Chapter 40: A Glimpse of Another Path
The camp had gone quiet again. Too quiet.
No fires tonight. Just the faint scent of ash where embers had been smothered beneath layers of earth and dirt. The children slept close together, bundled in tattered blankets, some with their backs against tree roots or nestled beside logs. Ren sat with his back pressed to a trunk, legs stiff and wrapped in cloth, arms locked around his knees. He couldn't sleep. Not really.
Sleep hadn't come easy since the fight.
Since they died.
He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, like it would erase the images. Aki, blood on his lips. Taro's final breath, shallow and afraid. Their bodies felt too real in his arms, like they were still warm. Still alive. His chest tightened, and he dug his fingers into the dirt beside him, trying to ground himself.
He didn't cry anymore. The tears had dried days ago. But the ache hadn't left. It wasn't sharp like before. It was dull, low, always there. Like a bad tooth.
He stood up.
The pain in his legs flared, but it was manageable now. The bones had healed just enough to let him walk again, though stiffly, like every step threatened to undo the progress. He limped away from the camp without a sound, careful not to wake anyone. No one noticed. Or maybe they pretended not to.
The trees grew closer together the farther he went. Old, tall pines with gnarled roots and crooked branches. The moonlight filtered through in pale slivers, silvering the moss and bark. Ren followed an old trail—one he had walked every night for the past week.
It led to a clearing deep in the woods.
There, half-buried in overgrowth and leaves, was a long-forgotten training post. A crooked log with chipped kunai stuck in its bark, faded markings carved into its surface. Signs of use. Signs of abandonment.
But tonight, it wasn't empty.
A single flame flickered low near a flat stone—just a candle, shielded by a hand-carved cup. Next to it sat a figure. Older than Ren. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Lean, wiry. His flak vest was torn and faded, no symbol visible. He wore no headband on his forehead. Instead, it lay beside him on the moss, glinting faintly in the light.
Ren stepped closer but didn't speak.
"I thought you'd come again," the boy said without turning. "You've been practicing here every night, haven't you?"
Ren stiffened. "How long have you been watching?"
"Long enough to know you're too stubborn to quit."
The boy shifted slightly, patting the space next to him. Ren hesitated, then sat down slowly. The candlelight made the shadows dance across the boy's face. He had dark eyes, a sharp nose, and a quiet intensity. His hands were covered in old scars.
"You don't sleep either?" Ren asked.
The boy gave a short laugh. "I stopped trying years ago."
Silence stretched between them. Insects buzzed softly in the distance, but nothing else moved.
"You were a genin?" Ren asked finally, glancing at the old headband.
"Jeinin Corps," the boy said. "Back during the second wave of the war. I didn't go to the academy. I got in through the side door."
Ren furrowed his brows. "There's a side door?"
"There was," the boy said. "Not many knew about it. The villages needed bodies. Kids who could throw a punch and take orders. I had someone—an elder from the Nara clan—he tried to get me into the academy. Said I had potential. Good memory. Tactical thinking. But something went wrong. A mission gone bad, or maybe he just died. I never found out. Next thing I knew, I was here."
Ren looked down at his hands, the bandages still wrapped tight around his fingers.
"I think... the same thing happened to me," he whispered. "I was supposed to go to the Academy. Someone was helping. But... I don't remember who. Everything blurred. Then I woke up here."
The boy nodded, as if it made perfect sense.
"This place... it catches the ones who fall through the cracks."
"Then how do I get out?" Ren asked.
"You want to be a ninja?" the boy said, his tone turning serious.
Ren nodded, slow but certain.
"Then you need the basics. The three core jutsu. Transformation. Clone. Substitution. Learn those, and you can take the genin test. Not the one from the big villages. The one they give to corps kids. You pass that, and you might get placed on a team. And once you have a team, you get missions. That's your ticket out."
Ren's eyes widened. "Why are you telling me this?"
The boy looked at him for a long time.
"Because you're like me. I saw it the first night. You limped up here with broken legs, still trying to mold chakra. You kept failing. Kept falling. But you didn't stop."
He paused, then looked away.
"I didn't have anyone to tell me what came next. I had to figure it out too late. So here I am. Still here."
Ren swallowed hard. The weight of his exhaustion sat heavy on his shoulders—but under it was a small spark. A strange one. Hope, maybe.
"I'll learn them," he said.
The boy gave a soft nod.
"Then maybe you'll get further than I did."
The candle between them flickered low.
Ren stood slowly, testing his legs. They trembled but held. He looked down at the boy one last time.
"What's your name?"
The boy didn't answer right away. Then, just before Ren turned to leave:
"Raiku."
Ren nodded once, then turned and began the walk back to camp. The cold air bit at his face. His legs hurt. But something had shifted.
For the first time in days, Ren didn't feel alone.
Behind him, the flame kept burning.
---
The silence between them stretched for a moment. Raiku stood with one foot propped against the stone wall, arms crossed, eyes distant but alert—like someone used to keeping a corner of his mind ready for trouble. The sharp angle of his jaw and the mess of black hair gave him the look of someone older than seventeen, even if the worn fabric of his flak jacket clung too loosely to his lean frame.
"I'm not stationed here," Raiku said at last, as if answering Ren's unspoken question. "Still part of the genin corps. Technically, I'm supposed to be heading back. Had a brief assignment delivering intel and resupplying one of the forward posts nearby."
He gave a lazy shrug and glanced sideways at Ren, a faint grin tugging at his lips.
"But then I heard there was some stubborn brat out here kicking the dirt like it owed him chakra. So I came to see what all the fuss was about."
Ren blinked. "You came... just to see me?"
"Don't flatter yourself too much." Raiku snorted, but it wasn't unkind. "But yeah. I was curious."
He stepped forward now, crouching beside Ren's half-finished line of footprints in the dust, studying the uneven indentations.
"You've been doing this for a while," Raiku muttered, dragging a finger along the marks. "Trying to walk the path—literally. That's what we used to call it. Chakra control training. You're doing it all wrong, but you're doing it."
Ren shifted uncomfortably. "I don't have a teacher. I just… I saw someone try it once. Thought I could figure it out."
Raiku didn't laugh at that. If anything, he looked impressed.
"You know, there was a time I thought that was enough too," he said quietly. "No clan. No fancy scrolls. Just grit and bruises and stubbornness. An elder from the Nara clan noticed me once. Tried to get me into the Academy. I thought I was finally going to be part of something."
Raiku's voice trailed off, and his fingers curled slightly into a fist.
"But then something happened," he said finally. "Didn't work out. The war swallowed the rest."
Ren didn't press him. He didn't need to. He could see the rest of the story written in Raiku's silence. The kind that built up behind the eyes of people who had lost things that never came back.
"I think I know what you mean," Ren said quietly. "I didn't end up here on purpose either."
Raiku glanced at him, a flicker of curiosity passing through his gaze—but he didn't ask. Maybe he understood that some stories were too raw to poke at directly.
Instead, he stood and dusted off his hands.
"If you really want to be a shinobi, you should learn the Three Basic Jutsu. Transformation, Substitution, and Clone Jutsu. That's the foundation."
Ren nodded slowly. "But I don't even know where to begin."
Raiku stepped past him and dug into his flak vest. After a moment, he pulled out a small, dog-eared notebook and handed it over.
"Stole this from a bunkmate back when I was still sleeping under tarp roofs. Has notes and rough chakra diagrams. Might help. It's not perfect, but it worked for me."
Ren took it carefully, almost reverently.
"You're just giving this to me?"
Raiku shrugged again, like it was no big deal. But this time, his voice was softer.
"I saw you out here, over and over again. Even the guards said something. Most kids break by the second day. You didn't."
He turned to leave then, taking a few steps before pausing.
"You asked why I'm helping you. Truth is, you reminded me of me—back when I still thought climbing the ladder was possible. When I still believed effort could mean something."
Raiku looked over his shoulder, shadows moving across his face as the light from the hanging lanterns flickered behind him.
"Maybe it still does. Who knows?"
Ren stared down at the notebook in his hands. He didn't know what to say. No one had ever done something like this for him—not here, not since Aki and Taro.
"I'll do my best," he said finally.
Raiku gave a short nod.
"Good. That's all anyone can do."
He disappeared around the corner, footsteps soft against the cracked stone path, leaving behind only the faint scent of rain-soaked moss and the notebook in Ren's hands.
Ren didn't move for a while. He just stood there, fingers curled around the worn pages, heart beating with something he couldn't quite name.
Not hope—not yet. But something close.
---
The morning arrived quietly, without the usual rumble of carts or the scolding voices of guards. A rare lull in the noise. Ren woke early, his legs sore from yesterday's failed chakra exercises and his fingers still faintly smudged with dirt. But what really stuck with him was the notebook.
It was still tucked under his straw mat, safe. He had spent most of the night flipping through its pages in secret, eyes scanning diagrams of chakra flow and handwritten notes scrawled in the margins. Some of it made sense—most didn't. But it was something.
He got up and stretched, listening to the creak of bones and the soft snores of the kids still asleep nearby. Kota was curled up with a blanket pulled over his head. The rest of the storage corps were still in their bunks, exhausted from hauling supplies the day before.
A sharp knock at the door interrupted the stillness.
"All of you, up. We've got something new today."
The voice belonged to Yuji—the chunin with the permanent scowl and messy brown hair. He wasn't cruel like some of the others, but he never smiled either. He carried himself with the tired weight of someone too young to be old, dressed in a faded flak vest and a forehead protector that had long lost its shine.
The children filed out slowly, blinking in the pale morning light. Ren followed, notebook hidden inside his shirt.
Yuji stood waiting near the training patch just outside the barracks, arms crossed, watching them with narrowed eyes.
"Word from command is that some of you might get assigned out early," he said bluntly. "So it's time you learned the Three Basic Jutsu. It's not Academy-style. I'm not a teacher. I'm not going to explain this twice. You figure it out, or you don't."
Ren's breath caught slightly.
He knew the names. Raiku had mentioned them. But to actually learn them?
Yuji raised his hands and, without any flair, performed the Clone Jutsu. A second version of him appeared in a puff of smoke. It was translucent and flickered slightly before vanishing.
"Clone Jutsu. Basic illusion. No substance. You'll fail it twenty times before it starts to stick. That's normal."
He moved right into the Transformation Jutsu, changing his form into that of a Konoha general before shifting back with a flick of his chakra.
"And Substitution," Yuji said, slamming a nearby crate with a kunai. The crate vanished in a cloud of smoke—Yuji reappearing several feet away. "Trade places with an object in a burst of chakra. Easiest to do when you're in danger, but hard to trigger on purpose."
He pointed at them, eyes sharp.
"Now try."
The kids looked at one another, clearly overwhelmed. Kota stepped forward first, forming the hand signs slowly and shouting, "Clone Jutsu!"
Nothing.
The rest followed, fumbling through the same process with little result. Some managed a puff of smoke. One girl turned her hair green for a moment before collapsing. Another kid fell backward trying the Transformation Jutsu and landed flat on his back with a groan.
Yuji sighed. "I said I'm not here to hold your hand. Keep trying. If you don't learn at least one of them in a few days, you're useless on the field."
The pressure hung over them like a storm cloud.
Ren stepped back from the group, heart racing. His hands were shaking slightly. He'd never even tried a jutsu before. But he had something the others didn't.
He pulled the notebook from inside his shirt and crouched near the side wall, flipping to the pages Raiku had marked. There were rough chakra diagrams—notes about channeling energy into the stomach before expelling it. He traced the characters with his finger, silently mouthing the words.
"Focus on the image. Your chakra follows your will."
He closed his eyes and steadied his breath, sitting cross-legged. He let his thoughts return to the night before—to Raiku's voice, to the path he'd walked with no answers but no quit either.
He formed the hand seals slowly: Ram, Snake, Tiger. "Clone Jutsu."
A puff of smoke burst beside him.
He coughed and waved the smoke away.
There was no clone. Just dust. But he had felt it that time—chakra stirring just beneath his skin, coiling like a thread of warmth in his stomach and rising up.
It was real.
Yuji was still barking at the others, correcting form and scowling at failure. But Ren wasn't watching anymore. He sat back down and tried again.
Ram. Snake. Tiger.
Clone Jutsu.
This time the puff of smoke was slightly larger, and a flicker of something—a shape—appeared for a heartbeat before vanishing.
Ren let out a shaky breath. It wasn't enough. But it was something.
He would keep going.
No matter how long it took.
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