Three Days Later
The desert sun hung high, bleaching the sky a pale, merciless white. Heat shimmered off the sand and stone as Kuro and his team moved along the ridgeline that marked the boundary between the Land of Wind and the Land of Rivers.
The shinobi waiting for them made no move to attack. Instead, they watched silently as Kuro's team patrolled the boundary.
Aside from Kuro, only Minato seemed to notice the hidden observers. Further back, Nawaki stretched his arms behind his head, rambling—yet again—about his dream of becoming Hokage.
Mikoto walked beside Nawaki, her eyes narrowed, one hand hovering near her weapon pouch. She was quieter than usual. Kuro noticed she hadn't detected the enemy directly—her guarded posture was likely a response to Minato's subtle tension.
Kuro felt a twinge of disappointment. As a Uchiha, Mikoto should have been the first to sense their presence.
Afterward, Kuro appears in front of the group, signaling a halt with two fingers.
Nawaki stopped blabbering, and Mikoto looked at Kuro with surprise.
Minato stepped forward slightly, eyes scanning the area. "Anything wrong?" Although Minato was the group leader, it seems he understood that Kuro was not a Genin like him, Nawaki, and Mikoto.
'Smart. It seems Hiruzen has informed him about me.' Kuro looks at Minato before turning his head toward a few rocks.
From the rocks ahead, three figures emerged—Hidden Sand shinobi, wrapped in desert cloaks, faces masked against the heat and wind. Their headbands gleamed in the light, slashed through with deliberate, defiant lines.
He stepped forward once, planting his foot deliberately in the sand.
"You've been following us since dawn. What do you want?"
The one in front—a tall man with narrow eyes and a deep scar across his cheek—smiled faintly beneath his veil.
"Just watching. For now."
Minato tensed beside him. Nawaki, for once, had gone silent, his grin replaced with something harder. Mikoto's fingers brushed against the clasp of her pouch, her Sharingan flaring to life in the heat-glare.
Kuro's eyes stayed locked on the man.
The wind gusted again, lifting grains of sand into the air like shimmering sparks. For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then the man with the scar shifted his weight forward—barely noticeable, but enough. His companions responded immediately, fanning out in practiced silence.
"What is the meaning of this?" Minato pointed at the man with the scar.
"Why should I answer you?" he said, voice low and dry. "Orders are to test the Leaf's border patrol. You just happen to be the unlucky ones."
Kuro's hand dropped to his hip, where a katana appeared from thin air.
"Then consider this your test result," Kuro stated lazily.
The moment cracked.
The lead Sand Shinobi surged forward, sand exploding beneath his feet. Kuro was already moving—sidestepping with a blur of motion, steel singing free. Their blades met with a clash that echoed across the rocks.
Behind him, Minato vanished in a flicker of yellow light, his kunai arcing toward one of the flankers. A sharp cry rang out, cut short.
Nawaki roared, chakra flaring wildly as he launched into the third enemy with the subtlety of a charging bull. His punches shook the stone beneath them, his raw strength forcing the attacker back in a shower of shattered rock.
Kuro could have finished his opponent, but decided to see what his teammate would do.
The scarred shinobi was fast—faster than he looked. Sand danced at his feet, twisting unnaturally as if pulled by chakra. A wave of it lashed out, trying to blind and bind, but Kuro moved through it like a phantom.
"Mikoto!" Minato barked.
No hesitation.
Red eyes glinting like embers, Mikoto weaved through hand signs with deadly precision.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"
A scatterburst of flame roared across the ridge, forcing the enemy back, momentarily breaking their formation. The Sand Shinobi snarled and raised a wall of sand, but they were too slow. Minato was already inside his guard.
Kunai flashed once.
The man staggered, blood blooming across his chest. He dropped to one knee, gasping.
"How…" he rasped, glaring up. "How could a Genin be this strong?!"
Minato did not answer him.
With a final, clean strike, it was over.
The other two, seeing that they would be outnumbered, backed away from the fight. One dropped smoke and vanished into the rocks. The other didn't make it—Minato reappeared behind him in a shimmer of light, kunai buried deep in his back.
Silence fell again.
'As expected of the future Fourth Hokage, he is strong.' Kuro nodded his head. 'At the level of the weakest Shadow Soldiers.'
Kuro walked over to the fallen enemy, blood soaking into the sand at his feet. He looked at the cuts inflicted by Minato. 'Clean and precise.'
Minato, on the other hand, cleans his Kunai and sheathes it as he surveys the surroundings for potential threats.
"We're pulling back," Minato stated.
Mikoto gave a small nod as Nawaki exhaled hard, adrenaline still pulsing through him.
"That's it?" he asked, voice low but crackling with the aftershock of battle. "We're not chasing the runner?"
Kuro glanced toward the distant ridge, where the last of the smoke from the enemy's escape still drifted skyward.
"If you want to go into the enemy territory and die, go ahead."
With that, Nawaki went silent and quietly prepared to back off.
After a few moments, the team fell into formation again, the desert stretching out before them as they turned south, away from the border.
They moved quickly, silent but alert.
By the time the sun touched the western horizon, they reached a small river where they could rest. Minato raised a hand.
"We'll rest here. Nawaki—send the hawk."
Nawaki unsealed a scroll, summoning a sleek messenger hawk with a puff of smoke. As he scribbled the report, Kuro looked to the north—toward the Land of Wind—and let the silence stretch.
Once Nawaki tied off the message and released the bird into the darkening sky, Kuro finally spoke.
"Something's coming."
The rest of the team tensed, hands instinctively going to their kunai.
Moments later, six Sand Shinobi emerged from the shadows, facing Kuro's squad. Without hesitation, they attacked.
"Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere!"
A barrage of wind-infused chakra blasted toward them.
Mikoto stepped forward, forming hand seals with practiced speed.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
She released a blazing fireball nearly half a meter wide, intercepting the incoming attacks. Three of the six vacuum spheres were neutralized, buying precious seconds.
Minato and Nawaki used the opening to prepare their counterattack.
Before the Sand Shinobi could close the distance, a shadowy sphere materialized in front of them. Five of the enemy ninja sensed the danger and scattered—one wasn't fast enough and was engulfed by the shadow.
BANG!
Pieces of flesh and blood flew everywhere.
Nawaki threw up seeing the gory scene. Mikoto's face paled.
Minato was the only one unaffected.
Kuro stepped forward, his eyes narrowed. "Minato—now."
In a blur, Minato vanished from his position, reappearing behind one of the disoriented Sand shinobi. The flash of his kunai was the only warning before the enemy collapsed.
Two of the remaining Sand ninja retaliated.
"Wind Style: Air Bullets!"
"Earth Style: Mud Surge!"
Compressed air spheres pelted toward Mikoto and Nawaki, while a wave of mud tore across the battlefield, threatening to knock them off balance.
Mikoto leapt high to avoid the mud, countering with a scattering of shuriken imbued with fire chakra. Nawaki, although feeling sick, slammed his palm to the dirt.
"Earth Style: Rising Wall!"
A barrier of solid stone shot up in front of him, shielding them from the worst of the attack. The air bullets struck the wall with dull thuds, cracking its surface but failing to break through.
Behind it, Mikoto muttered, "They're better coordinated than I thought."
Kuro didn't answer. His focus was elsewhere—on the last two Sand shinobi hanging back, hands weaving seals too slowly to be anything basic.
"Minato—those two in the rear. They're prepping something big."
Minato vanished again in a flash.
Before Minato could reach them, the two Sand shinobi completed their jutsu.
"Scorch Style: Heat Mirage!"
The air shimmered violently as waves of scorching heat rippled outward. The ground cracked beneath it, and Minato stumbled mid-flash, his trajectory thrown off by the sudden distortion.
The temperature spiked. Mikoto dropped to one knee, shielding her face with her sleeve as the air shimmered dangerously close to combustion.
"They're combining nature transformations," Kuro calmly stated. "That's a Scorch–Wind hybrid."
As the battlefield warped under the oppressive heat, a third shinobi slammed his palms together.
"Wind Style: Cyclone Prison!"
A spiraling wall of air erupted around Nawaki and Mikoto, forming a high-velocity vortex that cut off their escape. Dust and debris swirled with razor-sharp wind currents, shredding the edges of Nawaki's flak jacket.
Kuro finally decided to stop playing around and move. His hands blurred through seals faster than the eye could follow.
"Shadow Style: Phantom Binding." He decided to cover his techniques as a unique Kekkei Gankai.
Black tendrils snaked from his shadow, slipping beneath the vortex's base. They surged upward, latching onto one of the cyclone's creators—his limbs jerked as if pulled by invisible strings. The jutsu collapsed with a burst of displaced air, freeing Nawaki and Mikoto.
But the reprieve was brief.
From above, a streak of light dropped like a comet.
Minato reappeared mid-air, kunai spinning in his hand, heading straight for the Scorch-style user. The shinobi's eyes widened—too late. Minato's kunai struck, followed by a flash of light and a pulse of chakra.
Explosion.
The shockwave leveled nearby trees, knocking everyone off their feet.
Smoke and dust filled the battlefield. For a heartbeat, there was silence—then coughing, groans, and the slow shuffle of feet.
Kuro uses this chance when the team was not looking to kill all the Sand Shinobi.
Mikoto rose first, eyes scanning the haze.
"Is everyone still up?" she called.
"Barely," Nawaki muttered, pushing himself off the ground.
Minato stood slowly, gaze fixed on the shifting smoke.
Once the smoke cleared, they saw that all the Sand Shinobi were down.
Without checking on them, Minato immediately ordered the team to retreat.
"Let's get out of here. This is way above our level."
Nawaki and Mikoto nodded and follow Minato and Kuro as they headed back to the Hidden Leaf Village.