Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

"Kill!"

The instant the two sides of shinobi faced off, someone suddenly shouted, and the battle erupted in an instant.

Dozens of Konoha ninja nearest to the Iwa reinforcements were the first to act, hurling their kunai.

However, lacking the element of surprise, the attacks were easily dodged. The Iwa shinobi evaded with ease—none of the kunai did any real damage.

Then came the counterattack.

The Iwa-nin quickly formed hand seals and began spitting out stones from their mouths.

At first, the stones were small—but the farther they flew, the larger they grew. Before long, they became solid stone projectiles, like cannonballs, crashing toward the Konoha forces.

This jutsu was called Earth Style: Rock Iron Cannon Technique. On its own, it wasn't particularly powerful. But when dozens of shinobi launched it at once, it resembled a meteor shower—dangerous and overwhelming.

Thankfully, the Konoha shinobi in the front lines were all skilled veterans. No one was seriously injured in the exchange.

After this initial volley, both sides recognized that neither was easy to deal with. They gave up the ranged clash and dove into close combat.

In moments, the battlefield descended into chaos.

Explosions, war cries, screams, the clash of weapons—it all melded into a storm of noise.

Uchiha Haruki kept his gaze on the front lines.

Suddenly, a strange buzzing sound reached his ears.

It was faint but constant, like the fluttering of wings.

"Bees?" Haruki's heart tensed as he quickly looked toward the source of the sound.

He spotted them: a giant bee, the size of a human head, darting through the air—and trailing behind it was a whole swarm of slightly smaller ones.

Haruki didn't even need to think. These bees were manmade.

There was no way bees in the wild grew that large—and even if they could, their natural instincts would keep them far from the battlefield.

And more importantly, Iwagakure just so happened to have a clan that specialized in using bees in combat.

Everything lined up. Haruki had no doubt what he was dealing with.

His eyes swept the battlefield and quickly locked onto a short, ugly Iwa shinobi in a jonin uniform—his facial features even faintly resembled a bee.

But that wasn't the key detail.

Beside him stood a giant bee, easily over two meters long, vicious and menacing.

The man had excellent sensory perception—Haruki had barely looked at him for a few seconds before the shinobi noticed.

The Iwa jonin stared straight at Haruki perched atop a tree, eyes falling on the Uchiha crest on his back. A twisted smile spread across his face.

With a silent signal, he directed the entire swarm toward Haruki.

Seeing this, Haruki leapt down from the treetop, immediately attempting to retreat.

But the bees were absurdly fast.

He hadn't even taken a few steps before they caught up.

Then—whip!

The bees suddenly bent their abdomens and fired their stingers.

If these had been ordinary bees, they would have died after stinging once. But these were something else entirely—their stingers were just one form of attack.

Thup-thup-thup!

Dozens of stingers zipped through the air.

Haruki didn't dare try to block them. With a quick sidestep, he darted behind a massive tree.

Thunk-thunk-thunk!

The stingers slammed into the trunk—dense and concentrated—but didn't touch Haruki.

He barely had time to catch his breath when the buzzing grew louder again. Bees swarmed from both sides of the trunk, encircling him completely.

Haruki didn't hesitate.

Hands flew into seals—just before the next round of stingers could launch, he spat out a wave of flames.

Fire Style: Phoenix Fire Jutsu!

Small fireballs shot from his mouth like scattered flower petals, lighting up the sky and streaking toward the bee swarm.

These bees were much stronger than natural ones, but they were still carbon-based lifeforms.

And fire doesn't discriminate.

Try as they might, they couldn't dodge it all.

With his chakra control and current skill level with the jutsu—already trained to high proficiency—Haruki could direct the flames with precision, even without relying on his Sharingan.

Boom! Crackle! Pop!

The fireballs burst through the swarm. Bees exploded, their bodies bloating and bursting in the intense heat, falling like smoldering cinders to the ground.

"You little brat! You're dead!!"

The Iwa jonin—codenamed Red Bee—watched his swarm dwindle and screamed in rage, eyes bloodshot.

He leapt onto his massive bee and flew toward Haruki with an even larger swarm in tow.

Meanwhile, the surviving bees adjusted formation and opened their mouths, spraying globs of thick honey at Haruki.

He knew better than to let that sticky substance hit him—he moved quickly, dodging with ease.

Luckily, Haruki had trained Konoha-style swordsmanship to level 3. His agility was better than most shinobi—any slower, and he might've already been overwhelmed.

But even so…

As he looked at the swarm closing in fast, Haruki knew he had to act.

If he let all the bees merge together, things would get much worse.

"Fire Style is still the best counter."

After dodging another round of stingers, he formed seals while running and unleashed another barrage of fireballs.

Red Bee commanded the bees to dodge, but Haruki's control was too good.

Another section of the swarm was scorched to ash.

They fell from the air, twitching and smoking.

Seeing this, Red Bee's eyes grew even redder. If Haruki didn't know better, he'd think the man was about to awaken the Sharingan himself.

Of course, that was just a joke.

As the new wave of bees drew closer, Haruki didn't wait.

He immediately used Body Flicker Technique, gaining some distance, then unleashed yet another Phoenix Fire Jutsu—continuing the slaughter.

Like the saying goes: "One good technique can carry you through a fight."

Since it worked, he kept using it.

For the next half-minute, Haruki used the forest as cover, dodging, weaving, and burning.

Before the two swarms could fully merge, he had already destroyed nearly 80% of the first one.

But that was where it ended.

Because Red Bee—riding his giant bee and commanding the rest of the swarm—had now fully surrounded him.

Despite being a once-famous insect-handling clan rivaling the Aburame, this Iwa clan had long declined.

Still, they had their tricks.

Haruki tried to break through several times, but Red Bee's swarm herded and blocked him expertly—while minimizing their own losses.

"Damn… this is getting tight." Haruki thought bitterly, eyes scanning the dense swarm around him.

There was no way out.

Then the swarm parted.

Red Bee himself strode into the opening, face twisted with hatred.

He stared at the wary Haruki and snarled,

"Uchiha brat. After killing so many of my bees… tell me, how should I deal with you?"

Uchiha.

The name caught Haruki's ear.

He glanced down at the Uchiha crest on his uniform… and his thoughts jumped to the downfall of the Shinhe Clan.

He suddenly realized: this man wasn't just mad about the bees.

This was old hatred—hatred not just for Aburame, but for all Konoha clans.

"Maybe… I can use that."

A plan began to form.

If it were another Iwa jonin, he wouldn't dare gamble.

But someone like Red Bee—whose only real strength was his control over bees, likely just a special jonin at best—he didn't need to be cautious.

If he could pull off a decapitation strike, the swarm would fall apart.

And this fight would be over.