The End of the Death Forest

The day after the self-healing ability test ended, Shinichi should have stayed obediently at the orphanage and waited for school to start.

That had indeed been his plan—help the matron clean the backyard in the morning, meet Naruto Uzumaki at Ichiraku Ramen in the afternoon, and organize his insights from Shadow Clone training into notes. The plan was sensible, the schedule well arranged, and he had even set aside time for a nap after lunch. But while washing dishes after breakfast, his right palm suddenly twitched. It was not a cramp. The seed of Slug Sage Art chakra in his dantian had gently trembled, like a pebble dropped into a still lake, sending ripples spreading outward. Then he sensed a faint resonance—from deep within the Death Forest. Separated by dozens of kilometers, it was as weak as a spider thread stirred by the wind, yet its direction was unmistakable. It came from deeper within the underground cavern where he had encountered the slug fragment.

Shinichi dried the last bowl and put it into the cupboard, then wiped his hands. He stood there thinking for about five seconds before heading to the storage room for his backpack. Plans existed to be disrupted by accidents.

This time, he did not bring Naruto Uzumaki. It was not that he did not trust him; the place he was going today was simply not suited for two people. Even chunin did not dare enter the Death Forest's core area casually—he had looked through Konoha's mission records at the library. Over the past decade, thirteen reconnaissance missions had been documented. Seven had ended with "attacked by unidentified creatures, team members severely injured," four were marked "unable to proceed deeper," and only two had successfully reached the edge of the core area. The leaders of those two teams had been Jiraiya and Minato Namikaze. His current strength was roughly that of an experienced chunin. With his Sage Body and Two-Tomoe Sharingan, he could barely touch the threshold of a special jonin. He was not leaving Naruto Uzumaki behind to protect him. He simply did not want to be distracted.

As he crossed the expanse of silvery-white moss alone, the old centipede in the cavern was still asleep. Hearing his footsteps, one pair of compound eyes opened to a slit and glanced at him. Recognizing the child who had nailed it to the ground with Wood Release last time, it silently drew the coiled front half of its body back half a meter to clear a path. Shinichi nodded in greeting. As he passed the centipede, he casually patted one of its armored plates, and those compound eyes slowly closed again. Beyond the ancient tree where the slug fragment lived, the moss gradually thinned, replaced by dark-red vines creeping along the ground. Their stems were as thick as thumbs, their surfaces covered in tiny barbs. The farther he went, the denser the vines became, until the ground itself was no longer visible and he could only step through the gaps between them. These vines did not seem naturally grown. They resembled some kind of defensive plant barrier. There were faint traces of dried slime on the tips of the barbs. They might once have been poisonous.

After walking for nearly another two hours, the vines abruptly vanished. As if blocked by an invisible boundary, every vine ended sharply outside a perfectly straight line. Within it lay bare rock. Shinichi crouched and touched the ground—it was not natural stone. Its surface was too smooth, smooth to a degree that did not exist in nature. The rock was coated in a thin grayish-white glaze, and faint melt marks could be seen around its edges.

He rose and walked farther ahead, where the view suddenly opened up. It was a building. Not a Konoha-style wooden structure—massive square stone pillars supported the entire edifice, their surfaces carved with dense patterns that vaguely outlined leaves and vines beneath the glow of fluorescent moss. The entrance was an arched stone gate. A black stone tablet was embedded in its lintel, but erosion had rendered the full inscription illegible, leaving only fragments of its characters. Several had nearly worn away completely, but judging from the best-preserved portion at the end, one character had to be "Sen," while another retained strokes resembling "ju." The stone gate was tightly shut, its seams completely sealed by time. Yet there was a clear depression in the stone steps before it—a footprint. More than one, in fact. Judging by their depth, at least two people had stood here for long periods, leaving the depressions noticeably lower than the surrounding ground. One footprint was larger, belonging to an adult man; the other was smaller, like that of a woman or teenager.

Standing before the stone gate, Shinichi closed his eyes and expanded his chakra perception to its limit, probing deep through the seams. The stone gate was over half a meter thick, but the resonance of sage chakra clearly came from underground directly beneath the threshold. The frequency of that pulse perfectly matched both Senju Clan bloodline and Slug Sage Art chakra. It even caused the drop of sage chakra in his dantian to tremble faintly in response. The resonance was soft, like two tuning forks answering each other across a great distance.

He set down his backpack and pressed his palm against the stone gate, cautiously injecting a thread of Wood Release chakra. Green light spread from the point where his palm touched the stone, slowly flowing along the ancient carvings on the gate. He was certain this stone gate was no ordinary ruin entrance—it would only activate its resonance upon sensing Wood Release chakra or Senju Clan bloodline. If Danzo and Root had ever come here, they definitely could not have opened it. Yamato possessed the First Hokage's cells, but they had been transplanted later in life. His chakra frequency should not fully match that of a pure Senju Clan bloodline. The only people who could completely activate this resonance were probably himself, Tsunade, and Hashirama himself, long since dead.

But after examining it closely, he discovered that some kind of sealing formula was embedded within the stone gate, one he could not unravel with his current abilities. Its structure was complex and layered, with a chakra barrier around the outside to prevent brute-force destruction. It took him nearly a quarter of an hour just to complete a preliminary identification. Forcing his way in with his current strength was impossible. At the very least, he would have to wait until he could skillfully wield sage chakra, or unlock a higher form of the Sharingan. Still, he had confirmed that this ruin was a more uniquely important objective than the slug fragment. The seed of sage chakra in his possession was the key to opening it—it simply needed more sunlight and nourishment.

He put his backpack back on, took out a notebook from his pocket, and flipped to the last page to draw a simple map—from the drainage channel outside Leaf Village, past the distinctive old tree at the edge of the Death Forest, through an alternate route around the Giant-Mouthed Crocodile swamp, across the direction of the vine barrier, and finally to the precise location of this stone gate. After finishing, he added a note beside it: Senju Ruins location confirmed. Stone gate seal unresolved. Requires further maturation of sage chakra, or assistance from a higher form of the Sharingan to break the seal. Return another day.

He put away the notebook and turned to leave. By the time he passed through the vine barrier, the daylight had already dimmed considerably. Light was poor in the forest to begin with, and with the canopy overhead sealed tight, dusk was not much different from midnight. He quickened his pace. Passing the old centipede, he found that it was awake and eating moss. It ate very slowly, wriggling and chewing section by section. When it saw him approach, it raised one of its walking legs and waved it at him, though he could not tell whether it was saying goodbye or telling him to stay away from its moss patch.

Shinichi raised a hand and waved back, then continued walking out without looking back. By the time he crawled through the iron grate of the drainage channel, the sky was completely dark. Warm yellow kerosene lamplight shone from the orphanage's back window—the matron was still in the kitchen, and she had probably saved him dinner in the pot. Tonight's menu was most likely radish soup again. Radish soup held no surprises, but radish soup was hot.

Back in his room, he lay down on the hard wooden bed and opened his notebook, placing a star in the corner of the page titled "Senju Ruins." Then he flipped back several pages and wrote beside another unresolved memo: "The trigger for Sasuke's Sharingan awakening occurred during the Land of Waves mission in the original work. It may be possible to make contact and test the waters early." After writing that, he closed the notebook and shut his eyes.

(End of Chapter 28)