"Cheers!"
At a cozy yakiniku restaurant in Konoha, Uchiha Kai clinked his glass against Hatake Kakashi's. The only catch—they were both still underage, and the glasses held soda, not sake.
But neither of them minded. This kind of gathering wasn't about alcohol. It was about the laughter, the camaraderie, the sense that—just for a night—they could forget about war and bloodshed.
Kai leaned back in his seat, letting the laughter and noise wash over him. It reminded him of simpler days—back when he first entered the Ninja Academy, before he had ever killed a man, before war turned children into soldiers.
Still, he remained quiet. Not because he wasn't enjoying himself, but because he didn't know what to say. Kakashi, sitting beside him, was the same—aloof, unreadable, his one visible eye half-lidded.
They were alike in that way, asupposed. Both had seen too much.
Kakashi rarely spoke of the battlefield. Even now, when they were among friends, he kept his memories locked behind that ever-present mask. Kai understood. Some things weren't meant to be shared.
And Kai himself? What could he even say? That he'd become a "hero of Konoha" at the age of seven? That he'd slaughtered enemies in the dead of night to buy time for his squad? Even if these guys were curious, even if they asked, he didn't know how to answer. So he kept things vague. Selective. Just enough to satisfy their curiosity without dragging them into his nightmares.
Luckily, these were shinobi too. They had seen their share of hell. They knew that not everything needed to be said.
"Kai, you were always so quiet back in the Academy," said Kurenai Yuhi from across the table, a smile tugging at her lips. "I never expected you to surpass everyone the way you did."
Might Guy was even more animated, practically bouncing in his seat. Kai had just finished recounting part of a mission—rescuing captives, saving Kakashi, surviving a bloody encounter with the Iwa-nin commander, Loess.
He had left out the worst parts, of course.
But everyone here had heard enough from other sources—how Kai had taken down the Iwagakure demolition team, how he'd routed Ishizuhira's unit almost single-handedly.
"It was just luck," Kai muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "And I wasn't alone. Captain Minato saved us more than once."
"Even so," Kakashi added quietly, "you've probably become the strongest in our class. Not that there's many of us left…"
The mood turned somber. A silence settled over the group, heavy and familiar. They all knew what he meant. Their generation had been thrown into a grinder. War had devoured classmates, friends, siblings.
Still, it had shaped them.
They carried those scars—the burden of survival and the yearning for peace that came with it.
Kai tapped his glass against the table, drawing everyone's attention.
"Enough of that," he said. "We're still here. That means we carry their hopes. When our time comes, we'll stand before them and say, 'The world you dreamed of—your sacrifice built it.'"
He raised his glass. "To the fallen. And to us, who must live."
"Cheers!"
Voices echoed his toast as cups clinked and smiles returned. Kai watched them—Kakashi, Guy, Kurenai, and the others—laughing again. For a moment, they were just kids again.
And maybe, just maybe, they were no longer looking at him with awe, but with something closer to friendship.
Meanwhile, just a few streets away, another Uchiha Kai moved through the crowd.
This one, however, was a shadow clone.
Kai had excused himself under the pretense of going to the restroom and created the clone, transforming its appearance just enough to slip away unnoticed. Its target: Uchiha Yuchi, a Security Division officer currently on patrol.
Yuchi was the kind of Uchiha who preferred to act alone—arrogant and proud. That worked perfectly for Kai's purposes. No witnesses. No interference.
The problem? Yuchi's route was in the heart of Konoha, near the Uchiha Police HQ. It was risky, almost suicidal. If anything happened, reinforcements would arrive in seconds. Kai had to be quick, precise—and absolutely certain of his objective.
He walked calmly, eyes low, mind racing. His proximity to the Security Department was making him uneasy.
"If it comes to a fight… can I afford to use the Mangekyō?"
It was a power he had been careful not to rely on. Non-renewable. Dangerous. Uncharted. But in the worst-case scenario… he wouldn't hesitate.
You couldn't protect anything if you died being cautious.
As that thought settled, the clone paused. The nearby woods—something was off.
Kai slipped into the forest, every sense sharpened. His clone couldn't activate the Sharingan, of course—shadow clones couldn't replicate a kekkei genkai perfectly. That was one of the reasons the Uchiha rarely used the technique.
Madara had done it—summoning perfect Susanoo through a wood clone. But Madara was on another level. Kai wasn't him.
Still, battlefield experience had honed Kai's instincts. Even without his eyes, he could read the terrain, track footprints, sense the air's tension.
And here, there were signs—scuffed bark, disturbed leaves. Not signs of a recent fight, but of training.
Someone had been practicing here. Repeatedly. And not long ago.