The gate to the Forest of Death smmed shut behind Squad 9 with a resonant cng, locking them into one of the most infamous testing grounds in shinobi history.

  Ken didn’t flinch.

  Daisuke grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Finally. A real fight.”

  Reina exhaled slowly. “Let’s just try to get through this with our organs intact.”

  Ken opened their scroll—a Heaven scroll—and immediately tucked it inside a specially lined pouch under his vest.

  "Priority is speed," he said. "We don’t camp. We run straight to the tower and take what we need on the way."

  “Seriously?” Daisuke asked. “That’s at least fifteen kilometers through enemy-filled jungle.”

  “We're faster,” Ken replied ftly. “We move in two-man formation. Daisuke with me. Reina covers rear, 20 meters spread.”

  Daen’s training echoed in their minds. Pressure, terrain use, kill zones. This wasn’t a survival game for Ken.

  It was war.

  They moved fast.

  Ken’s pn was simple: move faster than the competition could react. No waiting. No over-cautious tracking. They didn’t need to survive. They needed to break through.

  And within five minutes, they ran into their first target.

  A squad from the Hidden Grass, setting up a pit trap under a false clearing.

  Ken didn’t even stop running.

  He slid into a low flicker and threw a suppression seal at the lead enemy before the Grass-nin could blink.

  Flick—ssh—wind burst.

  Two down.

  Daisuke blocked a kunai from the third, grabbed the attacker by the arm, and smmed him into a tree with enough force to knock the scroll from his pouch.

  Ken caught it mid-run.

  “Earth scroll,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Ten minutes in. Objective complete.

  Fifteen minutes ter, they were 200 meters from the tower.

  Another squad tried an ambush—this time from the trees. Hidden Mist. Silent. Surgical.

  It didn’t matter.

  Ken activated Sharingan, tagged their positions before the first drop, and unched Fūton: Shōtotsu Kaze in a tight arc that disoriented their nding path.

  Reina sniped one with a needle ced with paralyzing mist. Daisuke crushed the second mid-air.

  Ken faced the third and simply said, “Wrong target.”

  Then he struck with Suiton: Suiben—a water whip that tore the enemy’s legs from under him and smmed him to the ground.

  They didn’t even pause to collect the scroll.

  Twenty-seven minutes ter, Squad 9 walked into the tower.

  Guards blinked at them.

  One chūnin in the entry hall dropped his clipboard.

  “You’re… done?”

  Ken pced both scrolls on the table.

  “We’d like a room.”

  One of the proctors walked over, scanning the seal timestamps. His eyes widened.

  “Twenty-eight minutes and sixteen seconds.”

  He looked up at Ken.

  “You just broke Uchiha Itachi’s record by almost four minutes.”

  Ken didn’t react.

  “Don’t mention it to the cn,” he said. “They’ll cry.”

  They were assigned a private room, given light rations, and told to remain inside for the remainder of the five-day exam window.

  Daisuke immediately colpsed onto the futon, groaning.

  “Five days. What the hell are we supposed to do in here?”

  Reina shrugged, already starting a healing meditation. “Survive boredom.”

  Ken stood, eyes scanning the walls.

  “Is there a training facility in the tower?”

  A surprised voice answered from the corner. A chūnin proctor with a clipboard. “Uh… yeah. Down the south stairwell. Nobody uses it this early.”

  “Good,” Ken said.

  And left without another word.

  The training floor beneath the tower was a marvel—an old, chakra-infused structure left over from the Second Great Ninja War.

  Each room housed a Resonance Stone—natural crystals infused with elemental chakra. They radiated energy that enhanced affinity alignment during jutsu training.

  Ken found the one he needed most: Water, first. Then Wind.

  He entered the room, locked the door behind him, and got to work.

  Day One: Water Room.

  Ken practiced Suiton: Mizurappa, enhancing its pressure until the wall cracked.

  He worked on Suiben, chaining it from shoulder wraps to throat grips.

  He shaped mist with basic hidden mist jutsu, then sealed it in tag-scrolls for instant deployment.

  He was drenched in sweat by nightfall.

  Day Two: Wind Room.

  He pushed Shōtotsu Kaze until it cut bark clean from the support logs.

  He developed a new trick—infusing wind into his bde mid-swing, angling sshes to twist through air like curved bdes.

  He created wind pockets around his body, using them as a micro-shield system to slightly deflect shuriken.

  It didn’t block damage.

  But it bought time.

  By the end of Day Three, the elemental rooms stank of burning chakra and cracked stone.

  Ken’s clothes were ragged. His hands bled from overuse of clone feedback. But his eyes were sharper. His reflexes honed. And his jutsu flowed like it was part of his bloodstream.

  On the fourth day, a medic-nin came to check on him.

  He left without a word.

  Ken didn’t need healing.

  He needed focus.

  On the fifth morning, Ken finally emerged, dressed in fresh gear, hair damp from the training chamber’s mist, and body radiating a low pulse of focused chakra.

  Daisuke stared. “You look like you fought the forest.”

  “I did.”

  Reina squinted. “Did it win?”

  Ken looked down at his hands.

  Then smiled—just barely.

  “No.”