The early morning mist clung low to the ground as Itama crouched beneath a thicket of broad-leafed shrubs, his breath slow and steady. Ahead, the trees gave way to a narrow ravine, and beyond it—barely visible through the veil of fog—were signs of conflict: broken kunai embedded in bark, deep scars gouged into the stone, and the acrid stench of blood and scorched earth.
He'd been dispatched as part of a six-man unit to assist in a border skirmish along the northeastern flank, near disputed territory with the Fuma clan. It was supposed to be a minor engagement—an ambush repelled, and control reasserted.
But nothing about what he saw felt minor.
The first screams reached him before he laid eyes on the battlefield.
They weren't the cries of shinobi mid-battle—the sharp, focused bursts of effort. These were guttural. Prolonged. Agonizing. The screams of men caught between life and death.
The team leader, a seasoned kunoichi named Mika, gave the silent signal. Advance in formation. Eyes wide, silent as the grave.
They crested the ridge, one by one, and froze.
Below, the battle had ended.
What remained was carnage.
The clearing was littered with corpses—some in Senju colors, others wearing the stylized emblems of the Fuma. Blood pooled in the dirt, staining the earth black in the half-light. Broken weapons jutted from limbs and torsos. One man's chest had been caved in by brute force; another had been pinned to a tree by multiple kunai driven through his limbs.
A Senju boy—it couldn't have been more than fifteen—lay on his side, still breathing in ragged, shallow gasps. His stomach had been sliced open, his intestines spilling into the mud.
Itama rushed forward, ignoring protocol, and dropped to his knees beside the boy. His hands moved on instinct—forming seals, pressing glowing chakra to the wound, slowing the bleeding.
The boy's eyes fluttered open, unfocused. "M-mother…"
Itama swallowed. "You're going to be alright. Stay with me."
But he wasn't. The wound was too deep. Too much blood lost. Even as Itama pushed chakra into the boy's core, he felt it slip—like sand through his fingers.
The boy shuddered once, then went still.
Itama sat frozen. Hands still glowing faintly. He stared at the pale, slack face in front of him. The sound of wind moving through the trees seemed suddenly deafening.
Mika's voice called out from behind him. "Itama. We have survivors. Triage now."
He stood slowly, wiping his bloody hands on his robe, and turned.
A Senju squad lay against a shattered tree line. Two of them were conscious, both with serious injuries—one missing an eye, the other clutching a compound fracture in his thigh. The others were dead. Mika and another medic were already moving among them.
He joined them and worked in silence.
The worst was one of the Fuma, barely clinging to life, a kunai embedded in his throat. He gurgled blood every time he tried to breathe. None of the Senju moved to help him.
"Enemy," someone muttered.
But Itama crouched beside him anyway. His hands glowed again. The man's eyes flickered toward him—surprise, confusion, hatred.
"I'm not saving him," Itama said aloud. "I'm making him quiet."
He applied chakra, just enough to stop the noise. When the man's body finally stilled, no one said a word.
The next hours were filled with the dull rhythm of body collection. The wounded were stabilized and carried on stretchers. The dead were laid out in rows, tagged, and covered with cloths of neutral brown. No ceremonies. No time.
As the sun began its slow descent behind the trees, the full scale of the battle revealed itself. The Fuma had used a false retreat tactic, luring Senju forces into a narrow chokepoint where explosive tags had been rigged in advance. It was crude but effective. Over half the Senju squad had died in the first blast alone.
And then the slaughter began.
"We retaliated," Mika said to the group as they regrouped. "We pushed them back into the forest. Their losses were heavier than ours."
Itama didn't speak. He looked out across the field—at the gashes in the trees, the clumps of singed hair and burned cloth, the shuriken still embedded in flesh.
This was retaliation?
He returned to camp that evening with the blood of seven men on his uniform—three he'd tried to save, four he'd laid to rest.
Hashirama greeted him at the return checkpoint, his expression tight.
"Bad?" he asked.
"Worse," Itama replied.
"You held up?"
Itama met his brother's eyes. "I didn't flinch. But I felt everything."
Hashirama's jaw clenched, but he nodded. "I'll have food sent to your tent."
Itama walked in silence through the camp, but the sounds of war stayed with him—the screams, the gurgling breaths, the sickening crunch of bone under steel. For the first time since returning, he allowed himself to sit in the dark and feel it all. The weight. The helplessness.
And the shame.
Because a part of him had thought he was ready. Thought he could endure anything.
But war was never just about strength. It was about watching others break, watching hope rot in the mud beside blood-soaked roots, and still standing. Still walking forward.
He lay awake long into the night, eyes open in the dark, listening to the distant sounds of sharpening blades and murmured prayers.
No one mentioned the boy with his intestines spilling out.
No one mentioned the enemy medic Itama had silenced.
And no one asked how many would die the next day.
Only the war kept speaking.
And Itama was finally starting to hear it.