The Test Subject in the Forest

Senju Shinichi trained in the backyard for three days.

For three full days, aside from eating and sleeping, he spent every other moment in front of the old locust tree in the backyard. He drilled the muscle memory of throwing shuriken until it became smoother and smoother, retreating from the three-meter line to the five-meter line, then from five meters to eight. In the end, he stood by the backyard wall—roughly ten meters away. His target was a charcoal circle drawn on the trunk, barely larger than an adult's fist.

On the evening of the third day, all ten consecutive throws hit the circle.

A one hundred percent hit rate.

He spun the kunai in his hand and slipped it back into the cloth sheath he had sewn himself at his waist, then brushed the dust from his hands. Little Flower, who had been watching beside him, no longer knew what to say. She had started clapping when he landed his fifth consecutive hit, and by the tenth, her hands were red. She looked at him like he was a hero who had just returned from the circus.

"Shinichi, are you going to become a ninja someday?"

"Yeah." He bent down to pick up the practice shuriken from the ground and wiped the dirt off them with his sleeve.

"Then are you going to become Hokage?"

"No." Shinichi put the shuriken away in his cloth bag, his tone casual. "Someone's already doing that."

Little Flower tilted her head, clearly not understanding.

Shinichi had no intention of explaining. He looked up at the sky—the sun was sinking behind Hokage Rock, and the stone faces of the three Hokage were coated in gold by the evening glow. At this hour, the children were all waiting for dinner in the front yard. Only he and Little Flower remained in the backyard. He tucked the cloth bag under his arm, rubbed Little Flower's head, and said, "Come on. Time to eat."

Dinner was, as usual, thin porridge and pickled vegetables. Shinichi ate two bowls, but he did not gorge himself like he had over the past few days—the body had returned to normal, so he no longer needed extra energy. After dinner, he helped the matron wash the dishes and voluntarily swept the kitchen floor. The matron watched him for a long time without saying anything. When he left, she simply slipped a boiled egg into his pocket.

The egg was still warm.

Shinichi touched his pocket and smiled.

Three days had passed.

After the rejection symptoms faded, his body had fully adapted to Wind-nature chakra. The words "Current Status: Stable" had remained on the system panel for days, like the stamp a nurse placed on the last page of a hospital record when discharging a patient—you can get out now, and don't come back.

But Shinichi knew that he had to go back tonight.

Not back to the hospital. Back to that forest.

The white smoke bombs were ready. They were not anything particularly advanced—he had found the formula in the library's copy of Ninja Tools Basics: saltpeter powder, sulfur, and dried grass ash, mixed in the proper proportions and wrapped tightly in paper, with oil-soaked hemp rope for the fuse. The materials could be bought from the village general store, cheap enough that the owner could not be bothered to ask what he wanted them for. A six-year-old buying saltpeter powder did not even make the owner lift an eyelid. He probably assumed it was fertilizer.

He wrapped the three completed white smoke bombs in oil paper and tucked them into his shirt. Then he tied a kunai to his right thigh and concealed it beneath his pant leg. He would not eat the egg yet; he hid it beneath his pillow as a midnight snack for when he returned.

Late at night.

The moon was brighter than it had been in recent days, which was not a good sign. Dark, windy nights were good for sneaking around; bright moons and sparse stars were good for getting spotted. But Shinichi did not have time to wait for the next cloudy day. The transport team mentioned in the scroll would pass through the same forest tonight—information he had pieced together from the memory fragments of that Root chunin. Devouring had not only given him skills; it had also left behind scattered fragments of memory. They were incomplete, but enough to piece things together.

Incidentally, it was from those memory fragments that he learned the name of the Root chunin he had tricked—Feng Jian. An ordinary name, an ordinary ninja, assigned by Danzo to do the least ordinary kind of dirty work. The fragments also held an image of Feng Jian's first kill, his hands shaking even worse than Shinichi's had while practicing shuriken. There was also a memory of Feng Jian giving his only chicken drumstick to a teammate in the Root cafeteria.

Shinichi did not like those memories.

Not because they disgusted him, but because they made the word "enemy" less clean and straightforward. Feng Jian was not a symbol. He was someone whose hands shook, someone who gave away chicken drumsticks. And what Shinichi was doing was, in essence, not much different from Root—catching people off guard, striking from behind, treating people as resources.

He crouched in the shadows of an alley, chewing over that thought again and again before rising to his feet.

Keep moving.

He did not intend to become a second Danzo. But neither did he intend to become some saint who did nothing. He would decide for himself how to walk this path. At least tonight, he was not going to kill anyone—he was going to save someone. Consider it paying back a little of the debt from before.

He climbed over the wall, crossed the woods, and followed the same route southeast. The forest was quiet. Occasionally, night birds flapped their wings, while the sound of a stream flowed somewhere in the distance. Moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled patches of light and shadow across the ground. The air smelled of pine resin and earth, and somehow, it was reassuring.

He stopped on a patch of high ground, lying behind a moss-covered rock as he looked down. The forest path below was the route Root's transport team had taken last time. He waited for around fifteen minutes before the transport team appeared. This time, there was only one cart and two guards. A wooden crate sat on the cart, identical to the three from last time. The chakra fluctuation was clearer than before—because his senses had grown stronger. The addition of Wind-nature chakra had expanded his chakra perception range considerably, like a phone signal going from two bars to three.

The person inside the crate was Kinoe.

Shinichi could sense that Wood Release chakra, weak but still pulsing. He was alive.

Two guards. One in front and one behind. The one in front was responsible for scouting the way, while the one behind pushed the cart. Both wore masks, though different ones—the front guard wore a fox mask, the rear guard a cat mask. The cat-masked guard was pushing the cart. He was lean, and judging by his gait and breathing, he was probably chunin-level. The fox-masked guard walked ahead to clear the path, with a sturdier build. He was most likely a jonin.

One jonin and one chunin.

One chunin had nearly gotten him killed last time. This time, there was a jonin as well. Even with white smoke bombs, a direct fight was a dead end. Brute force would not work. He had to make them split up themselves.

He touched the white smoke bombs at his waist and suddenly got an idea. He would not lure everyone away—he would lure one of them over.

He picked up a dry branch from the ground, tied one of the white smoke bombs to it, and adjusted the angle. Then he aimed for the bushes beside the route the transport team had to take and threw it. Empowered by Wind-nature chakra, the branch flew steadily and far, embedding itself precisely in the bushes.

The fuse ignited from the friction of the branch. Three seconds later, it went Puff! Thick white smoke poured out of the bushes, carrying a pungent sulfur smell. Under the moonlight, it looked like an enormous cotton blossom suddenly bursting into bloom. The fox-masked guard reacted faster than the cat-masked one. He immediately gestured for the cat mask to stop, drew a kunai, and moved toward the smoke.

This was the moment Shinichi had been waiting for.

He circled around from the other side to behind the cart—the jonin had gone to inspect the smoke, while the chunin stayed beside the cart with his back to Shinichi. The distance was about five meters. Five meters was now a near-certain range for his shuriken.

But he did not aim for a vital point.

The shuriken flew out and pierced precisely into the gap between the muscles of the cat mask's right shoulder. It was not fatal, but it would temporarily disable the entire arm. The cat mask grunted and instinctively rolled across the ground, immediately reaching for his kunai with his left hand—but Shinichi was no longer where he had been.

He changed positions the moment he threw the shuriken. That was something he had learned from Feng Jian's memory fragments—change positions after firing the first shot, whether it hit or missed. Ninja battles did not allow anyone to stand around admiring their own accuracy.

Unable to find his target, the cat mask could only push the cart one-handed toward the fox mask to seek help. Shinichi watched from the bushes as he moved away. Only after confirming that he had gone roughly thirty meters from the cart did Shinichi creep over.

The wooden crate was not locked. The Root agents clearly had not expected to be attacked in a place like this. After all, this was so close to Leaf Village. Who would have thought someone would dare rob Root cargo on the Land of Fire's territory?

Shinichi pried open the crate lid. Moonlight shone inside, illuminating a boy's face.

Gray hair. So thin that his cheekbones protruded. His clothes were tattered. His arms were densely covered in needle marks, both old and new, some places still bleeding. His eye sockets were sunken, his lips cracked. He looked like a potted plant that had been pruned over and over yet stubbornly refused to die. He looked almost no different from a corpse, but the rise and fall of his chest proved that he was still breathing.

This was Kinoe.

The future Yamato.

The sole survivor of the First Hokage cell experiments. A Wood Release user. An ANBU elite. And—a test subject Root had tortured for who knew how many years.

Shinichi reached out and pressed a hand to Kinoe's forehead. Not to devour him. To sense him.

The system's bloodline detection function told him that the Hashirama Cells within Kinoe were fiercely resisting the host. This struggle had continued for years. Each time, the cells tried to devour the host, while the host resisted with sheer willpower. Kinoe's will was strong, extremely strong. But his body had already reached its limit. If this went on, either the cells would consume him, or his body would collapse completely.

The system's detection interface lit up in his mind.

"Senju Clan-related bloodline detected. Hashirama Cells: Active. Compatibility with host's Senju Clan bloodline: Extremely high. Fusion requirements: Met. Extract and store cells?"

It would not devour Kinoe whole. It would extract and store a portion of the First Hokage's cells within him. Good. That had been the plan all along. Kinoe could not die. Kinoe still had a purpose—not in the sense of using him, but because Shinichi owed him. In his previous life, he had always thought Yamato was too pitiful, used by Danzo as a tool for his entire life without even having a name of his own. Now that he had a chance to change all that, he would not let it pass.

"Extract."

The moment the words left his mouth, a gentle warm current flowed from Kinoe's chest into Shinichi's palm. It was completely different from when he had devoured Feng Jian last time—then, there had been stabbing pain, a burning sensation, his body screaming as it rejected the intruder. But this time, the warmth was like a trickling stream, meekly flowing up through the meridians in his arm and into his dantian. The Senju Clan bloodline inside him gave off a long-lost resonance, like two rivers swept apart by a flood finally converging again. There was no rejection. No discomfort. He could even feel the Senju Clan bloodline within him cheering—perhaps "cheering" sounded a little melodramatic, but that was exactly what it felt like. The thin bloodline that had slumbered for six years had finally recognized its own source.

"Cell storage complete. Hashirama Cells: Active added to bloodline repository. Compatibility with Senju Clan bloodline: Extremely high. Fusion can greatly increase chakra reserves and vitality."

Shinichi looked at the system notification and silently revised his earlier metaphor. He had once described the Senju Clan bloodline within him as a yellowed business card that read, "My ancestors used to be rich." Now, that business card had finally found a bank that recognized the ancestor listed on it.

He stood in the darkness for several seconds, then looked down at Kinoe in the crate. Kinoe's fingers twitched slightly—not because he had awakened, but as an instinctive reaction from his body. Perhaps he had sensed something.

"No need to thank me," Shinichi murmured. After saying it, he felt he was getting far too practiced at talking to himself. He did not know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He had just turned to leave when he paused, then turned back. He took the still-warm boiled egg from his shirt and placed it in Kinoe's hand.

Then he darted back into the forest, climbed over the wall, stepped over the third stair that creaked, took off his outer clothes, hid the kunai, and lay down flat. The weight beneath his pillow had not changed tonight—the Hashirama Cells were stored in the system, unlike the scroll that had pressed against his head.

He closed his eyes, ready to sleep, but the system would not let him.

"Hashirama Cell fusion initiated. Estimated fusion time: 8 to 12 hours. Fusion effect: Chakra reserves expected to increase by 300%."

Three hundred percent.

Shinichi swallowed as he stared at the ceiling in the darkness, but made no sound. Beside him, Little Flower's teeth grinding came from next door in a steady rhythm. She was probably chewing through the fifth steamed bun in her dream.

He quietly did the math in his head. Last time, absorbing Wind-nature chakra had nearly burned him into charcoal. This time, it was Hashirama Cells with a three hundred percent increase—the bill had to come due eventually. Forget it. He would deal with it tomorrow. Tonight had already been worth it.

He closed his eyes, ready to sleep, when an extremely ill-timed thought drifted through his mind. When he woke tomorrow, he would probably be the six-year-old with the most chakra in Leaf Village. More than the Uchiha geniuses, more than the Hyuga heirs, more than every second-generation ninja born with a kunai in hand.

How much more?

Probably three times more.

He rolled over, buried his face in his pillow, and laughed quietly. He slept especially soundly that night. In his dream, the system did not speak, and he did not have a fever. There was only a gray figure beside a wooden crate beneath the moonlight, the corner of his mouth seeming to lift as well.

And the boy who had been given the boiled egg never woke up from beginning to end, yet his fingers unconsciously tightened around it. Very gently, as though he were holding a leaf that had just fallen.