[Chapter 22 – A Month and a Bit Goes By]
January 31st -
The water currents on Training Grounds Twelve were no more forgiving this week than they had been the last, and this time Yohei didn't even have anyone to share his misery with.
He had arrived back in the village with only a scant few minutes to spare before meeting his team. All he could do was take a hurried bath and shove the first thing he saw in the[Chapter kitchen down his throat before he was already rooftop-jumping toward the Academy.
At least he had been granted the mercy of a slow mission earlier that day: cleaning the house of a blind old man. It had given him time to catch his breath, even if he'd had to endure Ren's constant teasing the whole while – saying that Yohei smelled like a dead body (which was true, if uncalled for) and that he was making the house stink (also probably true, though Old Man Denki didn't seem to care).
The old man had been far too distracted telling stories of his time in the wars, back when he had been a ninja, to a fascinated Souma.
After the mission, they'd eaten lunch and then headed straight for their afternoon training session.
Yohei was ordered to do exactly what he had done the previous week: strip off his clothes, get into the river, start swimming so he wouldn't be dragged away by the waterfall, and not stop until Hayama was satisfied.
Ren and Souma, however, had been given something a little more elaborate.
Throughout the entire training grounds, Hayama had set up targets for them – simple painted markings for Souma, and standard bukijutsu targets for Ren. Their objective was to sprint through the trees at full speed and strike every single one of their respective targets: Souma slicing his up close with his sword, Ren hitting his from a distance with thrown weapons. Once they finished all one hundred and thirty-seven targets, they then had to do it all over again, but by inventing a different route and hitting them in a different order.
Hayama-sensei had told them they would be finished once they managed to complete ten full laps.
Of course, it wouldn't be their sensei if there weren't additional clauses. If they took more than five minutes to finish a lap, it was invalid, and they would have to start over after completing the failed one. If they missed even a single target, the same applied. Hitting two targets in the same order as in any previous lap would also invalidate it, and taking breaks of more than two seconds during a lap – or more than a minute between laps – would erase the most recent one as well.
Yohei didn't really have the presence of mind to keep track of how they were doing, but a few minutes earlier he had heard Ren mournfully crying out when Hayama told him that he had only just finished his first lap properly.
Yohei, for his part, wasn't being spared either. While the other boys at least had the reassurance that their training could be finished relatively quickly if they did everything right, Yohei had been told to keep swimming and only stop once their session was over – which was usually late afternoon, just before sunset.
What's more, now that his awareness of the draining effects of the Chakurami made him unconsciously prevent chakra from leaking out the way it had last week, he had decided to increase the difficulty himself by simply not engaging Chakra Enhancement at all.
Or, more specifically, only increasing his body's performance just enough that he didn't get dragged under the waterfall and turned into paste.
The fact that he had decided to do that on his own was probably the only reason Hayama hadn't added yet another layer of difficulty to his task.
Speaking of his sensei, the man had stopped overseeing his teammates' training and walked over to the riverbank to watch him.
"You're doing great, Yohei," he praised, making Yohei smile in return, satisfied and encouraged by the words. "I think next week I'll bring some weights to put on you. Or maybe a boat to tie to your back."
Yohei swallowed the curses he was about to let loose, certain they would only earn him laughter and a quiet promise of even more torment later.
"Thanks… sensei," he said instead between strokes.
"Just doing my job." Hayama waved it off with a pleasant smile that did little to hide the humor in his face. Sitting down on a rock, he let out a long sigh as he stretched his arms.
"I'm sorry… sensei… did watching… our suffering… make you tired?" Yohei asked dryly, his voice rough.
Hayama chuckled. "No, no, don't worry. Please keep giving it your all. I insist, in fact. Speed up or I'll tie both your teammates to your waist and make you swim for the three of you. I'm sure they'd love the chance to cool down in this heat."
'Should've kept my mouth shut,' Yohei bemoaned in his mind.
"Why… tired… then…?" he asked through clenched teeth, even as he reduced his Enhancement further, forcing himself to double his strokes just to stay in place.
"Well… I suppose I didn't take my own advice into account," Hayama said a little embarrassedly, scratching his cheek. "I usually train in the mornings and evenings to keep myself sharp, since most of my day is spent training you. But when I went back to solo work after my last students became chūnin and started taking missions on their own, I noticed I'd degraded a bit all the same. I've made some adjustments since then, including setting up training sessions for myself on the weekends."
He let out a sigh. "Usually I make sure not to go overboard so I stay at peak performance, but my training partner was a tad too… excited."
Yohei burst out laughing, coughing when water went up his nose because of it. Hayama gave him a look, one eyebrow raised.
"You could just say… that you had sex… didn't need to… make a whole-ass story for it," Yohei said with humor.
Hayama laughed as he stood and turned toward the woods.
"Interesting theory," he said, chuckling as he unsheathed his sword.
A shiver of dread ran up Yohei's spine.
The blade was swiftly coated in Wind Chakra and, faster than Yohei could follow, cut into a tree, making four horizontal slashes. As the top of the tree tilted and fell away, Hayama picked up the three wooden discs the remaining trunk had been carved into and carried them back to the riverbank.
"Sensei…?" Yohei asked, his tone dismayed.
"Don't worry, don't worry," Hayama said cheerfully, waving a hand. "Come on, Yohei, get out of the water and help me with this."
'Oh, Sage.'
Obeying him, Yohei increased the flow of chakra through his body and swiftly swam out of the river, stepping onto solid ground. As he approached Hayama, the man gestured for him to take a seat near the wooden wheels. Yohei did so and was promptly handed a kunai.
"Carve a hole through each of these, please," Hayama instructed with a cheerful smile.
"Yes, sensei," Yohei replied morosely, getting to work.
Hayama chuckled. "Don't make the holes too wide, all right? Or we'll have to add another wheel."
Yohei, who had been planning to do exactly that – if with a bit of subtle sabotage – immediately deflated, shooting a weak glare at the man, who accepted it with grace.
"Don't look so mad, Yo-kun," Hayama said lazily, resting his head against his palm. "Why don't you tell me about your trip yesterday? Find anything interesting?"
Yohei immediately brightened, stopping his carving and giving him the smuggest look he could manage.
Hayama blinked at the expression before realization hit. He straightened and stared at Yohei in disbelief.
"No," he said flatly.
Yohei only nodded, smirking.
"You didn't," Hayama insisted, shaking his head, one hand covering his mouth as he smiled.
"I did," Yohei replied with a shit-eating grin.
"On your first try!?" Hayama asked, throwing his arms up.
Yohei laughed out loud while Hayama kept shaking his head, still stunned by the kid's luck.
"To be fair," Yohei said, grinning as he went back to carving, "it wasn't my first try. I found a giant bear and a weird-ass rat before."
"Oh, so it wasn't the first chakra beast you found, it was the third. That's so much better," Hayama said dryly, before an eager glint entered his eyes. "Tell me about it."
"About her," Yohei corrected with a smile. "She's a girl. I call her Mugetsu."
"Moonless?" Hayama asked with interest.
Yohei nodded. "Because she's a wolf, but she lives inside a cave system rather than under the open sky. A wolf that doesn't live under the moon – Moonless."
Hayama nodded in understanding. "A mutant wolf… in my experience, most pack animals will abandon or kill one of their own once they start noticing mutations."
"That's… cruel," Yohei said, frowning.
Hayama shook his head. "It's nature. You know it's far more common for a beast to go insane than to keep its mind. If they stay with their packs, the most likely outcome is that one day they'll simply massacre everyone around them. Over time, animals adapted to that and learned to deal with the problem before it becomes a danger."
Yohei thought back to Mugetsu's description in the scroll.
'Mugetsu was once a common cave wolf who was expelled from her pack because of her unnatural strength and was then mutated by the overabundance of chakra in her surroundings. After decades of brutal survival, this wolf now towers over carriages and can swallow a fully grown man in one gulp.'
He hadn't thought much of it at the time, treating it the way one treated a character description in a game – flavor text meant to add depth, not a literal truth being told.
But if, as he had confirmed, the summons he brought into this world really were retroactively added to its history…
Then their pasts – their experiences, the things that made them who they were – were all real.
Mugetsu wasn't a creature that merely thought it had been expelled from its pack and forced to live alone in suffering for years. She was someone who had actually gone through all of it.
And Yohei, in bringing her into being, was partially responsible for that reality – even if he wasn't the architect of her pain.
'Years of abandonment. Years of solitude. All by herself, in a cave filled with dead bodies.' Yohei thought, lips pursed as he remembered how sad she had looked when he left that morning.
"They take it harder than most beasts," Hayama continued. "That makes them often become aggressive or reclusive, which seems to be the case from what you said."
Yohei nodded. "There weren't many – or any, really – animals around her lair. They were afraid of her."
"Is she very territorial?" Hayama asked with a hum.
"Kinda? The impression I got is that it's less that she feels threatened or challenged by other animals and more that she doesn't seem to waste the chance for more food."
Hayama lifted an eyebrow. "A glutton?"
Yohei chuckled. "No! A gourmet, actually."
Hayama blinked in surprise, then let out a huff and shook his head with a smile. "Well, that's a new one. What do you mean?"
"She seems to be exclusively a carrion eater," Yohei explained, "but rather than being an opportunistic feeder, she hunts down her prey and drags it back to her lair to let it rot. She had quite the stock, all neatly organized."
"Hoh? Not the weirdest quirk I've heard of, but quite odd all the same. I wonder why it may be so?"
The question made Yohei think, and the conclusion he reached wiped the smile from his face.
"Maybe rotting food was the only thing she could feed on when she was abandoned," he said quietly. "And her changing body adapted to her needs."
Hayama hummed, seeing the morose look on his student's face.
"Could be," he conceded, placing a hand on Yohei's head, making him look up to meet the encouraging smile Hayama was giving him. "Good thing for both of you that she seems to have a partner now, hm?"
Yohei returned the smile, nodding firmly. "You become responsible, forever, for that which you have tamed."
Hayama looked at him in surprise. "A beautiful phrase. Where is it from?"
'From my… his… my grandma's favorite book.'
"From myself," he said with a grin, thumbing his chest. "What did you think? Not only a genius at Yang Release, I'm also a prodigy of the arts."
Hayama rolled his eyes.
"So, tell me more about Mugetsu," he asked eagerly instead of indulging Yohei's boast. "What does she look like? How big is she? How does she behave? How intelligent do you think she is? When are you planning to seal the Contract?"
Yohei smiled, eager. "I'm thinking of–"
"Waiting until the last day," Hayama finished dryly.
Yohei stared at him. "How did you–"
"Know?" Hayama interrupted with a grin, making Yohei huff. "I just asked myself what Ren would do in your place. For two people who are so different, it's incredibly easy to predict one by imagining what the other would do."
"That just means our bond as teammates is immaculate," Yohei boasted playfully.
Hayama shot it down dryly. "No, it means you're both little shits. Also, don't stop your task just because we're talking. A shinobi must be capable of multitasking."
"Yes, yes, sensei," Yohei sighed, giving a lazy salute as he went back to drilling holes into the wood.
Hayama snorted. "You want to trick Hana by showing up on the last day, right?"
"Well, she and two other lose – I mean, two other fellow ninja decided to bet against yours truly."
"Which increasingly seems to be a poor decision the more time I spend watching you," Hayama said with amusement. "Just try not to burn through all your luck so early in your career. I guarantee you'll need a lot of it going forward, little prodigy."
"I don't think I have control over that, sensei," Yohei admitted sheepishly.
Hayama laughed. "I suppose not. Let's hope for the best, then. Oh, and you still haven't answered my questions."
So Yohei did, spending the next few minutes filling Hayama in on everything he had observed and inferred about Mugetsu over the past day. All the while, he drilled holes through the wooden wheels – which he then tried to surreptitiously set aside as he finished and headed back toward the river.
Only for Hayama to drag him back onto land, make him tie them around his legs, and then throw him straight back into the water.
Oh well. At least he had tried.
…
"More!?"
Maybe it would have been better if he hadn't.
-~=~-
February 8th –
"This feels weird," Yohei commented with a smile on his face.
A heartbeat later, a new weight settled over his chest, making that smile widen just a little.
Down on the ground, Ren and Souma were sitting cross-legged, back to back, forming the Seal of Confrontation as they worked on building up their chakra reserves. Hayama, meanwhile, was giving Yohei a pleased, proud look that made him scratch his head in embarrassment.
Well, they were on the ground – but from Yohei's perspective, it looked like they were hanging from the "ceiling."
"This feels really weird," he repeated, glancing "down" to where his feet were stuck to a tree branch. A faint glow of turquoise chakra shimmered around his soles, proof that while he had learned the Tree-Walking Technique, he hadn't mastered it yet.
Well, that, and his chakra control just wasn't that good.
"Well done, Yohei," Hayama praised with a smile. "We'll practice more on Wednesday. For now, come down so we can move on to the next part of your training."
"Yes, sensei," Yohei replied with a lazy salute. He cut off the flow of chakra from the tenketsu in his feet and nudged the branch with his toes, flipping himself into the air as he dropped.
Despite falling several meters, he didn't even have to bend his knees or brace himself to avoid injury.
'Chakra really is amazing,' he found himself thinking as he walked over to sit with his teammates. 'If this were back on Earth, I'd probably have bones sticking out of my legs right now.'
"Took your sweet time, didn't you?" Ren whispered teasingly as soon as Yohei sat down. "What would people think if they found out the genius was the last one to get something as basic as tree-walking down?"
"Oh, shut up," Yohei said with a grin. "You can talk shit when you manage to get both feet on the water without sinking."
"You find it funny now, but soon enough you'll be going through that torture too," Ren shot back, grinning.
"Wimp."
"Dumbass."
"Children," Hayama stressed, planting his knuckles on their heads and twisting. "Focus. On. The. Task."
"Yes, sensei," they replied weakly, chagrined and in pain but not really sorry at all.
Hayama sighed and stepped back as the two of them began molding chakra.
As Yohei started his breathing exercises to slip into the meditative mindset required for the task, part of his mind drifted back to Ren's words. They had only been teasing, but they were also true.
Ren, of course, had already known the Tree-Walking Technique from the start, so counting him wasn't fair. But Souma had learned it before Yohei did, despite having lower reserves and, as a result, being unable to train for as long.
That was simply the natural consequence of their circumstances. Both boys had been trained far more extensively than Yohei prior to graduation. While he had received some lessons and tutoring from his mother, he had mostly learned the same things as any regular civilian student – which meant their chakra control was better than his.
Even so, the difference hadn't been massive. Souma himself had only managed to stick to the tree a few hours earlier.
'Still, we took three weeks to Team Seven's three days,' Yohei thought with wry amusement. 'Is this the power of protagonism?'
Despite the joke, he knew it wasn't a fair comparison. While he and Souma had taken three weeks to learn it, they had only trained it intensively for a couple of hours two days a week. Naruto and Sasuke, on the other hand, had spent three straight days pouring nearly every waking moment into it until they collapsed.
'So really, we're not doing badly at all,' he decided. 'Besides, I saw them running around on a mission just the other day, which means they haven't gone to the Land of Waves yet. If anything, we're ahead of them.'
It was a bit petty to want to be better than other kids, but then again, he was a kid too, so he had an excuse.
'Not bad for a background character, right?' he thought with a grin.
After several minutes of molding chakra to refill their reserves, one by one the genin stood up and moved off to continue their Nature Transformation training.
Yohei, being the first to finish, took out a bowl he had brought from home and poured a little river water into the bottom of it. He sat back down with it in his lap, idly running his fingers through the liquid while focusing on molding his chakra into the Water nature.
Even now, three weeks into the training, he couldn't start it reliably. Since he was usually lost in a trance when the shift happened, he couldn't tell what finally triggered it. But so far, he had also never failed to manifest Water chakra during training – something that had made Ren glare at him bitterly last week after watching it happen, ruining Yohei's chance to someday surprise him with a Water Release jutsu during a spar.
"Say, sensei," Yohei called, and Hayama looked over. "What's Water Chakra Flow even good for?"
"Well… it's similar to Earth Chakra, I suppose," Hayama mused as he walked closer. "Both of them grant a defensive property that simply isn't present in Fire or Wind Chakra. But whereas Earth Chakra hardens to absorb impacts, Water Chakra flows to spread and disperse them. They also both add something extra to strikes – though again, in different ways. Earth Chakra increases weight, simply making your hits heavier. Water Chakra, however, extends the impact."
Yohei tilted his head, frowning. "What do you mean?"
Hayama pursed his lips. "Honestly, I can't say for sure if this is how it works for all Water Release users. But it's based on my experience fighting one who used Chakra Flow. Years ago, I went up against a Kirigakure rogue-nin who coated his arms in Water Chakra."
He shifted into a stance that vaguely reminded Yohei of karate – legs spread, knees bent, one fist pulled back at his waist while the other arm extended forward.
"When he struck–" Hayama said, drawing the extended arm back as the one at his waist shot forward in a punch, "–the chakra would surge ahead like a geyser. If you were hit by it, there was just no way to block. The best you could do was let yourself be carried by the wave and hope there wasn't anything behind you."
"Huh," Yohei said, impressed. "How did you deal with it?"
"I didn't get hit," Hayama replied flatly, making Yohei let out a surprised snort.
"Your strategic acumen frightens me, sensei," Yohei said with a grin.
Hayama rolled his eyes, though he was smiling. "There are few things as effective in a fight as not getting hit. But don't think that means I ran circles around him. The truth is, I was scared to death of his attacks."
"Wait, you?" Yohei asked, incredulous. "Afraid?"
"Yes, Yohei, afraid," Hayama said with amusement. "I may be a jōnin, but I'm also human. And just like you, I get afraid when I see something terrifying – and that missing-nin was definitely one of the scariest people I've ever met."
He drew his sword and quickly cloaked it in Wind Chakra, settling into a stance with the blade held at shoulder height, its tip pointing forward.
"Worse than the reach of his ranged attacks was the power of his blows up close," he said. The Wind Chakra around the blade shifted from a serrated cutting edge into something denser, like a thin membrane of vacuum. "Not only was his physical strength monstrous, but if he touched you, his chakra would surge forward in a crushing wave. It was like being hit twice by a giant."
Hayama moved.
Faster than Yohei could follow, his sword shot forward in a stabbing thrust that punched straight through a tree trunk. A heartbeat later, the vacuum membrane collapsed, and like a cannon all that compressed Wind Chakra detonated, blasting everything in front of him and carving a devastating corridor that tore through the forest as far as Yohei could see.
"Sensei, what the fuck!?" Ren shouted as the thunderous noise tore him out of meditation, clutching his chest and sucking in ragged breaths.
Souma, meanwhile, had stars in his eyes as he rushed over to get a closer look at the destruction.
And Yohei… his mind was already racing, trying to figure out how he could adapt something like that to recreate attacks from the fiction of his other life, the bowl in his lap momentarily forgotten.
All the while, he was doing his best to repress the mental image of what an attack like that would do to a person – and what it meant that his sensei had seen it used firsthand.
-~=~-
[化粧基礎指南書 – Keshō Kiso Shinan-sho – Fundamentals of Makeup: Instruction Manual]
|E-Rank Manual|
This manual teaches the proper use of cosmetic products. It provides guidance on selecting appropriate items and applying them according to facial features and skin condition. The goal is to enhance natural appearance through proper technique.
-~=~-
February 16th –
"Konoha Senpū!"
Strong Fist: Leaf Hurricane.
Yohei was already airborne, barely managing to kick against the air and twist his body into a spin to build up the force of the Leaf Hurricane. Even so, it was enough. When the fist-shaped mass of compacted stone rushed at him, he answered it with a punch powerful enough to shatter it and blow it apart.
…if only that were enough for his sadistic instructor.
"Konoha Reppū!"
Strong Fist: Leaf Gale.
His feet had barely touched the ground before he was already sliding forward, extending his lead leg while crouching on the other to lower his center of gravity. Using the leftover rotational force from the Leaf Hurricane, he spun, carving a line through the earth as he turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees, delivering a sweeping kick into the stone pillar rising up in front of him and rushing straight toward his body.
It wasn't as perfect as he wanted. The pillar bled off much of the speed he'd put into the strike – but he forced it through and cracked it in two.
And, once again, that wasn't enough.
"Konoha Kaiganshō!"
Strong Fist: Leaf Rock Crush.
'Fuck!' Yohei swore through clenched teeth.
He yanked his extended leg back, trying to bring himself upright and into position for the next form. He knew, however, that it wouldn't be enough. It could have been, if he'd completed the Leaf Gale seamlessly – then he would've been able to use the remaining momentum of the spin to flow straight into the Leaf Rock Crush. But as it was…
'…I'll have to improvise.'
In an instant, the chakra that had been gathered in the muscles of his leg to sustain the Extreme Muscle Assault technique was expelled all at once in a burst of cool turquoise energy. The ground nearby blasted outward as his muscles deflated back to their normal size – but the recoil gave him exactly the propulsion he needed to rise back up.
As it happened, he raised his clenched fist to the middle of his chest, keeping his bent arm firmly horizontal, his elbow jutted outward like a spear. His other hand closed over the fist to brace it, ready to add power at the right moment.
He managed it just in time, because he had barely set the stance when the torso-sized ball launched by that maniac Gōdo slammed into him. The impact made him want to scream as skin tore and bruised, even while the rock itself was shattered and blasted apart by the strike.
"Konoha Shōfū!"
Strong Fist: Leaf Rising Wind.
'From behind!'
Yohei tried to shift and take the proper stance for the high kick that had been called out, hoping to block the incoming attack. Unfortunately, the consequence of his improvisation came back to bite him – his left leg, without the support of Extreme Muscle Assault, failed to give him the stability he needed, and he collapsed instead.
Worse, Gōdo wasn't about to stop just because he'd fallen. If anything, in the maniac's mind it was even more reason to keep pounding him. A second after Yohei hit the ground, he felt another projectile slam into him as a staff of compressed rock struck his stomach, blasting the air from his lungs and nearly making him vomit.
…if he'd had anything left to throw up, that was. It wasn't the first time he'd been hit like that that afternoon.
After the impact, the tip of the stone staff stayed pressed against his midriff, digging in as if to hammer home the lesson that failure meant pain.
And as Yohei contemplated the sweet release of death, he felt the pressure increase as Gōdo used the staff as a lever to lean closer, peering into the crater he'd smashed him into.
"Still alive, kōhai-kun?" Gōdo asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity.
Yohei's only answer was a ragged, wheezing noise as he tried to breathe, before breaking into a fit of coughing. As he did, his concentration shattered, and the last of the Yang-nature chakra he had been molding dispersed, releasing Extreme Muscle Assault and letting his body shrink back to its normal size.
"That's a nice answer!" Gōdo exclaimed happily. "I don't hear anything wet, so I don't think your lung collapsed."
'Oh, Sage, he's actually trying to kill me,' Yohei thought miserably.
Seeing the tears streaming down his face, Gōdo laughed. "Relieved, huh? I know how you feel. It sucks when you're trying to break past your limits but end up breaking your body instead and have to spend time in the hospital. It really messes up the grind."
Yohei started sobbing.
"Oh, don't laugh at me," Gōdo said with an embarrassed grin. "It's a perfectly normal mistake to make. I'm sure you'll go through it once or twice as well."
'No, please, I don't want to,' Yohei pleaded in his mind. 'Mom… I don't want my lung to collapse…'
Gōdo looked away from his crying, chuckling kōhai and up at the sun, letting out a thoughtful hum. "Well, it's sooner than I wanted to finish this session, but I suppose we made good progress."
Yohei weakly raised a victorious fist.
"Hm?" Gōdo mused, glancing down at the gesture. He let out a warm, enthusiastic laugh. "Oh, my dear kōhai-kun, even now you're trying to say you can take more?"
Yohei quickly let the stupid, traitorous limb drop back to the ground.
"I'm sorry," Gōdo said with genuine regret. "I don't think you'll manage to do much else today. Look at you – you can barely raise your arms! Although…"
He walked closer and squatted near Yohei's face, looming over him with a wide, menacing smile as he rested his arms on his staff, the drawstring pressed against the back of his neck.
"We can still do some impact training if you're up for it."
…
'This fucking bastard,' Yohei cursed mentally. 'He knows exactly what he's doing.'
"…bring it on."
Gōdo shifted at the sound of Yohei's voice, turning his head and cupping a hand around his ear as he leaned closer to Yohei's mouth. "Eh? Sorry, I didn't catch that."
"I said," Yohei rasped, "Bring. It. On."
Gōdo blinked in surprise, staring down at the fire – or would storm fit better? – in Yohei's eyes, his expression severe and challenging even as he struggled to draw breath.
"Hoh?" Gōdo said in delight, a wide grin spreading as he straightened eagerly. "That's it, kōhai-kun! That's what I like to hear! Guts – the most essential quality of a man!"
He slammed the butt of his staff into the ground. Crimson chakra surged through his hand and into the earth, which began to rise and wrap around the weapon, layering it in compacted stone that was then compressed even further until it was so dense Yohei was sure it might develop its own gravitational field.
Gōdo lifted it through the air, a heavy, ominous sound following its movement as he casually rested it over his shoulder before gripping it with both hands and spreading his legs.
"Now!" he bellowed with a savage grin. "Prepare yourself, kōhai-kun! I'm holding nothing back!"
Yohei's breathing quickened, but he refused to close his eyes, staring straight into the oncoming disaster as he hurriedly molded more chakra, trying to increase his resistance as much as he could.
"Here… I… go!" Gōdo said as he swung it down.
Yohei's eyes went wide when he saw it was going to hit his stomach again. As fast as he could, he forced all of his remaining chakra into his abdomen, making it glow with turquoise light. Even so, he knew it wouldn't be enough.
The monstrously heavy weapon descended, struck his skin – and –
– broke down into sand, harmlessly splashing over his body and doing nothing more than leaving him a little dirtier than before.
He stared at it in stunned incomprehension until Gōdo's laughter made him look up at the older boy.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOUR FACE! YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN YOUR FACE!" Gōdo dropped the remaining piece of the staff, which crumbled into sand the moment it hit the ground, then braced his hands on his knees as he laughed at an increasingly exasperated Yohei.
Letting himself drop onto his butt, Gōdo gave Yohei a good-natured smile and shook his shoulder. "Man, you're really hardcore, kōhai-kun. Willing to let yourself be hit by that? Respect. I'm a bit hurt that you think I'd hurt you just because, though."
Yohei's incredulous stare said exactly what he thought of that.
"Oi," Gōdo complained with a grin, "I'll have you know every bit of pain I inflict on you is for a very good reason."
Yohei scoffed and rolled his eyes, which only made Gōdo laugh harder.
The older boy stretched his arms, letting out a satisfied sigh, while Yohei struggled to haul himself out of the crater on trembling limbs.
"Oh, right!" Gōdo suddenly exclaimed, punching his palm in realization. "I almost forgot. Do you remember what you asked me about last week?"
Yohei blinked, trying to think about anything other than how badly he wanted to go home, take a bath, and collapse into his bed. Still, he tried.
"Uh… weapons?" he guessed.
Gōdo snapped his fingers, pointing at him with a nod and a smile. "Weapons! You asked me about getting some weapons training, and I told you we'd revisit it after I had some time to think and consult someone about it. And, well, I did."
Yohei's eyes widened with eagerness. "So…?"
Gōdo crossed his arms, adopting a lecturing tone. "Well, to start with, you remember what I told you about the Strong Fist, right?"
Yohei nodded. "External and hard martial art style, a derivative of koppōjutsu. Focuses on training the body, always tries to deliver strikes at maximum power, and has breaking the enemy's bones as the main goal."
Gōdo nodded, pleased. "Right, right! Because of that, the weapons compatible with the style are limited. We don't use edged or pointed weapons – only blunt instruments. Guy-sensei, when he bothers to use anything other than his body, uses nunchaku, and so does his apprentice from what I've seen. I prefer to use a staff, though I was trained in other options before settling on it. I spent last week's lesson trying to decide what weapon would best fit you, and I went to Guy-sensei to get his opinion."
"Uh, wow," Yohei said, genuinely touched by how much thought Gōdo had put into it. "And… what's the verdict?"
Gōdo smiled at his expression, then sighed. "Well… you have great gross motor output, but you also kind of suck at fine motor precision. That means you're good at putting commitment into your strikes and generating power, but you'd probably struggle with the timing and angle control of nunchaku and tonfa, or with the constant positional corrections a staff needs," he said seriously.
Yohei blinked, taken aback by this unexpectedly analytical side of his senpai.
"Your reaction time also isn't anything to write home about," Gōdo added with a laugh, making Yohei wince, "but your predictive timing is really good! From what I've seen, you're at your best when you're controlling space and guiding your opponent into positions you want, rather than adapting in real time to their tempo or reacting to their strikes."
"Isn't that bad?" Yohei asked, brows furrowed.
"It is what it is," Gōdo replied with a shrug. "Being good at one thing and bad at another is already better than not being good at either, which I've seen before. At least this way you know what to work on and what to use."
"How can I improve my reaction, though?" Yohei asked.
"By getting hit until you stop getting hit," Gōdo said with a grin.
"Is that your answer for everything, senpai!?" Yohei shouted, throwing his arms up – and promptly falling onto his back when he lost his balance.
"Yes!" Gōdo affirmed unashamedly, a huge smile on his face. "And I'm making you taste it firsthand if you don't let me finish!"
Yohei groaned, miming zipping his mouth shut and throwing away the key.
"And of course, there's the more important factor – your personality!" Gōdo exclaimed.
Yohei, who had just managed to sit back up, looked at him doubtfully, one eyebrow raised.
Gōdo chuckled. "I'm serious! But to be clear, I mean your personality in battle. You see, everyone is predisposed to fight in a certain way that's unique to them, even if they use similar styles, weapons, or jutsu. Guy-sensei strikes a perfect balance between attacking ferociously and counterattacking with perfect timing. His apprentice, young Lee, despite being so similar you could mistake him for a clone, still fights differently – preferring to evade and redirect attacks before delivering his own strikes, which may be a consequence of having a Hyūga as a teammate. Me? I either finish things as fast as I can with overwhelming power, or I guide my enemy into making a mistake so I can make one decisive move."
He grinned widely and nudged closer to Yohei. "But you, my dear kōhai-kun? Oh, hoho. You're something else. I've heard from Hayama-sensei how much you love your tricks – outsmarting your opponent so you don't have to fight at all. But when that gets stripped away? Sure, you start out analytical and conservative, trying to understand your enemy and build a game plan. The instant you commit, though? You go all in. I'm not gonna lie, I like it. It makes my heart pump watching you go crazy. But we'll have to temper it a bit, because you're the kind of crazy who, once he decides to kill someone, won't stop until the poor bastard is dead – even if you die too."
"I… think you're laying it on a bit thick, senpai," Yohei said, sounding confused.
"Am I?" Gōdo asked with amusement. "Am I, really? Tell me honestly, kōhai-kun. When you imagine yourself fighting someone you hate, or an enemy you can't see yourself beating… do you even consider retreating?"
"I…" Yohei started to deny it, then stopped when he actually thought about it. "Huh."
Gōdo snorted, then burst out laughing. "Yeah! For a knucklehead like you – even dumber than a guy like me – there's really only one weapon that fits."
Saying that, he pulled a scroll from one of his pockets and tossed it to Yohei with an eager grin. Yohei scrambled to catch it, staring down at the object in his hands with shock on his face.
"Uh… senpai?" he asked hesitantly.
Gōdo only laughed. "Hurry up! Open it!"
Yohei did, undoing the latch and spreading it open, revealing what he recognized as a basic storage seal painted inside. With practiced familiarity, he released its contents – and found himself staring at a thing of beauty.
One meter long, made from a single length of dark wood, its body thickened toward the striking end. Iron studs were set in neat rows along the upper portion. The lower section narrowed into a ribbed grip shaped to fit the hand, ending in a rounded pommel.
In his hands, Yohei was holding a kanabō, and he loved it.
Still…
Yohei shook his head, lips pursed, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the weapon as he tried to refuse the gift. "I can't take thi–"
He was cut off by the re-formed stone staff landing lightly on his shoulder.
His eyes went wide. He swallowed dryly as he looked up at Gōdo, who was staring down at him with half-lidded eyes, brows furrowed, upper lip curled in displeasure while the corners of his mouth pulled down. Red chakra coated his body, and Yohei could swear its oppressive weight was starting to press down on him.
"Huuuuh?" Gōdo asked indignantly, tapping the staff against Yohei's shoulder. "What did you say, punk?"
Yohei closed his eyes for a moment, took a breath, then smiled placidly, staring off emptily as he hugged his head-bashing implement of war and bowed deeply. "Thank you for your kind gift, senpai."
"Aw, you're welcome, kōhai-kun!" Gōdo said bashfully, snapping back to normal as the staff dissolved and Yohei felt a new weight settle in his chest. "Now pick yourself up! Let's give it a try!"
"But I can't even stand up!" Yohei complained – even as he did exactly that, using the kanabō for support as he hauled himself upright.
"That's quitter talk! Come on, give me a hundred swings, or I'll take two hundred swings at you!"
"THAT'S NOT HOW IT GOES!"
-~=~-
[鋸包丁 – Nokogiri Bōchō – Saw Cleaver]
|E-Rank Weapon|
This is the tool of a hunter. This weapon is made out of chakra steel, and it can transform into a long cleaver or a serrated saw depending on your needs. In addition, the bandages covering it are inscribed with fūinjutsu seals that somehow make it stronger the more beastlike the one hit by it is.
-~=~-
February 24th –
Yohei took in a deep breath.
He was once more at the training ground, but instead of being covered in dirt, he was wet – water droplets sliding over his skin as he stood dressed only in baggy shorts.
Today was Ninjutsu training, and as promised, Hayama still hadn't taught them the Body Flicker Technique, waiting until all three of them had learned Water Walking.
…which Yohei had just done.
The weight of the Chaos Scroll against his chest brought a smile to his face, even as he did his best to mold as much chakra as he could, turquoise light suffusing his skin.
Despite having gotten the technique down, Hayama said he would only teach him the jutsu once the other two managed it as well. Not really out of fairness – since such a thing wasn't much of a consideration in the shinobi world – but because the reason Yohei had managed it at all was that he had dumped so much chakra through his feet that he was practically floating on the water, with balance doing most of the work of keeping him upright.
This was, as one might imagine, wildly inefficient, so Hayama had told him he could use the time until Ren and Souma got it down to practice and refine it, improving his control. As much as Yohei wanted to learn the ninja version of Flash Step, that did sound like a good idea.
But that was for another day.
Right now, they had been given time to rest and recover, and were about to begin the second phase of the day's training: Lightning Release for Souma, his family's Hiden for Ren, and Yang Release for Yohei.
Except instead of minding their own business, the rest of his team was standing around him, watching intently as he did his best impression of a Christmas light.
…He couldn't really blame them. In their place, he would want to watch too.
Having decided he couldn't really store any more chakra, Yohei stopped the Seal of Confrontation and let out a slow exhale.
Ox → Horse → Boar → Tiger → Dragon.
Going through the full series of hand seals to increase the effect and reduce the cost, Yohei began moving part of the Yang chakra he had molded through his body, activating –
Extreme Muscle Assault.
The familiar sensation of cool, energizing power spread through him, the life-enhancing properties of the chakra suffusing his muscles and preparing them for the rush of neutral chakra that followed, empowering them and increasing their size as a result.
He didn't stop there, however, proceeding immediately into a jutsu that had, from his teammates' perspective, only just been created.
Boar → Snake → Ox → Dragon.
Iron Body Transformation.
Yohei had only used this twice before, and he couldn't say he was used to the feeling it brought.
A greater amount of Yang chakra than he had used for Extreme Muscle Assault surged up from his belly into his arms, spilling out through the tenketsu in his hands and beginning the transformation from the center of his palms, spreading outward across his body.
Without any conscious control on his part, a constricting sensation took hold as the Yang chakra hyper-compacted his epidermis, reducing the space between the cells that composed it. Visibly, it was as if his skin were being sucked inward, tightening and sharpening the outline of his muscles even as it gained a smooth, polished texture.
At the same time, the structure of the keratin in his body shifted toward a crystalline configuration, changing his nails, hair, and the outer layer of his skin. This effect spread alongside the first, giving Yohei's body a dark metallic sheen, as though he were a bronze construct rather than a human being.
Once that was done, the Yang chakra divided: part of it remained to maintain the already enacted effects of the jutsu, while the rest sank deeper back into his body for the final stage – thickening and hardening the fascia, the connective tissue that enveloped muscles and organs, turning it into a body-wide shock absorbent.
And Yohei still wasn't done.
Tiger → Horse → Boar → Ram → Rat → Snake.
Needle Jizō.
Rat → Dog → Monkey → Tiger.
Hardened Blade Claw.
Two more partitions of his Yang chakra were guided into his nails and his hair, slowly and somewhat painfully lengthening them. His nails reformed into a more appropriate shape as they turned into claws, splitting skin along the way, while his hair hardened even further as it straightened and thickened, individual strands turning into rigid needles.
He took another breath and finally opened his eyes, looking down at his hands.
He couldn't recognize himself.
Skin the color of burnished bronze. Black, fearsome claws extending from fingers that were almost twice as thick as before. The muscles of his arms shifted and twitched with every movement, the patterns of their fibers standing out starkly beneath the inhuman skin.
It was grotesque. Exaggerated. He looked like something straight out of Baki or Kengan Ashura.
Like a monster.
It was amazing.
Slowly, still marveling at his changed form, Yohei settled into a basic Strong Fist stance almost without thinking and threw a simple punch with all his strength.
Whoooomp.
He couldn't help the wide grin that split his face at the brief roar of displaced air that ruffled his hair in the wake of his strike.
Iron Body strengthens my flesh, and that compounds into letting me push Extreme Muscle Assault further without inflating my muscles even more, he thought giddily. Passive multipliers for the win! That's why Sven was my favorite DOTA 2 champion!
"You're looking really stupid right now," Ren said teasingly, reminding Yohei that he had an audience.
"Shut up," Yohei replied with a grin, blinking in surprise when his voice came out deeper and more guttural. "Huh."
He turned to look at the others, only to notice that Souma had moved closer at some point. The boy was staring at him with wide, starry eyes and an eager smile. In his hands, he was holding Yohei's kanabō, the one Gōdo had given him.
Yohei gave him a look with a raised eyebrow, though the corner of his mouth twitched at Souma's infectious excitement.
"You look like an oni," Souma said simply, nudging the kanabō toward him.
Amused, Yohei finally understood what he wanted. He took the club and struck a pose – legs spread, one clawed hand thrust forward, the other raising the weapon overhead – a snarl on his face as he let out a scream.
"Raaaaargh!"
"Ohhh!" Souma cheered, clapping enthusiastically.
Ren let out a loud snort. "Like I said, you look stupid."
Yohei pointed at him. "Like I said, shut up."
Then he shifted his hand, hooking a thumb toward his own chest. "I look awesome."
"You look like you're exerting yourself," Hayama said critically, eyes tracking the poorly controlled chakra constantly bleeding off Yohei's body and the way his breathing was already deepening. "How does it feel?"
"Like I could do anything," Yohei answered honestly, looking down at his hand as he clenched it into a fist, a sound like twisting leather echoing softly. "Like there's no weight holding me down. Like my whole life I was moving through water and only now I'm walking on air. I didn't even know I could be so strong. One technique is feeding into the other, and the amount of Yang chakra running through my body is definitely having an effect."
Hayama hummed. "Gōdo said something similar to me when he first learned to release the First Gate. I'm sure it must be a rush, but try to focus. How long do you think you can keep this up?"
Yohei chuckled, his metallic hands running through the sea of black needles that his hair had become.
"I doubt I could last more than six minutes like this. Not without dismissing one or two of the jutsu. And I'm afraid that if I do that, the whole thing is going to come crashing down," he admitted. "Honestly, I have no idea how I'm even keeping four jutsu active at the same time."
'Probably an effect of the Chaos Scroll,' Yohei thought, then scoffed. 'Actually, scratch that – it's definitely because of the Chaos Scroll. Iron Body Transformation is a hundred times more complex than Needle Jizō, and it's still easier to keep running.'
"Must be your Yang affinity," Hayama guessed musingly – wrongly, as it happened. "You definitely don't have the control for something like this with normal jutsu."
"Yeah, I don't think I could even use the Transformation Technique right now," Yohei said, letting out a laugh that sounded like grinding gravel.
And that's without even trying to add Thousand Sound Perception or the Four-Arms Technique.
"What are you going to call it?" Ren asked, circling him with a critical look. He rapped his knuckles against Yohei's head, producing a dull metallic clank that made Yohei smirk.
Yohei let out a thoughtful hum. "Let's call it… Warframe (戦体)."
"Task Force (戦隊)?" Ren asked, brows furrowing.
"No – Warframe. As in, Combat Body," Yohei explained, sketching the kanji in the air.
Ren nodded in understanding, then glared at him. "How can you be so good at grammar and have such shitty calligraphy!? You'd have learned how to make basic seals three times over if you could write half as well as you can read!"
"It's such a pitiful thing for a teacher to blame the students for their own failings," Yohei said, shaking his head and fixing Ren with a look of faux disappointment.
"Ohhh, so I'm the problem," Ren replied dryly, pulling senbon from inside his shirt – longer ones than usual, nearly the length from the tip of Yohei's middle finger to the end of his forearm. "Say, sensei, since Dumbass here is going to be useless in a few minutes, we should take the chance to test what this 'Warframe' of his can do, right?"
"Me first!" Souma blurted out with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, louder than Yohei had ever heard him. He had already drawn his sword and dropped into a ready stance, eyes locked on Yohei with a wide smile.
Yohei glanced at Hayama, who watched the three of them with amused eyes before letting out an exasperated sigh. "I was planning something a bit more… methodical. But I suppose there's no rush. Go ahead – bash each other to your hearts' content."
He had barely finished speaking before Souma exploded forward, his sword flashing toward Yohei's chest.
Unable to keep up with his teammate's speed, Yohei could only watch as the blade touched his skin –
Schiiiiing.
– and slid harmlessly across it, a sound not unlike metal scraping against metal ringing through the clearing. They both stared at it: one in shock, the other in pure glee.
It was enough time for Yohei to react.
Afraid he wouldn't be able to control his strength, Yohei didn't punch as much as he pushed Souma away from him, only to regret it a split second later when he realized he had lost the chance to grapple the frustratingly quick and slippery boy.
It wasn't much of a loss, though.
Because that push was enough to send his white-haired teammate flying – over the tallest trees and deep into the treeline, laughing all the way even as he vanished from sight.
Yohei stared in that direction with wide eyes for a moment, then traded a look with an equally stunned Ren, who quietly slipped his senbon back into his clothes.
"You know what?" Ren said, forcing a casual tone. "Methodical sounds good."
Yohei nodded in agreement.
-~=~-
[実用読解手引書 – Jitsuyō Dokkai Tebiki-sho – Practical Reading Comprehension Handbook]
|D-Rank Manual|
This manual teaches effective reading techniques. It explains methods for maintaining focus, identifying key information, and understanding structure in written materials such as manuals and scrolls. Proper use of these methods allows for faster reading and improved comprehension.
-~=~-
February 27th -
"So, this is the place," Hayama said.
He and Yohei were standing just outside Mugetsu's lair, a place Yohei had grown very familiar with over the past month.
He'd been coming every Sunday to keep Mugetsu and Kara company, as well as to go on hunting sprees against the chakra-beast population – both to try to trigger the Chaos Scroll again and to feed their spiritual energy to his little shadow.
Looking back on it, he had to admit both goals had been a resounding success.
[角生成の術 – Tsuno Seisei no Jutsu – Horn Creation Technique]
|E-Rank Jutsu|
This jutsu allows you to grow sturdy, pointed horns on your head that can be reinforced and regrown with chakra.
[チャクラ強調の術 – Chakura Kyōchō no Jutsu – Chakra Highlight Technique]
|E-Rank Jutsu|
This jutsu allows you to mark objects by covering them with your chakra through physical contact. Once an object is marked, you can see its outline through any obstacles or obstructions. This technique has a base range of one kilometer, increasing with the amount of chakra invested.
After hunting down thirty-seven beasts, he'd triggered the Scroll twice – once at ten, and again at thirty-five. He suspected the next threshold would be eighty-five. Or maybe it would just stop being "impressive" and all he'd get would be more food for his girl.
Either way, the rewards so far had been good.
One was yet another addition to his Warframe – something Souma was definitely going to gush about – and the other was basically a budget version of Eagle Vision from Assassin's Creed, which Yohei already knew he'd abuse shamelessly.
"Yep," Yohei replied, giving his sensei a crooked smile. "Did you bring the bribe?"
"That I did," Hayama said with a chuckle. He pulled a scroll from his flak jacket, unfurled it, and activated it. With a puff of smoke, three rather large clay pots appeared in front of him. "You sure that's enough to keep her from attacking a stranger?"
"Pretty sure, yeah," Yohei said with a grin. "Besides, I told her I'd be bringing someone today."
Hayama nodded, trusting his student. "In that case, let's head inside. I've been eager to meet her for weeks now."
Yohei just shook his head, chuckling.
"No need. She's already here." He pointed toward a darker corner of the cave. "Girl, you really have to stop trying to spook people."
What had looked like part of the cave wall shifted – dark fur sliding out of the shadows as two pairs of red eyes opened to stare at them.
Mugetsu huffed and rose from her hiding place, padding toward them.
Hayama's eyes widened, a smile spreading across his face as he took in the massive, monstrous wolf.
Mugetsu looked back at him as she circled Yohei, enjoying the pat on her fur, before stopping in front of him and placing herself squarely between the two humans.
Yohei cooed, snickering. "Aww, she's trying to protect me! Isn't she adorable?"
Hayama shot him a dry look. "Adorable is certainly… a word. Personally, I'd go with magnificent."
Mugetsu tilted her head.
Yohei laughed in triumph. "Yes! I knew ever since you showed us the Chakurami that you were one of my people! Mugetsu is the best, isn't she? Look at her – she's so cool!"
He hopped up, landing on the wolf's back. She barely reacted to his weight, only shifting slightly so that Yohei remained hidden behind her bulk, her head angling so her fangs were lined up with Hayama.
"Relax, girl~" Yohei said, scratching her thick mane. "That's Hayama – Ha-ya-ma. He's my sensei, okay? You can trust him."
Mugetsu let out a skeptical huff, staring at the man, who met her gaze with a calm, easy smile, doing his best to look as non-threatening as possible.
Slowly, she stepped forward. Even with her massive fangs close enough to his throat to make Yohei nervous, Hayama didn't flinch, letting her sniff him for a few seconds –
– until her attention snapped to the clay pots.
The instant she recognized them, she dropped onto her haunches.
"Woah!" Yohei yelped, clutching her fur to keep from sliding off. Then he saw why and burst out laughing. "Open them up, sensei. This lazy ass prefers being served."
"Such a lady," Hayama said dryly, extending two fingers coated in Wind Chakra to neatly slice the lids off the pots.
The "lady" didn't hesitate for a second, diving in as Yohei jumped off to avoid being caught in the carnage.
Moments later, she finished with a satisfied rumble, most of the tension draining from her massive frame. She padded back to Hayama, sniffed him once more – and then licked his entire head.
Hayama laughed, wiping the surprisingly small amount of drool from his face.
Mugetsu turned to Yohei. He sighed, already knowing what was coming, just in time for her to casually shove him onto his back and plop down on top of him.
"Does she always do this?" Hayama asked, amused.
"Yep," Yohei said, his voice a little strained under her weight. "Feel free to pet her, though. She's not going to attack you anymore."
Hayama did just that, stepping closer and running a hand through Mugetsu's fur. The massive wolf didn't even twitch.
"It's coarse enough to stop a blade," Hayama murmured thoughtfully, threading his fingers deeper. "And her hide is even tougher."
"I've never seen her get hurt even once," Yohei added.
Hayama hummed.
"Back then, you talked about getting something like the monster boar from the test as a summon," he recalled. "But I think you found something even better here. I haven't seen her fight, but my instincts are telling me she's stronger than most of the creatures in the Forest of Death. I have no idea how she went unnoticed for so long."
He let out an amused huff. "Your luck really is something else."
"That it is," Yohei agreed quietly – though for very different reasons.
They sat in silence for a moment before Hayama spoke again.
"Have you signed the contract yet?"
Yohei blinked, then smiled as he shifted, pushing Mugetsu's weight off his legs and standing up. She let out a protesting huff.
"Nope. I was waiting to do it with you around. It just felt right, y'know?"
Hayama gave him a touched, grateful look. "Well then, no reason to wait. Do you remember how it works?"
Yohei nodded confidently, pulling the scroll Hana Inuzuka had given him from his pack and unrolling it on the ground. White columns ran along its length, bordered by unfamiliar sealing scripts. At the end, a circular space sat empty.
"Hey, girl," Yohei called. Mugetsu lifted her head toward him. "Remember what we talked about? Can you do it now?"
Casually, she opened her mouth, her black tongue sliding out as she bit it just enough for blood to bead. Then she licked the sole of her paw and pressed it against the empty circle on the scroll.
The surrounding seals flowed toward the mark, the red imprint darkening into black as the ink spread and settled.
"Thanks, girl," Yohei said with a smile, scratching her head. He then bit his own thumb, pressed it against his fingers, and repeated the process he had gone through with Kara a month earlier, signing his name into the first column.
Once again, the seals crawled across the page, turning his blood into black ink before locking into place.
Yohei stared at it, smiling – until he felt a weight on his head. He looked up to see Hayama grinning down at him.
"You really did it," Hayama said, openly delighted.
Yohei thought he should feel happy about this. But knowing the whole scene had been carefully staged to deceive the man looking at him with such pride left the moment with a bitter edge.
He forced a smile anyway.
"Have you decided where you're going to keep her?"
"Eh?"
"Well, now that she's contracted, she can't stay in the forest anymore."
"…fuck."
-~=~-
February 27th –
Creeeak.
The front door opening pulled Hana's attention away from the mountain of paperwork she had been buried under for the past three hours.
Ever since she had chosen the path of a med-nin, her mother had taken the opportunity to slowly but surely dump almost all of the clan's administrative work onto her shoulders.
She might have been able to tolerate it – barely – if Tsume had been using her newfound free time for something actually useful, like whipping Kiba into shape. Instead, she was spending it dragging the other clan heads out for drinks and probably hunting for a new… victim. That was to say, a new lover.
Still, she hadn't forced Hana into the job outright. Instead, she relied on a relentless barrage of unsubtle hints, pointed comments, and judicious applications of puppy eyes.
For someone usually so feral and violent, Tsume Inuzuka was disturbingly good at looking pitiful, especially when framed by towering stacks of paperwork.
Hana sighed. Just because she had agreed to help didn't mean she enjoyed it – so the interruption was more than welcome.
Her mood lifted even more when she saw who had walked in.
Hayama, always a pleasant sight. And beside him, one of his newest brats – the same one he had brought here last time.
'Then today must be…'
Her eyes flicked to the calendar on her desk, and sure enough, it read February 28th.
'Which makes today the last day of the bet.'
A grin crept across her face as she took a better look at them.
Hayama wasn't even bothering to hide his amusement, his eyes darting between her and his student with obvious glee.
The boy – Yohei – looked so miserable she almost felt bad for him. Almost. His shoulders were hunched, head bowed, lips pressed together, a faint wet sheen clinging to his eyes. His hands were clenched tight around the straps of his backpack, and for some reason he had a fūma shuriken strapped at his waist, right next to what looked suspiciously like a bingo book in his pocket – though she didn't dwell on it.
"Well, well, well," Hana said with a teasing lilt, glancing at Hayama to make sure it was fair game. She took his choked chuckle as permission. "Look who we have here. The beastmaster himself."
She leaned back in her chair, grinning. "So? How did your little adventure go? How many Chakra Beasts did you tame?"
Yohei stayed silent, the moisture in his eyes thickening.
Looking at him like this, she could almost understand her mother's taste. He looked just like a kicked puppy, and the urge to scoop him up and take him home was alarmingly strong.
The thought made her chuckle. "Aw, don't cry. The work will be rough, and the pups will definitely knock you around, but I'm sure you'll have plenty of fun between being dragged all over the place on walks, getting soaked during bath time, and dealing with the stench after cleaning up the feces of dozens of dogs-"
Oops. He looked like he was about to break.
"But who knows!" she continued brightly. "Maybe you'll bond with one of them, and then you'll learn why ninken are the objectively superior ninja compa–"
"Just one…"
His quiet voice made her stop mid-ramble.
Hana blinked, her enhanced hearing confirming that she had heard him perfectly – but the meaning of the words lagged behind.
"I'm sorry, what?"
All at once, his gloomy expression melted into smugness, the fake crocodile tears vanishing without a trace.
"I said: just one." He repeated it with a shit-eating grin.
"What."
Hayama finally lost it and burst out laughing right in her face.
Hana blinked – and then it clicked.
She slammed both fists into the counter and shot to her feet so fast her chair went flying, the crash making the dogs yelp and setting the clinic ringing with barking.
It still wasn't louder than her shout.
"WHAT!?"
-~=~-
A few minutes after their little prank, Hana Inuzuka had dragged both Yohei and Hayama off to what he assumed was a private training area of the Inuzuka compound. It was surrounded by tall walls, all of them bearing the scars of constant repairs, and the ground itself was rough and uneven, crisscrossed by large, overlapping spiral gouges.
'Probably from training Fang Over Fang,' Yohei thought as he walked in.
Trailing after them were Hana's partners: three savage-looking huskies with serious expressions that Yohei had to physically restrain himself from petting.
"Alright, here we are," Hana said, then turned toward his sensei with a sharp frown. "Now, Hayama-san, I've got nothing but respect and admiration for you, but if this is a joke I'll–"
Yohei cut her off.
Boar → Dog → Bird → Monkey → Ram.
"Summoning Jutsu: Mugetsu!"
A significant chunk of Yohei's chakra vanished as a white cloud swallowed him with a puff. At the same time, a wave of vertigo hit as space itself seemed to lurch, and a heartbeat later he found himself standing several meters in the air above the head of his not-so-little girl.
Mugetsu's upper pair of eyes immediately lifted to him, and she let out a small, happy sound when she recognized him.
"Hey, girl," he said brightly, running a hand over the leathery surface of her forehead.
She closed her eyes in contentment – only to snap them open a moment later. With a sharp jerk of her head, she flung a yelping Yohei onto her back as her body tensed, her gaze locking warily onto the people… and more importantly, the dogs nearby.
Once Yohei managed to regain his balance, he scrambled to see what was going on – and understood.
For a moment, he worried it might go wrong. That the ninken would react badly to the massive predator that had appeared out of nowhere. That Mugetsu would turn violent at the sight of other canines.
He really shouldn't have.
Ninken weren't normal dogs. They could use chakra, yes – but more importantly, their intelligence matched that of humans, even if most of them couldn't speak.
Aside from looking at her with expressions he could vaguely read as ranging from curiosity to amusement, none of them reacted at all to her sudden appearance.
And Mugetsu – based on what he'd seen in his days with her and Kara – wasn't aggressive toward wolves.
She just… avoided them.
"Oh my… would you look at that, aren't you just the most beautiful girl?"
Hana's quietly amazed voice pulled Yohei out of his thoughts as she stepped closer.
Seeing her approach – and Mugetsu's fur beginning to bristle, a low growl building in her chest – Yohei hurried to warn her.
"Wait! Mugetsu doesn't like it when people who haven't fed her get close!"
Hana shot him an amused look, one eyebrow lifting, and kept walking anyway.
Mugetsu started snarling, but – surprisingly – didn't move, even as Hana came within arm's reach. She stiffened when the woman began running her hands through her fur, but then went completely still, the growl dying away.
"What?" Yohei asked, confused.
Hana chuckled and shifted her hands higher, and Yohei barely had time to glimpse Mugetsu's tongue lolling out before she toppled onto her side, panting happily.
Thankfully, Yohei had jumped clear in time. He stared at the scene with an incredulous, deeply offended look as a gleeful Hana alternated between cooing over his dog – who was now uselessly kicking one leg in the air – and flashing him a shit-eating grin.
"Oh, that's bullshit," he said, indignant. "She almost took my arm off before I gave her food! Why is she acting so docile with you?"
"I'm an Inuzuka," she replied simply and smugly, as if that explained everything.
'…It kind of does, actually,' he admitted to himself.
Still, he huffed, crossing his arms and glowering off to the side. "I call foul."
Hana laughed, the sound bright and musical to Yohei – and he was pretty sure the way he stared at her while she did it looked especially stupid, judging by the sharp grin she shot back at him.
'Thank the Sage that Ren isn't here,' Yohei prayed.
"Well, you won fair and square," Hana said, still sounding a little disbelieving as she looked at Mugetsu. "So I'll keep my end of the deal. Mu-chan here is getting some ninken training, and I'll make sure to teach you how to best coordinate with her. But I also have a proposition for you."
Yohei blinked, surprised, then rolled one hand in a go on gesture, interest lighting his face.
She grinned. "If you actually did your homework and this wasn't just blind luck, then you know how rare stable chakra beasts are. And you can imagine how much rarer it is to find one from a specific species."
Yohei had a feeling he knew where this was going.
"Some of the Inuzuka clan's signature techniques – like the Human–Beast Combination Transformation – are based on stable wolf or dog chakra beasts that we've acquired in the past. We haven't had a chance like that in decades, though. And past attempts have shown that using unstable ones leads to… complications," she finished, lips pursed.
That was not, in fact, where Yohei had expected this to go.
…It did sound interesting, though.
"So… you want to study Mugetsu to try and make jutsu based on her?"
"Basically, yes," Hana said, amusement clear on her face. "Even something as simple as incorporating her second pair of eyes would already be a gain, but with such a divergent physiology as hers, I'm sure there's a lot more that would be worth the effort to study."
"How invasive would it be?" he asked seriously.
"Not at all," she replied, just as serious but reassuring. "It would take more time than normal, but the whole process would be done through medical ninjutsu."
Yohei hummed thoughtfully and glanced at Hayama, who just shrugged with a smile. He huffed, then walked closer to Mugetsu until she looked at him, her tongue still hanging out from all the scritches she was getting.
"What do you think, girl?" he asked, earning an approving look from Hana behind his back.
Mugetsu let out an almost bark-like huff in response – something incredibly uncharacteristic of her – which made Yohei stare at her in surprise before his expression went flat.
She had basically said, 'Whatever she says!'
He looked back at Hana, who seemed just as amused, clearly having understood the oversized pup as well.
"I think she'd agree to anything right now," he said, glancing pointedly at the black magic Hana's hands were working on Mugetsu's fur. That got another laugh out of the woman, which almost made him start smiling like an idiot again before he slapped himself back into business mode. "Alright. What do we get in exchange?"
"What do you want?" Hana asked, smiling with one eyebrow raised.
Yohei narrowed his eyes. "Access to whatever jutsu you create using her as inspiration."
"Done," Hana agreed easily. "As long as you promise not to share it with anyone else without permission from the Inuzuka clan head. Feel free to ask for something else, though. I was already going to share the research results with you anyway, and I don't know how much use you'll get out of something like this. All our jutsu require Yang Release, and that's not something-"
She cut herself off when she saw Yohei suddenly grow, his muscles bulking up to triple their size.
He smiled widely and held out his hands, showing that his nails had turned into claws.
"Well now…" she said in a quiet, thoughtful tone. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" She glanced back at Hayama and gave him a glare without any real heat, as he pretended to find a particular hole in the wall utterly fascinating.
Yohei laughed. "You don't know the half of it. That actually ties into my second request. Can you teach me how to fight with those?" he asked, wiggling his clawed fingers.
Hana hummed. "You know I can't teach you the clan's taijutsu style, right?"
Yohei nodded. "Yeah, I know. I just need some lessons on how to use these effectively. The jutsu I made that creates them is pretty good, but right now they're mostly cosmetic, since none of the martial arts I know use finger strikes."
"The jutsu you made?" Hana asked doubtfully. Yohei just nodded. She looked at Hayama for confirmation, and he let out a soft laugh.
"Yohei is quite talented at Yang Release," he said simply.
She turned back to Yohei, eyes narrowing with interest, then shrugged. "Oh, alright. I guess we can fit in some lessons for that too."
Yohei threw a small punch into the air in celebration as his muscles shrank back to their normal size.
"Yes!" Then he remembered something else, and his eyes widened as he scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Uh – actually, can we get lodging included in the deal? Because I honestly have no fucking idea where I'll keep her."
Hana laughed.
-~=~-
[金粉 – Kinpun – Golden Powder]
|D-Rank Reagent|
This golden powder is created through a specific application of Magnet Release on chakra steel. When spread across a weapon, its durability will be restored and any damage done to it will be repaired, as long as the item is still in one piece. The stronger or more powerful a weapon is, the more powder is required.
[気の護符 – Ki no Gofu – Trinket of Chi ]
|D-Rank Gear|
The remnant artifact left behind by a monk who became stone while trying to turn into a sage. His leftover will was bound to these prayer beads, making it so that holding them and standing still for more than three seconds will cause your physical and spiritual energies to recover faster.
-~=~-
March 8th -
Yohei breathed in.
It was Saturday, and for once he was alone in Training Grounds Twelve, his team nowhere to be seen. But his mind wasn't on that.
Yohei breathed out.
Sitting on a stone in front of the waterfall, he could think of nothing except the flow of the water around him, and the flow of the river inside himself that was his blood.
Yohei breathed in.
There was nothing special about today. He had only come to train because his mother had been called in for an emergency at the hospital, and he knew that if he stayed home alone he'd end up getting stuck in his room studying anyway.
Yohei breathed out.
He didn't know how long he'd been doing this. He hadn't even had the presence of mind to think about it since he had sat down after exhausting himself practicing Water Walking.
Yohei breathed in.
Right now, he couldn't feel the passage of time, the cold of the wind against his skin, or the growing hunger in his stomach.
Yohei breathed out.
What he could feel was his heart, beating so hard and fast it sounded like a drum in his ears. He could feel his blood, charged and potent, racing through his body with a pressure that frightened him. He could feel his chakra, molding itself without any nudge or prompt, being transformed by his state of mind. He could feel his breath – so powerful it felt like he could draw the whole world into his lungs.
Yohei breathed in.
Something shifted.
Something clicked.
The buzzing that always accompanied his breathing exercises rose, without his awareness, to a completely new level.
Sage, he was burning.
His blood was fire, and his breath was like the warmth of the sun.
His body grew so hot that it became wreathed in mist in the cold night air.
He opened his eyes and looked at his hands. They were bathed in the turquoise light of his chakra – but something was different. It didn't flicker like fire. It flowed, like–
'Water,' he thought, somewhat deliriously. 'Water chakra.'
He knew he couldn't stay like this for long. He wasn't at the level where he could fuel himself on nothing but the air he breathed. But in the few moments he had before he collapsed, he had to do something.
He had to let all of this energy flow.
The crashing roar of the waterfall pulled at his attention, and Yohei turned toward it with a wide, joyous grin.
He rose to his feet, the black prayer beads around his neck shifting and clicking softly as they knocked together with the pounding of his chest.
Yohei looked at the waterfall and considered how he was going to do it.
'Strong Fist?' he thought, then shook his head, his body growing more and more feverish. Still, he smiled. 'No. Rather than that, this should be…'
He dashed forward, the force of his leap causing the rock behind him to crack and shatter.
When he reached the base of the waterfall, Yohei let his feet touch the water. The Water Chakra responded instantly, letting him treat the liquid as solid and command it to propel him upward. Just like before, the sheer power of his movement left an explosion behind him – water blasting outward in circular waves as he was launched skyward.
'A bit like the Leaf Rising Wind, but let's call it-'
"Water Breathing – Twelfth Form…"
He kicked into the falling torrent. His chakra spread through the mass of water, and for a heartbeat it was as if motion itself had stopped.
And then –
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!
In blatant defiance of the laws of nature, the river's flow reversed –
"Rising Waterfall!"
– and for a few miraculous moments, water fell upward.