“You leave tonight.”

  The words from Commander Ryou hit hard—not because of their urgency, but because of their weight.

  Ken stood in the dimly lit ANBU operations hall, gloves half-strapped, sword already slung across his back. Reina’s st mission report was still drying in ink across the table, but this one... this one wasn’t coming back to paper.

  Ryou continued.

  “Long-term infiltration. Six months minimum. You’ll pose as a wandering shinobi with ties to small mercenary groups. Identity scrubbed. No Leaf markers.”

  Ken didn’t flinch. “Objective?”

  “Hidden Grass. Specifically the eastern border provinces. We’ve picked up whispers—rogue bs, old Root tech, and worse... experiments involving jinchūriki sealing systems.”

  Ken’s brows furrowed. “Why Grass?”

  “Because they’re quiet. And someone’s funding them to stay that way.”

  Ryou tossed him a scroll sealed in bck wax.

  “Codename: Whisperleaf. Do not contact unless extraction is absolute.”

  Ken caught the scroll, tucking it into his vest without looking at it.

  Ryou’s tone darkened.

  “They’re not just testing seals. They’re trying to weaponize jinchūriki chakra. Bottled fury. Turned on command.”

  Ken’s eyes narrowed.

  “And someone thinks they can control it.”

  “Someone always does,” Ryou said grimly.

  That night, Ken left without fanfare.

  No goodbye to Reina. No letters to his parents.

  He’d already said everything worth saying the day he put on the mask.

  Four weeks in.

  Ken moved through the outer markets of Kusagakure like a shadow, wearing the name Renzo and the face of a scarred swordsman who “used to work protection for border merchants.”

  He’d infiltrated a low-level smuggling ring in the port town of Iwagutsu—a hub for illicit tools, poisons, and forbidden scrolls.

  By week six, he had already marked three bs.By week nine, he had buried two of them. Quietly.

  But the third? The third was still hidden.

  And that’s where the problem was.

  Because whispers of a “project vessel” had started surfacing.

  And Ken had seen enough weaponized seals in Root to know the pattern.

  They weren’t trying to hold a beast.

  They were trying to duplicate one.

  Month 3

  Ken infiltrated the estate of a mid-tier noble connected to mercenary funding—using basic genjutsu, silent kills, and chakra threads disguised as courier seals. In the celr beneath the estate’s shrine, he found a b that wasn’t just built for testing.

  It was built for containment.

  Four massive containment pods.

  One still active.

  Inside it, a boy no older than eleven.

  Asleep. Breathing slowly.

  Chakra readings—off the charts.

  Not a jinchūriki.

  A chakra clone.

  Ken stared.

  “They’re building a jinchūriki copy. Artificial chakra networks. Plug-and-py tailed beast tech.”

  It wasn’t just a theory anymore.

  It was working.

  And someone had to end it.

  Month 4

  Ken tracked the b’s architect—a former Hidden Mist seal master turned rogue, known only as Shura.

  Shura wore a patch over one eye and a deep scar down his neck from a failed summoning seal. He operated out of the old Grass Temple ruins, guarded by paid mercs and failed ninja with nothing to lose.

  Ken watched for two weeks before striking.

  One night, one bde, five silent kills.

  But Shura wasn’t unprepared.

  When Ken got close, the man triggered a seal barrier with chakra-draining mist—slowing Ken’s movement, breaking his flicker rhythm.

  They fought for thirteen minutes.

  Ken left with a sshed arm and a data scroll that took him three days to decrypt.

  What he read made his blood run cold.

  "The chakra network of the Kyuubi jinchūriki has the highest replication rate. Target required for final phase."

  They weren’t trying to make random jinchūriki weapons.

  They were trying to build Naruto.

  A weapon that looked like him. Moved like him. Could be deployed without restraint.

  Month 5

  Ken’s identity was almost blown.

  A former Leaf shinobi—someone who recognized his movement pattern, his sword stance, maybe even his eyes—reported him to a local bounty collector.

  Ken silenced the leak, but not before killing a Leaf-nin in self-defense.

  That night, he didn’t sleep.

  He sat at the edge of a ruined bridge, eyes on the water, and wondered when the line stopped being clear.

  He remembered Shisui’s note.

  “Let someone finish what we could not.”

  He hadn’t realized how hard that line would hit until now.

  Because finishing it meant becoming the thing the cn once feared.

  The thing the vilge once buried.

  Month 6

  Ken finally found the st b.

  Buried beneath the old battlefield of Kageru Pass—a pce soaked in blood and chakra residue, perfect for sealing rituals.

  It wasn’t just a b.

  It was a factory.

  Two pods still active. One already deployed.

  Ken set explosives on the generators, neutralized three guards, and finally entered the main chamber.

  There, floating inside one of the pods—

  Was an Uchiha clone.

  Bck hair.

  Red eyes.

  Wearing a fwed copy of a Leaf forehead protector.

  And a bde on his back identical to Itachi’s.

  Ken stared, frozen.

  Then triggered the detonation.

  The b went up in smoke.

  He didn’t stay to watch it burn.

  Three days ter, Ken crossed the Fire Country border with cracked ribs, chakra depletion, and smoke-stained hands.

  He didn’t report to base.

  He went to the safehouse first—bathed, burned his disguise, and slept for two days straight.

  Then he delivered the scrolls and memory tags to ANBU Command.

  Commander Ryou looked at him and said only one thing:

  “We didn’t expect you back alive.”

  Ken replied, “I almost didn’t come back at all.”

  Later that night, as Ken cleaned his bde, he thought of the clone’s face.

  The bnk eyes.

  The mirrored crest.

  They weren’t just copying Naruto.

  They were collecting legacies.

  Trying to control bloodlines.

  And if the Akatsuki got their hands on that tech?

  The war would be over before it began.