"You followed me here too?" Satoru asked, alerted by Hajime's presence.
"What is he doing here? Should he be here?" Tatsuo whispered to Satoru.
Hajime took his police badge and dropped it on the floor, then kicked the badge towards Satoru. "Without the badge, I'm off duty. I can't arrest you without it." Hajime said, his attempt at de-escalating.
"Does it actually work like that? Is the badge that important?" Dai asked, unsure about what he heard.
"Come with me or let them go somewhere else. The topic is something you wouldn't want them to know about." Hajime said, for some reason is didn't sound like blackmail.
"Don't listen to him. That's how they scam you." Dai said.
Satoru walked to Hajime and they both body flickered away.
---
Hajime took Satoru to the treehouse. Satoru looked around the old worn down wood. He entered the tree house and saw what Hajime wanted to show him.
"It seems like I'm missing some context here." Satoru said looking at the empty bottles and cigarette ash, "Is it a crime scene?"
"Hiten and his friends used this place to hangout. It's not a crime scene."
"Sure. Whatever you say." Satoru side-eyed Hajime suspiciously.
"When was the last time you killed someone?" Hajime asked Satoru who raised an eyebrow.
"Is that what you wanted to talk about? Chunin exams. I won't tell you who, though." Satoru answered, sitting down on the cold wood.
"Almost two months ago. You're one of those freaks aren't you? You must be itching to kill." Hajime looked at Satoru with a hint of disgust.
"I'm leaving then. Bye."
"Can you tell me how you control your urges?" Hajime's voice cracked. Satoru was taken aback and stopped to look at Hajime.
"Why?" Satoru smirked, "Found a freak in your family, have you?"
Hajime's eyes glowed red as he stared at Satoru. His glare left no room for anymore jokes or taunts.
"Tell me and we all go our merry way. I'll leave you alone." Hajime said, getting closer to Satoru. His larger frame made him look more intimidating.
Satoru looked at the alcohol bottle and cigarette ash and thought about something. "SPEAK!" Hajime urged him.
"Alcoholism?" Satoru observed the minor change in Hajime's expression, "As I guessed. Hiten drinks booze and then some. Am I wrong?"
When Satoru didn't hear any reply he continued, "It's not the same. What he has. Addictions work differently."
'Was it a waste to bring him here? Should I have asked someone else?' Hajime thought. "Tell me what you do know... and I'll leave you alone."
"Addictions are coping mechanisms. They're fixable. Just solve whatever it is they are struggling with." Satoru said and left Hajime all alone.
---
'How do I kill Tessai? How should I get him in a position where it will be easy? That guy is a retired shinobi... He won't leave his house so easily— let alone the village.'
Satoru looked at his slightly trembling hands before shoving them in his pockets. He felt his hands become extremely cold while his body felt like it was heating up.
Satoru tried his best to not think about it. His mind didn't obey and always ended up going back thinking about it.
Killing.
'Can you tell me how you control your urges?' Satoru spat on that question. There was no controlling done here. He had a lease on his neck. One wrong move and Mitsuki dies.
"I need to find her. Maybe she can help me." Satoru muttered, looking around Reiko's house. It would be pretty messed up to ask her how to kill her father.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing standing there?" A man asked in an irritated tone. He was a middle-aged man with slight purple accents in his hair. He had a slight resemblance to Reiko.
Satoru at him weirdly before replying, "Why does it concern you? Mind your business, old man?"
Satoru was looking at the man he planned to kill. Tessai Hinanoya.
"Kids like you have no respect for your elders!" Tessai said angrily, walking over to Satoru who had some very reckless ideas popping in his mind.
Tessai walked to where Satoru was who stepped back before saying in an angry tone, "You see that line near the road? Everything on this side of the line is my property! Get off my fucking property!"
Satoru walked out of the property while Tessai kept his eyes on him. 'Why is he so reasonable? Come one, man! Hit me or something, do something bad!'
Satoru looked at Tessai with a smirk, "Fine, happy now?" Satoru's smirk was like that of an obnoxious arrogant kid who always got what he wanted.
"You referred to a girl just now, didn't you? Are you the guy my daughter left her mission for?" His voice carried genuine hate, "Are you Satoru?"
Satoru internally frowned hearing that. Was Tessai also one of the people who believed in that? The voices urged him to antagonist Tessai further because of it.
"In the flesh! Want my autograph? Maybe you could learn a thing from me." Satoru glanced into the house behind Tessai, "I don't see your old lady anywhere... You clearly need some action."
"Y-you... " Tessai's lips quivered with anger, his feet tensed for a lunge, which Satoru saw just in time.
"Scatter!" Satoru threw a smoke bomb into the ground and ran away. Three more clones popped out and ran in other directions.
Satoru laughed as he escaped successfully from Tessai's reach, who stood there fuming for a while before heading back inside.
"I'll kill that Kid for this!" Tessai raged, before starting his drinks for the day.
---
The day got over on a very calm note. Satoru slept like a log knowing he ruined someone's day. He treasured the final moments he had before falling asleep because his training would resume tomorrow.
The person who would train Satoru, Shinichi, on the other hand was sitting beside Mitsuki on the sofa.
"Did you notice the changes within him today?" Shinichi said, his fingers tracing the somewhat faded tattoo on his arm. The tattoo was a mark left on him from his Anbu days.
"Jumpy. A little stubborn." Mitsuki said, her eyes never leaving the pages of her book.
"What do you think it is?"
"He hasn't killed in a while. Could that have started to take his toll on him?" Mitsuki took a second to count the amount of days passed since The chunin exams.
"He should be able to endure a few months without indulging for the first few years. The timespan will reduce over time. By the time he is our age, he will have to kill weekly or he'll go insane." Shinichi said in a grave tone, not liking the words that came from his mouth.
"And then?" Mitsuki asked, looking at Shinichi with an unreadable expression.
"We made sure to not let anyone live long to find out. Lord Tobirama had placed strict rules about this. Develop people like these to perform the actions that are required but difficult for the conscience.
Once they go too far, put them down before they hurt innocents." Shinichi said, remembering the words of Lord Second himself. Shinichi was a fresh recruit back then.
Lord Tobirama had assembled all the recruits and made sure that this fact stayed in their minds. Keep an eye on your teammates. You might need to kill them one day.
The people Lord Tobirama talked about, they knew it too that they were dangerous and had accepted their deaths as necessary.
Shinichi wasn't sure Satoru would accept it, but he knew that he might not have the strength to kill his student.
---
[Three weeks till the suspension lifts]
Satoru weaved handseals for a windstyle jutsu, air around him began compressing into a sphere around him. Volume of the sphere remained the same while it's pressure began increasing at a steady rate.
Satoru compressed the ball further and kept it at his fingertips ready to shoot it out like a bullet.
"Release!" Shinichi ordered.
Satoru launched the ball at a tree instantly piercing and destroying. The ball then exploded, decompressing at a rate that caused the air around the area to cool down.
The bonfire suddenly dimmed in intensity from the lack of air before going back to burning like normal.
"You have officially learnt this jutsu. You can still improve more with this jutsu if you want." Shinichi said, picking up a bottle containing something that wasn't visible.
Satoru took the bottle and drank from it. He made a disgusted expression but emptied the bottle. "Next?"
"That lightning jutsu of yours..." Shinichi thought for a second, "The one where you accumulate and release a burst of lightning."
"Hollow purple?"
"Yes, that. What a weird name..." Shinichi said the last part mostly to himself.
"What about it?" Satoru asked curiously, he took Arashi-ken out just in case he had to perform it.
"Explain how you perform that crude jutsu... and why do you need the sword?" Shinichi asked looking at Satoru use his sword.
"Remember the lightning step jutsu? It's based on the lightning arrow part of it." Satoru charged up electricity within himself before pulling everything to his fingertips.
"When I overflow it with lightning chakra, it turns purple in colour and more wilder. I need the sword to store the chakra so I don't fry myself accidentally."
Shinichi observed the burst of lightning in front of him and thought of something.
"That jutsu might strain your chakra reserves if you are not careful. I'm assuming that using a lot of chakra is one of the requirements for using it." Shinichi said, making a weaker imitation of the Hollow purple with much less chakra.
His imitation wasn't as much of a wild and aoe attack as Satoru's was. "Your assumption is accurate. That is also why I don't even try to use this jutsu when I'm low on chakra."
Shinichi remembered that day near the forest or death when he fought Naka. He used this jutsu on Shinichi as well. It failed spectacularly against Shinichi's fire style even though Shinichi used less chakra.
"This jutsu is horrible for jutsu clashes and Its cost is too high. It's just a glorified Shotgun." Shinichi said, his honest evaluation stabbed Satoru in the heart.
'Wait! How does he know what a shotgun is?' Satoru thought before asking, "Shotgun?"
"You don't know what that is? It's a gunpowder based weapon that shoots metal balls in a general direction. It's very weak, even a genin can take a hit to the face and come out unscathed."
"And it's still known among Shinobi? If it's so weak?" Satoru asked.
"There is a certain country filled with criminals that use it. Chakra is outlawed there, so people use guns a lot. Enough that whenever they talk about guns, they think about that country."
"How does this connect to my jutsu?" Satoru asked Shinichi who again stopped to think about something before replying.
"Do you think... You could maybe apply shape transformation to the jutsu and use it like a sword?" Shinichi looked at Satoru, "Or a beam?"
"I don't know." Satoru said, he had never tried it before but was somewhat confident that he could do it.
"Then we find out. If we do then you will have a high B rank jutsu in your arsenal." Shinichi said.
---