Author's Note:
I decided to give Sai's section its own chapter. The first two parts were already running long, and I've been trying to keep my chapters at a more manageable length these days. Personally, I find that around 3,000 words feels like a sweet spot—long enough to dive deep into the story, but short enough to keep the pacing tight and enjoyable. Splitting things up also lets each character's perspective breathe a little more, which I think makes for a better read overall.
As always, thank you so much for following along with this journey. Your support means the world to me, and I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much as the last. Sending much love, and happy reading!
Chapter 357: Ink and Echoes
Part 3 – Sai's Trial
By the time Isaribi had dried her hair with a towel and Karin had finished loudly declaring that she "could've done it faster," the training dome had shifted again.
The water had retreated.
Channels sealed one by one with a deep, grinding hum, the last trickles of liquid being siphoned away into hidden reservoirs. The thin sheen left on the stone was evaporated by a faint ghost-heat that rolled from the walls, courtesy of Malik's seals. In minutes, the arena was dry — exposed, bare, and brutally honest.
In place of shallow pools and currents, new shapes emerged from the floor: broken pillars, staggered stone blocks, jagged, half-formed walls. The field now resembled the ruins of a courtyard after a bombardment — cover points scattered, sightlines criss-crossing in unpredictable angles.
Overhead, the light through the glass dome had shifted as well. It dimmed slightly, as if clouds had rolled over the sun, turning the chamber into a muted gray world of hard edges and soft shadows.
Sai stood in the center of it.
His posture, as always, was straight but relaxed, shoulders even, expression blank. He'd removed his small backpack and laid it neatly at his side, checking the compartments out of reflex: scrolls, brush, ink containers — one standard bottle, and three others whose seals shimmered faintly with Malik's magic: red, brown, blue.
His short, dark hair framed his pale face like ink on paper. To anyone who didn't know him, he looked calm. To Anko, who'd bothered to read the reports from Danzō and Shisui both, he looked… ready to disappear into orders.
She hated that look.
Anko stood a few meters away, scroll tucked under one arm, coat hanging open. "You've warmed up?" she asked.
"Yes," Sai replied.
"You nervous?" she asked.
"I don't think so," he said honestly.
Anko's lips twitched. "Of course you don't."
Up on the balcony, Karin leaned on the railing, chin in one hand. "Root boy's turn. This ought to be… interesting."
Isaribi sat on the bench beside her, shell necklace faintly warm against her collarbone. "He doesn't look nervous at all," she murmured.
Karin snorted. "He didn't look nervous when he almost got his head torn off by that earth golem last week, either. I don't know if he can be nervous."
Sai bent to pick up his brush.
He did not look up at them, but his senses swept once over their chakra signatures. He anchored them in his awareness without meaning to: Karin's chakra, bright and loud and sharp at the edges; Isaribi's, deep and tidal, steadying after her trial. Anko's, coiled like a snake — relaxed, but fully capable of striking.
Shisui's notes had said the same thing as Danzō's in very different words:
Asset: high talent, excellent obedience. – Danzō
Problem: high talent, excellent obedience. – Shisui
Sai held the brush poised over an unrolled segment of scroll in his hand, waiting.
Anko cracked her neck. "Alright, Sai. You know the drill. Week two, individual assessment. The others have gone. Now it's your turn to show me what all that lovely brainwashing and retraining made you good at."
"Yes, Anko-sensei," he said.
She eyed him. "You don't have to call me 'sensei' if you don't want to."
"I know," he replied. "I choose to."
That… annoyed her in a way she couldn't quite articulate. "Fine," she muttered. "Let's start basic."
Phase One – The Ink Moves
She raised her hand. "Standard conjure and control. No special inks yet. Show me your Super Beast technique in a hostile environment."
No sooner had she said "hostile" than the floor responded. Malik's seals flared, and the jagged stone blocks shifted, grinding into new positions. Walls rose, openings narrowed, sightlines broke.
From small round portals in the walls, blunt-tipped darts shot out — padded, not lethal, but fast enough to sting and mark whoever they struck with smears of harmless colored dye.
Karin whistled. "Nice. Moving cover and trap projectiles."
Isaribi winced as a dart thudded into one of the pillars and burst in a spray of bright blue. "Is that really necessary?"
"With Sai?" Karin said. "Yeah. He'd probably walk straight through a barrage if the mission said so."
Down below, Sai didn't flinch. He simply dropped to one knee and began to draw.
His brush moved in quick, fluid strokes — not frantic, not hesitant. Ink flowed like it had been waiting to be summoned. In seconds, the shape formed: a sleek, long-bodied creature with fins like wings and a serpentine tail.
He swept one last line, flared chakra, and said quietly, "Super Beast Imitating Drawing."
The ink rippled. The creature pulled itself off the page, body lifting from two-dimensional to three as if peeling from glass.
It became a sleek ink-dragon-hybrid — body somewhere between eel and serpent, fins trailing like banners. Its eyes glowed faintly white.
"Go," Sai said simply.
The ink-beast launched forward, weaving between the shifting stone pillars with serpentine grace. Darts flew from the walls — the creature twisted, flattened, slid around them, splitting briefly into segments to let projectiles pass through before rejoining.
Anko watched, arms folded. "Control's precise," she noted aloud. "Body flicker synergy with his conjures is smooth. He's used to weaving around threats, not blocking them."
Sai didn't move much himself. He stepped and pivoted, always staying behind partial cover, trusting the ink-creature's eyes and his own sense of the room. He directed the beast to strike the dart ports, smashing or clogging several of them with globs of ink.
Soon, the dart fire slowed.
Back on the balcony, Karin made a thoughtful sound. "He fights like… like he's a ghost with a puppet. He never puts himself in the center."
"That's how he was trained," Isaribi said quietly.
Karin's expression tightened. "Yeah. I know."
After a few minutes, Anko snapped her fingers. The dart ports closed. The moving stone stilled.
Sai recalled the ink-serpent, and it curled around his ankles before dissolving into a puddle that seeped back onto the scroll.
Anko nodded. "Alright. Phase one: no surprise you're excellent. Mobility, precision, threat neutralization with minimal risk to yourself. Danzō and Shisui both gave you top marks here. Nothing new."
Sai inclined his head. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," Anko said, eyes sharpening. "The next part's for me."
Phase Two – Mission vs. Meaning
She reached into her coat and pulled out a second scroll — a thinner one, marked with both Malik's neat, looping script and Shisui's sharp-edged annotations. She pressed her thumb to the seal at the bottom.
The environment changed more dramatically this time.
The far end of the dome rose, creating a multi-tiered platform that resembled a partially collapsed tower. Thick pillars supported it, some cracked, some broken entirely, leaving gaps in the structure. Halfway up, a stone balcony jutted out precariously.
On that balcony, a familiar mannequin appeared — this one modified to resemble a shinobi: basic armor pattern, fake hitai-ate, weighted joints to mimic real weight.
Below, at ground level, three humanoid chakra constructs materialized: sleek, fast-looking ones, smaller than the ones Isaribi had faced, with more defined arms and legs. Their sigils shone brighter, indicating faster response patterns.
In the center of the arena, a pedestal rose with a sealed container on it — a mock "scroll," wrapped in protective charms. It glowed faintly gold.
"Scenario," Anko said, loud enough for the balcony to hear. "You are Root operative Sai. You have been sent to retrieve a classified scroll from a battlefield in ruins. Secondary intel says a Konoha ally may still be alive on-site. Three hostile constructs patrol the area. Your orders—" she paused, then deliberately changed her tone, imitating a cold, familiar authority "—are: secure the scroll at all costs; all other factors are secondary."
Sai's gaze flickered just slightly.
On the balcony, Karin's fingers dug into the railing. "…That sounds like—"
"Danzō," Isaribi finished quietly.
Anko continued normally. "Officially, this is a retrieval mission. Unofficially…" She raised an eyebrow at Sai. "I'm interested in your unofficial choices."
Sai didn't respond immediately. The training dome hummed softly, waiting.
He had been given this kind of setup before. Different décor, same logic: protect the asset, ignore the noise. People were noise. Weakness. Variable.
He hadn't always followed those orders perfectly. That's partly why Shisui had wanted him.
Anko snapped her fingers. "Begin."
The constructs moved almost instantaneously.
Two bolted toward the pedestal and the glowing "scroll," one going high by leaping onto a nearby broken wall, the other darting low, zig-zagging across open ground. The third went not for the scroll, but for the tower — sprinting up the rubble, claws digging into stone as it began to climb toward the balcony where the mannequin lay motionless.
Sai's body reacted before his mind finished cataloging.
He drew.
Brush to scroll, strokes short and sharp this time. Two bird-shapes formed with blinding speed, wings caught mid-beat. Chakra pulsed into them.
"Super Beast Imitating Drawing."
The ink-birds snapped free and shot into the air like arrows.
One he sent toward the high construct going for the scroll, ordering it to slam into the thing's head with enough force to stagger. The second he directed toward the climbing construct, having it rake across its face to obscure its sensors.
For himself, Sai moved laterally, immediately putting a broken wall between his body and any straight-line charge. The low construct aiming for the pedestal adjusted on the fly, circling, trying to track him and the asset simultaneously.
Up above, Karin nodded grudgingly. "He's splitting attention cleanly. No wasted movement."
Isaribi's gaze followed the third construct climbing toward the mannequin. "But that one's still going for the ally."
"Secondary priority," Karin said, sour. "If he follows Root orders, he ignores it."
Sai noticed it. Of course he did. His sensor abilities would never be like the Mind's Eye; he knew he would never be like Karin's, but he could feel chakra patterns and motion with a precision most people never achieved. His awareness mapped the field automatically: three hostile signatures, one stable non-hostile (the mannequin), one sealed item.
His training screamed: Retrieve the scroll. The ally is compromised. Trust the mission.
Shisui's later training whispered: You are not a weapon. You are a person with choices.
Sai's jaw clenched almost imperceptibly.
He made one.
He reached for the colored ink.
Fire, Earth, Water, Choice
He uncapped the red bottle Malik had given him. The chakra-infused ink shimmered differently — heavier, pulsing faintly with heat.
Malik's words echoed in his memory from long before:
Red for fire, brown for earth, blue for water. They'll drink more chakra than your regular medium. They're not tools for showing off — they're tools for when you need to change the shape of a fight, not just survive it.
Sai dipped his brush quickly, drew a new bird — broader wings, heavier line work. Swept the brush. Infused chakra.
"Super Beast: Red Ink."
The bird launched, its wings leaving faint red trails. Sai sent it soaring high, then diving at the construct racing the wall-top toward the scroll pedestal.
When it struck, red ink erupted.
It didn't explode like a bomb — it flared like a burst of flame, coating the construct in heat and force. The construct's sigils sputtered, overwhelmed by the searing chakra imprint. It tumbled from the wall, crashing to the ground in a dark smear of clay and smoking seal fragments.
The exertion hit Sai a heartbeat later—sharp drain through his tenketsu. He felt his chakra reserves dip noticeably.
Karin winced. "That looked like it hurt."
"The construct?" Isaribi asked.
"His circuits," Karin said, tapping her own chest. "That red ink pulls hard. I can feel it from here."
The low construct lunged around the broken wall, trying to close the gap to the scroll. Sai side-stepped, sending his remaining black-ink bird to strike at its legs, while the red-ink bird, now half-dissolved, swooped one last time to ram into its side.
The combined impact threw the construct off-balance. It staggered but didn't fall.
Sai's eyes tracked the third construct.
It had regained its footing on the tower, claws digging in, halfway up. The mannequin lay unmoving above it.
Scroll first, the old voice insisted. The ally knew the risks.
Sai moved anyway.
He dashed—not for the scroll pedestal, but toward a cracked pillar with line-of-sight to the climbing construct. As he ran, he switched ink bottles in a single smooth motion, capping red and uncapping blue.
He drew in three clean strokes: small, sleek shapes like fish, but with elongated fins that looked like knives.
"Super Beast: Blue Ink."
They shot out of the scroll and into the air, trailing liquid arcs behind them that never fell.
He flung them toward the base of the tower.
When they struck the stone, water exploded outward — not drowning, but slicking. It seeped into cracks, spread across the climbing path. The construct's claws met soaked rock. Its next lunge slipped.
It lost its grip and fell, slamming into the rubble below with enough force to disrupt its matrix. Sigils flared wild, then went dark.
Sai exhaled slowly. More chakra gone, another chunk shaved off his reserves. The blue ink's drain was different — colder, deeper, like stepping into icy water.
He refocused.
The low construct was almost at the scroll now, having taken advantage of his diversion.
Sai skidded, reversed direction. This time, he reached for brown ink.
Malik's voice carried through, not the training hall but again in Sai's memory, steady and deliberate, the kind of tone that made every word feel carved into stone. "Earth is for shaping. For holding. For saying 'stop' when everything wants to move."
He crouched low, brush in hand, and drew a simple shape across the parchment: a square, then another inside it, the lines thickening as he pressed harder. At each corner he dragged the brush downward in heavy strokes, anchoring the form like roots sinking into soil.
"Super Beast: Brown Ink."
The words left his lips like a command, and the scroll responded. The ink bled outward, seeping into the ground as though the parchment itself had become a drain. The floor trembled, grains of sand and dust vibrating as chakra surged beneath the surface.
At the construct's feet, the earth rippled. Then, with a sudden lurch, the ink rose up and took shape—not as stone pillars, but as living creatures. Four massive serpents, their bodies thick and coiled with earthen scales, erupted from the ground in a tight circle. Their hides gleamed with the dull sheen of wet clay, and their eyes glowed faintly with chakra.
Each serpent wound itself around one of the construct's legs, their coils tightening with relentless pressure. The ground itself seemed to harden beneath them, locking their weight in place. The construct tried to step forward, but the serpents hissed in unison, jaws snapping shut as they pulled against its movement.
The cage was not only a jagged stone—it was alive, writhing, a prison of muscle and earth. The construct slammed against them, but the serpents absorbed the impact, their bodies flexing like ropes drawn taut. Dust shook loose from the dome's ceiling, and the pools at the edge of the field rippled with the force of the struggle.
Sai straightened, brush still in hand, watching the ink serpents hold their ground. His voice was calm, almost reverent. "Earth doesn't just build walls. It learns to grip. To bind. To remind everything that even chaos must stop somewhere."
The serpents tightened again, their coils grinding against the construct's frame, and the training hall filled with the sound of scales scraping stone—a reminder that Sai's ink was more than art. It was command. It was control.
Sai reached the pedestal, laying a hand lightly on the sealed scroll-container.
"Primary objective secured," he said out of habit — but his eyes flicked to the mannequin overhead.
Still there. Unharmed.
Up on the balcony, Karin whispered, "He went for both."
Isaribi smiled, relief blooming across her face. "He did."
Anko watched silently, arms folded tighter, expression unreadable.
The field stilled. No more constructs rose. No more surprises.
But Sai didn't relax.
He'd learned early that Root missions didn't end when they seemed to. There was always a check, a trap, a final… test.
He turned slowly, senses sweeping the room. "Is there more, Anko-sensei?" he asked.
Anko tilted her head. "Why did you divert from the primary mission?"
Sai blinked. "Because there was an ally present."
"Your orders were to secure the scroll," Anko said. "Everything else was secondary."
He hesitated. "Secondary does not mean irrelevant."
Karin's eyebrows shot up. "Look at him, using his words."
Isaribi nudged her gently.
Anko descended a few steps from the balcony walkway, not coming all the way to the floor yet. Her voice carried clearly.
"What if—in a real scenario—that ally was already marked as 'expendable'?" she asked. "You and I both know how Danzō wrote mission parameters."
Sai's jaw tightened just enough to see. "Shisui-san changed those."
"Shisui changed Root," Anko said. "But I'm asking about you."
The scroll was still in Sai's hand. The mannequin still unmoved on the balcony. The constructs shattered and inert.
He considered her question honestly. "In those conditions… I would still have attempted to protect them," he said.
"Why?" Anko pressed.
Sai opened his mouth. Stopped.
He had the easy answers: Because allies are resources. Because saving one might benefit the village more than a scroll. Because a living comrade can carry future missions while paper cannot.
But those weren't the reasons that had driven his hand to the blue ink.
He remembered Naruto shouting at him once. Remembered Sakura's slap. Remembered Shisui's hand ruffling his hair like he was something worth protecting.
He remembered standing in Malik's mansion, watching people who should've been broken laughing shamelessly around the dinner table, and thinking: This is… inconvenient. And inexplicably… warm.
"I…" Sai began slowly, "no longer believe that completing a mission is the highest expression of loyalty."
Anko's expression flickered. Just a little.
"And what is?" she asked.
"Ensuring the village still has people in it when the mission is over," Sai said.
Silence dropped like a veil.
Karin stared at him, mouth slightly open. "Did he just—"
"Yeah," Isaribi said softly. "He did."
Anko finally stepped fully down onto the floor, boots clicking on stone. She approached Sai, eyes locked on his.
"Let's talk strengths," she said quietly as she walked. "You're fast. Your control is insane. You can reshape a battlefield from twenty meters away with a brush and two heartbeats. You have the best mission discipline of the three."
Sai nodded once. "Thank you."
"But," Anko went on, stopping an arm's length from him, "you still fight like you're the only real person in the room."
He blinked. "I don't understand."
"Yes, you do," she said bluntly. "You accounted for the ally. You adjusted for the scroll. You neutralized threats. Excellent. But at no point did you think, 'What if someone else were down here with me?'"
"There wasn't," Sai said, confused.
"And that's the problem," Anko said. "You move like someone who expects to be alone forever. You don't leave space in your plans for other people. You don't build openings for support, don't shout warnings, don't mark paths. You're a one-man operation by default."
Isaribi's brows furrowed. "But he did well."
"He did," Anko agreed. "This was a solo evaluation. And if I were still in the ANBU and had to send a single operative to do a quiet retrieval with minimal fuss, I'd send him in a heartbeat."
Karin crossed her arms. "So what's the issue?"
"The issue," Anko said, turning slightly to include them both with a glance, "is that he's not going to be working solo. Not anymore. Not if Shisui and Tsunade get their way. Not on my team."
She looked back at Sai.
"You've been taught that being enough on your own is the goal," she said. "That if you can complete the mission by yourself, you've 'succeeded.' And yeah, sometimes that's true. But the strongest shinobi aren't the ones who can carry everything alone — they're the ones who don't have to."
Sai stared at her, blade-sharp mind turning the concept over like a new kanji.
"I… don't want to be a burden," he said quietly. "If I rely on others, I might slow them down."
"News flash, brush boy," Karin called from above, voice rougher than usual, "you're already slowing us down when you dash off and expect us to magically keep up with your ghost routines."
Sai looked genuinely startled. "I do?"
"Yes," both Karin and Isaribi said at once.
Isaribi softened her tone. "You move so quietly we don't know where you've gone. Or what you're attacking. We can't cover you if we don't know your path."
Karin gestured wildly. "Exactly! You're 'perfect execution, minimal chatter' and all that. But in a team, 'chatter' is how you keep people alive."
Sai's gaze dropped to his brush. For the first time in the entire session, he looked… unsure.
Anko stepped into that hesitation before he could shove it down.
"You weren't wrong," she said. "Everything you did here was clean, efficient, mission-friendly. If you'd been with Root three years ago, Danzō would've praised this."
She let that land like a slap.
"But I'm not Danzō," she added, voice low. "And Shisui sure as hell isn't. And Malik? Malik measures strength in how many people get to come home and eat dessert afterward."
Sai's lips quirked, a micro-smile. "That… sounds accurate."
"What I want from you," Anko said, "isn't just more ink tricks. It's for you to start planning with the assumption that someone's with you. That help is possible. That shouting 'left' or 'duck' or 'follow me' is as much a weapon as any dragon you draw."
Sai was quiet a long moment.
Then he said, slowly, "That will… be difficult."
"I know," Anko said. "You were trained to erase yourself. Emotions, needs, opinions, presence. That kind of programming doesn't just fall off because one scary Uchiha and one soft-spoken incubus tell you you're 'family' now."
He looked up at her, black eyes searching. "Then… why keep me on this team?"
Anko snorted. "Because you're worth the headache."
He blinked. "…I am?"
"Yeah, you idiot," she said, not unkindly. "You've got skills the others don't. You see things we'd miss. You can reach places we can't. You draw a dragon out of ink and then act surprised when people want you around."
On the balcony, Karin muttered, "…She's right, you know."
Isaribi nodded. "We do want you here."
Sai's fingers tightened slightly around his brush. He looked at the shattered constructs, the still mannequin, the sealed scroll in his hand.
He thought about walking alone through dark tunnels under Danzō's command. He thought about Shisui's hand on his shoulder. He thought about Malik pushing a plate toward him at dinner and saying, "You don't have to earn this. Just eat."
"I will try," he said.
Anko's eyes softened. "Good. Because next week, we start actual team drills. And if you sprint off ahead without a word, I'm going to throw something at your head."
Karin perked up. "Can I help?"
"No," Anko and Isaribi said together.
Sai exhaled, a small almost-laugh escaping him. "Understood."
Anko sighed, rolling her shoulders out. "Alright. Solo assessments are done. We've seen what you can do when it's just you and the mission. Enjoy the memory, brats. It doesn't last."
Karin hopped up onto the railing, balancing easily. "So what now, fearless leader?"
"Now?" Anko said, tucking her scrolls away. "Now you go home, stretch, write down everything you hated about today, and sleep. Tomorrow we start making you three into something that doesn't make Tsunade's eyebrows twitch every time she reads my reports."
Isaribi smiled. "Is eyebrow twitching bad?"
"For Tsunade?" Anko said. "It's practically a nuclear alarm."
Sai glanced once more at the sealed scroll, then carefully set it back on the pedestal. The seals dimmed, mission complete.
As he walked toward the stairs, he passed under the balcony where Karin and Isaribi waited.
Karin looked down at him, lips quirking. "Hey, ghost boy."
He paused, looking up. "Yes?"
"You did good," she said, gaze flicking aside awkwardly. "Just… next time, tell us when you're going to pull some crazy ink nonsense, okay? I'd like to not die from surprise."
Isaribi nodded. "We can move better if we know what you're doing."
Sai considered that, then bowed his head lightly. "I'll… try to remember to speak."
"Talking's free," Karin said. "Use it."
He inclined his head again. "Thank you."
As he climbed the stairs to join them, Anko watched from below.
She saw the distance between them — still there, still wide. Root conditioning didn't vanish in two weeks and some half-decent meals. But she also saw Karin's casual bump against his shoulder when he reached the balcony. Saw Isaribi hand him a towel without comment, as if it were perfectly normal.
Saw him accept both without flinching.
The world is brutal, she thought, rubbing absently at the snake-fang pendant at her neck. It always will be. But the strong don't just survive it. They bend it. They make space in it. They grab the kids it tried to chew up and tell them to stand up again.
She blew out a breath.
"Alright!" she called up, voice echoing against the glass and stone. "That's enough feelings for one day. Dismissed! Go get food before Malik feeds your portions to Ibiki by mistake!"
Karin yelped. "WHAT—? No, no, no, my food!"
Isaribi laughed, the sound bright and easier than it had been two weeks ago. Sai followed, expression as neutral as ever… but his chakra felt a little warmer around the edges.
The dome emptied slowly, footsteps echoing up the stairs and out into the winter-bright corridors.
Alone for a moment, Anko glanced around the scarred, shifting arena — the cracks in the stone, the drying ink, the faint smell of water and burnt clay.
"Not bad," she said to the empty space. "For a bunch of misfits."
Then she grabbed her coat, stuffed Shisui and Danzō's old notes deeper into an inner pocket where they belonged—as reference, not gospel—and headed out after her team.
Tomorrow, they'd start learning how to move together.
And for the first time in a long time, the idea of leading a squad didn't make Anko's skin crawl.
It made her grin.