Chapter 50: Fuinjutsu part 2
Authors note: Come on guys, give me them stones!!!
[Shikomu POV]
The sun was starting to dip below the horizon, casting a soft orange glow over the camp. Just as I was heading back to prep for tomorrow's training, I saw Naruto jogging toward me with that dumb, happy grin on his face and his wallet practically swinging from his belt.
"I finally got my wartime pay!" he said, waving a stack of crisp yen bills in the air. "Ichiraku's gonna be seeing me real soon."
I blinked.
"Wait—you got paid?"
"Yeah! Hokage's office sent out the delayed incentive packs today. It's about time too. Even Yuki said he got his."
Yuki?
That… made me pause.
Because I hadn't gotten anything.
I didn't say anything to Naruto. Just gave him a lazy nod and walked away as fast as I could without it being suspicious.
Straight to the Financial Processing and Compensation Office—or FPCO as it was officially called, tucked inside a dull corner of the administrative sector of camp.
The door had one of those creaky, old hinges that made it feel like even the wood didn't want to deal with the bureaucracy inside.
I walked in. Waited in line. Then got to the desk of a chūnin with a comically large pair of glasses and a stack of paperwork nearly taller than she was.
"Name?"
"Shikomu."
Tap-tap-tap.
She checked the ledger, squinted, then frowned.
"You weren't issued wartime incentive pay."
"…Why?"
"You're not on the distribution list."
"I fought on the frontlines for over a month."
She looked up at me like I was asking for a favor. "You'll have to speak with a supervising Jōnin or the Commander's office."
I see…
It wasn't a mistake.
It was the village.
The higher-ups were doing it on purpose.
They couldn't stop me from climbing the ranks—but they sure as hell could make me feel it.
Still..go fuck yourself if you think the lack of money can stop me.
Later that night, I sat in the common area where Yuki and Ayumi were taking a short break, sipping warm tea.
"Can I borrow some yen?" I asked bluntly.
Yuki blinked. "Why? You fought Jonins on a regular basis, your pay should have been more than enough."
I didn't tell them much, but I explained to them how I probably pissed off a high ranking member of the village.
Ayumi narrowed her eyes, then shrugged. "Sure. You need it more than I do."
They just handed me what they had without hesitation.
…It wasn't a lot.
But it was enough.
I nodded in thanks and left without a word, heading to the supply tents before they closed for the night.
Ink. Brushes. Paper. Storage scrolls. Some blank chakra parchment.
Everything Jiraiya told me to get—I had now.
So what if the village didn't want to support me?
I'd show them what they missed out on.
Starting tomorrow.
…
The morning mist hadn't even cleared yet when I arrived at the northeast edge of the training grounds.
As promised, Jiraiya was already there—seated on a wide, flat rock, lazily scribbling into a small notebook with a very familiar grin on his face. He glanced up as I approached, eyes sharp despite his slouched posture.
"You're early," he said.
"You said not to waste your time," I replied, setting down my pouch of tools and supplies.
"Good. You'll be surprised how rare that attitude is." He shut his notebook with a snap, tucked it away, and stood up, cracking his knuckles. "Let's get started."
Off to the side, under a tree with branches like crooked arms, Naido-sensei sat in his usual cross-legged pose. Head slightly tilted back, mouth parted just a bit.
Was he meditating?
…Or sleeping?
Honestly, I didn't want to know. Either way, he wasn't getting involved unless someone dropped a meteor.
Jiraiya cleared his throat and tapped a blank scroll in front of him.
"Alright, kid. Here's the real foundation. Most people think fuinjutsu is about drawing pretty spirals and praying it doesn't blow up. Wrong."
He drew a single spiral. Simple, clean. Then traced a line around it.
"Step one: Structure. The seal formula must be precise. These aren't just symbols—they're instructions for chakra to follow. If a single mark is off by a millimeter, it's useless."
He jabbed the middle of the spiral.
"Step two: Chakra infusion. Don't just pour chakra into the seal like a dumb water bottle. You need control. Let it sink into the ink—not just the paper. Blend your chakra into the shape of the seal. Let it flow."
I listened closely, already taking notes in my head.
"And finally, step three: Intention. Seals obey logic, sure, but they respond to purpose. You need to know what your seal is meant to do. Store? Restrain? Explode? Your chakra has to match that intent."
He tapped the scroll again, then pointed at the tools I'd brought.
"Start small. Binding tags. Storage seals. Maybe even a low-level suppression tag if you're feeling bold. Read the second volume of Fuin Fundamentals and cross-reference it with Tome of Chakra Weaving. They're dry reads, but you'll thank me later."
I nodded, absorbing every word.
Then I did what I always did when there weren't enough hours in a day.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu."
Five clones appeared instantly, each grabbing a brush and scroll from the pile beside me. No instructions needed—they knew what to do.
"Atta boy," Jiraiya grinned, folding his arms. "Now that's how you study like a shinobi."
One clone started replicating basic storage tags. Another was trying to reconstruct the flowchart Jiraiya drew in the dirt. The rest split into reading, experimentation, and chakra shaping drills.
And like that…
A full week passed.
Every morning I returned to that same training ground—ink-stained fingers, scrolls curled under my arm, and at least three shadow clones already mid-argument about seal symmetry.
Fuinjutsu wasn't flashy. It wasn't like launching a fireball or summoning a tidal wave.
But it was real. And slowly, it started to make sense.
By the third day, I could craft basic storage seals without them unraveling on contact. By the fifth, my chakra infusion was clean enough to create exploding tags—primitive ones, sure, but they worked.
They were more like oversized firecrackers at my current strength, but in the right hands, that was still dangerous.
I even managed to chain two together once.
It… almost took off my eyebrow.
My chakra control improved as a byproduct. That was the unexpected part. Fuinjutsu demanded so much fine control that I had no choice but to refine my output.
Every stroke of the brush was training my chakra flow in microscopic detail.
I had to match pressure, intention, and timing—and if even one was off, the seal was junk.
Jiraiya wasn't around all the time. He had his own things going on—intel meetings, secretive disappearances, whatever it was the old pervert did when he vanished with a suspicious grin.
But when he did show up, he'd always hover over my scrolls, arms crossed, brow furrowed as he watched my progress.
He didn't say much.
But I caught the subtle twitch of a smirk the last time he inspected one of my chakra suppression tags.
"You're picking this up faster than most chunin-level medics," he muttered, almost like he was annoyed by it.
A compliment disguised as a complaint.
Classic Jiraiya.
And while I hadn't mastered anything remotely advanced yet…
For the first time, I wasn't just a fighter. I was a shinobi learning to write chakra itself.
It was slow and tedious.
But it was mine.
It was the end of the week when Jiraiya handed me a sealed scroll set, a light breeze tugging at the edges of his cloak as he stood above me, arms crossed and slightly amused like always.
"These," he said, passing them to me, "should keep you busy for a while."
I blinked. "You're… done teaching me?"
"For now," he said. "You've got the fundamentals. Fuinjutsu isn't something you rush. Learn from the scrolls, experiment, mess up—just not in a way that'll blow off your arm. When you hit a wall, I'll be around."
He turned and started walking away, pausing briefly over his shoulder.
"Oh—and kid?" he smirked. "You've got a head for this. Use it."
And like that, he was gone.
…
I stood in silence for a moment, scrolls clutched in hand, then sighed softly.
Progress was good. I've grown a lot this week.
But some things still gnawed at me.
Like the money.
I waited until sunset, when the camp started to wind down, and headed toward our usual training ground.
Naido-sensei was exactly where I expected him—leaning against a tree, half-lotus pose, arms crossed, a calm expression on his face that was somewhere between meditation and sleep deprivation.
I stopped a few feet away.
"Sensei," I said plainly.
One eye opened halfway.
"Ah. Shikomu. Enlightenment reach you through scrolls, or did you finally burn something down?"
"…Neither," I replied. "I have a question."
"Go on."
"Why haven't I been paid?"
Naido didn't answer right away. He blinked once, then slowly stood up with a sigh and dusted off his robes.
"They haven't paid you this long?"
I nodded.
He looked genuinely annoyed for the first time in weeks.
After a moment of silence, he turned and walked toward his bag resting at the base of the tree.
Without ceremony, he pulled out two thick stacks of Ryo, turned back, and casually tossed them into my hands.
"Consider it back pay."
I stared at the money, then at him.
"…Is this from you?"
"Yes."
"I didn't ask for—"
"No, you didn't," he interrupted, voice calm. "But you earned it. I told you before… not everyone in the village sees eye to eye."
There was a beat of silence.
He sighed again, a little deeper this time.
"There's an elder who… wasn't thrilled with your conduct during the mission. Thought you were too independent."
I exhaled through my nose and tucked the money into my pouch. It didn't make things right, but it helped.
I also knew, well, kind of knew how the mind of that old man worked.
How the hell was someone supposed to understand people like Danzo and Orochimaru?!
"Thanks," I said after a beat.
Naido sat back down in the shade.
"Don't thank me. Just keep pissing off the right people."
He closed his eyes again. "That's the only way you'll change anything."
And just like that, I was dismissed.
Days bled into each other again as I buried myself deeper into training.
With Jiraiya gone, I did exactly what he told me to: study, experiment, fail—repeat.
By the end of the second week, the intermediate scrolls were worn at the edges, some already ink-stained or charred from early fuinjutsu mishaps.
Storage seals? Easy now.
Suppression tags? Refined.
Exploding tags? Getting stronger.
But I'd reached the final scroll, the one Jiraiya had personally marked.
And tucked into the last page, folded and sealed with his personal stamp, was a single note. Handwritten.
I opened it carefully, expecting some long-winded lesson or maybe a dirty joke.
Instead, it simply read:
[To my dear grand-disciple,
Tell your sensei I'm calling in my chit.
Ask him to teach you the 'Summoning Jutsu'.]
…
I stared at it for a long second.
A grin broke across my face.
Of course he would pull something like this.
I tucked the note into my pouch, stood up, and headed toward our usual training ground—already spotting Naido-sensei in the distance, perched under a crooked tree in that same upside-down position he'd somehow decided was optimal for meditation.
He opened one eye lazily as I approached.
"You look too pleased for someone still alive."
I held up the note and handed it to him.
He squinted at it, reading it upside down, then flipped gracefully to the ground, landing without a sound.
"…So the pervy old man finally used it, huh," he muttered.
"You owe him?" I asked, half amused.
"Oh, more than a few.."
Naido stretched, letting out a soft exhale as he turned to me.
"Alright then, Shikomu. I hope you're ready."
(Total time skip : 2 weeks until now has passed since mc began fuinjutsu training)
...
Authors note:
You can read some chapters ahead if you want to on my p#treon.com/Fat_Cultivator