My Shadow, Your Regret

Qianyu returned to his little cabin after school, unable to shake the thoughts in his mind.

"Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju's... cell creation?" He raised a hand and looked at his palm.

His skin was smooth, with nothing unusual visible. Yet the two warm currents intertwined within his body, along with the tomoe in his eyes, all corroborated White Zetsu's absurd claim.

"Hashirama... does that mean..."

Wood Release.

The legendary bloodline limit that had belonged to the First Hokage, who had pacified an age of war.

He immediately sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and sank into inner perception once more. This time, he did not try to blend the two energies. Instead, he focused on sensing that dense, warm chakra brimming with vitality. Like mild sunlight, it permeated every part of his body.

"Wood Release... requires the combination of water and earth chakra nature transformations with Yang Release..." Vague settings from his previous life surfaced in his mind. He did not understand the actual principles and could only go by instinct.

He tried to use his thoughts to guide that warm chakra, cautiously directing it toward his right palm.

In his mind, he desperately imagined a sapling, sprouting, growing, breaking through the soil...

Second by second, time passed. Aside from a slight warmth in his palm, nothing happened.

Still unwilling to give up, he changed his approach and imagined tangled roots and winding vines...

Another half hour passed. Not even a speck of green emerged from his palm.

"Could it be that my posture is wrong?" Qianyu switched hand seals—though he only knew the most basic Ram-Snake-Dog sequence, and had only just learned it.

Again.

Qianyu struggled for most of the night. Other than turning slightly red from excessive chakra concentration, his palm had not produced even the shadow of a leaf. Just as exhaustion made stars dance before his eyes and he was about to give up, beginning to suspect that White Zetsu had made up a story to fool a child—

The floor before him rippled like water. A twisted white head silently poked out, its beady eyes staring at him curiously.

"Little Dried Fish," the twisted White Zetsu tilted its head. "Why are you fighting with the floor instead of sleeping in the middle of the night? It's not like the floor is going to grow gold."

Startled, Qianyu lowered his hand irritably. "I'm trying to... well, seeing if I can use something special." He did not explicitly mention Wood Release. It was far too sensitive.

"Something special?" White Zetsu blinked. It sensed the exceedingly faint residual fluctuations of Yang Release chakra in the air, then looked at Qianyu's unwilling expression and suddenly understood. "Oh—you want to play with wood!"

"...Play with wood?" Qianyu's mouth twitched. Why did that sound so awkward?

"Yeah. Whenever old man Madara fought Hashirama, there was wood everywhere, growing all over the place." White Zetsu gestured, twisting its body into a strange shape. "You want to learn that? You should've said so!"

Qianyu's eyes lit up. "You know how? Can you teach me?"

"I know how, but I don't know how to teach. When I want to use it, I just use it." White Zetsu stretched out a hand and made a little tree.

Qianyu was instantly speechless.

"But old man Madara knows! There are tons of messy scrolls in his hideout. He collected some in the past, researched some himself, and took others from other people. There's definitely stuff in there about how to play with wood!"

Qianyu's heart raced. "Those scrolls... where are they now?"

"Buried near that old cave, I guess. Before old man Madara died, he told me to sort them out, said they might come in handy someday... though he probably never expected them to be used by you." White Zetsu scratched its head. "Want to see them? Should I go back and bring some over?"

"Now? Can you do that?" Qianyu was both eager and worried. Madara's hideout sounded dangerous.

"No problem! Wait here!" White Zetsu acted the instant it spoke, shrinking its whole body back underground and vanishing without a trace.

The next day, at the Ninja Academy.

With dark circles under his eyes, Qianyu forced himself to stay alert as he entered the classroom. That bastard White Zetsu had made him wait all night!

Naruto greeted him with boundless energy. Shikamaru glanced at him, seemingly noticing that he was not in good spirits, but said nothing.

The first lesson was theory. Iruka handed out brand-new textbooks—Will of Fire: Beginner's Reader.

Qianyu opened the book and looked at those familiar lines. "Where leaves dance, fire also burns without end... The firelight shall..."

The more Qianyu read, the colder his back felt.

"The Will of Fire?" His fingertip brushed over the words "pillars" on the page, and he sneered inwardly. "Why does it feel like... every line in this textbook is filled with the words 'eating people'?"

Especially when he saw the kindly portrait of the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, on the title page, labeled "The Strongest Hokage of All Generations," Qianyu could not stop the corner of his mouth from twitching.

Strongest Hokage? You expect a six-year-old to believe that? More like the Hokage who served the longest.

He shook his head and suppressed those treasonous thoughts. For now, he was merely Cangshu Qianyu, a gifted war orphan from the Konoha orphanage.

The Will of Fire? Of course he had to learn it—and learn it more diligently than anyone else.

While Qianyu stared at the textbook and let his thoughts wander, beneath Konoha, in the Root base.

Danzo Shimura sat alone in a dim room, a compiled file on this year's new Ninja Academy students spread before him. His lone eye was hawklike as it slowly scanned page after page, assessing the potential value behind each name, as well as... the threat.

When his gaze fell on the page for "Cangshu Qianyu," especially the attached photo from the entrance examination, his intact eye suddenly narrowed, and the fingers gripping the document tightened sharply.

The child in the photograph had black hair tied back and clearly defined lines along his profile. But none of that was important. What mattered was the shape of that face, that air about him...

For an instant, Danzo's breathing stopped.

Similar.

Far too similar.

Similar to that man who had long been buried by the ages, yet remained branded in Danzo's memory like a nightmare!

Though he only had the appearance of a child, that bone structure, that faint sense of detachment between his brows... there was no mistaking it! He would never mistake it!

"Uchiha... Madara?" Danzo murmured the taboo name, a flicker of surprise, vigilance, and barely restrained excitement flashing through his one eye.

A child who looked strikingly like Madara Uchiha had appeared in the same year as the Nine-Tails' attack. His parents were a mystery, and he had been classified as a war orphan... This could not possibly be a coincidence!

"Hiruzen..." Danzo snorted coldly. He pulled out Qianyu's file, rose with the aid of his cane, and walked toward the door with slow yet resolute steps. "You really have gone senile. Are you turning a blind eye to such an obvious anomaly? Or do you... have other plans?"

Hokage Building, office.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was smoking his pipe as he dealt with paperwork. A knock sounded at the door, but before he could respond, Danzo had already pushed it open and entered, his face dark as water.

"Danzo, what is it?" Hiruzen Sarutobi frowned and set down his pipe.

Danzo slapped Qianyu's file onto the Hokage's desk and jabbed a finger heavily at the photograph. "Hiruzen, this child—Cangshu Qianyu. Have you noticed him?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi's gaze swept over the photograph. His eyes shifted slightly behind the smoke, but his tone remained calm. "Yes. A child who enrolled this year, a war orphan. His physical aptitude is outstanding; he has potential. What about him?"

"Potential?" Danzo sneered, his one eye fixed on the Third Hokage. "Look at his face carefully! Hiruzen! Don't tell me you can't see who he resembles!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi fell silent for a moment, then slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke. "The world is vast. It is not unheard of for people to look alike. He is only a six-year-old child, Danzo."

"A six-year-old child?" Danzo's voice rose, carrying suppressed anger and suspicion. "He appeared out of nowhere on the night of the Nine-Tails' attack. His origins are unknown, and he looks remarkably like Madara Uchiha!

Hiruzen, you expect me to believe this is a coincidence? There must be a conspiracy behind it! He could be one of those Uchiha born evil, or a pawn planted by some other force! He must be handed over to Root for a thorough investigation! His body, his bloodline, all of it must..."

"Danzo!" Hiruzen Sarutobi cut him off, his voice carrying unquestionable authority. "He is a registered orphan of Konoha, a child about to enter the Ninja Academy. Before there is conclusive evidence, he is a resident of Konoha, protected by the Hokage and the village. I will not allow you to subject him to this so-called thorough investigation."

"Protected?" Danzo sounded as if he had heard a joke. "Hiruzen, your naivety will destroy Konoha sooner or later! This child himself is the greatest uncertainty! You are playing with fire!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi rose to his feet, his gaze blazing.

"How village affairs are handled is for me to decide. As for Cangshu Qianyu—and every child in the Academy—not the slightest mistake can be allowed, including the jinchuriki. I hope you, and your Root, understand that."

Their gazes collided in the air, neither willing to yield. The atmosphere in the office grew so heavy it seemed ready to drip.

"I am the Hokage, Danzo."

That again! If only he had not been half a step too slow back then.

After a long while, Danzo snorted heavily, snatched the file back from the desk, and turned toward the door.

"Hiruzen," he said before pulling it open. He stopped without looking back, his voice cold. "You will regret this."

With that, he slammed the door behind him. The heavy door boomed with a BANG, echoing through the corridor.

Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly sat back down, picked up his pipe again, and took a deep draw. Through the curling smoke, his gaze turned once more toward the Ninja Academy outside the window, his expression impossible to read.