A waning crescent hung above the Throat of the Raging Sands like a cold wound, grudgingly shedding a pale halo that traced the menacing outline of Konoha's frontline camp.
Shinji Uchiha sat outside his tent, his back resting lightly against a cold wooden post, his eyes half closed.
He was not asleep. Within him, chakra circulated slowly in the Uchiha Clan's uniquely precise manner, dispelling the desert night's chill and soothing his body's instinctive agitation before battle.
His Three-Tomoe Sharingan was inactive, but the ocular power hidden within already allowed him to sense, even with his eyes closed, the brightness and fluctuations of every chakra beacon within several hundred meters. Those were his companions, the comrades who would soon face death at his side.
Fragments of memories from his previous life occasionally surfaced in his mind like ice rising from the bottom of a lake.
The tension was so much like those all-nighters before a major project launch, checking every step and assessing every risk.
Only back then, failure meant lost data and customer complaints. Here, it meant cold death.
He drew a quiet breath and pushed those useless reflections aside.
Footsteps approached, steady and resolute, carrying a distinctive rhythm as though connected to the pulse of the land.
It was Sakumo-sensei.
He walked up beside Shinji without sitting down, merely leaning against the wooden post as well. His silver-white hair looked like a handful of cold snow in the dim moonlight.
"How are you feeling?" Sakumo's voice was quiet, yet it cut clearly through the stagnant air.
Shinji opened his eyes, their black depths especially profound in the darkness.
"In good condition. My chakra circulation is stable. Miwako has checked my Ninja Tool Pouch three times, and Blazing Inferno has been nurtured to peak condition." His answer was meticulous.