Sanada realized the closest country was the Land of Fire. Perfect. The Uchiha were rumored to be from there. But first, he had to get stronger—he knew his enemies wouldn't just give up on the "pawn" who survived.
Wasting no time, he pulled out several scrolls: Intermediate Taijutsu Techniques, Moon Style: Kenjutsu Techniques, Advanced Fire Style Techniques, Advanced Ninjutsu Techniques, Advanced Earth Style Techniques, and Uchiha Techniques.
He dove straight into training, preparing for the unknown enemy ahead.
A year flew by faster than Sanada expected—even with his perfect sense of time. Learning advanced techniques wasn't easy, but the grind became... oddly fun.
In the first month, a pack of wolves—six of them—found him. By that time, Sanada had already finished reading Intermediate Taijutsu Techniques and Moon Style: Kenjutsu Techniques. Though he hadn't mastered every technique he chose for his arsenal yet, he decided to test out his sword skills... but he wasn't about to kill them. Grabbing a strong branch, he turned it into his makeshift sword.
What followed was a total beatdown. Wolves went flying left and right, tossed around by a kid swinging a stick with the precision of a blade.
After a few days of this constant clash, Sanada fully mastered his kenjutsu moves—and a good chunk of his taijutsu too. Eventually, the wolves accepted him as one of their own, bringing him fresh meat daily.
He figured they usually ate after hunting, then returned to the cave. Now? They were hunting for him. Maybe out of loyalty. Or maybe because they realized: if something happened to Sanada, nothing would stop future enemies from taking the cave.
Thanks to them, Sanada's training efficiency skyrocketed. He no longer had to waste time hunting—he could focus purely on training. With his fire techniques, cooking meat was a breeze. Play-wrestling with the wolves sharpened his reflexes without even realizing it.
The second month vanished in a blur.
By the third month, Sanada had fully mastered all the taijutsu techniques he considered crucial. He started studying Advanced Earth Style Techniques alongside finishing up his fire moves.
The first Earth Style move? Easy.
The rest? Absolute hell.
He swore the third month dragged on forever. While he perfected his fire skills, he barely scraped through learning three Earth Style techniques. Every time he hit a wall, he cracked open the Uchiha Techniques scrolls for a change of pace.
(Not that he'd ever admit how much he ended up reading them.)
Halfway through the fourth month, trouble came knocking.
A giant black bear thought it could just waltz in and take the cave.
Bad idea.
The wolves surrounded the beast instantly. They had gotten jacked after months of hardcore training with Sanada.
But Sanada had a different plan.
He looked away from the scroll he was reading—his eyes flashed red. It was time to put his Sharingan to real combat use, like the Uchiha scrolls advised, to cut down on chakra costs.
Sanada stood up and whistled.
The wolves caught the signal immediately:
"Stand down. This one's mine."
They parted, forming a circle. Sanada stepped inside.
The bear roared and lunged, swiping its massive paw at him.
In a blur, Sanada drew his sword—a clean, diagonal slash crippled the bear's paw.
He slammed the sword into the ground, braced against it, and launched a brutal upward kick, sending the beast airborne.
In less than a heartbeat, Sanada was above the bear, raining down a barrage of spinning kicks and punches, accelerating its fall.
And just as they slammed into the ground, Sanada shouted:
"Shishi Rendan!"
The cave trembled. Dust exploded everywhere.
Chunks of rock scattered.
The wolves howled in victory.
By the sixth month, Earth Style techniques were no longer a problem.
However, Sanada still couldn't master one major Uchiha genjutsu: imposing his will on a creature.
He kept reading Advanced Ninjutsu Techniques and Uchiha Techniques side-by-side, hoping for a breakthrough.
Nine months in... fate answered—but not in a way Sanada liked.
After bathing in the river and washing his clothes, Sanada got snatched up by a giant bird.
Still dripping wet and pissed off, he instinctively slashed at the bird's legs with his sword—
Bad move.
The bird let go.
Now plummeting through the air, Sanada felt real fear for the first time in a long while. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe pure survival instinct.
Either way—his third tomoe awakened.
Forming a quick hand seal mid-fall, he locked eyes with the giant bird and unleashed:
"Genjutsu: Sharingan!"
The bird caught his eyes—and immediately, it grabbed Sanada again, gently lowering him to the ground before flying off.
After that?
His genjutsu training hit a whole new level.
By the eleventh month, Sanada had conquered all the scrolls he selected.
He roasted a giant crocodile alive in the river.
He brought a whole murder of crows under his will through genjutsu.
In the twelfth month, he followed the blood contract ritual from the advanced ninjutsu scrolls, bonding the wolves and the crows to him officially as summon creatures.
Now?
He was finally ready.
Ready to face the fleet of enemies surely chasing him.
Packing his gear, Sanada mapped a route toward the Land of Fire.
He decided to warn at least one nation about the threat—even if he preferred handling it solo.
Before leaving, he gathered the wolves and crows in the center of the cave, activated his Sharingan, slammed his palm to the ground, and roared:
"Uchiha Kaenjin!"
A crimson barrier expanded outward, stopping right at the cave's entrance.
"You guys can come and go," he said, smirking. "But anything else tries to cross that line... it'll burn."
With that, Sanada turned his back on the cave, disappearing into the forest.
It had been exactly one year since he escaped the lab.
Now eleven years old, he knew because he had seen the date back in the lab's control room—he had been "born" there.
He'd escaped two days after his tenth birthday.
Today, on his eleventh, he put his long plan into motion.
The path Sanada chose wasn't the fastest—it would take at least ten months if everything went smoothly. But it was hidden, threading deep through the forest to avoid detection.
The first three months passed quickly.
Midway through the fourth month though, something changed.
A strange creature picked up on his chakra and attacked.
It looked like a twisted version of Casper the Friendly Ghost—only way more terrifying. No eyes.
Huge mouth full of square, razor-sharp teeth.
Muscular arms with thick, blocky fingers.
It slithered on the ground like a slug, but don't be fooled—it was insanely fast.
Pure white except for a single kunai-sized blue horn sticking out of its forehead.
Sanada, ever the tactician, wrote a quick battle report in his databook, just like he did for every creature he fought.
But before he could finish, the thing lunged.
Sanada had already activated his Sharingan.
He dodged easily with a leap, snapped his book shut, and—still airborne—flashed through hand seals.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
A massive fireball blasted toward the ghostly creature.
It took the hit—scorch marks blackened its body—but kept charging like it didn't even feel pain.
It rammed Sanada into a tree hard enough to rattle his bones.
That's when Sanada noticed:
The blue horn?
Completely untouched.
Which meant only one thing:
Target acquired.
As the Sanada who hit the tree dissolved into a cloud of smoke, another Sanada emerged from the earth, right in front of the creature, a kunai gleaming in his hand.
"Doton: Ressenga!"
Sanada roared, slashing at the creature's horn.
In an instant, the creature let out a piercing shriek, its body drying and crumbling away into dust. Yet the horn remained, vibrant and glowing with a strong, unyielding blue. Lying there, it seemed to drain the very life from everything around it, as if sucking energy to restore itself.
Not taking any chances, Sanada quickly sealed the horn into one of the blank scrolls he had taken from the lab. Thanks to these creatures, his journey would stretch on for another four months.
By the fourteenth month, Sanada had collected fifteen horns—and was one hundred percent sure that the horns were their only weakness.
He finally entered the Land of Fire from the south, arriving at the training fields—a small patch of forest with an open clearing ahead.
Knowing he might be seen as a threat, Sanada activated his Sharingan to scout the area. He sensed two weak chakra signatures—and one that unmistakably belonged to another creature.
Out in the clearing, a girl and a boy fought desperately for their lives.
This creature, however, was different. It had two horns: one on its head, as usual, and another protruding from its right arm. It was larger too—while one-horned creatures stood around five feet tall, the two-horned ones easily reached six-foot-three.
Its left arm was relatively normal... for a "Phantom," at least. But its right arm was grotesque, sprouting directly from its head and twisting down into a massive, grotesque limb, ending with an enormous hand.
Sanada had encountered two like this before. They were far more dangerous than the one-horned kind.
By this time, the girl had collapsed to the ground, barely protected by her companion.
The girl had long, straight, golden hair and piercing blue eyes. She wore a sky-blue crop top with a single lilac strap marked by vertical black stripes, matching short shorts, white sandal-like shoes without heels, a fishnet stocking on her right leg, and bandages on her left. Her gloves were short and black, with fishnet details on her left arm and bandages wrapping the right.
The boy protecting her had short, messy light-green hair, with a single long braided strand falling to the right. He wore a long orange jacket over a dark-blue long-sleeved shirt, dark-blue shorts with a kunai pouch strapped to his right thigh, bandages, and short black ninja boots.
The creature raised its massive right arm, ready to crush them like a hammer. But before it could strike, a massive pillar of electricity shot up from the ground, slamming into it like an inverted lightning bolt.
"Raiton: Gyakuage! I'll protect you, Minna!"
the boy shouted, his technique blasting the creature several meters away.
But the boy fell to his knees immediately after.
"Hotaka-san, you're using too much chakra! Run! If you stay, we'll both die!"
the girl pleaded.
"I'm not abandoning you! No way!"
Hotaka barked back, refusing to leave.
The creature, already recovering, was preparing another charge—until a flurry of silver and yellow flashes tore past it, severing the horn from its right arm in an instant.
"Shunsokuzan!"
Sanada declared as he appeared like a flash of lightning before the exhausted pair.
The creature stumbled back, howling in pain.
Sanada calmly assessed the two while sheathing his sword, his Sharingan glowing ominously. It only took a moment to see—they didn't stand a chance against this enemy.
"Tch... missed the horn on the head... Hey, you two! Good job holding out. From here on, I'll—"
Before Sanada could finish, the creature moved, leaping to the side, then pouncing directly at Hotaka. The boy, drained of chakra, could only raise his arms in a feeble defense.
"Hotaka-san!"
Minna screamed, just as a wall of earth burst from the ground, blocking the creature's attack with a thunderous crash.
"Doton: Doryūheki!"
Sanada roared.
"Your opponent... is me now, you idiot creature!"
The beast shrieked in fury, scrambling up the earthen wall and charging headlong at Sanada. Its acceleration was insane—predicting its movement wasn't enough to dodge it.
A loud impact echoed through the field as the creature slammed Sanada, dragging him several meters—
—before exploding.
"Bunshin Daibakuha."
Sanada calmly stated, stepping out from behind the very wall he had created earlier, right in front of Hotaka.
"Thank goodness... I thought you were dead,"
Minna said weakly.
"If I die, you two die too. And that's not really the impression I want to leave, you know?"
Sanada replied with a small smirk.
"But... who are you?"
Hotaka asked, confused and desperate.
"Name's Sanada. But we don't have time for introductions,"
Sanada said as he dashed to the right, leaving the protection of the rock wall and drawing the creature's gaze.
As the smoke from the explosion faded, the creature regained its senses.
Noticing Sanada's movement, it turned, letting out a deafening roar toward the sky—exposing the horn on its head.
Exactly what Sanada had been waiting for.
"Katon: Hōsenka Tsumabeni!"
he shouted, launching a series of medium-sized fireballs with one hand and a hail of shuriken with the other.
The shuriken, wrapped in flames, flew true—eight in total.
Four struck the creature's body, two its right arm, one missed entirely... but the last one sliced clean through the final horn.
Immediately, the creature began to scream, its body drying up and crumbling to dust.
Sanada casually collected and sealed the two horns, as if it were just another day.
"Who are you...?"
Hotaka asked again, stepping out from behind the stone wall with Minna.
But Minna collapsed before she could say anything else.
"Damn it... I'm out of chakra too... Sorry, Minna,"
Hotaka muttered, dropping to his knees in despair.
