After the fight, Kuro and his panions sought the support of the trees.

  Just as he thought he could rest for a moment, a naggiion warned him that something was wrong.

  His eyes snapped open. A memory surfaced like a warning bell ringing in his head. Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura—the inals main characters—were locked in battle with Orochimaru. That damn snake had already made his move..

  Kuro ched his fists. How had he let himself fet, even for a moment? The chaos of earlier battles, the cybs, the relentless fighting—it had distracted him. He sed his immediate surroundings. Xero sat nearby, sharpening his bde with a zy efficy, his eyes half-lidded but ever-watchful. Reika stood at the edge of the clearing, her gaze distant but alert. Their expressions revealed little, but Kuro khey felt the tension as well.

  Without hesitation, he rose from his seat. His movements were swift, deliberate. “I’m heading out for a bit,” he announced, his voice steady. He kept it casual, but his muscles were already coiling with urgency.

  Xero barely looked up, but a smirk tugged at his lips. “What? Taking a dump again? You sure your stomach handle all that survival food?”

  Kuro stopped mid-step. He turned, giving Xero a deadpan look. “Yeah, I’m really going out into a death-ied forest just to take a dump,” he replied, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

  Xero chuckled, twirling his bde between his fingers. “Hey, man, I’m just saying. You disappear a lot. Thought maybe you had… problems.”

  Reika finally spoke, her tone as cool as ever. “You’re wasting time, Kuro. If yoing to shit, just shit.”

  Kuro nodded, not b to reply further. He turned and disappeared into the dense foliage, his form melding with the shadows. The distant echoes of battle grew clearer with every step. Orochimaru was there, and if Kuro knew anything from his past life, it was that this fight wouldn’t end well unless he did something.

  As he sprinted forward, his mind raced. ‘Alright, Kuro. You’ve read the manga, seen the anime. You know how this goes. Sasuke gets marked, Naruto nearly dies, Sakura… well, she mostly just watches. Not on my watch.’

  —----

  Kuro’s footsteps were measured as he moved through the dense forest, the path treacherous with uneven ground and twisted roots. His mind was elsewhere, repying the chaotic series of events he had endured. From the moment he’d been ripped from Earth and thrown into this strange, chakra-infused world, his life had taken a turn he hadn’t fully uood.

  He wasn’t James anymore. The man who ohrived in the world of logid sce seemed a distant memory. He wasn’t even sure if this life was real or just a dream he couldn’t shake off. But for now, his existence here—now as Kuro—was all that mattered. And Kuro had one goal: watch. Watch the stories unfold. Watch as the destinies of the characters he only knew from manga and aook shape.

  *“All I o do is survive. Let them py their part,”* he thought as he navigated through the thick foliage, the sound of rustling leaves barely registering in his mind. *“I don’t o save them. They’ll make it out themselves. Or not.”*

  That was the deal with this world—fate had its way of pying things out. He wasn’t the hero here, he wasn’t a sidekick. He was an observer. And that meant nothing more than seeing things through to the end, no matter how ridiculous ic.

  He caught a faint st in the air—blood. And something else, something acrid, like burning flesh. Kuro’s pace didn’t slow; in fact, it quied, the familiar sense of tension in his gut telling him he was nearing something important.

  Ahead, a clearing opened up, and the se before him unfurled like a drama on a stage. Orochimaru—his presenmistakable, even from a distance—was doily what Kuro had expected. He had already sunk his cursed seal into Sasuke Uchiha. The once-proud Uchiha now struggled, his body t with the overwhelming power of the curse that Orochimaru had initiated.

  *“Well, that’s going as pnned,”* Kuro thought, his eyes narrowing as he studied the se. *“I’ve seen this part before. Naruto will try to interve got 9 tails power sealed, Sasuke gets marked, and Sakura will probably be useless. Same old, same old. Let’s see if it pys out the way it always does.”*

  There was hy in Kuro’s gaze, no desire to ge the course of events. He wasn’t here to save Sasuke—he wasn’t here to save anyone. He wasn’t part of their world, and he certainly wasn’t part of their struggles. He was simply watg a show he already koo well.

  He leaned against a tree, arms crossed, and observed as Sasuke’s body jerked in pain under Orochimaru’s influence. *“Is this it? Sasuke’s gonna break. The curse mark will take over. He’ll fight back ter. It’s predictable,”* Kuro thought, his expression unged.

  He’d never uood why people felt the o get involved in these battles. They fought, they bled, they died—but it didn’t matter. The world was always going to be violent, chaotic. He didn’t care about Sasuke’s pain. The guy had always been so damn full of himself, so caught up in his own drama. Watg him crumble wasn’t something Kuro had any stake in.

  *“Sasuke’s fate is his own. If he doesn’t get strong enough to fight it, that’s on him. I’m not here to be some guardian ahis world isn’t about saving people. It’s about watg them make the same mistakes, which will lead to good ending.”*

  Kuro’s gaze shifted toward the sky, the red hues of the battle-torn sky barely registering in his peripheral vision. This was it. This was where he was meant to be—watg, analyzing, and doing absolutely nothing. Let them fight. Let them win, or lose, or die. It was all the same. He kly how this story went, and he wasn’t about to ge a sihing.