…
By the time Hideki finally managed to reach the top of the tree, the sun had already shifted slightly higher in the sky.
His ascent wasn't graceful.
It wasn't clean.
It was, in Murakami's honest assessment, the kind of performance that looked like it was held together purely by stubbornness and refusal to accept failure.
But it worked.
Hideki's foot planted against the highest stretch of bark and, for a brief moment, he froze there as if even he couldn't believe it had actually happened.
"…I did it," he said slowly.
From the ground below, Sora adjusted his glasses.
"You took long enough."
Hideki blinked down at him. "Excuse me?"
Sora's expression remained calm, almost annoyingly so.
"I said," he repeated, "you took long enough."
Hideki pointed at himself. "I just climbed a tree."
"Yes." Sora nodded. "After failing like…fifty times?"
"Yes." Hideki said proudly. "That's normal!"
Sora tilted his head slightly. "It's not." Then, almost casually, he added, "I already recovered all my chakra while you were still at it."
For a second, the entire training ground went quiet.
Hideki stared.
"…You what?"
Sora shrugged slightly. "You were entertaining. It helped pass the time."
Something in Hideki's eye twitched.
"…You watched me suffer."
"I observed your mistakes."
Murakami, who had been sitting under the earth-built shelter nearby, exhaled quietly.
It was always like this.
Give them five minutes of silence and they would naturally evolve into an argument over absolutely nothing.
Hideki dropped down from the tree in a heavy landing, dust rising around his feet.
Murakami stood up and both voices stopped immediately.
Not because he raised his voice.
Not because he moved suddenly.
Just presence.
"…Hideki, you did good." Murakami said flatly, "Rest and recover."
Murakami shifted his gaze to Sora. "You've recovered?"
Sora nodded once. "Yes."
"Good." Murakami nodded, then gestured toward the tree without ceremony. "Then start walking."
Sora exhaled lightly, rolled his shoulders once, and stepped forward.
Chakra gathered beneath his feet again, but this time more carefully regulated than his first attempt.
Then he lifted his first step.
And began to walk.
Murakami watched without a change in expression.
There was no momentum to hide behind now or burst of speed to compensate for instability.
Just sustained control.
And that was exactly what this phase demanded.
Sora had already reached the top earlier. That part was no longer an achievement, it was a baseline.
What Murakami had instructed him to do now was walk, not walk.
Sora moved with controlled gait, each step placed carefully against the bark with a brief pause for stability before continuing. There were no wasted motion or panic corrections, just steady, deliberate regulation of chakra as he ascended.
But Murakami's eyes narrowed slightly.
It wasn't failure he was watching for.
It was effort visibility.
Sora was still thinking about the chakra.
Still treating it like something external he had to constantly negotiate with.
Murakami exhaled softly. "You're still too rigid," he said.
Sora paused mid-step, still attached to the tree. "Rigid?"
"You're controlling every step manually," Murakami replied. "That's not control. That's negotiation."
Sora frowned slightly but didn't respond immediately. Instead, he resumed movement, this time attempting to smooth out the process.
Meanwhile, below, Hideki had finally pushed himself upright again, brushing dust off his shoulders.
"…So he just gets to stroll up and down now?" he muttered.
Murakami didn't look at him. "Yes. It's sequential."
Hideki blinked. "That doesn't even—"
"Your turn again."
Hideki froze. "…Already?"
Murakami finally glanced at him. "It seems you're resting too comfortably to improve."
Hideki clicked his tongue. "That's not even a reason."
"It is if you understand fatigue management." Murakami said. Unlike Sora, Hideki looked like someone who functioned properly under stress.
In that case, before the feeling left him, Murakami intended for him to give walking a try.
Sora, still on the tree, let out a quiet breath as he stabilized his chakra again and continued the controlled ascent.
…
An hour later, the training ground had gone quiet in a different way.
Not peaceful, just emptied of motion.
The tree still stood where it had been, now marked with faint kunai scratches climbing its trunk like a record of repeated failure and gradual correction.
Under the earth-built shelter, Hideki lay flat on his back, chest rising and falling in heavy, uneven pulls as he tried to get his breathing under control.
Sora sat beside him with his knees drawn slightly up, one arm resting loosely over them, his glasses slightly tilted from sweat he hadn't bothered to fix yet.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
They didn't need to as their exhaustion did it for them.
Hideki exhaled sharply. "…My legs feel like they're not mine anymore."
Sora didn't even look at him. "That's because you used them incorrectly for an hour."
He wasn't exactly wrong.
"…That's not comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be."
Murakami stood a short distance away, arms folded as he looked at them without any particular urgency. The training had gone exactly as expected, messy at first, then gradually more stable, then exhausting.
He exhaled, then spoke. "You both did good."
Both boys paused slightly at the word.
Not praise in the emotional sense. Just acknowledgement of their growth.
Murakami continued. "You didn't collapse halfway through. That's an improvement."
Hideki turned his head slightly. "…That's your standard?"
"Yes."
A brief silence followed that answer.
Sora adjusted his glasses slowly, still catching his breath. "So what now?"
Murakami glanced toward the village direction beyond the training ground. "We eat."
Hideki blinked. "…We eat?"
Murakami nodded once. "I'll cover it."
That got Hideki sitting up slightly. "Wait—seriously?"
"Yes."
Sora narrowed his eyes a little. "That's…unexpected."
Murakami didn't respond to that directly. Instead, he added in the same calm tone, "You'll need energy to move comfortably. I'm not carrying either of you back."
That shut down any further argument immediately.
Hideki slowly pushed himself upright with a tired groan. "Okay, now I'm motivated purely by survival."
Sora exhaled lightly, then stood more carefully, brushing dust from his clothes. "Noted."
Murakami turned slightly toward them.
"Once you can move without stiffness, we leave."
Hideki gave a weak thumbs-up while still half-slumped. "Give me…like ten minutes of being alive again."
Sora adjusted his posture, testing his balance before nodding. "Agreed."
Murakami watched them for a moment longer, then looked away toward the tree again. "…This should be enough for this morning," he said quietly, more to himself than them.
Then he waited.
…
Twenty minutes later, the trio found themselves in the familiar restaurant they had visited with Mitsuki before.
The atmosphere inside was warm and quiet in that late-morning lull where breakfast had just ended and lunch hadn't fully begun.
Light chatter drifted from a few occupied tables, mixed with the soft clatter of plates and the faint aroma of freshly cooked food.
Mira-san greeted them the moment they stepped in.
"Oh, you boys again," she said with a gentle smile as she recognized them. "You look like you ran through a battlefield."
Hideki raised his hand weakly. "We kind of did."
Sora adjusted his glasses. "Technically, it was a training exercise."
Mira-san paused, then laughed lightly as if she didn't fully believe either version but had heard enough from shinobi to stop questioning it.
"I'll bring you something filling," she said warmly. "Sit anywhere."
They chose a corner table without much discussion.
Hideki collapsed into his seat like gravity had personally betrayed him. Sora sat more carefully, posture still controlled even in exhaustion. Murakami took his seat last, calm as always, as if the morning hadn't involved any physical exertion at all.
Food arrived quickly, simple but generous portions meant for tired bodies.
For a while, there was only eating.
"…That exercise," Sora said after a moment, breaking the silence.
Hideki paused mid-bite. "If you say 'the tree thing' again I'm going to throw this table at you."
Sora ignored him. "I feel like it wasn't just about chakra control."
Murakami's gaze shifted slightly toward him.
Sora continued, choosing his words carefully. "It felt like…we weren't learning how to climb a tree. We were learning how to stop separating from our own chakra."
Hideki frowned. "That sounds the same thing with extra steps."
"It's not," Sora replied immediately.
Murakami exhaled softly, almost approvingly.
"That's closer," he said.
Both boys looked at him.
Murakami set his chopsticks down for a moment. "Most shinobi treat chakra like a tool they pick up when needed," he said calmly. "Something separate from movement, separate from thought."
He glanced briefly at Hideki. "So they explode in bursts."
Then at Sora. "Or they interrupt themselves trying to perfect every step."
Sora didn't respond immediately. That one landed a little too accurately.
Murakami continued, voice steady but more reflective now. "The exercise wasn't about the tree. It was about forcing you to feel your own instability without anything external to blame."
Hideki leaned back slightly. "…So the tree was just there to make us suffer."
"Correct."
"That was too fast of an answer."
Murakami didn't react. Instead, he looked down at his bowl for a moment before speaking again. "If you cannot maintain control in stillness, you will not maintain it in motion."
Bruce Lee once said something similar, and that man was at the Pinnacle of body control.
A short pause followed that.
Even Hideki didn't interrupt it.
Sora adjusted his glasses slowly. "Then the walking phase…"
"Was to remove momentum," Murakami finished. "Yes."
He picked up his chopsticks again.
"In combat, you don't always get to move how you want. If your chakra depends on movement habits, you become predictable."
Hideki scratched his cheek. "So what, we just…get better at not messing up?"
Murakami looked at him. "Yes."
That simple answer hung in the air for a moment before Mira-san returned briefly with water refills, giving them a polite smile before stepping away again.
Once she was gone, the mood shifted slightly.
Sora glanced between the two of them. "So the real goal wasn't speed or strength…"
"It was stability," Murakami said.
Hideki sighed. "That word is starting to annoy me."
"Good," Murakami replied without hesitation. "It means you're noticing it. The more aware of it you are, the better."
That shut Hideki up for a moment.
They continued eating after that, the conversation fading into smaller fragments.
By the time their plates were cleared, even Hideki looked a little less exhausted.
Mira-san came back with a soft smile. "I hope that helped you recover."
Hideki nodded immediately. "Emotionally, yes. Physically, no."
Sora stood up. "We're grateful for the meal."
Murakami followed after a moment, placing payment on the table without much ceremony.
As they stepped outside, the sunlight felt sharper than before.
Hideki stretched his arms. "Okay… I can move again. Barely."
Sora adjusted his glasses. "Same."
They began walking back toward the training grounds, assuming the day was done.
But Murakami stopped walking.
Both of them noticed immediately and a bad feeling welled inside them.
Hideki took a step back. "...Wh…What?"
Murakami turned slightly toward them.
"…You have both improved since this morning."
Sora narrowed his eyes slightly. "That sounds like a prelude to something unpleasant."
Murakami didn't deny it.
Instead, a faint smile appeared on his face that seemed like a demonic one to the two. "Now I want to see how much."
Hideki groaned instantly. "No. No, that tone is illegal."
Murakami tilted his head slightly, completely ignoring the boy's tantrum. "We're going to spar."
Both boys froze.
"…Against who?" Sora asked, already knowing the answer but refusing to accept it.
Murakami's smile widened just slightly.
"Me."
There was a brief moment of silence before Hideki pointed at him. "That's not sparring. That's bullying."
Murakami ignored him. "You won't hold back," he continued calmly. "And neither will I."
Sora exhaled slowly, already accepting his fate. "This is about applying what we just learned."
"Yes." Murakami's gaze sharpened slightly. "Chakra control in movement. In defense. In attack. In reaction."
He looked between them.
"If you can only do it on a tree, then you haven't learned anything yet."
Hideki swallowed slightly. "…We're still tired."
Murakami nodded once. "I know." Then, after a brief pause. "That's why it will work."
Nothing beats pushing yourself when you're at your limit. He thought inwardly… Yami-taichou taught him that.
The rest of the walk was done in silence, and for the first time that day, neither Hideki nor Sora argued.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
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