Renkai moved carefully through the dense underbrush, his breaths controlled as he felt the faint flickers of chakra signatures scattered ahead. One presence stood out from the rest. A powerful, unwavering signature—waiting.
Genji.
The scroll had to be nearby.
He barely made a sound as he approached the clearing, his senses sharp. No movement. No unnecessary tension in the air. It wasn’t a trap—it was a challenge. Genji wasn’t hiding. He was waiting.
Renkai stepped forward.
A voice greeted him from the shadows.
“You’re fast, I’ll give you that. But do you really think you can take the scroll from me?”
Renkai didn’t answer.
Instead, he moved.
A kunai flickered toward Genji’s chest—only for it to pass through empty air. The moment it left his hand, Genji had already disappeared. A blur of motion, and Renkai twisted sharply, barely ducking as a kunai sliced past his ear.
Too fast.
A powerful force crashed toward him from behind. He barely managed to sidestep, feeling the wind pressure from Genji’s strike as it smashed into the dirt where he had just stood.
This wasn’t an instructor testing a student.
This was a shinobi testing another shinobi.
Renkai darted backward, flicking another kunai toward Genji’s blind spot, but the Jonin weaved through the attack effortlessly. Even worse—he was reading him. The moment Renkai adjusted, Genji was already countering.
Predictable.
A smirk tugged at the instructor’s lips. “Your strategy is solid. But the moment you hesitate—”
Genji vanished.
Renkai felt him before he saw him.
Behind him.
He barely twisted in time to block the kunai strike with his forearm, but the sheer force sent him skidding backward, his feet digging into the dirt. A single exchange and the gap was already clear.
Jonin weren’t just stronger. They were in another league entirely.
But Renkai wasn’t out of options.
He adjusted his grip, chakra surging into his kunai. He wasn’t aiming for a single strike. He needed to disrupt Genji’s rhythm. To force an opening.
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His kunai lashed forward—but before it made contact, Genji deflected it with ease, barely sparing the movement any attention.
A smirk.
“Too obvious.”
But the kunai was connected to a chakra thread.
Renkai flicked his fingers.
The kunai reversed course mid-air, snapping toward Genji’s exposed side with unnatural speed. It was a perfect setup.
And still—
Genji dodged.
Without turning his head, without even fully looking at the kunai, he twisted his body just enough that the blade barely skimmed past him. His movements weren’t reflexes. They were preemptive.
He was reading Renkai’s every move.
Renkai’s thoughts raced. His kunai trick was obvious now. His movement patterns were being countered instantly. He needed to shift the battlefield.
Lightning flickered along his fingertips.
The kunai launched again—but this time, it accelerated faster than before, infused with his Lightning Release. A sudden burst of speed, enough to break the usual trajectory.
Genji’s smirk wavered.
The kunai scraped against his sleeve, but Renkai wasn’t done. His fingers twitched subtly, almost imperceptibly. His foot had barely grazed the dirt mid-step.
And that was the moment everything changed.
The ground beneath Genji pulsed faintly with chakra.
A sealing mark.
Genji’s expression sharpened instantly, his instincts flaring too late. The moment he moved to dodge, his chakra flow was disrupted—only for the briefest second, but that second was enough.
Renkai was already moving.
A final kunai, launched at full speed.
Genji twisted, but for the first time, he was too slow.
The blade sliced across his face.
A clean, sharp cut formed just beneath his cheekbone.
The air stilled.
Renkai’s breath was controlled, but inside, his mind was racing. The trap had worked. The kunai had landed. He had landed a hit on a Jonin.
And then Genji was gone.
Renkai barely had time to react before he felt it.
A shift in the air.
A force against his back.
The world blurred for a second, and the next thing he knew, his body was locked in place—Genji’s arm twisted around his throat, his grip pressing just enough to cut off movement, but not enough to choke.
A heartbeat passed.
The fight was over.
Renkai exhaled sharply as Genji released him.
The Jonin adjusted his sleeve, running a finger across the shallow cut on his face. He regarded Renkai with something unreadable in his gaze.
“Not bad, kid.”
Renkai said nothing.
He had lost. But even in that loss, something had changed.
Genji studied him for a long moment before glancing away.
“If you keep improving like this…” His voice was quiet, but not in the way it usually was. There was no amusement in it this time. Just something distant. “You’ll be something the village won’t know how to handle.”
Renkai caught the slight shift in his expression. A flicker of something almost resentful.
Genji had seen too much of what the village did with power.
Without another word, the Jonin turned and left.
Renkai remained kneeling in the dirt for a moment longer, letting the tension bleed from his muscles.
He had lost.
But he had left a mark.
And from deep within the Hokage’s office, through the cloudy reflection of his crystal ball, Hiruzen Sarutobi exhaled.
His pipe smoldered faintly between his fingers as he watched the battle conclude, eyes sharp with interest. He had observed the fight carefully, his attention lingering not on the speed, nor the lightning techniques—but on something far more unusual.
The seal.
It had been applied mid-fight, without manual drawing. No brushes. No ink.
A fully pre-applied sealing technique.
That wasn’t something an Academy student should have known. That wasn’t something many Chunin could do, let alone a child.
And yet, there it was.
The faintest grin pulled at Hiruzen’s lips.
This boy…
He wasn’t a problem.
He was a possibility.
His hand hovered over the crystal ball, watching as Renkai stood back up, shaking the tension from his limbs.
Hiruzen exhaled another puff of smoke.
This child’s future is going to be extraordinary.