The Sorrow of the Battlefield

The road of retreat was heavy and slow. Shaye dragged the nearly scrapped "Mirage" stretcher, with the unconscious Jing Liang and the barely breathing Lukado lying atop it, while Xu, still unconscious, was strapped to his back. Every step seemed to drain the last of his strength.

Amid the occasional jolts, Lukado would briefly awaken from the agony of semi-consciousness. Excruciating pain tormented his body, but what tormented him even more were the turbulent emotions in his heart. With great difficulty, his gaze shifted to Shaye ahead of him, gritting his teeth as he dragged the stretcher forward, his back still straight.

In his haze, he seemed to see the black-haired boy from years ago, sitting in a corner of the Puppet Repair Unit. Prematurely born, frail and small, pale-faced, he would always quietly stare blankly at spare parts. At the Ninja Academy, he had struggled even with basic chakra extraction, and everyone had privately considered him a dead last with no talent for being a ninja.

How had he... how had he grown to this point?

That little kid whom he and Xu had needed to protect during practical combat classes now possessed the terrifying strength to fight four Uchiha elites alone and forcibly drag them all out of a desperate situation. Magnet Release Kekkei Genkai, exquisite Puppet Technique, immense chakra, and battle wisdom unfathomably deep... Shaye was like a newborn star that had suddenly erupted, leaving him, Xu, and even Captain Jing Liang far behind, his brilliance almost too blinding to bear.

Envy? Yes. Jealousy? Perhaps there was a trace of that too. But more than anything, there was an indescribable bewilderment and an immense sense of disparity. He had given everything he had, yet he was still an ordinary Chunin. Meanwhile, the junior who had once needed