Naruto : Infinite Buff!

In the suffocating depths of Amegakure, the air clung thick with dampness, carrying the metallic tang of rust and damp steel. The chamber was devoid of warmth, its walls dark and unmarked—lifeless, save for the faint glint of lantern light that flickered like a dying heartbeat.

Shadows stretched and twisted unnaturally, cast by trembling flames that swayed in the draft, carving fractured patterns into the cold steel.

The room itself seemed to breathe, heavy and oppressive, bent under the weight of its purpose.

At the heart of the chamber was a plain wooden table, unassuming yet commanding, its simplicity stark against the cold, mechanical precision of its surroundings. Before it, two figures knelt, their bodies motionless, heads bowed low. Silence clung to them—not the silence of peace, but a sharp, suffocating void. Their presence was coiled, taut, like a blade held inches from its mark.

Torune Aburame.

Fu Yamanaka.

Neither of them moved. Their masks concealed not only their faces but their humanity, shadows hiding shadows. They were young, yet the fire of youth had long since been extinguished, leaving only ash. What remained beneath their skin was something sharper, something colder. They were no longer men. They were weapons, honed and tempered by the man who sat across from them.

Danzo Shimura.

Seated in the center of the room, his black robes pooled around him like a shadow given form. His lone visible eye gleamed faintly in the dim light, cold and unrelenting. Every inch of him radiated a quiet, suffocating authority. The air bent to his presence, the silence obeyed him, and the two before him—tools forged by his will—were extensions of that silence.

Danzo's gaze moved over them like a blade testing for fractures, searching for even the faintest imperfection. He did not expect to find any.

The silence broke with Torune's voice, sharp and clinical, as though dissecting a corpse.

"Of the thirty sent into the trial, one has fallen." A pause, precise. "Her name was Tora. She was at chunin level. Eliminated by an outsider. A nine-year-old boy."

Danzo's expression did not shift.

"The boy. Black hair. Dark eyes." Torune's tone was stripped of emotion, efficient and direct. "His movements were calm, cold. Efficient. His reflexes exceeded expectations."

A pause. Calculated.

"In terms of reaction speed and combat instinct, he is comparable to an Uchiha with one, perhaps two tomoe. His adaptability in battle is extraordinary. He reads his enemies as if seeing the future."

Danzo did not speak, but something faint rippled beneath his gaze—like the surface of still water disturbed by a falling leaf.

Surfaced in his mind, sharp and deliberate. The anomaly. The outlier. A creature of hunger and survival, untouched by pedigree or clan. This was no accident. Survival at this level was never an accident. It was something else entirely—a blade sharpened by the grindstone of the unknown.

Danzo's thoughts turned inward, but his silence remained unbroken. Silence was sharper than words.

Torune continued, his voice pressing further into the stale air. "Elsewhere, four of our trained orphant fell to an ambush. Twenty orphans coordinated and overwhelmed them in the forest."

Danzo's eye did not even flicker. The loss was irrelevant. Four was a number. A statistic. The weak existed to be culled, and their deaths were inevitable. What mattered was not the fallen, but the survivors. The crucible burned away the unnecessary, leaving only what was useful.

His gaze shifted to Fu, who had waited, silent and patient. Now, he spoke. His words were deliberate, each one carrying the weight of precision.

"Danzo-sama, Akira, Akihiko, and Aoki have begun their purge near the waterfall cave. Their techniques are synchronized. Akihiko's mist clouds the battlefield, Aoki's water entraps their targets, and Akira's lightning cuts without resistance. The weak are falling in droves. They can kill Jonin."

Danzo's lone eye glimmered faintly, though his expression remained carved from stone.

"Their performance?"

"Efficient," Fu replied without hesitation. His tone carried no praise, no embellishment. Only the facts.

Danzo exhaled slowly, though the sound carried no emotion. It was not approval. Not satisfaction. Merely acknowledgment.

The strong were rising. The weak were crumbling beneath them. There was no justice in this world. No mercy. Only survival. And survival belonged to those who could sever themselves from everything but power.

His gaze returned to the kneeling figures, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade. "Continue observation. The three—if they falter, eliminate them. If they flourish, forge them further."

The two bowed in unison, their movements sharp and precise. "Yes, Danzo-sama."

Danzo's gaze lingered for a moment before it narrowed slightly, his voice darkening. "The boy... observe him closely. If he survives, he may yet have a purpose."

The silence that followed was heavy, charged with unspoken intent.

Then, colder, more deliberate, Danzo continued.

"There is also a girl. Black hair, streaked with red. Crimson eyes. She appears six, perhaps eight. Something about her... unusual. She may be of use."

The lanterns flickered faintly, their light casting jagged, skeletal shadows that stretched and twisted along the steel walls. The temperature in the room seemed to drop, the air growing heavier. Without a word, Torune and Fu rose, their movements soundless as shadows. They disappeared into the darkness, leaving Danzo alone.

The silence returned, heavier than before.

Danzo's thoughts coiled like a serpent beneath his calm exterior. This was not a test. It was the natural order, made manifest.

Steel was forged in fire. Life was forged in suffering.

The unworthy would be consumed by the storm. The worthy would emerge sharpened, reforged, and ready to serve.

Above, the rain continued to fall, unrelenting. Amegakure's eternal storm beat against the world like the rhythm of inevitability—a city where the weak drowned, and only the ruthless endured.

For those who failed, there was no light. No salvation.

Only oblivion. 

---

Boom.

The earth trembled, the force of the explosion rippling through the air like the distant growl of an uncaring beast. The vibrations reached deep into the cave's walls, shaking loose droplets of water that clung to the jagged stone. The roar of the waterfall muffled the chaos outside, but it could not silence it entirely.

Clang.

The sharp sound of steel meeting steel pierced through the relentless cascade. A kunai deflected another, sparks flickering for a brief, fleeting moment before being swallowed by the mist.

Clang.

Another impact. A struggle. The sound of desperation, fleeting and fragile, lost beneath the endless roar of the storm.

Boom.

A distant jutsu detonated, its force shaking the ground once more. The echoes reverberated through the cave, mingling with the faint, dying cries of children. Their screams were fleeting, already fading, as if their lives had been consumed by the storm without leaving a trace. The battlefield outside was merciless, its toll taken without hesitation.

Amatsu stood near the entrance, his figure a dark silhouette against the pale light filtering through the waterfall. His long black hair clung to his back, damp from the spray of mist that filled the confined space. His sharp, angular features were cold and unreadable, beauty forged in the crucible of survival, with no trace of softness to be found. His piercing eyes, framed by dragon-like brows, glimmered faintly in the dim light, their intensity cutting through the shadows like the edge of a blade. He exuded an aura of quiet lethality, his presence commanding, untouchable—a shadow poised to strike.

Behind him, Higanbana stood small and uncertain, her delicate frame trembling faintly in the damp, suffocating air. The faint glow of the waterfall's mist clung to her like a fragile veil, catching in the strands of her black hair—dark silk streaked with the barest hint of red, as if her presence itself was a flicker of fleeting color in this gray, merciless world. Her crimson eyes, wide and searching, danced between emotions she could not fully suppress. Fear. Admiration. Hesitation. A fragile trust, wavering in the face of what she did not understand.

In the shadow of Amatsu, she seemed smaller still, like a single flower struggling to bloom amidst the storm. The air around her was heavy, not just with the mist and damp, but with the weight of her uncertainty. And yet, even as her small hands clutched at the scroll he had given her, trembling faintly, she did not shrink away. The storm was closing in, the battlefield inching ever closer, its violence thick in the air—but she stood there, unmoving, caught in the pull of his presence.

Boom.

A distant explosion rumbled through the earth, shaking the ground beneath their feet. From the cave's ceiling, droplets loosened and fell like rain, the echoes of the detonation reverberating through the confined space. The clang of steel followed, sharp and fleeting, like lightning splitting the air. Soon after came the screams—high-pitched, desperate, already fading—the cries of those who had been consumed by the storm beyond the veil of water. Their lives were snuffed out as quickly as their voices rose.

Amatsu stood still, his figure outlined against the dim shimmer of the waterfall's veil. The long strands of his black hair hung damp against his back, swaying faintly with his movements as he shifted the kunai in his hand. His sharp, angular features were unmoved, his dark eyes fixed on the cascade before him. The faint tang of iron hung in the air, carried by the mist—a subtle reminder that the violence outside was drawing closer, that the stench of blood was never far.

"The weak are falling quickly."His thoughts were cold, detached, their edges sharp and unforgiving.

Soon, only the strong will remain.

The silence between them stretched, broken only by the endless roar of the waterfall and the faint tremors of the battlefield beyond. Yet even in this moment of reprieve, the tension was palpable, a coiled energy waiting to snap. Amatsu's presence was an anchor in the storm, his stillness heavier than the air itself.

And then, soft and hesitant, her voice broke through the veil.

"T-thank you... Amatsu."

It was a whisper, barely audible beneath the roar of the cascade. Fragile, uncertain, as if the words themselves might shatter under the weight of the storm.

He did not turn. Did not answer. His face remained as cold and unreadable as stone, his piercing gaze unbroken as it remained fixed on the waterfall ahead. The sound of her voice barely registered in the depths of his mind, as fleeting as the cries of the dying outside. Gratitude was meaningless. The scroll in her hands was not a gift—it held no sentiment, no kindness. It was simply a necessity, a tool that she would either use or fail to use.

His grip tightened on the kunai in his hand, his knuckles whitening as his voice cut through the air, low and edged like a blade. "Get ready."

He paused, his words hanging like a warning, his tone as cold and precise as the steel he carried.

"Don't hold back. Hesitate for even a moment—"

For the briefest of instants, his sharp gaze flickered, his dark eyes cutting toward her. Whatever passed through his mind in that moment was unreadable, buried deep beneath his cold exterior. Then, just as quickly, his focus returned to the waterfall, his expression unchanging.

"—and you'll die."Higanbana's delicate features tightened at his words, and her crimson eyes flickered with a mixture of fear and determination. She clutched the scroll tighter to her chest, her trembling fingers steadying as she looked up at him. "If... if we survive this," she began, her voice soft but steady, "I want to cook something special. I just wish I had the money to buy the ingredients."

Her words hung in the damp air, fragile and fleeting, like the faintest glimmer of light in the overwhelming darkness. Amatsu's sharp gaze flicked toward her for the briefest moment, his face remaining cold and unreadable. He said nothing.

Without another word, he turned, his steps silent and deliberate as he moved toward the cave's entrance. The kunai in his hand gleamed faintly, catching the dim, scattered light that filtered through the mist. His figure, tall and unyielding, slipped into the veil of the waterfall without hesitation, swallowed by the cascading torrent.

Behind him, Higanbana stood frozen.

The roar of the waterfall filled the space between them, deafening and relentless, a wall of sound that pressed against her from all sides. The cold mist clung to her skin, unyielding as the weight in her hands. The scroll felt heavier now—no longer just parchment, but a burden.

A choice. A test.

Her crimson eyes lingered on his fading silhouette, her gaze flickering with doubt, fear... and something else.

She inhaled, the breath trembling in her chest.

A moment passed.

Then, she took a step.

Small. Unsteady. But forward.

The cold stone beneath her feet seemed to grip her, as if the cave itself was reluctant to let her go. But she moved, each step slow and trembling, yet deliberate. The roar of the cascade grew louder, the mist thicker, as she approached the veil of water that separated them from the storm.

Hesitation flickered in her eyes one last time.

Then, she stepped into the torrent, the freezing water crashing against her like a wall. The world beyond was a blur of water and blood, chaos and death. Yet she did not stop.

One step. Then another.

Small. Fragile. But moving.

She followed him into the storm.