Chakra in the Darkness

Late at night, Hidden Leaf Village.

The orphanage's kerosene lamps had gone out two hours ago, and the entire building lay submerged in thick darkness. After making one final round of inspections and confirming that every child was obediently tucked into bed, the matron yawned and returned to her room. Her footsteps faded at the end of the corridor, followed by the creak of turning hinges. Then there was nothing more—her sleep had always been excellent. The moment her head hit the pillow, she was out; not even thunder could wake her.

Another forty minutes passed.

Little Fatty started grinding his teeth. Steady breathing came from the neighboring room, occasionally mixed with a few muffled words of sleep-talk. The moon had climbed to the center of the sky, silvery light leaking through a hole in the window and painting a bright patch across the floor. The night wind passed through the old pagoda tree in the yard, making its leaves rustle briefly before all fell quiet again.

Senju Shinichi opened his eyes.

It was not the bleary-eyed opening of someone who had just woken up. It was the look of someone who had never slept at all, someone who had been waiting the entire time. Alert, calm, his pupils faintly gleaming in the dark.

He quietly lifted the blanket and sat up. He had not taken off his clothes or shoes—he had never intended to sleep tonight. The blanket had only been there to fool the matron during her inspection. As a former internet corporate drone, he had thoroughly mastered the art of "pretending to work at his desk." In his previous life, he could leave an open document on his monitor, hold a mouse in his hand, and nap for twenty minutes with his eyes half-open. Passing supervisors never noticed a thing. Now, he had merely traded his workstation for an orphanage bed. The difficulty had actually gone down.

He got out of bed and tiptoed to the window.

Everything outside looked normal. Under the moonlight, Leaf Village was as quiet as a painting. The outlines of the three Hokage on Hokage Rock were barely visible in the distance, while one or two stray cats occasionally darted through the alleys. It could not have looked more ordinary.

But Shinichi knew something was wrong.

He could feel it.

A trace of chakra.

It was faint, weak, like the smell of smoke drifting over from a great distance. Ordinary people would never notice it. Even genin-level ninja would probably only think, "The wind feels a little off tonight." But Shinichi had noticed. Half an hour ago, the system's bloodline-sensing function had given him a warning—not through that cold synthetic voice, but through a subtler sensation: a faint prickling over his skin, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, as though his sixth sense were sounding an alarm.

Outside the village. Southeast. About one kilometer away.

He closed his eyes and focused for several seconds, then translated the sensing results in his mind into something more straightforward: ninja were active out there. Not one or two, but a squad. Their chakra signatures leaned toward ANBU style, but colder and more sinister.

"Root," Shinichi murmured.

His tone was mild when he said those two words, as though he were merely saying, "Dinner is porridge again." Yet after speaking, he fell silent in the darkness for three seconds, the corner of his mouth curving into a smile only he understood.

Konoha nights had already turned chilly by early autumn. He carefully opened the wardrobe and pulled out an old dark-gray coat from the very bottom, slipping it on. He had worn it last winter, and it was a little too large now, with sleeves long enough to hide his fingers. He found a dark towel and wrapped it around his neck, not for warmth, but so he could pull it up as a makeshift mask if necessary.

He glanced at himself in the mirror.

Yeah. Ridiculous. No matter how he dressed, a six-year-old could not become an elite ANBU operative.

Then again, who would guard against a six-year-old child?

Time to go.

He went downstairs, avoiding the third step that creaked—he had lived in this orphanage for six years and knew every loose floorboard in the building. In his previous life, he had known every step from his bedroom to the bathroom in his rented apartment, which floor tile was loose, and at what angle the refrigerator door would hit the wall. He could have navigated it with his eyes closed. Now he had merely changed buildings. His instincts were the same.

The kitchen's back window was unlocked.

It was an open secret in the orphanage. The matron knew the window would not lock, but she never worried that anyone would climb in to steal anything—there was nothing valuable in an orphanage except the kitchen's jar of pickled vegetables, and who would steal that?

Shinichi pushed open the window, climbed out, and landed soundlessly on the damp earth of the backyard. He turned back and left the window slightly ajar, just as it had been.

Off he went.

Leaf Village at night was not as pitch-black as people imagined. Streetlamps stood at intervals along the corners, casting warm yellow light. Occasionally, villagers returning late emerged from izakayas and staggered home, humming off-key enka tunes. Everything was peaceful and tranquil.

Shinichi did not take the main roads, choosing only narrow alleys. Konoha was as familiar to him as his own backyard. He had watched over a thousand episodes on a screen in his previous life. Every street, every corner, every shop—he could even draw a fully annotated 3D map in his head. He knew which alleys had stray cats, which corners were easy for patrols to spot, and which routes led fastest toward the southeastern edge of the village.

After walking for roughly fifteen minutes, he stopped.

He had reached the edge of the village. The wall ahead was not high, perhaps three meters. Beyond it lay the forest outside the village. Konoha was an open village—the strongest fighting force in the ninja world was here, so the village itself did not have strict high-wall defenses. But there were patrols. Every fifteen minutes, a two-man squad passed along this road without fail.

Shinichi crouched in the shadow by the wall and waited for two minutes.

The patrol appeared right on schedule. Two chunin, one in front and one behind, walked at an unhurried pace, seemingly discussing what to eat tomorrow. Once they had gone far enough, Shinichi silently counted to five, stood, jogged, and jumped. Climbing a three-meter wall with a six-year-old's body required some skill—he planted a foot in a depression in the wall for leverage, grabbed the top, pulled himself up, and landed without a sound.

From the orphanage to the forest outside the village, total time: eighteen minutes.

Once inside the forest, the chakra sensation became clearer.

Shinichi slowed down. This was already beyond the village patrols' range, and he could run into Root operatives at any moment. He made his footsteps light, his breathing shallow. Once his eyes adapted to the darkness beneath the trees, the mottled moonlight filtering through the leaves was enough for him to see his surroundings. He had come to this forest many times during the day and knew it well.

He walked for another ten minutes or so.

Then he smelled blood.

It was faint, but unmistakable. Not animal blood—human blood. He had only smelled it once in his previous life: a worker had fallen from a steel frame at a construction site next to his company, and Shinichi had happened to pass by. That cloying, metallic scent had lingered in his nostrils for days. Now, mixed with the smell of fallen leaves and soil in the forest, only a trace remained after the night wind scattered it.

Shinichi's heart skipped a beat.

Then beat again.

Then returned to normal.

His first instinct was to retreat. A six-year-old child with no combat experience facing a group of Root ninja transporting casualties—the smartest choice was to turn around and run.

But at that moment, the system's sensing suddenly became extraordinarily clear. Among those chakra signatures was one bearing Konoha's distinctive Wood-element fluctuation. Not ordinary Wood Release—it was a Wood Release fluctuation that had already developed into a bloodline limit.

The First Hokage's cells.

Shinichi drew in a deep breath.

Then let it out.

"Since I'm already here," he whispered.

Those four words had led him down so many pointless paths, made him spend so much pointless money, and caused him to take so many photos that had not been worth taking during sightseeing trips in his previous life. Every time, it had been those four words. Every time, he had sworn he would never fall for it again. Yet now, when they came from his mouth, they carried the warmth of meeting an old friend in a foreign land.

He lowered his body and used the bushes for cover, creeping forward bit by bit. Every few steps, he stopped and listened to the sounds in the wind. He had not learned this from anyone; it was experience accumulated from playing hide-and-seek since childhood. Combined with the almost instinctive vigilance he had developed while secretly slacking off at work in his previous life, he could distinguish a supervisor's footsteps through three floors.

A faint firelight appeared ahead.

It was a clearing in the forest.

Three carts stood in the center of the clearing, each carrying a rectangular wooden box that looked like a coffin from afar. Six people in black cloaks stood around the carts, wearing animal masks—the standard attire of Root.

Someone else lay on the ground.

Not one of Root. They were tied up, gagged, and covered in several wounds that were still bleeding. Gray hair, face buried in the mud and impossible to see clearly. Yet even from dozens of meters away, Shinichi could still sense that Wood Release chakra, faint but tenacious, emanating from that person like a guttering candle in the wind.

Shinichi crouched in the bushes without moving.

Distance: roughly thirty meters. Six Root operatives, one unidentified Wood Release test subject, and three boxes on the carts that were clearly not empty. Several different chakra fluctuations emanated from inside the boxes. Some were very faint, while others were nearly gone completely. Dying, or newly dead.

He quickly ran a simple calculation through his mind. Of the six, three were guarding beside the carts, one was checking the wounded person's condition, and two stood watch in the darkness at the edge of the forest. Even the most ordinary Root chunin was not someone he could handle right now. Charging in would be suicide.

But not charging in did not mean he could do nothing.

He examined the terrain. There was a dense bamboo grove in the southwest corner of the clearing. Whenever the wind blew, it rustled loudly, creating a natural sound barrier. The Root operatives clearly were not overly concerned about exposing their whereabouts—this was far from the village, and it was the middle of the night. The odds of discovery were low. They were relaxed. That gave Shinichi an opening. Not for a direct fight, but for some small maneuver.

He crouched in the bushes for about five minutes before an opportunity appeared.

One of the three guards by the carts left the group and headed into the woods, apparently to relieve himself. He happened to be heading toward the area where Shinichi was hiding. After walking about twenty meters, he stopped with his back to Shinichi and began unfastening his belt.

Shinichi watched the man's back.

An idea formed in his mind.

Not killing. Stealing.

One of the boxes on the three carts had a corner that had been jostled loose during transport. The nearest box was not completely locked. He had only confirmed this after observing for a long time. If he slipped over while they were distracted, then with the weight of a six-year-old child, it should theoretically be possible to take some small item from the half-open box.

He picked up a stone from the ground and weighed it in his hand. Slightly heavy. Suitable. He gripped it tightly.

He drew a deep breath, then threw it hard. The stone traced an arc through the air and struck the bushes roughly five meters behind the man relieving himself, producing a distinct dull thud.

The man spun around. "Who's there?"

Everyone in the clearing looked in that direction at once. In an instant, all the chakra fluctuations on alert turned toward the source of the noise.

By then, Shinichi had already slipped to the side of the cart from the other direction.

The raised corner of the box was right before his eyes. Five fingers were enough. He slipped his fingers through the gap and touched the first item—a narrow-mouthed bottle filled with some kind of liquid that sloshed faintly when shaken. Not that. He reached farther in—something heavy and cool, apparently a scroll. He hooked the edge and slowly pulled it out.

The scroll came free. He held it between his teeth and continued feeling around with his hand. The scroll did not emit any chakra fluctuations, making it convenient to carry without being tracked. At the very least, he could study it after returning.

One of the Root members beside him glanced toward the cart.

Shinichi pressed his entire body against the side of the box and held his breath. Being six years old had one advantage—so long as he did not stand in direct firelight, crouching in the shadows made him nothing more than a dark shape, barely different from a rock.

The Root member's gaze swept past the cart. Finding nothing unusual, he turned away again.

Shinichi waited several seconds, tucked the scroll into his clothes, lowered himself, and began backing away. One step, two steps, three steps. When he reached the edge of the bamboo grove, he turned and slipped inside, vanishing into the darkness.

From infiltration to escape, he had not used any ninjutsu, fought anyone directly, or even allowed anyone to see him. It did not count as a battle. Yet when he reached a safe distance and began running back, an inexplicable delight still rose within him.

It was not the thrill of playing the hero and saving a beauty, nor the exhilaration of killing an enemy.

It was the survivor's joy of successfully slacking off right under the boss's nose—when he came over to check on you, you perfectly switched back to the work screen, he patted your shoulder and said, "Good work," while your phone under the desk had just finished an episode of anime.

Shinichi crossed the forest, climbed over the wall, bypassed the patrol, and returned to the orphanage's back window. He pushed open the ajar window and climbed inside, skipping the third stair as he went upstairs. He took off his coat and stuffed it back at the bottom of the wardrobe, hid the scroll under his pillow, then lay flat, pulled up the blanket, and closed his eyes.

The entire sequence flowed smoothly, taking less than fifteen minutes.

Only after lying down did his heartbeat begin to speed up. It was not fear, but the delayed effect of adrenaline. His hands trembled a little and his legs felt weak. The nerves he had kept taut suddenly relaxed, leaving his whole body feeling as though it had fallen apart.

But the corners of his mouth were raised.

Because his pillow weighed differently than it had before he went to sleep. The stolen scroll lay beneath his head, hard and uncomfortable. He had not had time to see what was written inside, but simply having stolen it back was enough to ensure he slept well tonight.

Outside the window, the moon climbed a little higher.

A faint disturbance came from the distant forest—probably because the Root operative who had gone to relieve himself had returned and discovered that something had been touched. But it did not matter. By the time they reacted, Shinichi had already finished a full set of eye exercises and was ready to sleep.

Shinichi turned over, buried his face in the pillow with the hole in it, and let out a muffled laugh.

Seriously.

The first step to becoming a ninja was not that hard after all.

His neck might be stiff when he woke up tomorrow, though. After all, there was now a fist-sized scroll beneath his pillow.

Forget it.

He would deal with it tomorrow.