Night cloaked the Senju camp in silence, broken only by the distant hum of watchmen changing shifts and the crackling of fading embers from dying fires. Most of the shinobi slept—exhausted by the day's battle drills and reconnaissance. But one tent, nestled near the outskirts of the encampment and half-concealed by overgrown shrubs, remained empty.
Its occupant, Itama Senju, was already far beyond its fabric walls.
Under a crescent moon, in a secluded grove where the trees stood old and unyielding, Itama moved in silence. His breaths came slow and deliberate. His movements deliberate yet fluid. Leaves scattered beneath his sandals, disturbed only by the rotations of his form as he shifted from one stance to another.
The rogue Senju's teachings echoed in his head. "Not all strength is in the fist, boy. Most of it hides in the breath between strikes."
Itama formed a series of hand signs—not the standard seals of the Senju, but those he'd been taught in exile: looser, flowing, deceptive. The rogue's approach to ninjutsu had emphasized unpredictability. Power without clarity was chaos—but chaos controlled was a weapon more potent than any blade.
Tonight, Itama wielded chaos.
He extended his hand to a tree, focusing his chakra with precision. The wood pulsed faintly under his palm, the bark rippling with an energy barely visible in the dark. He could feel it now, the whisper of mokuton—not just as a technique, but as a language. Not brute force like Hashirama's mighty wood dragons, but something quieter. Subtle.
He pulled his hand back and exhaled.
Then, he moved again.
The rogue's taijutsu forms were unlike anything he'd learned under the Senju banner. Meant to confuse. To draw enemies into missteps. Designed not to overpower, but to expose. The style embraced small openings, shifting gravity and foot placement in minute adjustments that created disproportionate power.
Itama's frame wasn't yet what it had been before the ambush—his muscles still lacked the full strength of a warrior—but in the moonlight, he moved like a phantom. Faster, lighter, more precise than he'd ever been before.
"You're not trying to win a contest of strength," the rogue had told him once. "You're surviving. You're outlasting."
He paused beside a fallen log, breath steady, chakra rising slowly into his limbs. Then, without hand signs, he extended his will—and beneath his feet, a vine thickened from the soil, coiling around the log like a serpent. It moved slowly, sluggishly, and collapsed a moment later. Imperfect.
But growing.
Every night since his return, he'd trained like this. Hidden beneath nature's canopy, perfecting what the rogue had begun. These techniques, if discovered, would provoke suspicion. Tobirama would demand interrogation. The clan elders would want answers. Even Hashirama—kind as he was—might question the source of these new methods.
So Itama practiced alone. Always at night. Always away from eyes.
And with every session, he grew stronger.
He leapt into a high branch, crouching low to avoid the skyline, then released a surge of chakra through his legs and launched himself into another movement series. His body twisted in midair as he landed behind a stump, rolled, and drew his kunai—not in the Senju grip, but in the rogue's reverse-knife fashion, blade along his forearm for parrying and deflection.
Thud.
He stabbed the kunai into the bark of a target tree and withdrew it instantly. Three more movements followed, each one in near silence.
From his side pouch, he pulled a sealed scroll and released a pulse of chakra to activate it.
Puff.
Three straw dummies emerged. Worn, but intact. He had crafted them with care from his meager off-duty materials—bundled cloth, dried straw, and torn rope. Basic, but sufficient for training reflexes.
He moved on them like shadow. Quick strikes. Counter-steps. Chakra-infused palm strikes taught by the rogue to target muscle groups, not bones—designed to disable without killing. And when he had exhausted his form, he stepped back, heart pounding, sweat trickling down the back of his neck.
He dropped into a seated position, folding his legs beneath him.
Chakra control exercises came next.
He closed his eyes, placed his hands on his knees, and visualized the flow. The rogue had explained it once as "listening to the river inside you." Hashirama's teachings had always been more rigid—channel the chakra, push it, mold it.
The rogue? He said chakra wanted to move. You just had to invite it.
And so Itama sat, in a still forest, and listened to the currents within himself. He imagined them moving from his lungs, his heart, down his arms and legs, to the soil beneath his body.
The trees responded. Not loudly—but in a subtle shift. Leaves trembled, though there was no wind. A root beneath him pulsed once, then settled again.
This was different from Hashirama's powerful mokuton. His brother could shape forests with a roar.
Itama? He was whispering to the trees.
And they were beginning to whisper back.
He opened his eyes and drew a thin strip of cloth from his pack, wrapping it tightly around his left wrist. A minor burn from over-channeling had appeared—nothing serious, but another reminder that he still had much to master.
Suddenly, a soft crack of a twig echoed in the distance.
Itama's body went rigid.
He immediately dropped into a low stance, hand hovering near his kunai.
Another sound—this time closer. A rustle in the leaves. A pattern.
No animal.
He moved into the shadow of a tree, body still, breath shallow.
But the noise passed. Whatever it was—animal or man—it moved away. No chakra signature lingered. No scent of blood. Nothing hostile.
Still, Itama didn't move for several minutes.
Once confident he was alone, he exhaled slowly.
And returned to training.
This time, he focused on deception.
The rogue had called it "mirroring misdirection"—a technique that required carefully placed objects or dummies to simulate movement while the user repositioned for an ambush. He'd already set two decoys near the camp's old path.
Itama leapt from one tree to another, activating one of his smoke charges with a subtle seal, then moved to the side as a dummy in his likeness leapt into view. He watched its arc, memorizing how to direct it better next time.
Another surge of chakra. Another movement.
By now, he was tired. His limbs ached. His breath came slower.
But the final exercise remained.
He crouched low and placed both hands on the ground, channeling his energy not upward—but downward, into the roots.
At first, there was nothing.
Then, slowly, a tendril of wood curled from the soil, snaking forward like a vine testing the air. Another followed it—twisting, thin, searching.
They didn't rise into walls or shields. Not yet.
But they moved.
They answered.
He smiled faintly.
"Strength," the rogue had once said, "is not about the loudest jutsu. It's about who lasts the longest once the shouting is over."
Itama released the chakra, and the tendrils receded.
The night deepened. The moon dipped behind the clouds.
And in that secret grove, Itama Senju wiped sweat from his brow, wrapped his gear, and disappeared into the woods like a ghost.
He was not yet the warrior his brothers once knew.
But he was becoming something else.
And whatever that was—it would be his.