The Genin teams were formed with the usual fanfare. Flashy names, speeches from the Hokage, and the dreams of an entire generation beginning. Team 7—Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura—became the center of all the rumors, gossip, and, in Naruto's case, bets on how long it would take for him to be expelled.
Kaito, from his seat at the back of the following year's ceremony, watched with glacial calm. Exciting, I suppose. For them. While his teammates sighed over Sasuke or complained about Naruto, he calculated. Sakura, theoretical intelligence but zero combat experience. Sasuke, raw talent driven by blinding hatred. Naruto… a walking chaos with an infinite chakra reactor sealed in his stomach. A team designed for drama, not efficiency.
Another year at the Academy. Another year of feigning mediocrity, of stealing crumbs of knowledge between classes, of training in the dark until his muscles screamed and his chakra was depleted. It was routine. A routine that, against all odds, he was beginning to enjoy. He had total control.
Until the air of Konoha turned poisoned.
—Two days ago—
Something was stirring the village's hawks. The ANBU, those white and gray masks that were usually perfect phantoms, became… visible. Brief flashes on the rooftops, movements too fast even by ninja standards, an electric tension in the slums where Kaito had his hideouts.
They were after something, Kenji thought, his yakuza paranoia blaring like an alarm. A deserter? A spy? Or… something they'd lost? His mind reviewed his thefts of the last few years. Nothing crucial, just basic scrolls, tools, food. Nothing to justify this hunt. Unless they'd found a pattern. Unless the specter of thefts wasn't so phantom anymore.
He took extra precautions. He tripled the routes to his hideouts, left traps of thread and ash to detect intruders, and slept with a kunai in his hand. The shadow had realized that bigger hunters were prowling its territory.
"Tonight"—
The moon was a sharp crescent in the sky. Kenji emerged from his most secure hiding place, a trapdoor camouflaged in the floor of the Forest of Death, after a brutal shuriken training session. He was sweaty, the smell of damp earth and exertion clinging to him. A mistake. A minor mistake.
The rustle of a leaf, moved by something other than the wind.
He stopped dead in his tracks. His senses, honed by years of life and death in both worlds, screamed at him. You weren't alone. He didn't look back. He quickened his pace, turning down darker alleyways, toward the outskirts, where the houses gave way to overgrown vegetation. The presence followed him. Not threatening, not noisy. Persistent. Like a hunting dog on a trail.
Damn it. They saw me come out. And a kid from the Academy doesn't come out of a trapdoor in the Forest of Death at midnight.
He reached an area of stunted trees and mossy rocks, beyond the habitable limits. Here, the only sounds were insects and the crunch of his own boots. He turned, his voice cold and more mature than his body suggested.
"Who follows an Academy student at this hour?" he asked, projecting his voice into the darkness between the trees.
Nothing.
Then, as if materializing from the night itself, he appeared.
An ANBU mask, white with spiraling red markings. Gray clothing and light armor. He carried no visible weapon. He was a man, of average build, but every line of his body screamed controlled danger.
There were no words. The ANBU simply charged.
Kenji reacted on instinct, years of clandestine training kicking in. He blocked the first blow, a straight punch to the solar plexus, but the impact knocked the air out of his lungs. Hard! He spun, throwing a low kick to the knee. The ANBU dodged it with a movement that was almost dismissive, and his counterattack—an elbow aimed at the temple—was so fast that Kenji could only half-duck.
CRACK.
Pain exploded in his shoulder. It wasn't broken, but it was deeply bruised. He gasped, backing away. The ANBU didn't press. He just adjusted his mask and adopted a relaxed stance.
He's not trying to capture me! The revelation was more terrifying than the fight. He's testing me! Measuring my reactions, my style, my strength.
Anger, an emotion he'd kept buried beneath layers of ice, bubbled up. He charged again, this time feigning a punch and unleashing a flurry of shuriken at low altitude. The ANBU deflected them with his own kunai that appeared out of nowhere, then closed the distance.
It was a beating. A brutal ballet of efficiency. Every strike from the ANBU was economical, precise, designed to damage without completely incapacitating. Kicks that bruised muscles, punches that cracked ribs, blocks that twisted his joints to their limits. Kenji spat blood, the metallic taste filling his mouth. His world shrank to gasps, pain, and the impassive white mask watching him.
SHARINGAN! His mind screamed the solution. With both tomoe, I could see their movements, predict them! But another part, the cold, surviving part, clung to his skull. NO. It's the ONLY thing you can't show. If he sees the Sharingan, you're not some mysterious petty thief. You're a surviving Uchiha. You're a STRATEGIC ASSET. They'll gouge your eyes out on an operating table.
He endured. He took the blows. He pretended to be more injured than he was, collapsing heavily after a kick to the chest that sent him seeing stars. The ANBU stopped, watching.
Now.
With a growl that came from deep within him, Kenji whirled and fled. Not toward the village. Not toward any known hiding place. He ran like a wounded animal, leaping across streams, climbing cliffs, using every ounce of chakra to strengthen his legs and escape.
The ANBU followed. Not at full speed, but keeping their distance, like a cat playing with a mouse. But Kenji had one last ace up his sleeve. A place that no Konoha ninja, no matter how high up the ANBU ladder, would dare disturb.
He turned sharply, entering a section of the forest where the trees seemed older, denser. Hanging from a branch, half-hidden by ivy, was an old bronze bell, green with rust. And beyond, a simple, almost invisible cabin.
Might Guy's cabin.
Guy-sensei, the taijutsu prodigy, Kakashi's eternal rival, the man whose "youthful" rules were known to all… and whose power was as terrifying as it was ridiculous. Guy wouldn't tolerate a hunt in his backyard, especially one involving a (seemingly) Academy student.
Kenji slipped under the cabin's porch, holding his breath, making his chakra as small and weak as a dying mouse's.
The ANBU materialized at the edge of the clearing. His mask rotated slowly, scanning the area. His eyes (or were they the holes in the mask?) passed over the porch. They paused for a second. Long, eternal.
Kenji felt the weight of that gaze, cold and analytical. It wasn't the gaze of someone who had lost prey. It was the gaze of a scientist finishing an experiment.
Then, with a Shunshin so silent it barely disturbed the air, the ANBU vanished.
Kenji remained under the porch for an hour, trembling not from fear, but from impotent fury and pain. Every breath pricked his ribs. His mouth tasted of copper.
When he felt safe, he crawled outside and looked toward where the ANBU had been.
"It wasn't a confrontation," he muttered to himself, his voice hoarse with blood and rage. "It was an assessment. They wanted to see what the 'ghost' could do. To see if he was worth it… or if he was a threat."
He remembered how easily he had overpowered him. If it had been Kakashi, with that borrowed Sharingan and his thousand jutsu, he would be dead. If it had been Itachi… he wouldn't have even seen him move.
This ANBU was skilled, but he had his limits. He had gathered information. And now he had it.
He placed a hand on his bruised chest, feeling his ribs protest. The message was clear: We can find you whenever we want. We can do this to you, and much more.
A twisted, bloody smile spread across his lips. It wasn't a smile of joy. It was the smile of a wounded wolf who had just learned the exact size of the trap.
"Good," he whispered to the silent forest, as the first light of dawn began to filter through the leaves. "Now I know something too. I know you're out there. And I know that, to survive you, I can't remain just a shadow."
He had to be more. He had to be better. And, most importantly, he had to find out who that ANBU worked for, and what they really wanted with him.
The cat-and-mouse game had begun. And Kenji, the Yakuza ghost, had just realized that, in this world, even ghosts could be hunted.