[ JINICHI WATARU ]
We stood in a rigid line before the massive oak desk, the heavy scent of tobacco smoke hanging thick in the air of the Hokage's office. Sensei's slouched beside us with his hands buried deep in his pockets, while Aoi, Kisuke, and I waited in anxious silence.
The heavy doors creaked open behind us. I glanced over my shoulder and watched a woman step into the room. She possessed an undeniable elegance, carrying herself with a sharp posture and holding her chin high as she walked past us to stand before the desk.
She offered a flawless, practiced bow to the Third Hokage.
"Lord Hokage," then she turned to us and spoke, her voice smooth and measured.
"My name is Tenka Nakamura. I serve as the personal tailor to the advisor of the Land of Fire's Daimyo."
Hiruzen gave a slow nod, setting his pipe down in the metal ashtray.
"Tenka-san requires safe passage," he explained, shifting his gaze to our squad.
"The Daimyo's advisor issued this request personally to ensure she is well guarded on her journey to the Land of Tea. The roads outside the village borders have grown increasingly chaotic."
The Land of Tea. Outside the village walls. I felt a sudden jolt of adrenaline spike in my chest. Beside me, I could hear Aoi and Kisuke shuffling their feet in barely contained excitement, trading wide-eyed, eager glances. This was it—our actual ticket out of D-rank purgatory and endless village chores.
Shohei let out a long, suffering sigh, scratching the back of his neck. He could feel our intense, pleading stares burning directly into his back. We were practically vibrating with anticipation, silently pestering him and begging him not to turn it down out of sheer laziness.
"Fine. We accept the assignment, Lord Third," Shohei finally grumbled, yielding to our unspoken pressure.
"Team 13 is up to the challenge."
"Excellent," Hiruzen smiled softly.
Shohei turned to face us, his lazy demeanour sharpening just a fraction.
"Regroup at the main gates in exactly one hour. Pack your heavy equipment, rations, and whatever gear you need to survive. Don't be late."
[ AN HOUR LATER… ]
Exactly sixty minutes later, I stood beneath the towering wooden arches of Konoha's main gates. I was fully geared up in my dark blue and black combat suit, ensuring my iron dust gourds were securely fastened to my hips and adjusting my poncho over my shoulders. Aoi and Kisuke arrived shortly after, heavily packed and ready. Shohei strolled up to the guard booth, exchanging a lazy wave and a few quiet words with the guards before gesturing for us to gather around our client.
As Tenka approached us, my eyes narrowed slightly beneath my dark blue mask. For a prestigious tailor serving the Daimyo's advisor, her clothes were remarkably plain in comparison to the one she wore at the office. She wore an unadorned travel linen that looked like it belonged to a common, lower-class merchant. I caught Aoi and Kisuke staring at her attire as well, their expressions mirroring my own silent confusion. It didn't add up, but none of us voiced our suspicions out loud.
"Alright, listen up," Shohei ordered, snapping us to attention.
"We are utilizing a standard three-way defensive formation. Kisuke, you have the best sensory skills; take the front as our scout. Aoi, Jinichi, you two are on the flanks—stay glued to Tenka's sides. I will take up the rear guard. Let's move out."
With our formation set, we finally stepped past the gates, leaving the safety of the Hidden Leaf Village behind as we plunged into the dense, sprawling forests of the outside world.
The journey quickly devolved from an exciting adventure into a grueling, rhythmic test of endurance. We moved, constantly on high alert, and it didn't take long for the violent reality of the shinobi world to present itself.
By the second day, we encountered our first obstacle: a disorganized camp of highway bandits blocking the main dirt road. Before they could even draw their rusty swords, Kisuke signalled their positions. I released a concentrated wave of iron sand from my gourds to blind them, and Aoi blitzed through the confusion, neutralizing the stragglers with precise taijutsu strikes. We dispatched them with terrifying ease, barely breaking a sweat.
When dusk fell, setting up camp became a synchronized routine. We pitched the tents and immediately divided the night watch shifts. I took the midnight rotation, sitting on a high branch and staring into the pitch-black canopy. I spent the quiet hours constantly recalibrating the density of my metal dust, the cold night air keeping my senses razor-sharp while my teammates slept below.
The daylight hours, however, brought a different kind of friction. The exhaustion frayed our nerves, leading to constant, petty bickering.
"Could you try walking without stomping like a wild boar?" I snapped at Aoi as we pushed through a dense thicket on the fourth day.
"I wouldn't have to step so heavily if you weren't constantly crowding my side of the formation with that ridiculous poncho!" Aoi hissed back, her hand dropping defensively toward her kunai pouch.
"Please, both of you," Kisuke sighed from the front of the formation, sounding entirely drained as he played the mediator yet again. "If we kill each other out here, Sensei will have to fill out double the paperwork, and we all know how much he hates that. Let's just maintain our spacing."
The only saving grace of the journey was our Jonin. To our absolute shock, Shohei flat-out refused to eat standard, dry military rations. Instead, he spent the evenings hunched over the campfire, effortlessly preparing rich, gourmet stews with whatever wild game Kisuke managed to hunt.
"If I have to be awake out here." Shohei muttered while stirring a bubbling pot, "I am at least going to eat well."
After nearly a week of travel, the dense forestry finally gave way to the salty breeze of the ocean. We crested a small hill and looked down upon a bustling port village nestled against the rocky shoreline. The docks were crowded with wooden ships and shouting merchants.
Shohei led us to a quiet tavern near the edge of town, paying the innkeeper to secure a safe room for Tenka. Once our client was tucked away securely behind locked doors, he turned to the three of us.
"Alright, we need the lay of the land," Shohei instructed, pulling his hands from his pockets. "I want the three of you out in the streets. Keep a low profile, don't start any fights, and gather information. Find out about the ship schedules, local pirate activity, rumors—anything that might complicate our sea route. Dismissed."
[ HIRUZEN SARUTOBI ]
I sat in the quiet of the Hokage's office, taking a slow drag from my pipe as I reviewed the latest mission logs. The tranquillity, however, was disrupted the moment the heavy oak doors were thrown open.
Hiashi Hyuga marched into the room, his posture rigid and his pale eyes burning with barely concealed outrage. He stopped before my desk, refusing to offer the customary bow of respect.
"Lord Third," Hiashi began, his voice tight and demanding.
"I require an immediate explanation. I have recently received troubling reports regarding the Genin, Jinichi Wataru. It is said he utilized a localized vortex of kinetic force during his academy spar—a technique that explicitly mimics the Hyuga's sacred Kaiten. He is expelling chakra from his tenketsu points to create a rotation. This is a blatant theft of a clan Hiden."
I exhaled a thick plume of smoke, meeting his angry gaze with absolute calm. I had anticipated this confrontation, and I knew exactly how to navigate it.
"You speak of his 'Spinjutsu' Hiashi. And while your concerns regarding the tenketsu expulsion are factually correct, you are entirely mistaken in your accusation of theft," I said smoothly, leaning forward slightly and resting my elbows on the polished wood of my desk.
Hiashi narrowed his eyes. "If he is utilizing tenketsu point expulsion to create a defensive vortex, it is the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven. Only the Hyuga possess that knowledge."
"Consider the fundamental mechanics of your sacred Kaiten, Hiashi," I countered, tapping my pipe gently against the crystal ashtray.
"Your clan's absolute defense requires the Byakugan. It relies on your ocular jutsu to see the internal chakra network and precisely open all three hundred and sixty-one tenketsu simultaneously to release that burst of chakra."
I looked Hiashi dead in the eye, my voice turning hard and authoritative.
"Jinichi Wataru does not possess the Byakugan. He does not have the Gentle Fist training required to understand internal chakra mapping. For a normal civilian without the all-seeing white eye to achieve even a localized, unrefined tenketsu expulsion... it is a mechanical impossibility by your own clan's standards."
Hiashi stiffened, his rigid posture faltering for a fraction of a second as the weight of my words set in.
"The boy didn't steal your jutsu, Hiashi," I continued, pressing the advantage.
"What he did was achieve a visually similar result through a completely different, immensely difficult path. To force his tenketsu to release chakra to generate a kinetic rotation without being able to see his own network is a testament to raw brilliance, agonizing trial and error, and years of long-term, solitary development. It is not theft. It is parallel evolution born of sheer desperation and hard work."
Hiashi's jaw tightened dangerously. He processed my words, realizing that acknowledging Jinichi's technique as a stolen Kaiten would mean admitting a clanless orphan had replicated their ultimate defense without their legendary Dojutsu—an insult to Hyuga pride he could never stomach. My logic completely dismantled his accusation and left him without a legal foothold.
He gave a stiff, highly reluctant bow.
"We will be watching his development closely, Lord Hokage," he stated coldly, before turning on his heel and exiting the room.
As the doors clicked shut, a familiar presence manifested in the shadows. The ANBU operative known as Boar dropped silently from the ceiling, kneeling before my desk and holding out a sealed scroll.
"The family history results you requested on Jinichi Wataru, Lord Third," Boar reported evenly. "We traced his lineage back four generations as instructed."
I unrolled the parchment, scanning the detailed ancestral tree. I let out a soft sigh of relief as I reached the bottom. There was absolutely no linkage to the Hyuga, the Kazekage bloodline, or any established shinobi clan.
"Thank you, Boar. Dismissed," I said softly as the operative vanished.
I leaned back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling. I had managed to keep the Hyuga off his back and kept the boy's Magnet Release hidden, but that wasn't what truly kept me awake at night. The real secret—the one I had to guard with absolute paranoia—was what Jinichi had confessed to Shohei in the training grounds. Incomplete. The boy believed his metal manipulation was merely one facet of a locked, multi-layered bloodline.
I just had to hope his journey to the Land of Tea wouldn't force him to show his hand too soon.
[ DANZO SHIMURA ]
Deep beneath the bustling streets of Konoha, far removed from the sunlight that bathed the Hokage's office, the air was cold, damp, and perfectly still. I sat in the austere darkness of my subterranean headquarters, my lone visible eye fixed on the blank, porcelain mask of the Root operative kneeling on the stone floor before me.
"Report" I commanded, my voice echoing faintly off the cavernous walls.
"Lord Danzo," the operative began, his tone devoid of all inflection.
"As instructed, we have been monitoring the irregular deployment patterns of the Hokage's personal ANBU guard. We successfully trailed the operative known as Boar."
I narrowed my eye. Hiruzen had always been predictable in his old age, deploying his best shadows to monitor foreign dignitaries or guard high-risk village assets. But for the past week, Boar's movements had been erratic, slipping away from standard patrol routes to skulk around the village's lower sectors.
"And what has Hiruzen's hound been hunting?" I asked.
"Civilian archives, Lord Danzo." the operative replied. "Boar was systematically extracting and verifying the civil registry and ancestral lineage of a newly graduated Genin. An orphan by the name of Jinichi Wataru."
I leaned forward in my chair, resting my chin on my intertwined fingers. Jinichi Wataru. The name meant nothing to me. A quick scan of my mental registry recalled only a pathetic academy student who had spent years near the bottom of his class.
Why would the Third Hokage—a man burdened with running an entire military dictatorship—personally dispatch his finest tracker to dig into the background of a civilian failure?
Hiruzen was soft, but he was not a fool. He did not waste ANBU resources on sentimentality. If he was investigating an orphan's bloodline in absolute secrecy, it meant the boy was hiding a prize worth protecting. A unique talent. Possibly a new Kekkei Genkai. And in the world of shinobi, a variable left unchecked was a threat to the Leaf.
My Leaf.
"The boy is currently outside the village" the operative continued. "Assigned to Team 13, under the command of Shohei Nara. They departed for a C-rank escort mission to the Land of Tea this morning."
A Nara Jonin assigned to a supposed dead weight. The pieces were beginning to form a very interesting picture.
"Maintain your distance for now." I ordered, my voice dropping to a dangerous, calculating whisper. "But the moment Team 13 returns to the village, I want a shadow on that boy at all times. Document his jutsu, his habits, and his combat proficiency. If Hiruzen has found a new weapon in the mud, we will ensure it is wielded by the Root."