Naruto : Infinite Buff

Amatsu remained still, his back pressed against the rough bark of the tree. He blended seamlessly into the shadows, his eyes sharp, his senses stretched to their fullest. The world around him was still—too still. The breeze was light, a faint whisper in the leaves, but he knew something was coming. It always did.

The test was nearing its end. Amatsu didn't need the sound of the creaking gates to know it. His senses were already tuned to the moment. His mind calculated, observed, processed.

He didn't move. He simply waited.

Then, the explosion.

The sound ripped through the air, a brutal, violent crack that shook the very earth. Almost immediately, colored smoke blossomed in the distance—violet, crimson—twisting into the sky like a deathly omen. The signal.

The test had ended.

But something wasn't right.

Amatsu's gaze tightened. His fingers flexed slightly, the only movement in an otherwise motionless body. The explosions, the smoke—it was too perfect, too expected. But the three he had killed earlier? Far too strong. They weren't supposed to be here. Not in a test like this.

This wasn't random.

A scheme. The realization came swiftly, coldly, settling into the pit of his stomach with the precision of a dagger thrust. Those three weren't part of the test. They were placed in his path to provoke a response. Someone had orchestrated this, had calculated every move to push him into action.

And he had taken the bait. He had killed them, and now there would be consequences.And yet, the moment he had acted, something strange washed over him. Not fear, not regret—just clarity. This was all part of the design. It didn't matter who had orchestrated it. The strings were being pulled, yes, but they didn't control him. He moved like a shadow, quick and calculated, already thinking ten steps ahead. The kill was done, the blood spilled. But the game... the game had only just begun.

He didn't flinch. The calculation was already happening in his mind.

The beauty of it, though? It was never about the act itself, but the consequences that would unfold. No one could predict them, not really. Every choice would ripple outwards, connecting to forces unknown. But he was untouchable in his mind. He didn't flinch because he had already accepted that chaos would follow. Consequences? Yes. But they were just another layer of the scheme.

Higanbana stood nearby, her presence almost ethereal, a quiet grace that seemed to soften the air around her. Her crimson eyes flickered toward the rising smoke, but there was no urgency in her gaze. It was a gaze that held both compassion and understanding.

She was here to witness, not to judge.

Her stillness was a reminder—gentle but firm—that Amatsu was always the one in control. Yet, in her silence, there was a softness, a presence that didn't need to demand attention. She trusted him implicitly, even as he trusted no one but himself. But her trust was not born of obligation or duty; it was a quiet understanding. A knowing that sometimes, a soft hand was all that was needed in moments like these.

She waits.

Always.

He stayed hidden, watching as the survivors of the test emerged. Bloodied. Broken. Some of them limped forward, dragging their fallen comrades, while others walked with pride, their heads held high despite the carnage they had witnessed. Victory, for most, was nothing more than a stroke of luck. Survival by chance.

Amatsu's gaze moved over them, assessing. Each one was a possibility. Some were strong, others were weak, broken. Their faces revealed everything he needed to know. The ones who walked with purpose—those were the ones to watch. The rest? Fodder. The weak would perish. That was the natural order. He didn't need to lift a finger to make it happen. It would unfold on its own.

He didn't move. He observed.

---

The survivors scattered, some celebrating, others dragging the bodies of their comrades. Amatsu didn't bother to judge them. They were tools, nothing more. Their usefulness had yet to be proven. He would wait. The real test wasn't the one that had just ended. It was the one that would come next.

A group of children stumbled into view, ragged and desperate. Their clothes were torn, their bodies frail from hunger. They dragged themselves forward, their eyes hollow, pleading.

These children had nothing left but a primal instinct to keep moving, to keep breathing.

The boy's legs buckled under his weight. His body jerked, a flash of pain shooting up his spine as his knees hit the dirt. His breath came in ragged gasps, each one like a cruel reminder that his body was no longer his own. He struggled to lift himself, the effort so great that his fingers trembled, slick with the blood he had lost. His muscles screamed in protest. His mind fought to find coherence in the fog of exhaustion, but all that surfaced was one simple, brutal fact: he was still alive.

Barely.

A sound caught in his throat—a choked sob or a curse, he couldn't tell. His head swam with dizziness, but the only thing that mattered now was the next step. The next breath. And after that, the next. He had lost count of time. The pain had long ago ceased to feel real, as though his body had stopped recognizing what it was doing. His hands scraped against the earth, struggling to push himself forward, dragging the weight of his own brokenness behind him.

One more step.

It was the only thing that mattered now. The rest was a blur—a fractured echo of what had come before. There were no thoughts of victory, no thrill of triumph, only the brutal, relentless urge to survive.

Behind him, another child emerged—a girl, dragging the lifeless body of a comrade. Her frame was hunched, shoulders bowed under the crushing weight. Her arms trembled violently with each strained pull, the dead body scraping against the dirt. The sound was sickening—grating, like a warning of things to come. The earth beneath them had become an enemy, every step a fight against it.

Her face was pale—no, not pale. Hollow. Dirt caked her skin, but it was the emptiness in her eyes that spoke louder. She had seen too much, experienced too much. Too much had been stolen from her already. Her breath was shallow, ragged, barely enough to keep her moving. And yet, she moved. Slowly. Her spirit was the only thing still tethering her to this world. Her body, long since betrayed her, could no longer keep up.

"We made it," she whispered, the words coming out in fragments, more like a prayer than a statement. She wasn't speaking to anyone in particular. She wasn't even sure she was speaking at all. She had just said the first words her mind could cling to, desperate to hold onto something that resembled meaning.

But the words were hollow. Empty. The last breath of someone trying to convince themselves they weren't already dead inside.

She wasn't sure if she could even feel the weight of the child's body anymore. It was an extension of her own suffering—a shared burden. She wanted to drop it. Let it fall. But she couldn't. Not yet. Because survival meant more than what was left of them. It was a fight against the inevitable. A fight she had no choice but to win.

The others followed her. Some limped, some crawled. Every step they took seemed to drain the life from them a little more. Their bodies were battered, bruised, and broken, but they still moved, still staggered forward, their breaths shallow and uneven. They weren't a group anymore. They were fragments. They were the remnants of something that had once been whole.

But that was the price of survival.

A boy's voice cut through the stillness, weak, almost inaudible. "Just... a little more." He gasped, his words barely forming between labored breaths. His hands scraped against the dirt, dragging himself forward with the last shred of his will. Blood trickled from his palms, staining the earth beneath him. His feet dragged, each movement slower than the last, as though the very ground was fighting to hold him down.

"We're almost there," he said. But the words were empty. Hollow. They were nothing but a desperate attempt to find some spark of hope in the crushing void that surrounded them. The boy didn't care if the test was truly over. He didn't care about victory or defeat. All that mattered now was surviving the next moment, the next breath. The finish line, if it existed at all, was a distant memory, a cruel illusion that no longer held any meaning.

The girl who had collapsed moments earlier managed to lift herself, barely. Her hands trembled as they scraped against the ground, pulling her forward inch by agonizing inch. The air was thick—thick with the stench of blood, sweat, and the bitter taste of fear that lingered in their mouths. She could feel it pressing against her chest, suffocating her with every breath.

"I can't... I can't do this anymore..." Her voice cracked, each word a struggle to release. But even as the words left her lips, she pushed herself forward. Slowly. Relentlessly. Every part of her body begged for rest. But there was no time for rest. There was no choice but to move.

Around her, the others didn't stop. They couldn't. To fall now was to accept defeat. To stop was to never get back up.

And they knew—if they slowed down, even for a moment, they might not rise again.

---

Amatsu watched it all from a distance, his gaze cold, calculating. His mind was a machine, effortlessly dissecting the scene before him. He observed the fractured, desperate rhythm of their movements, the way their bodies were crumbling under the weight of their own survival.

They thought they had made it. They thought the test was over.

But it wasn't. Not yet.

He had already calculated their fates. They would survive, yes, but they would be nothing more than shadows of what they had once been. There was no real victory here. No glory. Just the brutal, grinding persistence of life itself.

The survivors were broken. And they would remain broken.

The smoke above the gates, thick and colorful, twisted in the air, a false promise of relief.

Amatsu watched, his expression unreadable. 

The test, they thought, was over.

And for them, maybe it was.

They will die, or they will adapt. They will either rise, or they will fall.

The cries continued, but Amatsu paid them no mind. His thoughts were colder, sharper. The world didn't care for these children. It didn't care about weakness, or hope, or mercy. It only cared about one thing: survival and power.

They would either prove their worth—or they would be discarded.

The test was over.

But Amatsu did not see an end. He saw only another shift in the perpetual cycle—a cycle that never stopped turning, a cycle that had been in motion long before he'd ever stepped onto this field and would continue long after he left it behind.

The world wasn't a place for games. It was a place for power. And power was not a thing you earned through trial or victory. It was a thing you took. And kept. It was a thing that had no mercy, no regard for anything or anyone except those who knew how to claim it and hold onto it.

The survivors? Insignificant. They had already begun their descent into irrelevance the moment they'd stepped foot in this world. Their struggle meant nothing. The true game was far larger than their petty battles, far more unforgiving than their pain.

Amatsu's fingers curled into a fist. He didn't act. He would wait.

Amatsu's gaze was fixed, unwavering, through the small hole in the tree. The world outside was a blur of frantic movement, but his focus remained sharp. Through that narrow aperture, he watched, unblinking.

"Power is not a gift," his voice was low, almost a whisper, as though the world itself didn't deserve to hear him speak. "It is a theft. A quiet conquest. A thing taken, never given."

The hole in the tree framed the world like a lens—perfect, contained. He saw it all, but none of it mattered to him. Not their pain, not their struggle. It was simply noise.

His fingers drummed lightly against the rough bark, the sound sharp in the still air. Every shift of his body, every tiny motion, was a testament to his restraint. To patience.

"Patience," he repeated, the word thick with meaning. "The only true weapon."

The wind stirred gently, rustling the leaves above him. A soft sigh of the forest—faint, subtle. He allowed it to wash over him. It meant nothing. It was a fleeting distraction, like the game that had been set before him. A mere distraction.

"Every action carries weight," he murmured, more to himself now, his voice blending with the hum of the wind. "But not every action is worth taking."

Until that moment, he was content to observe.

The world itself was nothing but an intricate series of trials, all designed to expose weakness, to test who could endure, and more importantly, to expose who could seize what others could not.

The weak would fall. The strong would break. Only the ruthless would remain

He would seize it.

Power.

Power was the game. Power was the prize. And the moment would come, sooner or later, when he would be the one to dictate its terms.

He had already chosen his path.

{A/N: I'm busy these days, I will try to keep update the chapter daily.

Enjoy the read}