Seclusion and Resolve

"Keep moving. Don't stop."

Ryuto walked at the head of the group, his eyes not on the path. He navigated by feeling.

His Ki spread out like a net. Within five hundred meters, he could tell exactly where Chakra was running wild and where people were fighting.

"Left. Go around." He waved a hand, and the group silently changed direction.

"Those woods ahead smell scorched. They burned recently. Go around."

"There's water to the right, but three clumps of Chakra are panting beside it. Might be wounded ninja. Avoid them too."

Yamano Tarō followed behind him, watching Ryuto's back, unable to put his feelings into words.

Five days ago, this kid was still mindlessly training against the rocks behind the village. Now he was directing their escape as if he'd switched on a full-map cheat.

"Ryuto," Yamano Tarō couldn't help saying.

"Hm?"

"Can you... keep that sensing of yours running all the time?"

"It's tiring," Ryuto said honestly. "Like staying up all night on watch. My head's buzzing. But I can't turn it off. If we run into a squad of ninja, we're all dead."

Yamano Tarō fell silent.

Under Ryuto's guidance, the group slipped through the gaps in the battlefield like a slippery loach.

They walked for most of the day, until the sun sank toward the west.

Ryuto suddenly stopped.

"What is it?" Yamano Tarō's heart jumped.

"Up ahead... there seems to be a good spot." Ryuto narrowed his eyes, probing ahead with his senses. "A valley, mountains on three sides, only one entrance. Inside... no Chakra signatures. Very quiet."

"Shall we take a look?"

"Let's take a look."

The group walked for just under another hour. They pushed aside a thick curtain of vines, revealing a narrow entrance.

Once they stepped through, the space opened up before them.

It was a small valley, with a stream running through the middle, level grass, and a few wild fruit trees.

"This place..." Yamano Tarō looked around. "Easy to defend, hard to attack. Water and food, too. It's just perfect."

"Let's stay here." Ryuto withdrew his senses, plopped onto the ground, and let out a long breath.

After running his "full-map cheat" all day, his CPU was about to burn out.

The villagers looked at one another, a little light finally returning to their eyes.

"Can... can we live here?"

"It's much better than a cave!"

"There's fruit! I'll pick some!"

Yamano Tarō immediately got to work.

"Ergou, take a few people and cut some branches. Put up a few shelters to make do for now."

"Third Aunt, take the women and children down to the stream to clean up. See if you can find any edible wild greens."

"Keep it quiet, everyone. Don't make too much noise!"

Ryuto didn't move. He simply sat there, watching these survivors clumsily begin rebuilding their "lives."

The shelters were ugly and crooked.

Some of the fruit they brought back was astringent.

But no one complained.

By nightfall, a few crude shacks finally stood. A campfire burned in the middle, its light illuminating faces that were tired but relaxed.

Yamano Tarō sat beside Ryuto and handed him a roasted wild yam.

"Eat."

Ryuto took it and bit into it. It was tasteless, but filling.

The two ate in silence.

"Ryuto," Yamano Tarō suddenly said, his voice very low.

"Mm."

"What do you plan to do next?"

Ryuto stopped chewing his yam for a moment.

He swallowed and looked at the campfire. "I have to leave."

Yamano Tarō wasn't surprised, as though he'd already guessed.

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know," Ryuto said. "But I have to get out there. Just hiding won't help. We avoided them today, but what about tomorrow? The day after? However well hidden this valley is, what if someone finds it?"

He turned to Yamano Tarō. "Uncle Tarō, you saw it. When those ninja fight, they don't care whether there are ordinary people nearby. One stray jutsu, and a whole village is gone. Uncle Yamano..."

Ryuto didn't finish, but Yamano Tarō understood.

His father had been killed by the shock wave of a Fire Release attack cast by who knew whom, without leaving so much as a word.

"I want to get stronger," Ryuto said, his eyes bright in the firelight. "Strong enough that no one dares throw jutsu around in front of me. Strong enough... to stop this damned kind of war."

Yamano Tarō watched him for a long time, then suddenly smiled, a little bitterness and a little acceptance in that smile.

"I knew you weren't meant for a small pond, kid." He patted Ryuto's shoulder. "Five years ago, when you were lying at the village entrance covered in wounds, I knew there was something different about you. All right. Go."

He stood, went into a shack, and rummaged around for a while before bringing out a small cloth bundle and a worn piece of hide.

"Here." He pressed them into Ryuto's hands.

Inside the bundle were a few hard pieces of dry rations. Crooked lines covered the hide, forming a rough map of the surrounding mountains and terrain. Some places were marked "possibly dangerous beasts" or "reportedly miasma."

"I traded a traveling merchant for that map a while back. It's not accurate, but the general directions should be right. Take the rations and eat them on the road," Yamano Tarō said. "There's nothing else I can help you with. Just one thing..."

He stared at Ryuto. "Come back alive. At least... let me know you didn't go out into the world for nothing, you little brat."

Ryuto tightened his grip on the bundle and map, his throat a little tight.

"Mm."

The campfire crackled all night.

Ryuto rose at the first faint light of dawn the next day.

He didn't disturb anyone else, only exchanging a nod with Yamano Tarō, who was keeping watch.

At the valley entrance, he glanced back.

The crooked shacks stood quietly, like a few clumsy but striving hopes.

"I'm off," Ryuto said.

"Mm." Yamano Tarō stood there and waved.

Ryuto turned and pushed through the vines.

Outside, the mountain forest was dimly lit by dawn. He could still faintly hear explosions in the distance, but they were very far away now.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Ki slowly flowed from his body, not in a burst, but spreading in every direction like mercury spilling across the ground.

Fifty meters, a hundred, three hundred, five hundred... it kept extending outward.

The rustle of grass in the wind, insects chirping and birds calling, the sound of a distant stream, and farther still, those faint, unsettling collisions of Chakra...

The whole world appeared within his "senses" with unprecedented clarity.

He opened his eyes and looked in the direction marked on the map, toward a wider world.

"The first step."

His feet moved. Pale golden Ki flickered, and his figure had already darted more than ten meters away, swiftly disappearing into the mist-filled mountain forest.