With a single strike, the young miner cut his comrade's ropes. He quickly organized the others to seize the samurai's long and short blades, hacking away the remaining restraints.
The Flower Deer squad had already finished clearing out the Cloud company, and the samurai had mostly scattered. Samurai were mercenaries—they were there to get paid, not to die. Swinging a katana at a miner was "noble Bushido"; swinging it at an ANBU ninja... was a good way to chip the blade.
As the miners fled toward the coastline, the boy ran up the hillside toward Yagami.
"Thank you for saving me!" he gasped. "My name is Sora!"
Sora had sensed that the fox-masked ninja looked upon him with a shred of favor, and he summoned the courage to speak.
"You did well," Yagami said. "Have you studied swordsmanship?"
"When I was a servant in a noble's manor, I watched the samurai train in secret."
Yagami nodded. No wonder his movements were non-standard; he'd learned by peeking. "Where will you go?"
"Across the bay to the Land of Iron," Sora said firmly. "It's a neutral country. Once we're there, even Lord Kansan can't touch us."
The Land of Iron's neutrality was unexpectedly useful. Among the smaller nations, it was unique—a land of samurai who used chakra to fuel their blade techniques. It sat on a rugged, impoverished peninsula, but its declared neutrality was recognized by the Five Great Nations, who respected its strength.
It was the Switzerland of this world. There was no strategic need to conquer it, and as long as that remained true, its neutrality was honored. If it ever became necessary, however, that "neutrality" would become a joke.
Yagami looked at Sora—the long sword on his back, his ragged hemp clothes, and his stubborn gaze. His ankles were bruised and raw from ropes; his hands were blistered from the pickaxe.
"You've got a rebellious streak, kid. I like that," Yagami said. He pulled out a scroll—one he had originally prepared for Qiaoyi's future child, containing chakra refinement basics, foundational taijutsu, and sword forms.
While Rika's child would be trained by the Yamanaka clan, Qiaoyi's child would need his personal guidance. He tossed the scroll to Sora, who caught it with trembling hands.
"My name is Copper Fox. If you don't die in the next few years, you'll hear my name again."
With a flicker, Yagami and his team vanished. Sora held the scroll with both hands, wanting to shout his thanks, but a realization hit him.
He couldn't read. He wasn't a noble or a ninja; he'd never had the chance to learn. He opened the scroll and saw diagrams—drawings of the human body and pathways that looked like meridians.
'Forget it,' he thought. 'I'll just follow the pictures. Anything is better than nothing.'
...
Yagami spent ten days traveling back to the Hidden Leaf. Twenty days spent on the road just for a village mission felt like a waste of time. Back at the base, he found Yellow Dog.
"Commander, Cloud Jonin Takami—the A-rank target from the manual—is dead."
Yellow Dog took the report. "Excellent. Advisor Danzo's manual makes our results quantifiable. By the end of the year, we can submit a clear report to the Hokage: how many enemies we've neutralized and how much we've weakened rival villages."
Yellow Dog continued, "I'll have Butterfly notify the ANBU and Root to update the manuals. Strike Takami's name."
Yagami mused that Danzo would eventually turn this into a KPI system.
'Five kills this quarter, seven the next—gotta show steady growth to the shareholders.' Yellow Dog would be the one crying then.
Yagami flipped through his copy of the manual, stopping at a photo of a Stone Jonin named Yamashige. His signature move was Earth Style: Flying Stones, a high-impact, mid-range Earth jutsu.
Yagami had learned the basics from the ANBU archives; he just needed a "sparring partner" like Yamashige to push it to proficiency.
Once he collected all the elemental components, his "White Ghost" persona would debut as a rogue of the Sarutobi clan. Still waters don't make skilled sailors; the Leaf was too stagnant. It needed a gale to start the windmill spinning.
"By the way, Fox," Yellow Dog added, "Go to Orochimaru's lab in Root today. Check on their progress."
...
Passing through the Root training hall, Yagami noticed the roof had been repaired. After Tsunade's "visit," a new row of support pillars had been added. Children and recruits were still training.
After losing five members in the Land of Rain, Danzo was finally being cautious. He wasn't rushing to assign codenames; he was focusing on building strength.
Yagami saw Danzo himself and stiffened for a second before remembering his tracks were clean. Danzo was actually personally instructing the recruits. After his recent setbacks, the man seemed more rational, almost patient.
'Recruits, if Danzo cares about your survival now, it's not because he's a good man,'. Yagami thought. 'It's because I was here.'
On the other side, twenty children were engaged in live-blade taijutsu. Within seconds, one boy's arm was slashed, blood gushing out. These kids were Kakashi's age. While Kakashi was building a solid foundation under Sakumo, these children were being forced to kill or be killed. Seven of them were from Nono's orphanage.
Deep inside the lab, Yagami looked around in confusion. The place was empty. The nutrient tanks, corpses, and specimens were gone. Last time, there were dozens of Wood Style arm specimens; now, there were none. Of the six researchers, only two remained, looking busy in a way that screamed "slacking off."
One was hacking at a specimen so much it looked like minced meat. The other was scribbling furiously. Orochimaru stood with his back to Yagami, calmly dissecting the left foot of a White Zetsu.
"Is that you, Fox?" Orochimaru asked without turning.
"It's me."
"It's a good thing you provided these 'Wood Style' corpses," Orochimaru murmured.
"Otherwise, this lab would have no reason to exist. Ordinary 'maggots' are too weak to bear the God of Shinobi's genes. Your White Zetsu have changed my entire direction. The previous method of gradual modification was a mistake. Hashirama's cells emphasize vitality; they must replace every cell in the body simultaneously."
Orochimaru had lost interest in mediocre test subjects and purged the "trash." An assistant handed Yagami a scroll of recent records.
Yagami read that two weeks ago, Orochimaru had attempted a 50-person mass transplant. All fifty died within two days. In a rage, Orochimaru had spiked the dosages, destroying most of his remaining specimens.
He concluded that while the subjects had Earth and Water attributes, they lacked the fundamental "vessel" to hold Wood Style. He needed subjects with stronger talent—specifically, those with the lineage of the Senju of the Forest.
'No wonder Yellow Dog sent me,' Yagami thought. Anyone else would have been a target for Orochimaru's fury.
Yagami didn't reveal his knowledge of the Scroll of Seals yet. He would wait until Orochimaru was closer to success before trading that info. Researching Hashirama's cells was a mortal trying to dissect a god. It wasn't time to make a move yet.
...
The third full moon of the 41st year arrived.
Yagami had been checking with Butterfly for news on Yamashige, but the Stone Jonin remained elusive. Instead, a different report caught his eye: Two children had gone missing within the Leaf.
The Police Force found no leads, suggesting they were abducted by foreign spies. The Hidden Cloud was notorious for this—they had snatched a Magnet Style kid from the Sand and a Lava Style kid from the Stone to reverse-engineer those bloodlines.
They had tried for Kushina and would eventually try for Hinata. Whether it was them or not, they were getting the blame.
Yagami's interest was piqued because one of the children was from the Kazamatsuri family. Moegi Kazamatsuri (from the future) would eventually use Wood Style. The Kazamatsuri name was likely a branch where a Senju woman had married in and changed her surname.
Yagami investigated. Kazamatsuri Yuu, formerly Senju Yuu, had changed her name after marriage. Her husband had died in the Land of Whirlpools, leaving her with a one-year-old son.
Yagami sat on her balcony, listening to her cries inside. Uchiha officers from the Police Force were explaining that they had searched everywhere. The boy had vanished during a small commotion at a market.
The Uchiha, who were on good terms with Tsunade now, had truly tried their best. Yuu eventually wiped her eyes and headed toward the Senju compound, hoping her former clan could help pressure the village to investigate the Cloud.
Yagami didn't follow her in. Instead, he saw Jiraiya being punched into the air by Tsunade. Yuu was taken inside while Jiraiya, unbothered, wiped a nosebleed and headed toward the bathhouses. He was preparing to leave the village and wanted one last "research" session at the women's bath.
Jiraiya glanced at a tree where an ANBU was stationed to watch the Jinchuriki, then continued on. Yagami, hidden in the canopy via Mayfly, watched the Senju compound.
'Is Orochimaru finally starting? I wonder which of those kids is Yamato.'
If "Yamato" had appeared, a stable transplant technique couldn't be far behind.