My knuckles were bleeding. Again.
The rhythmic sound of flesh striking bark filled the forest clearing, a pathetic percussion beneath the vastness of Konoha's towering trees. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred.
I let myself drop against the oak trunk, sweat stinging my eyes. The air smelled of soil and my own frustration.
"Status," I panted, spitting a bit of metallic-tasting saliva.
The blue panel flickered in my vision, indifferent and cruel.
[USER INTERFACE]
Name: Kael
Age: 20
Affiliation: Konoha Civilian
Strength: 0.80
Speed: 0.90
Stamina: 0.70
Defense: 0.80
Chakra: Inaccessible (Calcified Channels)
Skills: None
Three days. I had been in this green hell for three days. I woke up in a cheap bed in the civilian district with memories that weren't mine about a Fox attack years ago, and the absolute certainty that I was in the world of Naruto.
My first stop was the Academy. They laughed in my face.
"Twenty years old? Grandpa, if you didn't start at six, your chakra channels are as hard as cement. Go sell ramen."
But I couldn't give up. Not in a world where people spit fire and walk on water. Being a civilian here means being collateral damage waiting to happen. So here I was, punching trees in the Forest of Death—or at least its safer outskirts—trying to force my body to become something it wasn't.
That's when I heard the crash.
It wasn't close, maybe a kilometer or two east. It sounded like localized thunder and clashing metal. The ground trembled faintly beneath my boots.
A ninja fight.
My inner anime fan screamed: "Go look! It could be the start of the plot!"
My survival instinct screamed louder: "If you go, you'll get accidentally decapitated."
I stayed where I was, wiping the blood off my hands with a dirty rag. Probably some Jonin training or a drunken superpowered dispute. Not my problem.
Until the bushes to my left rustled.
It wasn't the stealthy rustle of an animal. It was the sound of something falling, snapping branches in desperation. I tensed, adopting a ridiculous boxing stance I had learned on YouTube in my previous life.
A figure emerged from the brush, staggering as if drunk.
It was a girl. Small, maybe twelve or thirteen. She wore a bright orange jumpsuit, torn at the shoulder and caked with mud. Her blond hair was messy, full of leaves, and she had… marks on her cheeks?
I squinted. Whiskers?
She didn't see me. Her blue eyes were glassy, unfocused, rolling wildly in their sockets. She gasped as if drowning in dry air.
The most unsettling thing wasn't her appearance, but what surrounded her. Even without unlocked chakra, I could feel it. The air around her vibrated with red, malicious static. Her skin faintly smoked.
"Too much… noise…" she whimpered, her voice distorted as she clutched her head. "They won't shut up…"
She took a step toward me and her legs gave out.
I didn't think. It was pure human reflex. I didn't see a ninja—I saw a kid about to crack her skull on an exposed root.
I lunged forward.
My arms wrapped around her just before she hit the ground. The impact knocked the air from my lungs, and for a second I thought I had burned myself. Her body was boiling, feverish, vibrating with an energy that made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
"I've got you," I rasped. "You're sa—"
The moment my arms caught her, the world stopped.
Something in my chest pulled. Hard. The red static around her shifted toward me and halted. The air calmed. Her skin stopped burning. A hum in my bones. Then nothing.
The girl in my arms exhaled. Not a normal sigh. It was the sound of someone who had been carrying a mountain on their shoulders and suddenly gravity disappeared.
Her body, tense like a violin string, melted against me. Her head dropped heavily onto my chest, her nose brushing my sweat-soaked neck.
"Silence…" she whispered, smiling. Her eyes closed. For a second, she clutched my shirt tightly, as if she never wanted to let go.
I froze, my heart hammering against her ribs. What the hell had just happened?
"Hey," I said, gently shaking her. "Are you okay? I need to get help."
I moved her to lean against the tree trunk. When I broke contact, she whimpered—a low, almost desperate sound—and her fingers clung to my shirt. I had to pry her hands off. Her eyes stayed closed.
"Stay here. I'll get a guard or—"
I turned my back for a second to orient myself toward the main path.
Plof.
The sound was dry, like an air pouch popping.
I spun around.
The tree was empty. No girl. No orange jumpsuit. Just a small cloud of white smoke dissipating in the night breeze and a smear of mud where she had been.
"What…?"
I looked at my hands. I could still feel the residual heat of her skin, the weight of her body. I hadn't imagined it. But no one was there.
"Hallucinations from dehydration," I muttered, running a trembling hand through my hair. "Great, Kael. Now you see ninja girls who disappear. You're losing it."
I shook my head, trying to erase the strange sensation, and went back to punching the tree. I had to be strong. I didn't have time for ghosts.
-------------------
Two kilometers east
Naruko Uzumaki was on her knees, gasping.
The forbidden scroll lay open before her. Mizuki was embedded in the rock wall, unconscious. Iruka-sensei looked at her with a mixture of pride and astonishment, saying something about graduation and forehead protectors.
But Naruko wasn't listening.
Ten seconds ago, she had dispelled the thousand shadow clones she had created in a burst of panic and adrenaline. The information from a thousand experiences crashed into her brain at once: blows given, blows received, screams, insults.
And in the middle of that cacophony of pain and noise… there was one.
A single memory. Clear. Sharp. Overwhelming.
The warmth of a body holding her.
The smell of sweat, soil, and… something else. Something that smelled like "Calm."
The burning agony in her gut vanishing. The Fox's voice in her head going silent for the first time since she could remember.
Naruko pressed a hand to her chest, clutching the orange fabric over her heart. Her bruised, dirty face flushed fiercely up to the tips of her ears.
Her legs trembled. Not from exhaustion, but from a seismic aftershock of pleasure that ran down her spine. The clone's sensation—that moment of absolute peace while being held against that firm chest—looped endlessly in her mind.
"Naruko…" Iruka approached, worried, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Naruko! Are you okay? You're burning up. Is it a fever? Did you use too much chakra?"
Naruko blinked, her blue eyes unfocused, pupils dilated.
"Sensei…" her voice came out as a strangled squeak. "I… just now…"
"What?" Iruka frowned, checking her forehead. "You're boiling. We're going to the hospital."
She didn't respond. She couldn't. Her mind was trying to process the impossibility of what had just happened. One of her clones had gotten lost. One of her clones had found something in the forest. Someone.
Unconsciously, Naruko licked her dry lips. The feeling of peace and quiet was fading now that the clone no longer existed, leaving a cold, aching void in her stomach she had never noticed before—but that now felt unbearable.
I want to find him, she thought, and the thought was so violent it frightened her. I want him to hold me again. To make the noise stop.
"Who was he…?" she whispered into the air, ignoring Iruka.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would search. She had to know if he was real. She had to find that peace again, even if she had to turn the entire village upside down.