Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

Meanwhile...

Inside the cavern once more.

Uchiha Haruki withdrew his palm from the top of Chiya's head. As usual, he fed him three military ration pills to ensure he had enough nutrition to keep refining chakra. Then, Haruki headed back toward the entrance of the underground tunnel.

Gazing off in the direction of the main base, Haruki muttered under his breath,

"If I've calculated correctly, the shadow clone should be heading out about now."

That's right—the Haruki currently with the main unit was just a shadow clone.

Originally, Haruki had intended to go himself. But after considering that the path from the main base to this cavern wasn't particularly dangerous, he decided there was no need to waste the travel time.

After lingering above ground for a bit to breathe some fresh air, Haruki tiptoed back down into the underground tunnel.

He randomly picked a spot, sat cross-legged, and began using the 3,000 chakra points he'd just absorbed to continue practicing "Reflection of the Heart."

According to his initial plan, these 3,000 chakra points were supposed to be split evenly between "Reflection of the Heart" and "Fire Style: Phoenix Fire Jutsu."

But because he was currently living off the radar—essentially a "ghost"—practicing Fire Style here could easily attract unwanted attention. So, for now, he had to put that on hold.

In fact, it hadn't just been today—the same had been true for the past two days.

As a result, his training in Reflection of the Heart had gone far beyond his planned schedule, while Phoenix Fire Jutsu had been left stagnant.

Still, Haruki wasn't the kind of person to rigidly follow plans.

Once the shadow clone arrived and switched places with him, he could show up openly again, and make up for lost time on Fire Style training.

As long as the overall pace stayed on track, it didn't matter how he distributed chakra on any given day.

The same principle applied to all his other techniques.

Several hours passed in the blink of an eye.

As dusk approached...

A figure silently appeared at the cave entrance. Glancing around carefully, they pushed aside the overgrown weeds and leapt down into the darkness.

Below, Haruki's eyes snapped open.

A moment later, a familiar figure stood before him.

It was, of course, his shadow clone.

No words were exchanged. The two looked at each other, and the clone immediately dispelled itself.

Poof!

A puff of chakra smoke filled the space—the shadow clone vanished.

In its place came a small amount of recovered chakra and the full memory of the clone's experiences over the past two days.

Haruki closed his eyes for a moment, quickly processing the memories. Then, he performed the hand seals for Shadow Clone Jutsu once more and created a new clone before quietly slipping out of the cavern.

The newly created shadow clone remained behind, now serving as the new guard.

With that, the two had successfully swapped roles, and Haruki could once again move freely aboveground.

The following days passed uneventfully.

Other than eating, sleeping, and patrolling, Haruki continued his usual routine—training and, once per day, extracting chakra from Chiya.

As for enemy encounters...

There hadn't been any in Haruki's patrol zone. A few fights had broken out in neighboring squads, and he'd assisted once—but unfortunately, there had been too many people present for him to kidnap anyone without being noticed.

So, regrettably, he had to kill the target on the spot.

Because of that, even though the mission was nearing its end, Haruki's "chakra battery" still consisted of only Chiya.

Just as he was wondering whether to use his rest day tomorrow to take a quick trip to the front lines and maybe capture a few Sand ninjas, opportunity struck on its own.

That afternoon.

In the forest.

Haruki was on his final patrol sweep.

Suddenly, a ninken (ninja hound) came sprinting toward him at high speed. It skidded to a halt right in front of him.

Haruki recognized it immediately—this was Kiga, the personal summoning beast of their squad vice-captain, Tashiro Ukyo.

If it had come running like this, there had to be an urgent message.

Sure enough, before Haruki could even speak, Kiga began delivering its message at breakneck speed:

"Squad 312, Lord Ukyo commands you to immediately head to Sector E12. Squad 108 has been ambushed and requires backup!"

Squad 312 was the internal ID number for Haruki's team, and Sector E12 was the patrol zone assigned to Squad 108—right next to E11, the area Haruki's team was guarding.

An ambush next door? A request for reinforcement made perfect sense.

Haruki didn't hesitate and immediately responded,

"Got it. Kiga, return and report back."

"Woof!"

Kiga barked once and said, "Hurry. There are a lot of enemies over there."

Then it vanished in a blur.

Watching it disappear, Haruki murmured to himself:

"A lot of enemies? Even better."

Without wasting a second, Haruki pulled out a whistle and gave it a sharp blow.

In less than a minute, his three subordinates arrived.

One of them asked directly,

"Captain, what happened?"

Haruki got straight to the point, quickly explaining that Squad 108 was under attack and Vice-Captain Ukyo had ordered them to assist.

Then he gave the command:

"Grab your gear. We're moving!"

Not that there was much to grab—when out on missions, everyone was always fully equipped.

So the squad set off immediately.

However, they hadn't even reached Sector E12 when they were ambushed by Sand ninja.

"Wind Style: Kamaitachi Jutsu!"

From somewhere ahead in the forest, a sharp voice rang out.

In the next instant, a violent gust of wind swept toward them, fast and fierce.

The trees around them were shredded like paper—branches snapped, leaves tore free and scattered everywhere. It was a chaotic mess.

Haruki and his team quickly retreated to avoid the attack.

When the forest finally calmed, Haruki saw who had ambushed them.

The attacker looked to be in his early twenties, lean and wiry, with sharp triangular eyes and a cold, sinister aura. He wielded an enormous fan.

If Haruki wasn't mistaken, that was likely the Three-Star Fan, a ninja tool unique to the Hidden Sand Village.

It greatly enhanced Wind Style techniques.

"I just don't know how many stars he activated when he cast that Kamaitachi Jutsu..."

Haruki narrowed his eyes, thinking. Then he turned his attention to the rest of the enemy squad.

That's right—there were three more Sand chunin present.

One of them had brightly colored face paint and carried a huge cylindrical object on his back, somewhat resembling Kankuro's later puppet gear.

What caught Haruki's eye, however, was the family crest on the man's clothing—it was identical to Chiya's.

Clearly, these two were from the same clan.

Haruki's eyes lit up.

He had been wondering how to force Chiya to hand over the secrets of puppet technique.

With this guy here, he might just have found his breakthrough.

But that could wait.

Haruki shifted his attention to the other two enemies.

Compared to the sinister fan user and the puppet user, these two were much more ordinary.

One was a sturdy young man, around 17 or 18 years old, clearly skilled in taijutsu.

The other was a female ninja, just over 20—rare in the shinobi world. Haruki couldn't tell what her specialty was.