…
Murakami turned slightly, his gaze still lingering on the dissipating smoke where the last clone had vanished.
His expression remained unchanged, but his thoughts were already dissecting everything that had just happened.
Those clones…
They were not impressive in raw terms.
Barely Genin-level in chakra output and physical strength.
And yet, they had moved like seasoned Jonin.
Not because of power, but because of the experience replicated from the caster of the jutsu.
The clones moved efficiently with no wasted motion whatsoever.
Murakami had observed that they didn't have a personality or emotion so to say.
Kaito-sensei had created them to be the perfect fighting replica of himself.
There was a seamless transition between offense and pressure control as they fought Hideki and Sora.
To the two, that difference was overwhelming because they were still fighting like individuals, and not just individuals, inexperienced individuals.
Murakami exhaled softly, that was why it must have looked effortless for him in their eyes.
It wasn't that he was stronger, It was that he wasn't interacting with them on the same layer of combat awareness.
Experienced as they may be, when faced with the unknown, the outcome remains the same.
And there was something else.
His eyes shifted slightly toward the scorch marks across the field.
The fire clone's attacks.
To them, it might have been pressure, but to him…it had been noise.
Barely worth acknowledging and that was not arrogance.
It was an honest assessment.
He hadn't spent initial period of the fight just watching the three clones mess around with Hideki and Sora.
He had observed and analyzed everything he could pick from them.
The chakra behind those fireballs had been thin, poorly compressed, and lacking sustained structure.
At best, it was a distraction tool, not even a proper threat.
The reason he had walked through it without hesitation wasn't just speed.
A faint wind domain had already been circulating around his body.
It was subtle, almost invisible so to say and not enough to be called a technique in the traditional sense, more like a constant passive layer of chakra flow control.
It redirected heat and deflected pressure that followed the flame.
Murakami lowered his head slightly. "…I see," he murmured. Kaito-sensei was an interesting one.
Then he turned fully toward Hideki and Sora.
Both were still catching their breath, dirty, shaken but more attentive now.
Murakami's gaze settled on them calmly.
"This isn't a strength issue," he said calmly. "It's awareness."
Hideki frowned slightly. "Awareness of what?"
Murakami didn't hesitate.
"Chakra sensing."
"Spatial awareness."
"Timing prediction."
He raised one finger.
"Chakra sensing, you're both still reacting visually instead of reading flow."
A second finger.
"Spatial awareness, you don't control distance. You enter it."
A third.
"Timing prediction, you respond after movement begins, not before it forms."
Sora's expression tightened slightly behind his glasses.
"…That's a lot of things we're supposedly doing wrong."
Before Murakami could respond, Sora added almost immediately, almost reflexively:
"The only ones who can realistically excel in all of that simultaneously are Uchiha with the Sharingan."
He said it like it was a closed argument but Murakami looked at him flatly and unimpressed.
The silence that followed was sharp enough to feel physical.
"…What?"
Murakami exhaled through his nose.
"That is a tool," he said calmly.
Sora frowned slightly. "A tool that fundamentally changes perception—"
"A tool," Murakami repeated, a bit firmer this time.
His gaze stayed locked on Sora.
"Fights are not won by tools."
"They are won by what the user can interpret faster than their opponent can act."
He tilted his head slightly.
"If perception was exclusive to bloodlines, then training would be meaningless, wouldn't it?"
Sora opened his mouth slightly, then closed it again. He couldn't come up with a rebuttal to that.
Murakami continued, voice still firm. "The Sharingan is not awareness, it simply enhances it."
"But this enhancement does not replace understanding."
His tone turned sharp. "You can train all of these without it. The same way someone with it can still fail if they don't understand what they're seeing."
There was a brief moment of silence before Hideki scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "So what, we just… fix all that?"
Murakami looked at him for a moment, then answered simply. "Yes."
There was another moment of silence as the morning wind moved gently through the training ground, carrying the last remnants of smoke away.
Murakami glanced toward the sky briefly.
It was still early and Kaito-sensei had told them they were done for the day.
Anyone would think he meant to rest for the day but not Murakami. They still had the training ground permit on them which means Kaito expected them to still remain here.
Murakami didn't know whether to be impressed by his Kaito's deliberate way of allowing them to make decisions for themselves.
'Or is he testing me?' Murakami thought but shook his head.
It mattered not. Test or not, Murakami wasn't about to let the whole day go to waste when he could use it to improve his teammates' strength.
"…Rest for ten minutes," he said.
Both of them blinked in confusion and looked at each other.
Then he added, already turning slightly back toward the field.
"After that, we continue."
Hideki took a moment to process what he heard, then exhaled slowly and dropped onto the grass. "Ten minutes… feels like mercy for once."
Sora adjusted his glasses and sat down more carefully. "It isn't mercy. It's recovery optimization."
"…Stop trying to make everything sound smart."
Murakami didn't respond.
Despite their banter, Murakami was confident enough that they had both understood what Kaito-sensei intended for them.
He simply stood there quietly, already running through the next series of training in his mind.
He turned slightly and walked toward the edge of the training ground where a tall tree stood near the perimeter.
"…We start again from the basics of chakra awareness," he said.
Hideki echoed. "Basics? We just got tossed around like rag dolls."
"That's exactly why," Murakami replied simply.
Sora adjusted his glasses. "You mean chakra control training?"
Murakami nodded once. Thankful Sora was smart enough to pick up.
He placed one foot onto the tree trunk and with no buildup or visible hand signs, his sole met the bark.
And instead of slipping, his foot stayed firmly planted as if the surface had quietly agreed to hold him.
Then the second step, and his body remained vertical against the tree as he walked upward.
He walked steadily until he was standing several meters above them on the vertical trunk as casually as if it were flat ground.
Hideki stared. "…Right. That's not normal."
Murakami looked down at them.
"The principle is simple," he said. "Chakra is not just for release, it can also be used for adhesion."
He tapped the side of the tree lightly with his foot.
"You push too much, you fall. Too little, you slip."
Sora's eyes narrowed slightly as he observed. "So it's constant regulation."
"Yes."
Murakami shifted his weight slightly and remained perfectly stable on the bark.
"That's the problem with both of you," he continued. "You only use chakra when you cast techniques or enhance movement. You don't maintain control when nothing is happening."
He glanced at Hideki.
"You burn energy in bursts because you try to force momentum instead of building it," he said calmly. "You don't pace your output. You spike it."
Then at Sora.
"You start hand seals while still under threat instead of breaking contact first. Sometimes I don't know if you're overthinking or…underthinking"
Hideki frowned. "That sounds like an insult wrapped in a lesson."
"It is a lesson," Murakami said flatly then turned his foot slightly on the tree and stepped back down, landing softly on the ground.
"No hand seals. No movement tricks. Just control. And control begins with awareness."
"Your chakra is an integral part of who you are," Murakami said, looking between both of them. "Just like the blood that flows through your veins."
"Taijutsu specialists are in tune with their muscles, their bones, their movement. They don't think about striking, they are the strike."
His gaze moved to Sora.
"Genjutsu specialists are in tune with perception. With the mind. With how reality is interpreted, not just what is seen."
Then back to the both of them.
"So a shinobi must also be in tune with their chakra at all times. Not occasionally. Not when forming jutsu. Always."
"Because if you lose awareness of it even for a moment, you're already reacting instead of controlling."
He then turned and tapped the tree. "If you can't even stay attached to a surface properly, you don't have control yet. You're just reacting."
His tone wasn't harsh, just matter-of-fact.
Then, after a brief pause, he added. "Try it."
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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