Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

Ten minutes later.

Uchiha Haruki arrived at another section of the battlefield.

Before he could even get close, he spotted a lone Iwagakure genin moving across the terrain.

Haruki's eyes lit up, and he was just about to approach when a sudden thought crossed his mind. He quickly activated his Sharingan and scanned the surrounding area.

But... there were no ambushes. Nothing suspicious at all.

The genin actually seemed to be genuinely alone.

"Am I overthinking this?"

Haruki frowned slightly, unsure, and decided to observe a little longer.

Two minutes passed.

Still, he didn't see anything unusual. The Iwa genin below was continuing forward, seemingly trying to catch up with his unit.

After another moment of thought, Haruki stopped hesitating. Forming the "Ram" hand seal, he activated Body Flicker Technique, appearing instantly behind the Iwa ninja.

Thud!

A swift knifehand strike dropped the genin to the ground instantly.

Haruki remained still, alert and scanning the surroundings.

One second. Two seconds. Three…

A full minute passed.

Still nothing.

Haruki finally relaxed a bit. It really was just a lone genin—not a trap, not bait.

"So I've just been out here playing mental chess with thin air, huh?"

He chuckled and shook his head before grabbing the unconscious genin and leaping into the forest, settling into a hidden spot.

Smack! Smack!

Two quick slaps brought the Iwa ninja back to consciousness.

Before he could fully wake, Haruki cast Genjutsu: Sharingan, guiding his target's thoughts to retrieve the intel he wanted.

A few minutes later, Haruki learned the genin's name—Ishiki Ichirō.

Turns out, during a battle earlier, Ichirō had accidentally fallen under a Cloud ninja's genjutsu and collapsed in a corner.

With his entire squad already wiped out and no one to notice his absence, he had just woken up recently and had been trying to catch up with the rest.

So yeah... he was actually alone.

"All that caution for something so simple."

Haruki found himself a little speechless.

Sometimes things really are as straightforward as they seem—but people tend to overcomplicate them.

Still, Haruki didn't feel even the slightest bit embarrassed.

Even if something like this happened again, he would act the same way. Because compared to wasting a bit of time, his own life was far more valuable.

After all, what if it really had been a trap next time?

Better to be cautious than dead.

"Although..."

Looking at Ishiki Ichirō, still deep in the genjutsu, Haruki thought the guy's identity might actually come in handy.

Thinking this, Haruki quickly weaved hand seals and placed his palm on the ninja's head, casting Chakra Absorption Technique.

This time, unlike with the Iwa wounded he had previously disguised himself to help, Haruki didn't hold back. He didn't care about hiding his intentions now.

Pouring full force into the technique, it took less than two seconds to drain all the chakra from Ichirō's body.

He was just a genin, after all—he didn't have much chakra to begin with.

But Haruki didn't stop there.

He continued to draw out mental and physical energy, converting it into chakra and absorbing it into himself.

Two more seconds later, he pulled his hand away.

At this point, Ishiki Ichirō was on the brink of death. There wasn't even a sliver of chakra left in him.

Crack!

Haruki snapped his neck, then formed seals again and unleashed Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu, reducing the corpse to ash.

Afterward, he used Transformation Jutsu to take on the form of Ishiki Ichirō and continued walking along the original path the genin had taken.

Along the way, Haruki saw a number of corpses—both Cloud and Stone shinobi—but not a single wounded individual.

The Cloud side wasn't too surprising—even if they had injured soldiers, they'd either been carried away by teammates or executed by the Stone ninja.

But Iwagakure? This was their home turf. How was it possible that not a single injured comrade had been left behind?

The lack of wounded left Haruki puzzled.

He was walking forward, lost in thought, when he suddenly froze mid-step, ears twitching as he turned toward the nearby forest.

From that direction, he could vaguely hear painful groans—a sound he had listened to nonstop the previous day. It was unmistakable.

Without hesitation, Haruki followed the sound.

But before he'd gone far, a kunai came flying out, stabbing into a tree trunk just ahead of him.

Haruki looked up toward the direction it came from and saw an Iwa jōnin standing on a tree branch, staring down at him from above.

"Name? Squad number? What are you doing here?"

The jōnin's cold voice carried a heavy warning. It was clear—one wrong answer and you die.

Haruki immediately lowered his head, feigning panic.

"I-I'm Ishiki Ichirō! From squad E379.

I got caught in a genjutsu during the last battle and passed out. When I woke up, I was all alone… I'm trying to get back to the front."

He paused, then cautiously glanced up at the jōnin and scanned the nearby woods with his peripheral vision before continuing:

"I heard a sound coming from this direction and thought I'd check it out."

The jōnin remained silent for several seconds, clearly judging whether Haruki was lying.

Eventually, he spoke with a cold tone:

"This isn't your concern, Ishiki Ichirō.

As a jōnin, I order you to return to the battlefield immediately—no delays. Understood?"

"Y-Yes sir!"

Haruki bowed and turned to leave.

But just then, the jōnin suddenly called out:

"Wait, you—"

Before he could finish, Haruki's three-tomoe Sharingan spun to life.

Even though the jōnin was on high alert, he never expected Haruki to possess the Sharingan.

Their eyes locked.

In the brief instant of eye contact, Haruki successfully triggered a hypnosis genjutsu.

It only lasted a split second—but it was enough.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh—

Three shuriken flew from Haruki's hand.

Sensing danger, the jōnin broke free of the hypnosis in time—but only managed to block one of the shuriken.

The remaining two struck true—one in his left arm, the other in his right leg—crippling both his ability to form seals and flee.

Seizing the opportunity, Haruki cast Body Flicker Technique, closing the distance in a blur, a short blade already drawn in his hand.

The instant he left his original position, several kunai rained down where he had just been standing.

Clearly, the jōnin hadn't been alone.

But it didn't matter.

Because Haruki had already neutralized the strongest one. The rest weren't even worth worrying about.

While distracting the jōnin with conversation, Haruki had already used his chakra sensing to gauge the presence of nearby enemies.

They were, at best, chunin-level. Not a threat.

Even this elite jōnin wasn't likely to be more than a special jōnin. A bit of a challenge—but manageable.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.

Haruki activated Swordsmanship Lv5, synchronizing it with his three-tomoe Sharingan, once again unleashing a display of deadly, unpredictable movement.

In the blink of an eye, Haruki's blade carved a deep, bone-exposing wound into the immobilized jōnin's body.