After roughly a month of supply runs, Sora's squad stopped returning to Konoha.
The frontline camp had stockpiled enough food, equipment, and medicine to last the winter. Seven completed runs in total. Konoha covered room and board throughout, and Sora's account now sat at a handsome 14,100 ryo.
Nothing on this earth could kill him now. He would defend that bank balance with every last drop of life force he possessed.
His squad picked up auxiliary work around camp: tending the wounded, patching gear, the kind of unglamorous grind that added up to one C-rank mission per week.
Here, at last, the constant friction between clan ninja and civilians faded into the background.
Death had a way of leveling things. Blades didn't check your pedigree before they cut. Noble blood spilled the same color as everyone else's.
Sora liked that. Even if it meant that one day, he might bleed out in some forgotten corner of the battlefield himself.
After another month of camp labor, he'd banked five more C-rank missions. The ryo had to be stashed inside his tent, which wasn't ideal, but war really was the best time to make money. The clans raked in fortunes; he scraped together his modest share riding the same tide.
Then the summons came.
Sora's squad was called to the Command Tent. Shimura Danzo sat dead center. Princess Tsunade occupied one flank, and an old man from the Nara clan the other.
"Akimichi Yoshimaru's squad." Danzo's voice carried no inflection whatsoever, his gaze flat on the three of them standing below the platform. "Your squad leader, Akimichi Yoshimaru, has been dispatched on a separate mission. A temporary assignment is being issued to you."
"The main theater of battle lies to our west. Using north as twelve o'clock, the front lines sit at nine. You will transport a shipment of supplies to the flanking combat zone at seven o'clock, where a temporary supply depot is located. If you encounter combat, the mission will be reclassified as B-rank. Otherwise, it remains C-rank."
"Genin Kazeki Sora is hereby appointed acting squad leader. Move out."
The three of them collected their orders and drew supplies without a word. First time leaving the camp. First time heading toward an active combat zone. They were all ten years old on paper, but Sora carried forty years of lived experience behind his eyes. Maybe that quiet steadiness was exactly why Danzo had pointed at him.
Since arriving in Konoha, Sora had come to appreciate one unexpected perk of being a civilian ninja: he didn't have to fear Shimura Danzo or Orochimaru, the two most infamous villains the village had ever produced.
Both were strangely gentle with civilians. Clan ninja, on the other hand, they loathed.
Orochimaru was the easy one to understand. The man would happily dissect every clan member alive if it meant unraveling the secrets encoded in their bloodlines. A talentless civilian like Sora could strip naked in front of him and Orochimaru wouldn't spare him a second glance.
Advisor Danzo was a different creature. As the self-appointed champion of civilian ninja, he faithfully carried out the policies of the late Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, dedicating his life to grinding down clan power. Years from now, he would personally orchestrate the Uchiha Clan massacre.
Danzo himself had once been the head of a minor clan, the Shimura. Root's earliest operatives were all young Shimura volunteers. But Root's casualty rate was catastrophic. Over time, the Shimura bled out until the bloodline nearly went extinct.
Forced to recruit beyond his own kin, Root grew into something unwieldy. And a man like Danzo, unable to tolerate anything beyond his absolute control, turned to darker methods. Suicide seals branded onto his operatives. Recruits drawn from war orphans plucked off the streets, or clan children conscripted by force.
Sora thought Danzo was ruthless and utterly without scruples. He also thought none of that ruthlessness would ever be pointed in his direction.
In Danzo's calculus, civilians were allies. Successors. Konoha's precious future. Clan members were parasites, historical refuse that the village would be better off without.
A moment of silence for any transmigrator unlucky enough to land in a clan body. Enjoy trembling under Lord Danzo's boot.
The three of them collected their supply scrolls and set off at speed toward the seven o'clock depot.
The instant they cleared the camp perimeter, Sora's pulse kicked hard. Even the wind felt sharper, carrying an edge it hadn't held before.
They moved through the trees with careful, measured leaps. Half a day's travel should put them in the target zone. The real challenge was locating the depot itself. Frontline supply points shifted constantly. Stay in one place too long and the enemy would find you.
Out here, there was no justice. No kindness. No warmth. Only the imperative to kill fast and disengage faster. Hesitation didn't exist on the front lines, because everyone who'd hesitated was already dead.
And of course, the thing he'd feared most was the first thing that happened.
When Sora's squad reached the target zone, they found the depot's remnants. Scuffed earth. Faint drag marks. Gone.
Whoever had evacuated the position was good. Every trace of the withdrawal direction had been scrubbed clean, denying enemy trackers any lead. It also made Sora's mission exponentially harder.
"Teju, set up a perimeter." The crease between Sora's brows deepened. This difficult right out of the gate?
Teju rigged his traps in minutes and returned to their concealed position. The three of them crouched back to back, voices barely above a whisper.
"The way I see it, we've got one option," Sora said. "Fan out locally and search for the depot's new position. Our forward base must be running low, which is why the resupply request was filed. My guess is the Sand ninja discovered the depot after the request went out, and the garrison relocated."
He was about to ask the other two for input when Teju's expression changed.
"Down!"
Before Sora or Kurenai could process the shout, Teju's tripwire snapped taut somewhere in the trees. He was the first to react, launching himself upward to intercept a volley of senbon streaking toward them.
Sora turned.
Teju hung in the air, arms raised in a guard. Then, slowly, he fell. Three senbon jutted from his chest, the upper halves stained black-purple, buried deep.
So this is what shinobi war looks like. The moment someone spots you first, you've already lost half the fight.
Sora shoved a pill into Teju's mouth. Kurenai was already at his side, pulling the senbon from his body with practiced hands. Then Sora kicked Teju into a dense thicket of undergrowth, and he and Kurenai split apart, each diving for cover and a position to strike back from.
His last glimpse of Teju: eyes unfocused, limbs slack at his sides. Gone from consciousness.
Sora pressed himself behind a thick tree trunk, scanning everything. The forest had gone silent. Wind through leaves. Nothing else. No information. No sign of the enemy.
Teju, are you okay?
No sound from the thicket. He wished so badly that the answer was yes.
Stay calm. Stay calm.
When we get back, I'm beating the hell out of Sarutobi Asuma. Maybe not a death-sentence level beating, but a good, thorough one. He's earned that much.
He forced himself to think. Teju had laid traps. The traps had triggered. Then the attack came. Which meant the enemy had walked into Teju's perimeter first. They'd been hit too.
Sora couldn't sit here and wait to die. He was the acting squad leader. Both his teammates were people he'd chosen as friends and comrades. They were ten years old. He'd already lived two lifetimes, forty years total.
If someone had to die today, let it be the squad leader first.
He moved. Tree to tree, checking each of Teju's traps in sequence.
The forest held its silence. Somewhere in the green stillness, both sides hunted for the trail of his movement.