The human mind is not designed to be a hallway. It is a fortress, a private sanctuary of electrical impulses and memories sealed behind the bone of the skull. To force it open, to pave a road through it so others can walk inside, is an act of violence against nature.
Ren Yamanaka understood this violation better than anyone in the Forward Operating Base of Sector Four.
He sat in the center of the command tent, his legs crossed in a lotus position on the damp, matted straw. The air inside the tent was thick, suffocatingly hot, and smelled of stale tobacco smoke, wet wool, and the coppery tang of ozone that always accompanied high-density chakra usage.
"Stabilize the connection," the voice barked, not from the room, but echoing directly inside Ren's parietal lobe. It was a rough, mental shout that sent a spike of white-hot agony drilling behind Ren's eyes.
"I'm holding it," Ren whispered aloud, though his lips barely moved. His physical voice sounded distant, like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "Please… hurry."
Ren was twenty years old, though the war had aged the skin around his eyes to look forty. He was slight of build, with the pale blonde hair and teal eyes characteristic of his clan, but he lacked the confident posture of a true Yamanaka. He slumped forward, his forehead glistening with cold sweat.
Attached to the base of his skull were three thick, insulated wires that ran into a heavy, fuinjutsu-inscribed amplification unit sitting on the table. On the other side of the unit sat Jiro, a Special Jonin from the Intel Division. Jiro was a brute of a telepath, a man who cracked minds open with a sledgehammer rather than a key.
"The prisoner is resisting," Jiro's thought-voice boomed, vibrating through Ren's skeletal structure. "I need more power. Open your reserves, boy. Drain it all if you have to."
"I… I can't give much more without—"
"Do it!"
The command wasn't a request; it was a compulsion forced through the chakra link. Ren gasped, his back arching involuntarily. He felt the sickening sensation of his own life force—his chakra—being siphoned out of his coil. It felt like cold, viscous sludge was being pumped out of his stomach and up through his spine.
Ren was a "Battery." It was a derogatory slang term used by the upper brass for shinobi who possessed decent chakra capacities but lacked the talent, killer instinct, or intelligence to utilize it effectively in combat. In the Third Shinobi War, Konoha was bleeding manpower. The geniuses—the Kakashis, the Minatos, the fugitives like Orochimaru—they were the sword.
Ren? Ren was the whetstone. He was being ground down to keep the edges sharp.
For the past three hours, he had been acting as a relay station. Jiro was diving deep into the mind of a captured Iwagakure scout, trying to rip out the location of a supply route. But Jiro's range was limited, and the prisoner had mental blocks. So, they used Ren. They routed Jiro's consciousness through Ren's fluid mental pathways, using Ren's chakra to boost the signal strength.
Ren saw flashes of images that weren't his. A stone village under a gray sky. The face of a woman he didn't know crying as she handed over a bento box. The sensation of rough granite under fingertips. These were the prisoner's memories, leaking out as Jiro tore through the man's psyche.
They polluted Ren's mind. They mixed with his own memories, creating a nauseating kaleidoscope of confused identity. For a terrifying second, Ren forgot his mother's name. He forgot the color of the walls in his apartment in Konoha. All he knew was the smell of Iwa dust.
"Got it," Jiro announced suddenly.
The connection snapped.
It wasn't a gentle disconnect. It was like a taut rubber band snapping against raw skin. The wires fell away from Ren's neck as the seal deactivated.
Ren collapsed.
He hit the floorboards hard, his cheek sliding into the mud that had tracked in from outside. He retched, his stomach spasms producing nothing but sour bile. His head felt like it had been split open with an axe. The sudden silence in his head was louder than the screaming had been.
"Sector 7," Jiro said to the scribe standing in the corner, ignoring the boy convulsing on the floor. "They're moving explosives through the ravine at dawn. Send word to the Hokage's forward command."
"Yes, sir," the scribe said, rushing out.
Jiro stood up, stretching his massive arms. He rolled his neck, cracking the vertebrae, and finally looked down at Ren. There was no pity in his eyes, only a mild annoyance, like a mechanic looking at a tool that was beginning to rust.
"You're twitching, Yamanaka."
Ren pushed himself up on trembling arms. His vision swam with gray static. "Chakra… exhaustion…" he wheezed. "Need… water."
Jiro kicked a canteen across the floor. It clattered against Ren's hand. "Drink up. Then get out. I have a Hyuga coming in for long-range surveillance in an hour, and I don't want your vomit smelling up the tent."
Ren unscrewed the cap with fumbling, numb fingers and drank greedily. The water was lukewarm and tasted of iodine, but it was the best thing he had ever tasted. He wiped his mouth, dragging himself to his knees.
"Am I… done for the day?" Ren asked, his voice cracking.
Jiro snorted, turning his back to organize his scrolls. "You're done when the war is done, kid. Go report to Captain Taizen. He's been asking where his spare parts are."
Ren flinched at the term. Spare parts.
He used the table to pull himself to his feet. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else. He bowed to the Jonin's back—a reflex of discipline he hated himself for—and stumbled out of the tent.
The outside world was a monochrome nightmare.
The Land of Earth border was a place where color came to die. The sky was a perpetual bruise of heavy, low-hanging clouds that wept a freezing, miserable drizzle. The ground was not soil; it was a churned slurry of clay, rock, and blood that sucked at boots and swallowed equipment.
This was the "Rear Guard." It sounded important on paper. In reality, it was a purgatory. This was where the wounded came to scream, where the supplies were counted, and where the dead were stacked like cordwood before being sealed into scrolls for transport back to the Leaf.
Ren walked—or rather, shambled—through the camp. Tents flapped violently in the wind. He passed a triage tent where bright green medical chakra flickered like dying fireflies. He heard a man screaming for his mother, a sound so raw it made Ren's own throat ache.
He found a relatively dry spot under the overhang of a supply depot, a massive wooden structure covered in explosive tags to deter saboteurs. Ren leaned his back against the rough wood and slid down until he was sitting on a crate.
He looked at his hands. They were shaking so violently he couldn't make a fist.
"I hate this," he whispered to the rain. "I hate this place."
He closed his eyes and tried to meditate, to gather the scraps of chakra left in his coil, but his mind was too loud. The residual emotions of the Iwagakure prisoner were still echoing in his subconscious—panic, loyalty, the fear of death. It was the curse of the Yamanaka clan; their empathy made them excellent spies but terrible victims.
"You look like a corpse that forgot to lie down."
The voice was familiar, carrying a cadence of forced arrogance that Ren knew all too well. He opened his eyes.
Standing before him was Kaito Uchiha.
In a camp defined by mud and filth, Kaito was an anomaly. His high-collared blue shirt was impeccably clean, despite the weather. His black hair was spiked perfectly. On his back was a ninjato sword with the Uchiha fan crest etched into the scabbard. He looked like the hero of a story.
But Ren knew the truth. He looked closer. He saw the way Kaito's fingers twitched near his weapon pouch. He saw the redness in the corners of Kaito's eyes—not from crying, but from rubbing them, from straining them.
"Hello, Kaito," Ren said, his voice dull.
Kaito frowned, crossing his arms. "Was it Jiro again? That man is a butcher. He doesn't know how to modulate a frequency."
"He gets results," Ren muttered. "That's all that matters to the village."
Kaito sat down on a crate opposite Ren, ignoring the wet wood. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you see anything? In the mind? Any… high-level techniques? Any Uchiha movements?"
Ren sighed, letting his head thump back against the wall. "No, Kaito. Just logistics. Supply routes. A girl with a red ribbon. The usual sadness."
Kaito's face fell. He looked away, staring out at the perimeter fence where guards walked in rhythmic patrols. "Damn it."
"Why does it matter?" Ren asked gently.
"Because I need to know where the real fighting is," Kaito hissed, the veneer of composure cracking. He turned back to Ren, his eyes intense and desperate. "I'm nineteen, Ren. Nineteen! Do you know how old Shisui is? He's a child, and he's already made a name for himself. Do you know how old my father was when he awakened the Sharingan? Fifteen."
Ren had heard this speech a thousand times. "Everyone develops at their own pace, Kaito."
"Not in my clan," Kaito spat. "In my clan, if you don't have the eyes by puberty, you're defective. They look at me… my uncles, my cousins… they look at me like I'm blind. They put me in the Support Corps to hide me. 'Go guard the rice, Kaito. Let the real men handle the war.'"
He slammed his fist against his knee. "I need stress. I need combat. Real combat. Not this… sitting around waiting for Iwa to throw a rock at us."
Ren looked at his friend with a mixture of pity and envy. Kaito had the drive, the fire, the physical skill. He was a master of shurikenjutsu and his Fire Style was potent. But he lacked the trauma. The Sharingan was a weapon born of tragedy, and Kaito's life, despite his angst, had been relatively charmed.
"Be careful what you wish for," Ren said softly. "I've been inside the minds of men who died in 'real combat.' It's not glorious, Kaito. It's just… wet. And loud. And then it's dark."
"I'd take the dark over the irrelevance," Kaito countered. He looked at Ren, his expression softening slightly. "And don't act like you're content, Ren. Look at you. You're a Yamanaka heir, technically. And they use you as a jumper cable."
"I'm a distinct branch," Ren corrected weakly. "And… I know my limits. My chakra reserves are average. My constitution is weak. If I went to the front lines, I'd be a liability. At least here, I'm helping."
"You're dying by inches," Kaito said bluntly. "You're 'Ren the Battery.' Is that what you want on your memorial stone?"
The words stung because they were true. Ren opened his mouth to retort, but a heavy shadow fell over them both.
The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. The air grew heavy with a killing intent that was undisguised and crude.
"Well, isn't this touching," a voice gravelled like grinding stones. "The blind Uchiha and the weakling Yamanaka. Discussing philosophy in the mud."
Ren stiffened. He forced his tired body to stand, legs screaming in protest. Kaito stood too, his chin lifted in defiance.
Captain Taizen stood before them. He was a mountain of a man, wearing a flak jacket that seemed two sizes too small for his muscular frame. A jagged scar ran from his left ear down to his chin, pulling his lip into a permanent, cruel sneer. He carried a massive cleaver-like sword strapped to his back, wrapped in bandages.
Taizen was a career Chunin who had been field-promoted to Jonin simply because everyone above him had died. He hated the bloodline clans. He hated the prodigies. And most of all, he hated that he was stuck commanding "Unit 44"—the squad of leftovers.
"Captain," Kaito said, his voice stiff.
"Stow it, Princess," Taizen growled. He looked at Ren, his eyes narrowing. "You look terrible, Yamanaka. Jiro suck you dry again?"
"I am combat ready, sir," Ren lied, struggling to stop his knees from knocking together.
Taizen laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "Combat ready? You look like a gust of wind would fold you in half." He stepped closer, towering over Ren, smelling of sour sake and blood. "But it doesn't matter what you look like. We have orders."
Kaito's eyes widened. "Orders? Deployment?"
"Don't get excited," Taizen said, spitting a glob of tobacco onto Kaito's polished boot. Kaito flinched but didn't move. "We aren't the spear. We're the bait."
Ren felt a cold knot form in his stomach. "Bait?"
"Command wants to move an Anbu squad behind enemy lines to sabotage that bridge in Sector 7," Taizen explained, scratching his scarred chin. "To do that, they need the Iwa patrols to look the other way. That's us."
"We're going to engage the patrol?" Kaito asked, hope rising in his voice.
"We're going to make noise," Taizen corrected. "We march to the eastern ridge. We set off some tags, throw some fire, make a big, sloppy mess so the rock-heads come running to kill the idiots who exposed themselves. While they're busy slaughtering us, the Anbu slip through."
"Slaughtering us?" Ren whispered.
Taizen grinned, showing yellow teeth. "Only if you're slow, Battery. It's a standard distraction maneuver. High risk, low reward. Exactly the kind of job for disposable assets like Unit 44."
He turned, waving a massive hand. "Grab your gear. We leave in twenty minutes. Try to write your death haikus quickly."
As Taizen stomped away, Ren sank back onto the crate. The adrenaline that had momentarily sustained him vanished, leaving only dread.
"Did you hear that?" Kaito grabbed Ren's shoulders, shaking him. "Action! We're going to the ridge!"
"We're going to be targets, Kaito," Ren said, pushing his friend's hands away. "We aren't meant to win. We're meant to be shot at so the real ninja can work."
"It's a chance," Kaito said, his eyes burning with that terrifying Uchiha intensity. "A chance to prove we aren't disposable."
Ren looked at his friend and saw a dead man walking. He felt a sudden, overpowering urge to vomit again.
Twenty minutes later, Unit 44 assembled at the camp's edge.
There were four of them in total, led by Captain Taizen.
Beside Ren and Kaito stood Sora Inuzuka. She was seventeen, with wild brown hair and red fang markings on her cheeks. But unlike most Inuzuka, she had no dog. Her ninken had been killed three months ago by a poisoning trap. Without her partner, she was half a ninja, grieving and unstable, prone to berserker rages that usually got her teammates hurt. She stood silently, sharpening a claw-like dagger, her eyes vacant.
Next to her was Hideo, a hulking man from a civilian family who utilized Earth Style but was so slow with hand signs that he usually just hit things with a metal club. He was chewing on a fingernail, sweating profusely despite the cold rain.
"Listen up!" Taizen barked, the rain plastering his hair to his skull. "Formation is simple. Hideo on point. Uchiha, you take rear guard. Inuzuka, flanks. Yamanaka…" Taizen paused, looking at Ren with disdain. " stay in the middle and try not to trip over your own feet. If you sense chakra, you scream. If you don't, keep your mouth shut."
"Yes, sir," the squad chorused, their voices swallowed by the wind.
"Move out."
They left the safety of the perimeter lights. The darkness of the Land of Earth was absolute. The cloud cover choked out the moon and stars, leaving only the endless, towering shapes of the rock formations that dominated the landscape.
The terrain was treacherous. Slippery shale cliffs dropped off into abysses filled with fog. Jagged pillars of stone rose like rotted teeth from the ground. Every shadow looked like an enemy.
Ren focused on his breathing. Inhale. Exhale.
He molded a small amount of chakra to his feet to stick to the wet rock faces as they traversed a narrow canyon. His head still throbbed, a rhythmic pounding that synced with his heart. He felt… hollow.
As they moved deeper into the hostile territory, Ren's sensory perception began to itch. It wasn't a technique; it was the passive sensitivity of his clan. He could feel the emotional residue of the land itself.
This valley had seen battle recently. He could feel the psychic echoes of fear imprinted on the stones. It was a subtle, high-pitched whining sound in the back of his mind.
Why do we do this? Ren thought, watching Kaito's back in front of him. Kaito was moving with practiced stealth, but his chakra was flaring with excitement. We are children playing with fire. We are meat for the grinder.
"Hold," Taizen whispered, raising a fist.
The squad froze. They were perched on a ledge overlooking a wide, rocky basin. Below them, through the mist, Ren could see faint lights. Torches.
"That's the patrol route," Taizen whispered. "Iwagakure elites. Looks like a full platoon. Twelve men."
"Twelve?" Hideo squeaked. "There are only five of us."
"We don't fight all twelve, you idiot," Taizen hissed. "We hit the trailing group. We make a boom. We run. They chase. We lead them into the trapped canyon to the north."
Ren looked at the torches. He squinted, trying to focus his chakra into a sensory net.
"Captain," Ren whispered, his voice trembling. "Something is wrong."
Taizen glared at him. "What is it?"
"The chakra signatures below… they're too steady," Ren said, closing his eyes to focus on the sensation. "Real people fluctuate. Fear, boredom, cold. Those signatures are… flat. Perfectly rhythmic."
"So they're disciplined," Taizen scoffed. "Better than you lot."
"No," Ren insisted, panic rising. "It feels… artificial. Like a construct."
"Enough," Taizen snapped. "Kaito, you're up. Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu to signal the start. Aim for the center."
Kaito nodded, stepping to the edge of the cliff. His hands moved through the signs—Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
Kaito inhaled and exhaled a massive sphere of roaring orange flame. It illuminated the canyon, banishing the shadows. The heat washed over Ren's face, drying the rain on his skin for a brief second.
The fireball hurtled down into the basin, striking the center of the torchlight procession.
BOOM.
The explosion was deafening. Rock shattered. Smoke billowed up.
"Direct hit!" Kaito cheered.
"Wait," Sora Inuzuka said, her voice raspy. She sniffed the air. "I don't smell burning flesh. I smell… mud."
The smoke below cleared. There were no bodies. No screams. The "soldiers" below were dissolving into piles of wet, gray clay.
"Earth Clones?" Taizen realized, his eyes going wide. "All of them?"
"If those are clones…" Ren whispered, the realization hitting him like a punch to the gut. "Then where are the real bodies?"
Crack.
The sound came from above them.
Ren looked up just as the cliff face above their ledge exploded.
"AMBUSH!" Taizen roared, drawing his massive sword.
Rocks the size of houses rained down on them. Ren threw himself to the side, rolling across the wet stone as a boulder crushed the spot where he had been standing a second ago.
Dust choked the air. Confusion reigned.
"Earth Style: Rock slide!" a voice thundered from the darkness above.
From the cliffs, figures emerged. Iwagakure ninja, wearing the red armor of their village. They weren't a patrol. They were a hunter-killer squad, and they had been waiting.
"They knew!" Kaito screamed, drawing his kunai. "They knew we were coming!"
Ren scrambled to his feet, coughing. He looked for his squad. Hideo was down, his leg pinned under a rock, screaming. Sora was fighting two Iwa ninja, her claws flashing sparks against their kunai. Captain Taizen was engaging a massive enemy Jonin, their swords clashing with sparks that lit up the chaos.
Ren stood frozen. He was the battery. He was the disposable one. He had no powerful jutsu. He had a headache and a kunai.
An Iwa Chunin landed on the ledge in front of him. The enemy wore a mask of porcelain, featureless except for the eye slits. He held a short sword dripping with rain.
"Die, Leaf trash," the Chunin said calmly.
Ren stepped back, his heel hitting the edge of the cliff. He had nowhere to go.
Fear, cold and absolute, washed over him. But beneath the fear, there was something else. A strange, vibrating hunger in the back of his mind. The headache shifted, changing from a dull throb to a sharp, demanding pang.
Eat, a voice whispered. Not Jiro's voice. Not his own. Something deeper.
The Iwa ninja lunged.
Ren didn't think. He didn't form hand signs. He simply reacted with the desperation of a drowning man. He threw a handful of explosive tags—not at the enemy, but at the ground between them.
BOOM.
The blast knocked Ren backward, over the edge of the cliff.
He fell into the darkness, the wind rushing past his ears, flailing, falling toward the rocky basin below where the mud clones lay waiting.
As the dark rushed up to meet him, Ren realized two things.
First, he was going to die. Second, he was terrified that he would die hungry.