Chapter 82: A Lesson in Power
Despair was a cold stone in the stomachs of Uchiha Kyosuke and his three companions. Surrounded by seven Cloud-nin, their backs to each other, they could see no escape. The circle of enemies tightened, their weapons gleaming.
"Remember," the Cloud Tokubetsu Jonin commanded, his voice a cruel promise. "They are Uchiha. Preserve their eyes when you kill them!"
Just as the finality of their situation settled upon them, a voice, cool and laced with disdain, cut through the tension from behind their small circle.
"You four are truly pathetic. Chunin of the Uchiha clan, and you only managed to eliminate three Genin and a single Chunin. I am profoundly disappointed."
The four Uchiha started, their heads whipping around to see Kagenori standing there, arms crossed, as if he had been observing a particularly dull training exercise.
Internally, they seethed. Four of us against seven, including a Tokubetsu Jonin, and you're disappointed we're not all dead yet? But they held their tongues.
While observing from the trees, Kagenori had already assessed the enemy's strength. To his eyes, they were mediocre. Amateurs.
In a flicker of movement too fast for most of the Cloud-nin to track, he vanished from his spot and reappeared directly in front of the two remaining Genin. They flinched, fumbling for their weapons, but they were far too slow. Kagenori's hands barely seemed to move, yet two kunai were already airborne, finding their marks with lethal precision in the throats of the young shinobi. They crumpled without a sound.
The four Cloud Chunin, enraged and startled, charged him as one.
Kagenori's hand went to the hilt of his ninjato. The air hummed.
"Thunder Breathing, Second Form: Rice Spirit."
There was no grand swing, only a flicker of silver and five sharp, precise cracks of thunder. Five arcs of lightning, shaped like the talons of a beast, lashed out. The four charging Chunin were thrown backward as if struck by an invisible force, deep, cauterized gashes opening across their chests and torsos. They hit the ground, their breathing shallow and ragged, their lives swiftly fading.
Uchiha Kyosuke and the others stared, their Sharingan capturing the impossible speed. Their jaws were slack with disbelief. This was Thunder Breathing? Kyosuke had tried to learn it, but the chakra cost was immense and the power negligible. What Kagenori had just demonstrated wasn't the same technique; it was a force of nature.
The Cloud Tokubetsu Jonin, his confidence shattered in an instant, took one look at the carnage and the implacable boy standing amidst it. He turned and fled, desperation fueling his speed.
Kagenori made no immediate move to pursue. Instead, he turned his chilling gaze back to his four subordinates. "Do you see how useless you are now? Remember this feeling. From now on, you will be obedient. You will follow my orders without question. Do not force me to remind you again."
Then, almost as an afterthought, he faced the fleeing Jonin. His blade, still partially drawn, glowed with concentrated heat and energy.
"Thunder Breathing, Fifth Form: Heat Lightning."
A single, searing bolt of orange-white lightning, more like concentrated plasma than electricity, shot from the tip of his blade. It crossed the distance in an eyeblink, piercing clean through the fleeing Jonin's back and out his chest. He stumbled forward for two more steps before collapsing, a smoldering hole where his heart had been.
Kagenori slid his ninjato back into its sheath with a soft, final click. He looked at the four pale, trembling Uchiha.
"Do you understand me?"
The four men flinched as one. "UNDERSTOOD, CAPTAIN!" they chorused, their voices tight with fear.
"Good. Now clean this up. Sever the heads. The intelligence division will want them for analysis."
Kagenori leaned against a tree, waiting with detached patience as the four Uchiha, their hands shaking, set about the grisly task.
Over the following weeks, the situation in the Land of Hot Springs began to stabilize. With the clan shinobi reinforcements, Orochimaru could afford to be aggressive, systematically dismantling the Cloud's numerous, overextended outposts. The Cloud, realizing their position was becoming untenable, began to consolidate their forces, pulling back from smaller bases and reducing direct engagements. The front line solidified into a tense, watchful stalemate.
Similar quiet fell over the other fronts. In the Land of Rivers and the Land of Grass, Suna and Iwa seemed content to probe and observe, avoiding large-scale conflict for now. Kiri, stationed in the Land of Waves, made no move to engage at all.
The Hidden Cloud Village, it seemed, had no desire to waste its elite forces in the Hot Springs before the war truly began. This tacit understanding gave Konoha a desperately needed respite.
With the battlefields stabilized, Konoha began sending its newest generation to the front—Genin, sent to be tempered in the relative "safety" of a stalemate. War was the fastest teacher.
Three years passed in this state of armed truce.
On the Hot Springs front, two names became synonymous with success: Kagenori and Namikaze Minato.
In that time, Minato had achieved the impossible, fully mastering the Flying Thunder God Technique. His mission completion rate was a flawless 100%. More than that, through his unwavering compassion, brilliant tactics, and personal charisma, he had earned the deep respect and loyalty of nearly every Konoha shinobi stationed there.
Kagenori's record was also unblemished, a perfect 100% success rate. But his following consisted only of the four Uchiha—Kyosuke, Ryuhei, Keiichi, and Jinno—who followed him not out of loyalty, but out of a fear that had been carved into them three years prior and reinforced on every mission since.
Where Minato won hearts, Kagenori enforced obedience through sheer, terrifying competence and a complete absence of humanity. No one sought to get close to him.
The two prodigies never clashed directly again. Minato seemed to be engaged in a silent competition, striving to match Kagenori's flawless record through his own methods. Kagenori, for his part, seemed utterly indifferent to the rivalry. His focus was elsewhere, on the Witness Points he accumulated with every mission that might have originally been Minato's to shine in. His tally now stood near 6,000, though the stable front lines had slowed the influx.
Both young men had been promoted to full Jonin.
Throughout these years, Kagenori maintained his one tether to humanity: Uzumaki Kushina. He wrote to her frequently and, on the rare occasions he was granted leave, returned to Konoha solely to see her. Konoha, wary of its future Jinchuriki, kept Kushina safely within the village walls, a fact that chafed at her spirited nature but one she was powerless to change.
Another name began to rise in Konoha during this time: Hatake Kakashi. A prodigy who graduated the Academy at five, he had already been blooded on the battlefields of the Land of Grass alongside his father, the legendary White Fang, and had been promoted to Chunin this year at the age of six.
But Kagenori's mind, sharpened by his knowledge of the future, was fixed on the coming year. He remembered a pivotal, tragic event: the suicide of Hatake Sakumo.
That, Kagenori thought, watching the camp go about its business, will be a significant event to witness. The fallout would surely be worth a substantial number of points. It was a cold calculation, but for Kagenori, it was simply the next step on the path to acquiring the power he needed. The power to change a destiny.