Blood smelled like iron and smoke.
Sora stood on trembling legs, hand wrapped around a kunai far too large for his small fingers. The sun filtered through the trees in dusty rays, and all around him, the quiet of the glade had shattered.
Training was over.
This was real.
His chest rose and fell in short bursts. Not from panic. Not from fear. From something else.
Excitement.
Across from him, a masked shinobi lay groaning, his ribs crushed from a surprise counter. Sora's eyes, once soft with boyish distance, now gleamed with a sharp, metallic focus.
Ayame appeared beside him in a blur.
"You weren't supposed to kill," she said coldly.
"I didn't," Sora answered. "He's still breathing."
Her eyes lingered on him, crimson with her activated Sharingan. Then she glanced at the assailant.
Root.
Danzo's filth.
Third one this week.
They were coming more frequently now. Testing. Watching. Failing.
Ayame turned back to him. "Why did you let him get that close?"
"I wanted to feel it," Sora whispered. "What real battle tastes like."
She didn't respond.
There was nothing more to teach him today.
---
Hours Earlier – Morning Drills
Sora held a short sword, freshly sharpened. Forged by Ayame herself from chakra-hardened ore, the blade was light but dense, with a faint violet hue that shimmered in the sun.
"You'll name it later," Ayame had said. "For now, let's see if it likes you."
He practiced with it against wooden posts first, learning weight and flow. He was small, but what he lacked in strength he made up for in control. The sword danced when he wielded it—guided not just by skill, but by instinct.
Ayame watched closely.
"He adapts too fast," she muttered.
His strikes weren't just based on form—they adjusted in the middle of motion, reacting to imaginary counters. Not just practice, but prediction.
He sliced clean through a post, the wood falling in two halves.
The blade hummed in his grip.
"I think it likes me," he said.
---
Midday – The Ambush
It came without warning.
As Ayame stepped away to retrieve lunch from a supply cache, the chakra signature hit Sora like a punch to the gut—fast, deliberate, cloaked.
But not well enough.
Sora ducked behind a tree just as a poisoned senbon whizzed past his ear.
He didn't scream.
He didn't run.
He waited.
And when the assailant landed behind him, blade raised—
Sora turned and stabbed upward.
A shallow wound—but precise.
The masked shinobi hissed and staggered back.
"You knew," he muttered.
"I felt your killing intent," Sora said simply.
They clashed again—this time with fury. The shinobi was stronger, older, faster—but Sora didn't fight to overpower.
He fought to out-think.
Feints. Counters. Chakra pulses through his legs to slip under kicks. At one point, he absorbed a shallow genjutsu by devouring the chakra tether itself, rendering it null.
And then came the opening—a fraction of a second.
Sora twisted and rammed the kunai into the man's side.
The assassin fell.
Sora stood over him, breathing hard.
---
Present – Aftermath
Ayame tied the attacker's wrists with chakra-suppressing wire.
"This is the third Root agent," she muttered. "Danzo's watching us."
"He fears what I might become," Sora said.
Ayame met his gaze.
"No. He fears what you already are."
Sora looked down at his hand—the same hand that had held steel and spilled blood.
It didn't tremble.
Not even once.
"I liked it," he whispered.
Ayame's breath caught.
"Not the killing," he continued. "The clarity. In that moment… there's no confusion. Only choice. Reaction. Purpose."
"You're too young to talk like that," she whispered.
"But I'm not too young to kill."
She turned away.
The boy was changing.
Faster than she anticipated.
---
Later – At the River
Sora sat by the water's edge, polishing his blade.
Not with cloth—but chakra. Infusing it with the wind element he had absorbed. The blade began to sing—a faint vibration as wind chakra danced along the edge.
Ayame watched from a distance.
He was fusing himself into the weapon.
Not just wielding it—but feeding it.
As if the blade were a part of him.
And maybe, she thought, it was.
He finally spoke. "I've named it."
She approached.
"What is it?"
"Mugen."
"Limitless…" she whispered.
He nodded.
"I will become that. Limitless. Through steel. Through chakra. Through hunger."
Ayame felt the weight of his words.
And somewhere deep down…
She feared the boy she had raised might someday become the blade himself.
---
Elsewhere – Konoha, Root Facility
Danzo Shimura listened silently as the masked agent knelt before him, wounded and pale.
"He's just a child," the man coughed. "But… there's something wrong with him. Like he wants to devour the world."
Danzo's grip tightened on his cane.
"Then we'll need stronger chains," he murmured.
He turned to the shadows.
"Release Project Ghost. It's time we send the Uchiha girl a real message."