Still… what exactly was he supposed to do now?
Reiji moved silently through the dark forest, his body flowing from branch to branch beneath the pale moonlight filtering through the canopy overhead. Cold wind rushed past his face as the trees blurred around him, enormous trunks stretching endlessly into the darkness while he followed Kushina's trail deeper into the forest.
As he moved, Reiji pulled one of the tracking seal Kushina had given him from his pouch. Frost spread instantly across the seal from his fingertips before the paper froze solid. He crushed it in his palm without slowing down, frozen fragments scattering into the night wind behind him.
Reiji was not stupid.
Whatever confidence he had in himself, he knew perfectly well he would never truly beat Sakumo in a direct confrontation. Not yet. He didn't know the full extent of the man's abilities, but he had already seen enough earlier to understand the difference between them. Even his presence had felt dangerous, like the brief instant before a blade cut through flesh. He was a jōnin, and clearly not an ordinary one at that. Even Danzō, who barely seemed impressed by anyone, appeared to hold him in extremely high regard.
But that wasn't what unsettled Reiji the most.
Sakumo had once been his father's teammate.
That alone made him dangerous.
Reiji knew better than most how terrifying his father still was despite his crippled body and ruined career. He had trained under him long enough to understand that Soichiro respected strength above almost everything else. Weakness disgusted him. Yet despite his usual lukewarm attitude toward nearly everyone around him, the way he spoke about Sakumo carried something dangerously close to genuine respect. Reiji remembered it clearly now while racing through the darkness, feet landing softly against damp bark before launching himself toward another branch.
If someone like his father respected Sakumo that much, then the man was far more dangerous than he appeared.
Still, Reiji was almost certain Sakumo was bluffing.
There was no way he would actually fail the team.
Kushina and Hizashi were far too valuable for that. One was an Uzumaki, the other a Hyūga from the main family. Even ignoring their talent, their clans alone guaranteed pressure from the village's higher-ups. Maybe if Reiji had been paired with ordinary graduates he could have believed Sakumo's threats about dismissing the team entirely. Him? Sure. Sakumo had already made it clear he thought Reiji could survive in the genin corps alone if necessary. But Kushina and Hizashi were different. Too important. Too useful. No matter how eccentric Sakumo acted, the village would never allow him to throw away a team like this without an extremely good reason.
And he didn't have one.
Which meant this entire exercise probably served another purpose.
Reiji ducked beneath a low branch before twisting sideways in midair, narrowly avoiding a cluster of hanging vines as he caught himself against another trunk feet-first. Chakra anchored him instantly to the bark before he pushed off again without losing momentum.
Sakumo was observing them.
Testing them.
Not just their combat ability, but the way they reacted under pressure. The choices they made when every option became ugly. Whether they would abandon a teammate for the mission. Whether they would throw away the mission for a teammate. Whether fear, frustration, or anger would make them hesitate.
And maybe, Reiji thought with faint irritation, the bastard was also trying to force them to bond by turning himself into a common enemy.
That sounded exactly like the kind of thing an adult would find clever.
Which meant the choice itself probably didn't matter nearly as much as Sakumo wanted them to believe. There was likely no truly "correct" answer regarding Hizashi. Abandoning him or trying to rescue him probably both led toward the same conclusion eventually. In fact, Reiji strongly suspected that if he had actually ignored the others and tried to complete the exercise alone, Sakumo would already have prepared something specifically waiting for him.
Originally Reiji had only wanted to finish the exercise as quickly as possible and be done with it.
But after seeing Kushina's reaction earlier, another idea had slowly begun to form in his mind.
The branches ahead shifted as he finally caught sight of her moving through the darkness several dozen meters away, jumping from tree to tree without any real direction, too focused on finding Sakumo to notice he had already caught up to her.
Reiji had no real way of knowing whether Sakumo was still actively watching him or not, but he didn't think the man had completely disappeared either. Earlier, before swapping the scrolls, Reiji had clearly sensed someone observing them from a distance. That pressure had vanished now, the uncomfortable feeling of eyes on the back of his neck gone along with Sakumo himself, but Reiji refused to believe a jōnin like him would simply leave three fresh genin unattended inside the Forest of Death with no supervision at all.
Especially with Kushina involved.
Reiji narrowed his eyes calmly while watching her from a distance through the trees.
Several monkeys had begun pursuing her again now that she was isolated from the group. Their screeches echoed through the forest while branches shook violently overhead. Kushina reacted immediately, twisting around mid-leap before sending a kunai flashing backward. One monkey dodged while another took the blade directly through the shoulder and crashed into the lower branches with an angry shriek. Kushina didn't stop moving. She pushed herself forward aggressively, red hair whipping wildly behind her as she jumped between trunks, fists and feet striking with enough force to crack bark whenever one of the creatures got too close.
Still, despite fighting fiercely, she was beginning to accumulate injuries.
Reiji noticed the slight instability in one of her landings. A shallow cut along her arm. The way her breathing had become heavier compared to before.
Silently, Reiji gathered chakra inside his body.
The familiar cold spread through his chest first before he slowly pushed it outward beneath his skin, letting the temperature around his body drop little by little. The sensation crawled across his shoulders, down his arms, through his legs, his heartbeat slowing alongside the cold while thin traces of mist escape dis mouth briefly when he exaled before vanishing into the night air.
He maintained the chakra carefully instead of releasing it all at once.
Hyōton: Tōmin
The surrounding air seemed to dull around him as the heat leaving his body faded further. His breathing became quieter. Lighter. Even the pressure of his presence felt less distinct beneath the cold he wrapped around himself. It wasn't true invisibility—someone like Sakumo would still notice him if he looked carefully enough—but lowering his body temperature and suppressing the natural heat radiating from him made him blend far more naturally into the freezing night around them.
Especially against animals relying on instinct.
And if Sakumo was observing through other means…
Then every little advantage mattered.
If she reached a point where Sakumo truly needed to step in and save her…
…then maybe that would create an opening.
The thought came naturally enough that Reiji barely reacted to it at first.
His gaze remained fixed on Kushina while she drove her elbow into the jaw of another monkey that lunged toward her from above before kicking herself away from the collapsing branch beneath her feet.
Then Reiji frowned slightly.
No.
What exactly was he thinking?
It was only a test.
There were no real consequences here. No actual enemy shinobi trying to kill them. No reason to further antagonize a future teammate simply to gain a slight advantage during an exercise. Logically speaking, using Kushina as pressure to force Sakumo's hand would probably have been an effective strategy. Reiji knew that much.
But teammates—especially Kushina—were clearly more emotional than that.
Kushina still had never spoken about what happened during the kidnapping. Not after the explosive tag. Not after he told her to run. Not after she looked at him like she no longer understood what kind of person he really was.
Reiji found that silence somewhat inconvenient.
There was no reason to give her another one.
Still…
Reiji's eyes narrowed while watching Kushina from the shadows of the upper branches.
More and more monkeys were converging on her position now, screeching wildly as they leapt through the canopy from every direction. Branches shook violently beneath their weight while claws scraped against bark and leaves exploded into the air around her. Kushina fought fiercely, smashing one monkey directly into another with a punch strong enough to crack the trunk behind them, but numbers were beginning to overwhelm her. Another creature lunged from above and she barely twisted aside in time, its claws tearing through the sleeve of her jacket instead of her throat.
Seeing the pressure mounting, Kushina finally abandoned the fight and broke through the encirclement, fleeing deeper into the forest while several monkeys chased after her through the trees.
For all her talking, she really couldn't back it up.
The thought crossed Reiji's mind with cold disdain while he silently followed from above.
Still…
For some reason, seeing her pushed into such a pathetic state irritated him more than it should have.
Reiji's gaze remained fixed on Kushina as she forced herself forward from branch to branch, breathing harder now, movements losing some of their earlier sharpness.
Just as Reiji was preparing to aid her, something caught his eye and stopped him in his tracks.
A flash of white moving alongside the trees.
Not one of the monkeys.
Different.
His eyes sharpened immediately.
Found you.
Without slowing down, Reiji slipped a hand beneath his kimono. A low metallic sound followed, subtle but sharp enough to cut through the noise of the forest as something unwound itself into his grasp.
Then he moved.
His body launched silently through the branches from behind, chakra surging beneath his feet as he closed the distance in an instant. The white wolf reacted immediately, instincts warning it fast enough to leap sideways just as Reiji struck—
—but the dodge came a fraction too early.
The beast avoided the curved blade flashing toward it, only for metal chains to suddenly burst outward behind the attack. The wolf's eyes widened as the chains wrapped violently around its body midair before it could recover its footing.
It crashed hard against a thick branch with a startled snarl and immediately began struggling, claws tearing splinters from the bark while the chains tightened around its torso and legs.
Reiji landed heavily against the trunk nearby, one hand now gripping the handle of a kusarigama while the other pulled sharply on the chain, locking the summon in place.
Then he let his chakra flow into the weapon.
Cold spread instantly through the metal.
Frost crawled across the chain links one after another while pale mist escaped into the night air. The freezing chakra traveled directly into the trapped wolf's body and the beast immediately began whimpering in pain as ice rapidly spread through its white fur. Its movements slowed. Frost gathered around its legs and jaw while its breath became visible in panicked bursts.
Then—
Smoke exploded outward.
The wolf vanished in a plume of white before the chain collapsed uselessly against the branch.
Reiji stared silently at the lingering smoke drifting through the canopy.
Well.
Sakumo was more protective than I initially thought.
Reiji had already abandoned the idea of openly using Kushina as bait, but if the enemy decided to expose themselves through their own mistakes, he wasn't about to ignore the opportunity either.
Maybe her stubbornness had finally become useful for something.
Everything happened in less than a second.
Kushina was already too far ahead to notice what had transpired behind her with the wolf, so Reiji immediately pushed forward again through the trees. Cold wind whipped past his face while he accelerated through the canopy, feet barely touching the bark before launching him toward the next branch. Below him the monkeys were still searching frantically through the forest, screeching and leaping between trunks, but Reiji passed directly through the middle of them without being noticed, his lowered body temperature and suppressed presence blending naturally into the freezing night around them.
It seemed Kushina had finally managed to escape.
For now at least.
Reiji caught sight of her several seconds later standing alone on a large branch, shoulders rising and falling heavily while she struggled to catch her breath. Her clothes were torn in several places now, fresh scratches visible across her arms and legs beneath the moonlight. One of her hands rested against the trunk beside her for balance while she tried to steady her breathing.
Then Reiji's eyes shifted slightly.
Something moved nearby.
Not far from her position.
Seriously?
The branch above Kushina suddenly exploded apart.
Wood shattered violently outward as an enormous shape burst through the canopy directly toward her, crushing branches and bark beneath its weight with terrifying speed. Kushina's eyes widened in shock, body freezing for the briefest instant as the creature descended on top of her before she could properly react—
Chains snapped through the darkness.
Metal wrapped around her waist in an instant before her body was violently yanked sideways off the branch. The massive creature crashed down where she had been standing less than a heartbeat earlier, splintering the trunk apart beneath its weight.
Reiji landed heavily several branches away while pulling Kushina against him with one arm, the chains retracting back toward the weapon hidden beneath his sleeve.
"You're heavy," he muttered with a quiet huff.
Kushina blinked up at him in stunned disbelief, red hair disheveled and breathing uneven.
"Reiji…?"
"No," Reiji answered dryly while setting her down roughly onto the branch. "I'm an evil Yamanaka who stole his body."
She stared at him for half a second in complete stupefaction before snapping back immediately.
"Hey! That's not funny!"
"It is for me."
Then he simply let go.
Kushina yelped as she hit the branch awkwardly with a painful thud.
"Ow—!"
Reiji ignored her completely.
His gaze had already shifted back toward the enormous centipede emerging from the shattered remains of the branches ahead of them. Its massive body twisted slowly through the canopy while countless legs scraped against bark with sharp metallic sounds.
The same one from earlier.
Apparently it had decided Kushina looked like easier prey now after their previous encounter.
Reiji narrowed his eyes slightly.
"You really didn't learn earlier?"
The creature gave no sign of understanding.
Its massive body twisted violently through the shattered branches before it lunged directly toward him again, maw opening wide enough to swallow him whole. Splintered bark and broken leaves exploded outward beneath its weight as it charged through the canopy with terrifying momentum.
Reiji sighed.
Then chakra surged through his legs.
The cold spread downward instantly before he released it directly into the branch beneath his feet. Frost exploded across the bark in a sharp wave—
—and a massive spike of ice erupted upward directly in front of him.
The creature never had time to stop.
The ice spear punched straight through the inside of its open mouth with a sickening crack before erupting out through the top of its head. Blood and freezing mist burst outward together while the impact violently halted the creature's upper body mid-charge.
Its head froze in place around the spike.
But the rest of its body kept moving.
The enormous creature convulsed wildly against the impalement, lower body thrashing through the surrounding trees with enough force to shatter branches apart. Bark exploded around it while dozens of clawed legs scraped violently against the trunks in blind spasms.
Reiji watched the movement calmly for a second.
"So even with your head impaled, you're still moving?"
The thing continued thrashing uselessly against the ice while freezing mist slowly spread through the wound.
Reiji simply shrugged before jumping back toward Kushina's branch, landing beside her with a soft thud of wood beneath his sandals.
Kushina stared warily at the convulsing creature still tearing apart the forest around the ice spike. The violent movements clearly unsettled her despite the massive wound lodged through its skull. After a moment she looked back toward Reiji with visible confusion.
"Why don't you finish it?"
Reiji glanced back toward the creature.
"He's already dead," he answered casually. "That's just the nervous system making the body move." Another violent spasm shook the surrounding branches apart while chunks of bark rained downward into the darkness below. "Sooner or later it'll stop."
"Anyway, more importantly, Tomato Head—"
"Yes?" Kushina answered automatically before blinking in confusion. "Wait, what did you just sa—"
Bam.
"Ow!"
Kushina immediately clutched the top of her head with both hands, crouching slightly on the branch while glaring furiously at him. Reiji lowered his fist slowly, his expression remaining completely unimpressed despite the red mark already forming on her forehead.
"That was for being an idiot."
Kushina's glare only intensified.
"You spent all that time talking about saving your teammate," Reiji continued flatly, "and you still couldn't even reach where he was."
The anger on her face faltered slightly.
Shame replaced it almost immediately.
The surrounding forest remained loud around them, distant screeches still echoing through the trees while broken branches creaked somewhere below from the dying convulsions of the giant creature impaled nearby. Cold wind passed between the canopy, carrying frost and the smell of crushed bark through the night air.
"But I can't abandon him," Kushina muttered stubbornly, eyes lowering slightly. "I just—"
"So instead you choose to throw your life away for nothing?" Reiji interrupted sharply. "Mine too?"
Kushina visibly stiffened.
Reiji's gaze remained fixed on her, cold and analytical.
"When you choose the course of a mission selfishly, it doesn't only affect you. The rest of your team suffers for it too."
She looked genuinely shaken now.
Reiji continued without softening his tone.
"There's nothing more foolish or dangerous than a shinobi letting emotions dictate the course of a mission."
Then his eyes narrowed slightly.
"But do you know what's even more dangerous?"
Kushina stayed silent.
Her fingers tightened slowly against her sleeves.
"A weak emotional shinobi."
The words came out calm.
Blunt.
"Not only will they fail the mission, they'll drag everyone around them down too. And if someone is stupid enough to try saving them…" Reiji glanced toward her briefly before looking back toward the dark forest ahead. "Then they become a burden capable of getting their teammates killed."
Silence followed.
Kushina's teeth clenched hard enough for Reiji to hear it faintly through the wind. Tears slowly gathered at the corner of her eyes despite the anger still visible on her face, her shoulders trembling slightly beneath the moonlight while she struggled to force the emotions back down.
Reiji watched her trembling shoulders for a few more seconds before exhaling quietly through his nose.
Honestly… what exactly was he even getting irritated about?
Kushina was emotional. Stubborn. Reckless.
He had already known that from the beginning.
"Enough," Reiji said suddenly.
Without waiting for an answer, he stepped back before dropping himself against the thick trunk of a nearby tree, one shoulder resting against the bark while the cold night wind moved quietly through the branches overhead. Around them, the forest had finally begun calming again. The distant screeches of the monkeys were fading further into the darkness, replaced by the creaking of leaves and the occasional crack of shifting branches somewhere below.
Kushina blinked at him in confusion, still rubbing at her eyes roughly.
"What are you doing?" she mumbled.
"I made his summon disappear earlier," Reiji answered calmly. "Now that he lost his easiest way to observe us, he'll probably come himself." He tilted his head slightly upward toward the canopy above them. "We have a few minutes at best."
Kushina frowned.
"Why are you so sure?"
"A hunch."
The answer came immediately.
Kushina stared at him for another second before lowering her hands from her face completely.
"And what are you going to do?"
Reiji side-eyed her briefly.
"So now you'll listen?"
She hesitated before weakly nodding.
"Good."
Reiji crossed his arms loosely while organizing the situation in his head again. Sakumo was still the main obstacle. That much had never changed. Fighting him directly remained pointless. Everything they had seen so far only reinforced that conclusion further.
"First," Reiji said flatly, "give up on trying to beat him. That's impossible."
Kushina's expression twitched slightly in annoyance, but she stayed silent.
"He's miles ahead of us," Reiji continued. "The only thing we can realistically do now is create an opening." His gaze shifted toward the dark forest ahead. "I'll keep him occupied while you use the chance to search for Hizashi with the paper seals you gave us earlier. Hizashi shouldn't be too far from him."
Kushina frowned immediately.
"What if he already knows about the paper seals?" she asked. "What if it's not on Hizashi anymore?"
Reiji shrugged lightly.
"He definitely knows about them." There was no hesitation in his answer. "The question is whether he cares enough to remove them." A faint smirk pulled briefly at the corner of his mouth. "Honestly, he's probably using them right now to track you."
Kushina froze.
Then she slowly looked back at him in surprise.
"You seem pretty relaxed about all this."
Reiji looked at her strangely.
"Why would I be nervous?" he asked. "It's just a stupid exercise. He's never actually going to fail us anyway."
Kushina blinked.
Reiji clicked his tongue lightly in irritation before looking away toward the forest again.
"To be honest," he muttered, "right now I mostly just want to bash his head in. He's starting to piss me off."
A short laugh escaped Kushina before she could stop it.
Reiji glanced back at her.
"You're more simple than you pretend to be sometimes," she said, still sounding faintly amused despite herself.
"Well, most people are simple," Reiji answered calmly. "Some are just better at hiding it than others."
Silence settled between them afterward.
The wind moved softly through the trees overhead while moonlight filtered through the canopy in pale fragments across the branches. Reiji could still hear Kushina's breathing beside him, steadier now compared to before.
Then, after several long seconds—
"I'm sorry about earlier," Kushina said quietly.
Reiji turned his head toward her.
For a moment he simply studied her face in silence before finally nodding once.
"I'm sorry too," he answered.
He didn't specify what exactly he meant.
But judging by the way Kushina's expression shifted slightly afterward, she understood anyway.
***
"That wasn't very nice, Reiji," a familiar voice said lazily from above him. "You scared poor Fuyu away."
Reiji straightened slightly before lifting his head toward the canopy overhead.
Sakumo stood casually on one of the higher branches, one hand resting against the trunk beside him while he looked down at Reiji with an easy smile, as if the entire situation amused him.
Hizashi was nowhere to be seen.
Reiji's eyes narrowed immediately.
Without looking away from Sakumo, he reached into his pouch and pulled out one of the tracking seal Kushina had given him earlier before hiding not far from there. The seal trembled slightly between his fingers before turning in a specific direction.
Toward Sakumo.
Seeing the realization cross Reiji's face, Sakumo smiled wider before casually lifting a similar paper tag between two fingers.
"Looking for this?"
Reiji ignored the provocation completely.
"Where's Hizashi?"
"Not too far from here," Sakumo answered lightly. "I'm sure your redheaded friend will find him soon enough." His smile sharpened slightly. "Though she'll probably have to greet a few more summons along the way first."
Reiji blinked once at that.
"You're being pretty cooperative."
Sakumo shrugged.
"To be honest, the test was already finished the moment you found Fuyu." His eyes drifted briefly toward the broken branches where the summon had disappeared earlier. "You really don't like playing by the rules, do you?"
"Your dog was making noise right in front of me," Reiji replied flatly. "What exactly was I supposed to do?"
Sakumo chuckled softly before dropping from the branch above.
Sakumo straightened calmly a few meters away from him, moonlight filtering through the trees overhead and casting shifting shadows across his face while cold wind moved through the canopy between them.
Reiji studied him carefully.
Even standing casually like this, Sakumo's posture carried an annoying sort of balance to it. No openings he could immediately identify. It felt less like facing a person and more like standing in front of a drawn blade that simply hadn't swung yet.
"So," Reiji asked finally, "what now?"
"Well," Sakumo said, rubbing the back of his neck lightly, "I pretty much learned what I wanted from you three already." He glanced briefly toward the forest where Kushina had disappeared earlier. "So we can probably call this exercise over once the redhead frees the Hyūga boy."
Reiji stared at him silently for a moment.
"So you're not failing us?"
"No." Sakumo smiled lazily. "You impressed me enough not to."
Reiji rolled his eyes.
Yeah. Sure.
"But…" Sakumo added casually.
Reiji immediately narrowed his eyes.
"You injured my summon," Sakumo continued, still smiling. "So I think that deserves a little punishment."
Reiji slowly pushed himself away from the tree trunk behind him.
"Oh really?"
"Yes," Sakumo answered pleasantly. "But it'd be unfair for me to fight you seriously like this." He waved one hand dismissively. "So what do you say? No ninjutsu from me."
Reiji frowned immediately.
"You're underestimating me too much."
Sakumo laughed lightly at that, waving his hand again as if dismissing the idea entirely.
"No, no, it's fine." His smile remained perfectly relaxed. "You're weak after all."
Reiji stilled completely.
The smile slowly disappeared from his face.
Something cold tightened sharply in his chest while he stared at Sakumo's utterly unconcerned expression.
So he want to provoke me, huh?
Reiji felt irritation crawl immediately through his chest despite recognizing exactly what Sakumo was doing.
Fine.
This fucking bastard.
I'll show him.