though appraising a beautiful but potentially fragile work of art.
They soon arrived at Training Ground 3. Before they even got close, they could hear the dense clatter of Kunai striking targets and the muffled booms of Fire Release Ninjutsu. A faint smell of scorching hung in the air.
Inside the training ground, seven or eight shinobi dressed in brown