Kenji and Honoka didn't get back home until evening. After putting away everything they'd bought during the day, Kenji took a bath and collapsed onto his bed.
He'd just started to drift off when a knock came from the door.
He got up and opened it to find Honoka standing there. Her expression was serious.
"Something wrong?"
"Can we talk?" She didn't wait for an answer, just walked past him into the room.
Kenji closed the door and turned to face her. That tone meant something was bothering her.
"What's going on?"
Honoka was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts.
"I've been thinking a lot lately. About how many people we've lost." She met his eyes directly. "Enma. Obito. So many others. And I keep wondering when it'll be your turn."
Kenji started to respond, but she held up a hand.
"I know you're careful. But that doesn't mean anything when explosive tags start flying or an enemy gets lucky with a kunai. You could die tomorrow and I'd have no warning, just an ANBU showing up at my door with the news. I'm not asking you to promise you'll survive. I know you can't make that promise. But I need you to promise me something else. Be as careful as you can be. Don't take unnecessary risks. And if things go bad, run. Don't die trying to be a hero."
She took a breath, and for the first time her composure cracked slightly.
"You're one of the few people I have left who matters. My clan is scattered across the world, most of them dead or in hiding after Uzushio fell. The friends I made in Konoha keep dying in this war. I can't..." She stopped, swallowed hard. "I can't lose you too. Not if I can help it."
Kenji stood there. He'd been so focused on his plans, that he hadn't really thought about how all this death was affecting the people around him. Honoka had watched her homeland get destroyed, and seen her clan nearly wiped out.
"I promise," he said quietly. "I'll be careful. I'm not planning to die anytime soon."
"Good." Honoka's shoulders relaxed slightly. "That's all I needed to hear."
They talked for a while longer, about smaller things. Eventually Honoka left, looking more settled than when she'd arrived.
Kenji lay back down on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
---
Three days later, Kenji was in the backyard practicing Sage Mode.
Natural energy flowed through him, circulating as he maintained the enhanced state. The sage markings had become more stable with practice, appearing more quickly and lasting a bit longer before his chakra reserves depleted. He could feel the power thrumming through his body, every sense heightened to an almost uncomfortable degree.
Then he sensed it. An unfamiliar chakra signature approaching his house, moving with the speed of someone on official business.
He immediately released Sage Mode, the markings fading from his face as the natural energy dispersed. By the time the visitor reached his front gate, he was walking around from the backyard to meet them.
An ANBU operative stood at the entrance, wearing the standard black uniform and a blank mask. The ninja held out a scroll.
"Jonin Yamanaka Kenji. By order of the Third Hokage, report to the main gate tomorrow morning at dawn. You're being deployed to the Kiri front."
Kenji took the scroll and scanned it quickly. The orders were straightforward enough. Deployment to the eastern front where Konoha forces were engaged with Kiri. His specific assignment would be determined upon arrival.
"Understood. I'll be there on time."
The ANBU gave a single nod of acknowledgment, then vanished in a blur of movement.
Kenji walked back inside, unrolling the scroll to read the details more carefully. Standard deployment notice, nothing unusual. That meant this wasn't an emergency response or a special mission. Just regular troop rotation to maintain force levels on the front.
Honoka emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. She took one look at his face and knew.
"Mission?"
"Deployment to the Kiri front. I'm leaving tomorrow morning."
She set the towel aside and immediately started moving toward his room. "I'll help you pack your equipment."
"Don't worry about it," Kenji said, following her. "I left a storage puppet here specifically for this kind of thing. It can teleport supplies to me whenever I need them. If I'm missing something on the field, I just summon more."
Honoka stopped and turned to look at him. "That's pretty clever. Wish I'd thought of something like that."
"The puppet's not complicated," Kenji said. "Just a storage seal network connected to my combat puppets through a summoning contract. I can call supplies from my workshop whenever I need to restock. It's more efficient than carrying everything on my back."
They spent the next hour going through his equipment anyway, making sure everything was in good condition and properly sealed for transport. Kunai, shuriken, wire, explosive tags, medical supplies, ration pills.
Honoka checked each item and organized them by type. She'd done this enough times to have a system down.
"You'll write when you can, right?" she asked without looking up from her work.
"When I can," Kenji confirmed. "Communication on the front lines isn't always reliable, but I'll send word when possible."
"Good."
They finished the preparations in silence, both of them aware that this might be the last time they saw each other for months. Or possibly ever, though neither of them said that out loud.
---
The next morning, Kenji arrived at the main gate just as the sun was beginning to rise. The air was cold.
A crowd of ninjas had already assembled, organized into rough groups based on rank and specialty. Jonin clustered near the front, chunin filled the middle ranks, and genin with their instructors stood toward the back. Everyone wore their combat uniforms and carried full equipment loadouts.
Kenji scanned the crowd out of habit, cataloging faces and chakra signatures. Most were familiar, people he'd served with on previous deployments or seen around the village. A few stood out as particularly strong.
Then he spotted Kakashi and Rin. They stood together near one of the jonin groups, talking quietly.
He walked over to them.
"Kakashi, Rin, good to see you both."
They turned, and Kakashi's visible eye showed recognition. The kid had his forehead protector tilted to cover his left side, hiding the Sharingan he'd received from Obito.
"Hello, Kenji-senpai," Kakashi said.
Rin smiled, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Good morning, Kenji-senpai."
"Morning." Kenji studied them both for a moment. Rin looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes suggesting she hadn't been sleeping well. Kakashi was harder to read, but something about the way he positioned himself near Rin suggested he was being protective. "How are you both holding up?"
"We're managing," Rin said softly.
"Minato told me what happened to your team," Kenji said, keeping his voice low. "I can't imagine how hard that must be."
Rin's smile faltered completely. "Kakashi got injured saving me from an enemy ninja, and Obito... he gave everything to make sure we survived."
"He was a good person," Kenji said softly.
Rin smiled. "He wanted to be Hokage. He used to talk about it all the time. How he'd be the greatest Hokage ever and everyone would respect him..."
Kakashi's hand moved, like he was going to reach out to comfort her, but he stopped himself.
"He died as a shinobi of Konoha," Kenji said. "Fighting to protect his comrades. That's what being a ninja means, right? Looking after the people who matter. He understood that better than most. He's a hero of Konoha"
"Thank you, senpai," Rin said quietly.
Kenji stepped closer, reaching out to pat her shoulder. His hand settled on her upper arm for just a second. In that instant, chakra flowed from his fingertips. The Flying Thunder God mark formed beneath her clothing. It settled into place and then faded from perception.
He withdrew his hand. Rin showed no sign of noticing anything unusual. Neither did Kakashi.
"You two should stick together out there, and watch each other's backs. That's what teammates do."
"We will," Kakashi said, and for once he sounded like he meant it.
A whistle cut through the morning air. The lead jonin for the deployment had arrived and was calling everyone to formation.
"That's our cue. Stay safe, both of you."
"You too, senpai."
Kenji turned and headed back toward his assigned position in the formation.
The mark was in place. No matter what happened, he would know exactly where Rin was at all times. And if things went to hell like they had in the original timeline, he could teleport directly to her location.
He'd already decided. Rin's fate was going to be different this time.
In the original story, Madara had orchestrated the deaths of a teenage girl just to traumatize Obito. It was cold-blooded manipulation at its finest. Treating people like chess pieces to be sacrificed for some grand plan.
That kind of thinking disgusted him a bit.
Yeah, ninjas killed people. That was the job. But there was a difference between killing enemy combatants in war and deliberately orchestrating the death of an innocent kid just to break someone's mind. One was brutal necessity. The other was just cruelty.
Hashirama had understood that difference. Even at the height of his power, even when he'd defeated Madara at the Valley of the End, he'd never used children as bargaining chips or sacrificed innocents for strategic advantage. Madara, on the other hand, had become something else entirely. Someone so focused on his grand vision of a perfect world created through the Infinite Tsukuyomi, that individual lives no longer mattered to him. Everyone was expendable. That was the difference between the two strongest ninjas of their generation. And maybe that was why, despite all his power and genius, Madara had never surpassed Hashirama. Not really.
The formation finished organizing itself. Orders were shouted, and the massive group of ninjas began moving out through the gates. Konoha's walls fell behind them as they headed east toward the coast where Kiri forces were active.
Kenji moved with the crowd.