The rain kept falling.
They had been out of Konoha for four hours, yet the sky still felt heavy and gray. The forest paths were a mess of mud. Slick moss and tangled roots turned the terrain into a natural obstacle course.
"Too slow."
Up front, Fugaku Uchiha came to a stop on a thick tree branch. He didn't turn around, but his irritation carried clearly through the rain.
"If this were a regular unit, we'd already be corpses in an Iwa ambush."
About twenty meters behind him, two figures followed closely.
Minato Namikaze wasn't even breathing hard. His blond hair was soaked through, but his blue eyes were still bright. The chakra under his feet was steady, every leap clean and precise, like a trajectory calculated in advance.
Behind him, Toru Nishikawa's breathing was a bit faster, but controlled.
If you didn't look closely, you'd miss how different Toru's movement really was. He wasn't relying on heavy bursts of chakra like most ninja. Instead, he used gravity and momentum, swinging between tree trunks in smooth arcs to conserve as much stamina as possible.
"Sorry, Fugaku-senpai. We'll pick up the pace." Minato smiled as he smoothed things over, slowing just a little to wait for his teammate.
Fugaku shot a glance at the Toru who had caught up, his frown deepening.
"Hmph. Wasting the whole team's stamina just to babysit dead weight is the stupidest thing you can do, Minato Namikaze."
He turned fully this time. A flash of crimson Sharingan appeared and vanished as his cold gaze swept over Toru.
"Hey, you. If you can't keep up, say it now. I'll dump you at the nearest outpost. Better than dying in the Land of Rain and making recovery a hassle."
Toru wiped the rain from his face and adjusted his breathing.
By his estimate, they were moving at around forty kilometers per hour.
For Fugaku, it was easy. For Minato, demanding but manageable. For someone with only mid-to-low chakra reserves like him, it was already pushing the limit.
"No need to worry, senpai," Toru replied calmly.
Fugaku snorted and accelerated again. "You've got one more hour. If we don't reach the planned point by then, you're sleeping in a mud pit tonight."
---
By evening, the rain eased.
Before nightfall, the three reached a dry hollow beneath a rock face.
Sheltered from the wind with a clear line of sight, it was an ideal temporary camp.
"Rest in place for ten minutes, then we move. We cross the Land of Fire border under cover of night."
After giving the order, Fugaku leapt onto a large rock, sat down cross-legged, and began keeping watch with his back to them.
His mouth was sharp, but he had clearly left the safest resting spot to the two genin.
Minato pulled out some rations and handed them to Toru. "Here. Get some energy back. Fugaku-senpai talks rough, but he's actually a good guy."
"A classic authority-driven personality with mild obsessive tendencies and a strong tsundere streak," Toru said around a bite of the dry food pill, delivering a precise psychological profile. "Hard to deal with, but very reliable as a teammate."
Minato blinked, then gave a wry smile. "You always use the strangest words to describe people."
Instead of sitting down to rest, Toru stood up and walked over to the bushes along the rock wall.
He crouched and began searching through the weeds.
Up on the rock, Fugaku's ear twitched. He turned and saw Toru carefully digging up a plant with purple-veined leaves using a kunai. Toru wrapped it in cloth and tucked it into a pocket at his waist.
"What are you doing?" Fugaku asked, disbelief clear in his voice. "That's a weed, isn't it? Instead of recovering chakra, you're playing in the dirt?"
"This isn't a weed, Fugaku-senpai."
Toru brushed the soil from his hands, expression calm. "It's a variant of aconite. The root contains a high concentration of alkaloids. Once refined, just three milligrams can paralyze an adult man's nervous system for about fifteen seconds."
Fugaku paused, then let out a dismissive scoff. "Pointless tricks. In front of real power and the Sharingan, low-grade poison like that never even gets a chance to work."
"There's no such thing as a useless tool," Toru said, standing up and pushing his glasses higher on his nose. "Only people who don't know how to use them. And refining this costs nothing. One explosive tag is nearly three hundred ryo. Poison is a gift from nature."
"Tightwad."
That was Fugaku's verdict. He turned away, no longer paying him any attention.
A few seconds later, though, Toru caught his eye again.
Toru pulled out a pouch of strange metallic powder and began sprinkling it along a shallow, easily overlooked depression around the camp.
"What is this now… never mind. I don't even want to ask." Fugaku watched the gray-white powder, his brow twitching.
The Uchiha fighting aesthetic was blazing fire release, precise shuriken work, and overwhelming eyes. This kind of sneaky, ground-level setup instinctively rubbed him the wrong way.
"It's a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide," Toru muttered as he worked, like he was performing some kind of ritual. "With just a bit of heat, it can release over 2500 degrees instantly. It's damp tonight, but if I pair it with that…"
His eyes flicked to a nearby phosphorus-rich rock, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
Minato leaned closer, curious. "Is this science too?"
"This is art." Toru dusted off his hands. "Art is explosions."
"Tch." Fugaku heard that and couldn't help commenting. "Playing with fire? Talking about the art of fire in front of an Uchiha is just embarrassing yourself."
He stood, brushed dirt from his pants, and jumped down.
"Break's over. From here on out, we're entering a real danger zone. Especially you, Toru Nishikawa."
Fugaku stopped in front of him, black eyes locked onto Toru's.
His tone was still harsh, but the contempt was gone, replaced by a stern warning. "If your little tricks can kill the enemy, I don't care. But if messing with this stuff makes you fall behind…"
He raised a finger and tapped Toru's forehead protector.
"Even if it's Jiraiya-sama's order, I won't turn back to save you. Understood?"
Toru lifted his head and met the gaze of the future Uchiha clan leader.
"Understood. If I fall behind, please don't turn back."
Because if you do, the traps I leave behind might blow you up too, he added silently.
"Move!"
With Fugaku's low command, the three vanished once more into the rain-soaked forest night.