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ANBU life stayed the same day after day. Hiruzen seemed content to keep Taiichi as a simple bodyguard for the time being. At least for now, Taiichi saw no sign of any other plans.
The fronts had shifted hard. After the peace treaty with Hidden Sand, the southern lines were broken apart. Most of the forces were pulled north and west. Jiraiya kept only a small unit of under five hundred shinobi in the Land of Rivers as a deterrent. Tsunade's eastern forces also lost some troops to the other fronts. The clan leaders who had been fighting in the east returned home once the real fighting stopped.
That included Uchiha Fugaku and Hyuga Hiashi. With those fresh reinforcements, the northern and western fronts exploded with new strength. They scored real victories against Cloud and Iwa. Namikaze Minato shone brightest. With Flying Thunder God, he moved between both fronts like a ghost. The name "Yellow Flash" became the new nightmare for both villages, right behind the "White Death."
Anyone with half a brain could see it now—Minato was the obvious choice for Fourth Hokage. Hiruzen's favoritism was obvious. Jiraiya stayed stuck in the south on watch duty. Orochimaru still led the fight against Cloud, but Minato's battlefield moments were starting to outshine even the Sannin's. On the western front against Iwa, Minato basically had the stage to himself. In one support battle he wiped out over a hundred Iwa shinobi alone. Golden flashes cut through the air and left corpses behind. After that fight his reputation hit a new peak, nearly matching Taiichi's own.
Behind every big victory were hundreds of ordinary Leaf shinobi grinding it out. Kakashi's team was one of the groups carrying real weight. After that mission where they decided they wanted independence, the three of them went straight to Minato and asked for solo assignments.
Minato resisted at first. He cared about his students even if he hadn't always been there for them. Kakashi pushed back with quiet confidence. Obito got loud and emotional. Rin backed them up. In the end Minato gave in, though he warned them hard—every mission report had to be detailed, and one screw-up would land them right back under his direct watch.
Obito celebrated like he'd won the lottery. Minato just hoped he wouldn't get them all killed.
Far from the fronts, in a remote mountain range on the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Rivers, stood the active volcano known as Asama. The peak constantly belched ash and sometimes spat lava. The ash carried rich minerals that made the surrounding land surprisingly fertile. The trees here grew massive—some thick enough that three or four adults couldn't wrap their arms around the trunks. The ridges kept most people out, so the place had become a paradise for birds.
Taiichi walked through those towering trees now. He had finally snapped. Guard duty for Hiruzen was soul-crushing. Day after day of standing in the shadows watching paperwork and meetings had worn him down. His real body needed training—taijutsu, meditation, Sage Mode. Shadow clones could handle ANBU shifts, but they couldn't push his limits the way his actual body could.
So he left a clone on duty and slipped out of the village. This volcano was his first stop. He wanted to push his Fire Release nature transformation. The panel already showed it at Level 13 (4643/5000). One more push and it would cross into super-kage territory. But progress had slowed to a crawl. He needed time and the right environment. Standing in the heart of a volcano felt like the fastest way to understand fire on a deeper level.
He spotted the peak from miles away. It rose noticeably higher than the surrounding ridges, dark smoke constantly rising from the crater. He took his time walking through the forest, listening to the constant birdsong and watching massive birds wheel overhead. He even thought about trying to contract one as a summon, but that could wait.
His spiritual perception spread wide. The natural energy here was thick and unusually active—far stronger than anywhere else he had been. Training Sage Mode here would last longer. Perfect place to hole up.
As he got closer to the crater the trees thinned out, but the natural energy only grew denser. In his spirit sight the energy was shifting toward pure fire red, wild and aggressive. He didn't need to pull it in—the energy was already moving toward him on its own. The heat was brutal, but Taiichi's Pyrofication technique made fire poison meaningless to him.
He reached the crater edge by midday. The opening was over five hundred meters across and more than two hundred meters deep. Bright red lava churned at the bottom. The air shimmered with heat. In his spirit sight the entire crater was a sea of fire energy.
Taiichi jumped.
He fell straight into the crater. As the temperature climbed his body changed—feet first, then legs, torso, until he was pure flame. By the time he reached the lava lake he was no longer human. He stood on the molten surface as living fire, then let the form collapse into a single bright flame floating on the lava.
From above, no one would have spotted him among the countless other flames rising from the magma.
Inside that flame, Taiichi's perception merged with the volcano itself. Insights poured in—fire's rage when it surged, its stillness when it rested, its searing heat and its gentler warmth. Every facet of fire became clearer. The surrounding fire nature energy responded, flowing into him and exchanging something wordless. The flame he had become grew steadily brighter, though the change was too subtle for normal eyes to catch.
Eventually the chakra drain hit the limit he had set for himself. The flame shifted back into a human shape. Golden chakra wings formed behind him and he rose toward the crater rim. By the time he landed on the edge he was fully human again.
He stood there for a long moment, breathing in the hot air, feeling the new depth in his understanding of fire. The volcano had given him exactly what he came for. This was only the beginning of his journey. There were more places to see, more power to chase, and a war that was far from finished. Taiichi spread his wings and lifted off, already thinking about where the road would take him next.