Sora finished his fight and tore off toward the Konoha camp, scanning for traces left by the squads ahead of him.
Winter was closing in. The wind cut harder, colder. It was only Year 46 of Konoha's calendar, four years until the war ended. Four years. The kind of distance that swallowed hope whole.
Three months on the front lines, and his squad had already clashed with Sand ninja twice.
The stronger they got, the more frequent those encounters would become. The legendary figures of the Third Great Ninja War, the ones who'd forged their reputations in blood and grown more powerful with every battle... what kind of monsters had they been?
He crossed several gorges before the sounds of fighting reached him from below.
Sora picked up the pace. But with every step closer, his mood sank.
Nara Sakuji's squad, four members and one ninja dog, leaped out of the gorge in sequence. Behind them: one adult male Sand ninja and two young genin.
The Nara squad looked untouched. Energized, even.
Sakuji had squared off against the enemy chunin. His three genin and the dog were handling the two Sand genin. Total dominance.
Sora waited. And waited. Where were Tejuno and Kurenai?
He ran and thought. The whole way here, he hadn't seen a single trace of their fighting. Tejuno relied on traps now, and trap-based combat left distinctive marks. Easy to spot. They shouldn't be behind him.
Unless the worst had happened.
Unless Sakuji, after reading the Sand ninja's intentions, had handed the poison jar off to Tejuno and Kurenai. Kept his own squad behind under the noble pretense of covering the retreat.
The Sand ninja wanted the poison jar above all else. Whoever carried it wore the biggest target.
And the Sand squad, seeing Konoha split its forces again, had done exactly what anyone would predict: sent the female chunin after Tejuno and Kurenai, left the male chunin and two genin to pin the Nara squad down.
A Sand chunin against two Konoha genin. The odds were ugly.
If the jar was captured or destroyed, the blame fell on Sora's squad. Sakuji's team walked away with credit for a heroic rearguard action.
Elegant. Poisonous. Two birds, one stone.
Tejuno and Kurenai couldn't beat a chunin. Not now. Not yet.
Both sides in the gorge spotted Sora sprinting toward them. The conclusion was obvious: the two Sand ninja left to deal with him were dead.
The three remaining Sand ninja disengaged and pulled into a defensive formation, bracing for a pincer attack from the Nara squad and Sora combined.
They watched him warily. A genin charging in with that kind of reckless momentum, having just killed two of their comrades... they had no idea what he'd throw at them.
Sakuji's face lit up when he saw Sora. His eyebrows climbed. Reinforcements meant less pressure, and any genin who'd killed two Sand ninja had to be competent.
Under the stares of both squads, Sora blew past the battlefield without slowing down. He flung a handful of kunai at the Sand ninja as he passed, didn't bother checking if they hit, and kept running.
As he passed the Nara squad, he turned his head just long enough to lock eyes with Sakuji. He watched the man's expression shift: relief, then confusion, then venom.
Relief that Sora had arrived. Confusion at why he wasn't stopping. Venom at the realization that he wouldn't.
Sora shot the three Nara genin an apologetic look. Whether they understood it was anyone's guess.
Seven people on that field, and none of them could process what had just happened. He'd blown right through.
He didn't have the luxury of caring. Confirming his teammates' status came first.
Four against three, plus a ninja dog. By Sora's count, the Nara squad didn't need him. If this turned into an argument back at command, he had his justification: his teammates needed him more.
His voice drifted back from the distance. "Nara squad leader, rest assured! I'll complete the mission and bring the poison back to camp with my team!"
You started this. Don't blame me for returning the favor.
He wanted to get along with everyone. He wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with the whole unit and shout about the Will of Fire. But just because Danzo had wounded Nara Masatake's pride, Masatake had decided to make Sora's squad suffer for it.
Sora's squad had done nothing. They'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, present when Danzo voiced his displeasure with the ninja clans' lackluster contributions to the war effort. Sora hadn't even gotten a word in during the mission briefing, let alone spoken against Masatake.
And yet here they were. Did clan elders really treat lives this carelessly? Playing god on a whim?
The most pathetic part was that Masatake probably hadn't given the arrangement a second thought. Sora's squad, their lives, their deaths... none of it registered as consequential.
Civilian squads died all the time in wartime. One more wouldn't raise any eyebrows. Out of every graduating class of hundreds, how many survived to see peace?
Only the clan squads' casualties got remembered. Written up, eulogized, paraded as shining examples of the Will of Fire in action.
Civilians died quiet. No one told their stories. The only mourning happened in private, on holidays, by the people closest to them.
Trying to win over someone who'd already made you the enemy was pointless.
Maybe once Sora was dead, Masatake would finally forget whatever slight he imagined.
Sora stopped rationing his chakra. He pulled everything he had, dumped it into the seals on his feet, and ran faster than he'd thought possible.
He couldn't picture a world where Tejuno or Kurenai died on this mission. Couldn't picture himself accepting it.
Being ruthless toward the enemy, he could live with. War left no room for kindness. But losing a teammate before they lost him... that he couldn't stomach.
Tejuno was his first real friend in this world. On the surface, Sora was the one looking out for Tejuno, on missions and off. But he knew the truth ran the other way. He needed that friendship more. He depended on Tejuno more than Tejuno depended on him.
This world was lonely in a way that went bone-deep. Only around Tejuno, who he'd grown up with since childhood, could Sora forget it for a while. That warmth felt the same as what he got from his parents. Irreplaceable.
If Tejuno died, how would he face Tejuno's father?
Kurenai had eased into the squad with her quiet warmth and steady nerve. Sora couldn't bear to see her cut down this young. She'd been a major character through the entire manga. With any luck, she'd survive here the same way she survived in canon. He just had to hope his existence hadn't bent the plot too far.
The sense of fate's hand around his throat was suffocating.
He finally understood why, in so many transmigration stories, people chose to go rogue. Cut all ties, answer to no one, burn it all down. The appeal was obvious.
But his father, his mother, Tejuno... they kept him anchored. All he could do was pick his way carefully through the Nara clan's malice.
His speed climbed. The faster he pushed the seals, the more instinctive they became, and the adrenaline unlocked reserves he didn't know he had.