Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

Three hours later.

It was nearing sunset.

Uchiha Haruki finally finished absorbing the chakra from four Iwagakure chūnin.

Afterward, he smoothly performed a C-rank Fire Style technique—Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu—to destroy the bodies and erase all traces of the battle.

Then, without wasting a moment, he made his way toward a spot even closer to the battlefield in search of his next target.

Haruki knew that the Third Raikage could hold out for only three days. After that, the man would collapse from exhaustion and die.

Once Iwagakure freed up their forces, any further actions he took would come with much greater risk.

So, he had to make the most of these three days—gain as much strength as possible—before planning his departure from the Land of Earth.

With that thought driving him, Haruki picked up his pace.

Three days later.

That afternoon, in a stone forest near the northwestern border of the Land of Earth, more than twenty Iwa-nin lay sprawled on the ground. Every so often, a few of them groaned in pain. Clearly, they were all wounded shinobi.

Standing before them were Uchiha Haruki and his four shadow clones.

By all accounts, with so many captives, he should've been pleased—but his expression was far from joyful.

The reason?

There was a very real chance that his identity had been exposed.

Haruki's eyes fell on a particular Iwagakure jōnin. Even though both of the man's arms had been crippled and his chest bore a twisted, gruesome wound, his gaze was still defiant.

When he saw Haruki looking at him, the man growled through clenched teeth:

"Uchiha brat… just wait. Someone will come for you soon.

You might've beaten me, but what then?

Can you defeat the entire Iwagakure on your own?

After killing so many of us, Lord Third will never let you go!"

"Tch. Shut up," Haruki muttered, frowning.

He looked to the clone beside him. "Make him shut up."

In the blink of an eye, the shadow clone flashed behind the Iwa jōnin and delivered a swift karate chop to the neck, knocking him out cold.

"Takagi-senpai!"

A few of the other Iwa-nin cried out when they saw their superior collapse.

Haruki didn't need to give the order—the other three clones moved in immediately, knocking out every conscious shinobi in seconds.

With the battlefield finally silent, Haruki stood there, staring at the pile of defeated Iwa-nin, and felt a growing sense of unease.

That jōnin was right.

He could beat one opponent—but not an entire village.

Well… not yet.

And now, he was most likely facing exactly that scenario—the threat of being tracked down by squads of Iwagakure shinobi.

It all started just ten minutes ago.

At the time, Haruki had discovered this gathering of injured Iwa-nin. After a few minutes of observation, he confirmed that the guards consisted of one special jōnin and three chūnin—so he attacked without hesitation.

But in the heat of battle, a full-fledged jōnin suddenly revealed himself from among the wounded.

Not a special jōnin—a real, elite jōnin.

The sudden appearance caught Haruki completely off guard.

If not for his superior swordsmanship, the support of his Sharingan, and a well-timed Rasengan without hand seals, the fight might still be dragging on.

Even so, Haruki failed to stop the man's summoned creature—a pangolin, which vanished into the ground in an instant.

And that was the real problem.

That pangolin had likely been hiding and observing the entire time—witnessing everything, including Haruki's real appearance after his Transformation Jutsu was broken during the fight.

Now that it had escaped, there was no doubt:

His information was on its way to Iwagakure.

Soon, his face would be known throughout the village.

That alone wasn't a big deal—he could hide it with another Transformation Jutsu.

But his strength was now exposed.

From this point on, the enemies coming after him wouldn't be weaklings. At the very least, they'd send special jōnin, if not stronger.

That made things dangerous.

Haruki could handle one or two jōnin, but if they sent three or more, he'd be in trouble.

And based on how Iwagakure had arranged today's ambush, it was clear:

They were already taking him seriously.

Still, he needed confirmation.

Haruki walked over to one of the downed Iwa guards—a chūnin—and slapped him awake.

Then, activating Genjutsu: Sharingan, he dove into the man's memories.

He didn't go straight for the jōnin's mind because he suspected a trap.

It was unlikely, but not impossible—and he wasn't about to take that risk.

To his surprise, the memory extraction went smoothly.

Iwagakure hadn't even bothered to encrypt this particular intel.

Apparently, they hadn't thought it was all that important.

Lucky break.

Haruki closed his eyes and reviewed the memory in detail.

When he opened them again, his expression had changed to one of quiet confirmation.

"Just as I thought," he muttered.

According to the memory, Haruki's suspicions were correct:

Today's ambush had been set up specifically for him.

Before today, Iwagakure hadn't known exactly who he was—only that someone (or a small team) had been targeting injured Iwa-nin across the region.

So, they'd tracked his movements by following the traces he left behind.

Eventually, that led them here, where they laid a series of traps, waiting for him to take the bait.

And Haruki had walked right into it—too confident from the smooth success of the past three days.

He'd only confirmed the presence of four guards and hadn't thoroughly checked the wounded.

That oversight nearly cost him.

If not for the fact that the Third Raikage was still alive, and the Kumo forces hadn't yet fully escaped Iwagakure's pursuit—diverting a large portion of their manpower—things might've ended very differently.

Had Iwagakure deployed even a few more elite shinobi, Haruki wouldn't have had such an easy win.

In fact, forget winning—he might not have made it out at all.

The thought made him break into a cold sweat.

"No. I can't stay here any longer!"

Haruki stood abruptly and raised his hand, preparing to order his clones to deal with the unconscious Iwa-nin and then leave immediately.

But when he looked at the pile of wounded enemies, he hesitated.

There were more than twenty of them.

A quick estimate told him that these shinobi could provide at least 150,000 chakra points.

That was not a small number.

He paused for a moment—then made his decision.

He'd take a calculated risk.

Haruki would have his clones train alongside him, using the chakra as quickly as possible before leaving.

Of course, this wasn't just about being greedy for chakra.

While it was true that 150,000 points was a lot, Haruki could gather that amount again in a week, thanks to his current recovery rate.

It wasn't worth dying for.

But he made the call to stay because he believed Iwagakure wouldn't be able to mobilize enough elite forces in such a short time.

He'd already scouted the surrounding region before arriving at this gathering point.

There were no signs of large-scale ninja movements nearby.

So, if Iwagakure wanted to respond, they'd have to pull people from farther away.

And even though the pangolin had already returned with intel, it would still take time for Iwagakure's chain of command to review and approve any deployment orders.

Factoring all of this in—

Haruki chose to stay and gamble on that window of time.