Relying on your telepathic link with Boss Black Cat, you darted through a few tight corners, yanked off the Uchiha clan uniform, and tossed it into a filthy gutter. Shirtless, you then blended into a group of kids who appeared to be doing so sort of physical training.
Uchiha Itachi landed lightly on a rooftop and activated his Sharingan to scan the streets below. All he saw were a bunch of stinking drunks brawling in the street, and a group of ragged orphans weaving through narrow alleys. Aside from one slightly cleaner-looking middle-aged genin, none of them even had the basic presence of chakra in their bodies.
As expected, commoners were just that—common. They could never compare to the noble Uchiha clan.
Still, Itachi had always trusted his instincts. After sending Sasuke off to academy, he reported to the ANBU and requested increased patrols and tighter inspection of Konoha's gates.
...
Because your face was unfamiliar, even though you tried to blend in with the kids exercising nearby, you inevitably began to draw attention.
A shirtless boy next to you, na tag swinging from his neck and chewing on a moldy ball of dough as he struggled to keep pace, shot you an aggressive glance.
Pale. Thin. No visible injuries. Definitely new. Maybe even from a rich family—he might be carrying sweets or sothing good.
And if you were new here, that ant one thing: it was ti to learn the rules.
And the only rule here... was survival of the fittest.
With no shirt to your na, the eyes around you naturally shifted to your relatively intact—and notably stuffed—pants.
At the sa ti, you noticed several kids with bad intentions sizing you up. You'd kept your load light, bringing nothing with you besides a special chakra-coated kunai hidden in your waistband. You weren't about to let soone else walk off with it.
Move!
Just as the boys locked eyes and reached a silent agreent to gang up on you, your body vanished.
You could've wiped them out with ease—but the noise would be too much. So instead, you used the Body Flicker Technique to dart into a nearby alley... only to realize it was a dead end.
Thankfully, you were no ordinary person.
You leapt up to the rooftops, bounded across several buildings, and quickly left those kids far behind.
It was then that Boss Black Cat inford you he had found a potential way out of the village—through a black market broker.
...
"Black market brokers" were traders of illicit goods. They dealt in everything from intelligence to secret techniques stolen from ninja clans, to human organs, and even people sold as slaves.
You could think of black market brokers as mobile underground markets scattered throughout the major hidden villages and cities. The bigger operations could even handle currency exchanges.
And the reason they could move freely through places like Konoha without consequence? They had powerful backers—high-ranking nobles from various countries. So were even connected to the daimyo themselves.
Konoha had little choice but to turn a blind eye.
For soone like you, if you had enough money to pay, these brokers offered the perfect route out—no inspections, no questions.
...
[10:00 AM]
You dispelled the Transformation Technique, revealing your true appearance—one that no one had ever seen. In a way, it was your natural disguise. Still, it felt too reckless to walk around like this.
So, you picked up a broken straw hat from a roadside ditch and pulled it over your head, then tore off a strip of pant leg to cover your face, leaving only your eyes exposed.
Two streets down from the black market broker's base, you got back in touch with Boss Black Cat via your telepathic link. According to his scouting, the rchant caravan was nearly packed up and would be leaving Konoha by the end of the day.
You crouched low and crept quietly to the rear of the encampnt, activating your Sharingan to observe the guards from the shadows.
There was one guy with mid-level chunin chakra acting as vice-captain. The rest were ordinary folk who hadn't trained in chakra. Five or six wandering ronin with so martial skill made up the carriage guards, along with a single hidden sentry—an undercover genin from Kirigakure, identifiable by his forehead protector.
Nothing special. If anything, their setup was rather basic. But for a black market broker, it made perfect sense.
They were the nobles' tools, and they were never going to be targeted by full-scale attacks from organized ninja villages. The guards only existed to deter petty thieves and the occasional bounty hunter. A single chunin was more than enough.
Once you confird the broker's group posed no threat to you, you strode confidently right up to the vice-captain.
The man was experienced—he imdiately sensed sothing was off about you. But black market brokers never cared about identity—only profit. As long as you had the cash, everything was negotiable.
You asked if he could get you out of Konoha without going through inspection.
The vice-captain nodded and pulled out a warrant issued by the daimyo of the Land of Waves. As long as that docunt was presented, they could pass through under the guise of friendly trade without interference.
But the price wasn't cheap.
Two million ryo.
Have it ready by 1 PM—or forget it.
You held your expression steady, but internally, you were already talking with Boss Black Cat. You asked him for current price estimates and instructed him to return to the Uchiha compound. You had left several items in your room: a batch of explosive tags, a Great Fireball Jutsu scroll, and a Transformation Technique scroll. If sold quickly, they should fetch about 2.3 million ryo.
With Boss Black Cat on the move, you nodded and agreed to the price. Then, as a gesture of good faith, you handed the vice-captain your custom chakra-coated kunai. It was a decent weapon—especially for a chunin.
As he caressed the kunai in his palm, the vice-captain offered you a piece of advice:
"Find a refugee who looks like you. Kill him, take his na tag, and wear it. That way the Konoha shinobi won't look too closely at you."
You nodded, then walked away.
...
[11:00 AM]
Killing a stranger your own age might not be morally right—but staying alive was more important than ethics.
After all, rules were never ant to bind the ones who made them.
You slipped past a few middle-aged genin who were swaggering around the slums collecting "protection fees" with empty beer bottles, and found your target.
A skinny teen who'd fallen behind during morning training. With no choice, he had returned to a barely two-square-ter shack to curl up and starve in solitude.
He was a little taller than you, but so thin his bones jutted through his skin.
When you suddenly appeared in his shack, all he did was shrink back in fear. A flicker of hesitation crossed your mind.
You asked him what the morning run was for.
He replied that if you could endure the run, the shinobi would give you food—sotis a rice ball, sotis a stead bun. If you managed to persist for a week straight, you might even earn a spot in the ninja academy.
You nodded, then softly said, "You will."
And in the next instant, your hand shot out and snapped his neck.
You picked up so rough hemp rope from the floor and staged the scene to look like a suicide.
It wasn't your first ti killing soone—but it was the first ti you'd taken the life of soone completely unrelated to you. Soone innocent.
The na tag now hanging in your hand felt like a dagger twisting deep into your chest.
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