Timeline: Late Part I (Four months prior to Sasuke's defection)
Location: Fire Country Border, Sector 12 – The weeping Canopy
The forest here was disciplined. Unlike the chaotic, overgrowth of the Grass Country, the trees in the Land of Fire grew tall and spaced with military precision, maximizing sightlines for patrols while providing ample cover for ambush. It was a terrain bred for war.
Kurobane Sōma crouched on a high branch, his chakra suppressed to the barest hum needed to maintain adhesion. He blended perfectly with the gloom of the canopy, his gray cloak mimicking the slate color of the rain-slicked bark.
Below him, the Konoha patrol moved.
There were three of them. A standard cell.
Point man: Taijutsu specialist. Bandaged forearms, heavy gait, constantly scanning the periphery.
Center: The Captain. Jōnin vest. Hand resting near a weapon pouch. High alertness.
Rear guard: Sensor type. Eyes closed periodically, fingers twitching in a minor seal to pulse chakra outward.
Sōma watched them for ten minutes. He didn't move. He didn't breathe loudly. He simply cataloged their rhythm.
Step. Scan. Signal. Step.
It was flawless execution of the Konoha Field Manual, Chapter 4, Section B: Hostile Territory Movement.
"Boring," Sōma mouthed silently.
Perfection was predictable. And predictable things were easy to trap.
Sōma reached into his pouch and withdrew three kunai. He didn't throw them. Instead, he rubbed his thumb over the ring of each handle, injecting a concentrated pulse of Yin chakra into the metal.
[Technique Primed: Loaded Proximity]
Condition: Detection by sensory chakra pulse.
Effect: False signal generation (echo).
He dropped the kunai. They fell silently, embedding themselves into the soft earth in a triangle formation roughly twenty meters ahead of the patrol's path.
Sōma waited.
The rear guard stopped. His fingers twitched.
"Captain," the sensor whispered, his voice barely audible over the rain. "Contact. Three signatures ahead. Stationary. Low reserves."
The Captain raised a fist. The squad froze.
"Ambush?" the Captain signaled with hand signs.
"Unlikely," the sensor replied. "They feel... dormant. Like animals waiting."
"Check it out," the Captain ordered. "Formation B."
The squad split. The point man flanked left, the Captain took the center, and the sensor held back. They moved toward the triangle of kunai.
Sōma smiled. They were following the script exactly. They trusted their sensor implicitly. They didn't account for the possibility that the information itself was a prop.
As the point man stepped within the triangle of the buried kunai, Sōma snapped his fingers.
[Technique Activation: False Echo]
The chakra in the kunai flared, mimicking the sudden, explosive release of an Paper Bomb. It wasn't an explosion—there was no fire, no force—but to a sensor type, it felt like a detonation was imminent.
"Trap! Explosive tags!" the sensor screamed, flaring his chakra to shield himself.
The point man and the Captain reacted instantly. They leaped backward, abandoning their positions to clear the blast radius.
They landed on the exact branches Sōma had selected for them.
The point man's sandals hit the thick oak branch to the left. As his weight settled, Sōma, hiding in the shadows of the trunk above, whispered the trigger.
[Technique Activation: Loaded Surface - Grease Clause]
Condition: Sudden weight application (Jump landing).
Effect: Friction coefficient reduction to zero.
The bark beneath the point man's feet suddenly became slicker than oil on ice. The ninja's confident landing turned into a disaster. His feet slid out from under him. He flailed, his center of gravity gone, and crashed chest-first onto the branch, knocking the wind out of himself.
Before he could recover, Sōma dropped.
He didn't strike to kill. He landed softly on the point man's back, driving a knee into the spine—just hard enough to paralyze, not to break.
"Your landing mechanics are solid," Sōma whispered into the man's ear. "But you assumed the environment was static. The stage changes, my friend."
Sōma pushed off, flipping backward into the air just as a fireball roared through the space he had occupied.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique.
The heat was intense, drying the rain in an instant. The Captain stood on the adjacent tree, smoke curling from his mouth, hands already weaving the next set of signs.
"Fast," Sōma complimented, landing on the forest floor. "Standard Uchiha-style katas, though you lack the clan crest. Copied? Or just diligent study?"
"Identify yourself!" the Captain barked. He didn't wait for an answer. He threw three shuriken, curving them with wire strings to cut off Sōma's retreat.
Sōma didn't retreat. He drew his own kunai—a single, dull blade. He parried the shuriken with lazy, minimal movements. Cling. Clang. Cling.
"I am a critic," Sōma replied.
The sensor had recovered from the false alarm and was now positioning himself behind Sōma. A pincer attack.
Textbook.
"You tricked my sensory readings," the sensor shouted, throwing a spread of senbon. "Genjutsu?"
"Nothing so complex," Sōma said. He ducked under the senbon, weaving through the assault. "I just told you a lie, and you believed it because you trust your eyes—or in your case, your chakra sense—more than your intuition."
The Captain dropped from the tree, engaging Sōma in taijutsu. The Konoha Jōnin was skilled. His fists were heavy, infused with chakra. He aimed for vitals—temple, heart, kidneys.
Sōma blocked, dodged, and parried. He wasn't trying to win the exchange. He was tagging.
Every time he blocked a punch, he tapped the Captain's wrist. Every time he dodged a kick, he brushed the Captain's ankle.
Tap. Brush. Tap.
"Stop playing!" the Captain grunted, feinting a high kick and driving a punch toward Sōma's gut.
Sōma caught the fist. He didn't squeeze. He just held it, his palm flat against the Captain's knuckles.
"Scene change," Sōma said.
[Technique Activation: Loaded Joint]
Condition: Attempting to retract a limb.
Effect: Tendon lock.
The Captain tried to pull his hand back. He couldn't. His arm froze, the muscles locking rigid as the Yin chakra flooded his elbow joint, overriding the neural signal to relax the tricep.
"What—?"
"You overextend on your straight punches," Sōma lectured, holding the Captain's frozen fist. "It gives you power, but it leaves you vulnerable to a bind. You're trading defense for damage. A rookie mistake."
The sensor charged from behind, a kunai raised.
Sōma didn't look. He pivoted, using the Captain's frozen arm as a lever, swinging the Jōnin around like a human shield.
The sensor skidded to a halt, barely stopping his blade from piercing his Captain's neck.
"Hesitation," Sōma noted.
He kicked the Captain in the back of the knee, forcing him down, then released the hand. He leaped back, putting ten meters between himself and the squad.
The point man was groaning in the tree. The Captain was clutching his numb arm. The sensor was shaking, unsure whether to attack or defend.
Sōma straightened his cloak. The rain began to fall harder, washing the mud from his boots.
"Assessment," Sōma announced, his voice cutting through the storm.
The Konoha ninjas tensed.
"Teamwork: C-plus. You rely too heavily on the sensor to initiate. Once he was neutralized, your formation collapsed."
He pointed at the Captain.
"Individual Skill: B-minus. Good reflexes, decent chakra capacity. But you fight like you're reading a manual. You lack... flair. You lack the willingness to deviate from the standard operating procedure when the situation becomes absurd."
"Who actally are you?" the Captain growled, forcing his arm to bend through sheer willpower.
"Someone who hates a boring fight," Sōma replied.
He turned his back on them.
"Wait!" the sensor yelled, throwing a kunai.
Sōma tilted his head. The kunai sailed past him, embedding in a tree trunk.
"I wouldn't follow," Sōma warned, not stopping. "I placed a 'Loaded Step' clause on the forest floor within a fifty-meter radius of this clearing during the ten minutes I watched you."
He glanced over his shoulder, offering a thin, predatory smile.
"Condition: Rapid acceleration. Effect: Achilles tendon rupture."
The three Konoha shinobi froze. They looked at their feet. They looked at the wet leaves covering the ground.
Was he lying? Like he lied about the explosive tags?
"Is it a bluff?" Sōma asked, his voice fading as he walked into the mist. "Or is it the truth? The only way to find out is to run."
He disappeared into the gray wash of the rain.
The squad didn't move. They stood in the clearing, paralyzed by the possibility of the trap.
Sōma walked for another mile before he let himself relax.
He checked his chakra reserves. Eighty percent. The "Loaded Surface" on the tree and the "False Echo" on the kunai had cost him a bit, but the psychological paralysis was free.
There was no trap on the forest floor.
"Fear is the most efficient chakra of all," he mused, opening his notebook again.
Entry 413:
Subjects: Konoha Patrol Unit 4.
Assessment: Adequate, but uninspired.
Notes: The Jōnin captain managed to force his arm to move despite the tendon lock. High pain tolerance. Shows promise. If he survives the psychological doubt, he might become interesting.
He winced slightly.
During the taijutsu exchange, the Captain's chakra-enhanced punch had grazed his ribcage before he caught the fist. It wasn't broken, but the bruising would be deep.
Sōma pressed a hand to his side.
"Sloppy," he chastised himself. "I got distracted critiquing his form and missed the chakra flow in his knuckles."
He needed better medical supplies than the standard field kit. And he needed a better understanding of high-level medical ninjutsu if he was going to keep using his body as bait.
He recalled the rumors he'd heard in the tea house. The legendary Sannin, Tsunade, had returned to Konoha recently to take the hat. And with her, an apprentice.
"A medic who travels with a slug princess," Sōma thought, closing the notebook. "Someone who values preservation... I wonder if she appreciates the art of dismantling?"
He continued East. The rehearsal was over. He needed to find a bigger stage.