Four against seven. The Uchiha were cornered, backs against the crumbling wall of a burnt-out inn. The Cloud-nin closed in, a tightening noose of steel and malice.
"They're Uchiha," the Cloud Special Jonin barked. "Kill them. But don't damage the eyes."
Just as despair began to choke the four Uchiha—just as they thought Qianyu had truly abandoned them—a voice cut through the tension from directly behind them.
"You four are weak."
They flinched, hearts lurching with a wild mix of terror and relief. Qianyu stood there, casual as a shadow at noon.
"Chunin-level. Uchiha Chunin, at that. And you only managed three Genin and one Chunin before getting pinned? Pathetic."
Internally, the four Uchiha bristled. Pathetic? They were facing a Special Jonin, four Chunin, and two Genin! Not being cut to pieces already was an achievement. What did he expect?
From his perch in the trees, Qianyu had already measured the Cloud team's strength. To him, they were barely worth a glance.
He vanished.
A flicker of movement—too fast. The Cloud-nin startled, eyes scrambling.
He reappeared between the two Cloud Genin. Their panicked strikes were slow, clumsy. Qianyu didn't even bother drawing his sword. A flick of his wrist. Two kunai flew. Thunk. Thunk. They found homes in throats. The Genin gurgled, collapsing.
The four Cloud Chunin roared, charging as one.
Qianyu's blade finally left its sheath. Blue-white electricity crackled along the steel.
"Thunder Breathing, Second Form: Rice Spirit."
Five lightning-shaped slashes erupted in the space of a heartbeat. A web of lethal light.
The Cloud Chunin didn't see the attack. They only felt the impact. Four bodies were hurled backward, crashing into the dirt. Each bore a single, massive, cleaving wound across their torso. Blood bubbled. Breath came in ragged, wet gasps. They wouldn't last another minute.
The Cloud-nin hadn't seen it. But the four Uchiha had. Their Sharingan had barely managed to trace the after-images.
Their eyes were wide, jaws slack. This… this is Thunder Breathing?
Uchiha Keisuke, among them, had learned the basic forms. He'd found it underwhelming—a huge drain of chakra for a pitiful spark of power. Not worth using in a real fight. He'd all but abandoned it.
But what Qianyu just did… It shattered that notion. The power, the speed, the sheer violence of it. It was like they'd learned completely different techniques.
Qianyu's gaze, cold and flat, settled on the lone Special Jonin.
The man snapped out of his shock. Fear won. He turned and ran, chakra flaring at his feet.
Qianyu didn't chase. He looked at his four stunned subordinates. "Now you see how useless you are? Remember this. From now on, in front of me, you will be obedient. You will follow my orders. I won't make your lives too difficult." His voice dropped, a promise of frost. "But if you make one wrong move… there is nowhere you can run."
He raised his crackling blade toward the fleeing Jonin's back.
"Thunder Breathing, Fifth Form: Heat Lightning."
A bolt of searing, concentrated electricity shot from his sword. It pierced the air, then the Cloud Jonin's chest, in a single horrific instant. The man stumbled, a charred hole smoking between his shoulder blades, and fell.
Schick. Qianyu sheathed his sword. "Do you understand?"
The four Uchiha jolted. "Yes, sir!"
"Good. Clean up. Take their heads for intelligence. I want them analyzed."
He leaned against a tree, watching as the pale-faced Uchiha set about their grim work.
Later, back at the camp, they turned in the mission.
…
With Konoha's reinforcements flooding into the Land of Hot Water, the chaotic tide of war began to recede, settling into a tense, muddy stalemate.
Orochimaru was ruthless and efficient. He sent teams to systematically dismantle the Cloud's forward outposts. It worked. The Cloud had grown overconfident, spreading their forces too thin across too many small bases. Now, they couldn't defend them all. One outpost would fall to a Konoha squad; a report would arrive; before a counter-attack could be organized, another outpost was already under assault.
The Cloud was forced to adapt. They consolidated, pulling back, sacrificing territory for strength. The number of active front-line positions dwindled.
On other fronts, the situation was oddly quiet. In the Lands of Rivers and Grass, the forces of Sunagakure and Iwagakure were locked in a wary standoff with Konoha. Neither side had gained a decisive advantage, so neither was eager to escalate.
Kirigakure had moved into the Land of Waves but seemed content to posture and observe, not yet committing to open hostilities.
That made the Land of Hot Water the war's primary furnace. Yet even here, the Third Raikage was no fool. He had no desire to bleed his village's true elites dry in these prelude skirmishes, not against the hardened veterans Konoha had stationed here. The Cloud's movements grew cautious, deliberate. Large-scale clashes became rare. A grinding, watchful standoff took hold.
For Konoha, the breathing room was a blessing. They used it. Fresh Genin, newly graduated, were now being deployed to the quieter sectors for "experience." War, after all, was the fastest forge.
Three years slipped by in the blink of an eye.
On the Hot Water front, two names dominated conversation: Qianyu and Minato Namikaze.
Minato had fully mastered the Flying Thunder God Technique. His mission completion rate was a flawless 100%. More than that, it was how he did it. Through a combination of staggering competence and genuine, unfeigned decency, he had earned the deep respect and loyalty of nearly every Konoha shinobi stationed there.
Qianyu's record was identical: 100% success rate, zero failures. But his entourage never grew. It was still just the four Uchiha—Keisuke, Ryuhei, Keiichi, and Jinya—trailing in his silent, fearful wake.
Where Minato led with charisma, Qianyu commanded through… absence. A cold, clinical efficiency that left no room for camaraderie. No one sought him out. No one wanted to. To them, he was a weapon, sharp and lonely.
In these three years, Minato never challenged Qianyu to another spar. Instead, he buried himself in missions, piling up achievements as if trying to outrun a shadow, to prove a point on some invisible ledger only he and Qianyu kept.
Qianyu couldn't care less about accolades or points of pride. His ledger dealt in a different currency: Witness Points.
By consistently intercepting missions and claiming victories that, in another timeline, might have been Minato's, his tally had grown steadily. He now hovered around 6,000 points. But the stabilized frontline meant fewer dramatic, point-worthy events. The influx had slowed to a trickle.
Both he and Minato had been promoted to full Jonin.
In the lulls between missions, Qianyu wrote letters. To Kushina Uzumaki. He'd managed a few brief trips back to Konoha to see her. The village, citing her "unique status," had kept her safely behind its walls, away from the battlefields. She chafed at the restriction, frustration simmering beneath her fiery spirit, but orders were orders.
Back in Konoha, a new star was rising with breathtaking speed: Kakashi Hatake.
The boy had graduated from the Academy last year at the age of five. Immediately sent to the Land of Grass, he fought alongside his father, the White Fang, Sakumo Hatake. This year, at six, he'd already been promoted to Chunin. His name was on everyone's lips—a prodigy to rival, perhaps even surpass, Minato.
And as Qianyu looked toward the coming year, a specific event surfaced in his memory. A tragedy. One that, in his estimation, should be worth a significant number of Witness Points.
The suicide of Sakumo Hatake.
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