The training camp came to life last month.
It's no longer just about land, posts, and mannequins.
He breathed.
Laugh.
It bled.
Every morning, after breakfast — when the fog was still thick enough to muffle the sound and the lanterns in the hallways still burned weakly — Daigo, Rokuta, and Nao would gather all the siblings aged four and older.
Twenty-three of us.
Twenty-three grayish-blue bodies in the mud.
The babies stayed behind — Kenji, Yumi, Taro — safe in the nursery with their younger mothers, their soft, distant cries like echoes of another life. But all the others came.
Even four-year-olds.
Even me.
Today's lesson was about tree climbing.
Again.
Daigo stood in the center like a general who never needed to raise his voice. His black ponytail barely moved when he turned. At eleven years old, he already possessed the silent authority of someone who had killed and returned to life.
Around it, an irregular semicircle.
The youngest—aged four and five—looked terrified, their eyes wide and their little hands trembling as they repeatedly made basic hand seals, practicing the hand positions before even touching the tree bark.
The ones in the middle — six, seven — seemed determined, with their jaws clenched and their feet firmly on the ground, as if they were challenging the world to knock them down.
The oldest ones — eight, nine, ten years old — watched hungrily.
I stayed near the back, half-hidden behind one of the thicker posts, watching.
Daigo's voice echoed clearly through the humid air.
"Remember: it's not about strength, but about control. Too much chakra makes the bark peel away. Too little chakra makes you slide down. Find the balance. Feel the tree pulling you inward."
He demonstrated—casually, effortlessly. One step up the trunk. Two. Three. He climbed straight up, at a perfect ninety-degree angle, his ponytail swaying, his tunic rippling slightly in the breeze. At the top, he did a backflip, landing softly on the ground, barely disturbing the mud.
A soft chorus of admiration swept through the younger crowd.
Rokuta grinned, showing all his teeth.
"See? Easy!"
So, without hesitation, he tried to run up the pole, channeled too much chakra, and the bark exploded outward in a shower of splinters. He fell backward with a wet thud, laughing even as mud splashed on his face.
Kenta — five years old, all elbows and knees — was the first to try after that.
He climbed to his position, formed the seals with trembling fingers, pressed his palms against the bark, and took a step—
—and slid back down, landing on his back with a small cry of fright.
Rokuta appeared in an instant, pulling him by the back of his robe like a drowning kitten.
"Again, Kenta! You almost made it! One more step and you would have been taller than me!"
Kenta's lip trembled, but he nodded, wiped his muddy hands on his trousers, and stood up.
Haruto, also five years old, managed to take two steps this time before gravity won. He fell to his knees, mud splashing up to his chest.
Rokuta gave a loud, radiant laugh.
"Two! That's double yesterday's! You're a monster, Haru!"
Haruto smiled radiantly despite the mud on his face.
Toma, four and a half years old, couldn't even lift a foot off the ground; his chakra erupted uncontrollably and left a black handprint on the wood.
He stared at it, his eyes wide.
She didn't appear beside him without making a sound.
"That's good," Nao said softly. "You made the tree react. Now make it obey."
He knelt down, took Toma's small hands in his, and guided them through the seals again—slowly, patiently.
"Feel the flow. Like water. Not fire."
Toma nodded solemnly and tried again.
This time the peel didn't burn.
It simply... trembled.
A slight ripple.
Toma's face lit up like the sunrise.
He didn't even crack the slightest, very rare smile.
"Good."
I observed everything from the shadows.
Twenty-three of us.
Twenty-three brothers and sisters.
Some cried as they fell.
Some laughed when they failed.
Some people help younger children without being asked.
Rokuta chasing Kenta to the finish line — letting the smaller boy win by half a step, and then pretending to be indignant.
Daigo walked slowly beside the six-year-old children, one hand hovering behind them—without touching them, just there—in case they slipped.
Not kneeling in the mud with four-year-olds, guiding their little fingers between the seals until they got it right.
And me…
I felt something warm and intense unfold in my chest.
In every isekai story I've ever read on Earth, the protagonist was always alone.
Abandoned.
Hated.
Or, at best, tolerated reluctantly.
They had to fight for every crumb of affection, every moment of safety, every ally.
I didn't have to go through any of that.
I had twenty-two brothers who would kill for me.
Ten mothers who would die for me.
A father who, even with scars and a limp, still dragged himself to the backyard every day to ensure we grew strong enough to survive what was to come.
I had a family.
A real one.
Confusing. Noisy. Violent. Full of sharp teeth and even sharper training.
But it's real.
And that made the danger seem... different.
Not less.
Just something more personal.
Because now it wasn't just my life that was at risk.
It was theirs.
Each of Kenta's giggles came as he finally managed to climb three steps to the beam.
Each silent "good" that Nao uttered when Haruto managed to maintain his balance for a full four seconds.
Every proud smile on Rokuta's face when little Toma burned his third handprint, but didn't cry.
They were mine to protect.
And I still wasn't strong enough.
The Rasengan haunted my afternoons.
After the group session ended, I slipped away and returned to my private corner, with the bag of balloons still waiting under the awning where I had left them.
I grabbed one.
I filled it out.
I sat cross-legged on the cold stone.
Chakra invoked.
Palm of hand shining.
Rotation.
The water inside began to swirl—faster than yesterday, with more violence.
The balloon stretched.
Diluted.
Protuberante.
Maintained.
Maintained.
Maintained-
—and it ripped at the side seam with a dry snap, the cold seawater splashing onto my chest and face. Again.
I tried twenty-three more times that afternoon.
They all failed in the same way.
The rotation would increase—wild, beautiful, terrifying in its power—and then the containment would fail. The chakra would oscillate for a fraction of a second, lose its perfect sphere, and the latex would give way.
Not because the rotation wasn't strong enough.
Because I couldn't stay in shape.
Outside my body, the chakra was chaos. It wanted to expand, disperse, become mist like the air around me. I forced it to spin into a perfectly compressed sphere, while simultaneously trying to contain that spin long enough to generate the necessary force…
It was like trying to contain a lightning bolt in a paper cup.
I released the last burst balloon and stared at the pile of torn latex and accumulated water.
My hands were trembling — not from exhaustion, but from frustration.
I had more raw chakra than any child my age had a right to have.
I had the blood of both Hoshigaki and Uzumaki running through my veins.
My mind was forty years older than my body.
And yet—
Yet-
I couldn't pop a damn balloon, not even with chakra spinning.
Because Rasengan had nothing to do with power.
It was a matter of control.
Perfect control is inhuman and impossible.
And I didn't have it.
Not yet.
I looked at the cove.
The tide was rising, the waves crashing violently against the rocks below.
The fog was thickening again, making the world soft and gray.
Somewhere deep in the grounds, my brothers were still teaching the younger children how to climb trees.
Somewhere in the village, someone from the council was plotting something.
And there I was — four years old, sitting in a puddle of frustrated dreams, trying to give birth to a technique that could change everything.
I stood up slowly.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
He looked at the water.
"I will protect them," I whispered—from the mist, from the sea, from any gods or demons that might be listening.
"I go."
So I turned around and went back across the rope bridge, my wet sandals clattering against the swaying wood.
A month has passed.
A whole life ahead.
But I would get there.
Because I needed to.
Because they were counting on me — even if they didn't know it yet.
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