The walk home from the Senju compound was a study in compartmentalization. Nanami Kento walked with a steady, rhythmic gait, his face a mask of calm composure. Internally, however, his mind was a frantic boardroom meeting, analyzing the risks, liabilities, and potential fallout of having nearly blown off the leg of the First Hokage's son with a condensed ball of spinning chakra.
Asset secured: Uzumaki Scroll, he tallied mentally.
Liability incurred: Senju Daichi knows I am a walking artillery piece.
Mitigation strategy: Maintain the persona of a polite, studious prodigy.
He reached the bakery. The scent of yeast and caramelized sugar acted as a grounding agent, pulling him back from the world of ninja politics to the world of retail.
"I'm home," Nanami called out, sliding the door shut behind him.
His parents were waiting in the living room, sitting on the edge of the sofa like they were waiting for election results.
"Kento!" Haruka leaped up, wringing her hands on her apron. "You're back! You're alive! Did you eat properly? Did you use the correct honorifics? Did Lady Mito look at you with her scary eyes?"
Nanami stepped out of his sandals and aligned them perfectly on the mat. "I am alive, Kaa-san. The lunch was adequate. My manners were impeccable. And Lady Mito's eyes are... discerning, but not malicious."
His father, wiping flour from his forehead, leaned in. "And? What happened? Did they like you?"
Nanami paused. He decided to edit the transcript. There was no need to mention the crater in the garden.
"We had a productive conversation," Nanami said smoothly. "They were impressed by my academic scores. Lady Mito was kind enough to lend me some reading material to further my studies."
He patted his bag gently.
"Reading material!" His father beamed, slapping his knee. "See, Haruka? I told you! Our boy is a scholar! He charmed the Senju with his big brain!"
"Oh, thank goodness," Haruka sighed, collapsing back onto the sofa. "I was so worried you'd spill soup on someone."
"If you will excuse me, I need to capitalize on this momentum. I am going to the training grounds."
"On a Sunday?" His father asked. "Take a break, kiddo!"
"Momentum is a perishable resource, Tou-san. I will be back for dinner."
Nanami went to his room, changed out of his formal "interview" clothes and back into his standard orange shorts and black t-shirt. He grabbed his water bottle, the precious scroll, and vanished out the back door.
Training Ground 4 was empty, as usual. The stumps stood silent witness to his daily grind.
Nanami walked to the center of the clearing and dropped his bag. He took out the scroll—Introduction to Minor Utility Seals: Volume 1—and placed it gently on a flat rock. It wasn't the heavy barrier theory he had hoped for, but basics were the foundation of efficiency.
Then, he took a deep breath.
"Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu."
POOF. POOF. POOF. POOF.
Four clones appeared.
"Roll call," the original Nanami ordered.
"Clone 1," the first said, cracking his neck. "Ready for administrative duties."
"Clone 2," the second sighed. "Ready for manual labor."
"Clone 3," the third stretched. "Ready for pain."
"Clone 4," the fourth just nodded.
"Excellent," Nanami said. "Here is the workflow distribution."
He pointed to Clone 1. "You are the scholar. Sit by the rock. Read the scroll. It deals with minor seals—storage, simple binding, light generation. Deconstruct them. I want to know why every stroke is placed where it is."
Clone 1 picked up the scroll. "Understood. Debugging the code."
Nanami turned to the other three. "You three, and myself, are on Prayer duty."
The clones groaned in unison.
"We know the drill," Clone 2 muttered. "Gratitude. Punching. Netero."
"Here is the logic," the original Nanami explained, assuming the stance. "Physically, you are just chakra. Your muscles do not exist. Therefore, doing push-ups with clones is a waste of resources. However... the neural pathway does transfer. The spiritual alignment does transfer."
He raised his fist.
"Isaac Netero performed ten thousand punches a day. He was forty-six years old. His body was fully developed. I am six. My body cannot sustain that volume yet. We must scale linearly."
"What's the count?" Clone 3 asked.
"One thousand one hundred reps each," Nanami ordered. "That totals five thousand five hundred punches of experience. We are not rushing to ten thousand overnight. We are compounding the gains."
"Five thousand five hundred is still going to hurt," Clone 4 warned.
"Pain is temporary. Survival is permanent. Begin."
They formed a circle. Five Nanamis. Five stances.
"One."
Four fists struck the air simultaneously. The sound was a sharp snap, like a whip cracking.
"Two."
Snap.
"Three."
Snap.
The rhythm was set.
Nanami closed his eyes. He didn't focus on the others. He focused on his own movement.
Hours passed. The sun began to dip toward the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and bloody oranges.
Clone 1 sat by the rock, muttering to himself. "The luminescence radical is inefficient... if I twist the stroke here..."
The punching circle continued.
"One thousand ninety-eight."
Snap.
"One thousand ninety-nine."
Snap.
"One thousand one hundred."
BOOM.
The final punch wasn't just a snap. It was a unison strike of five bodies moving with perfect synchronization. The air pressure in the center of the circle collapsed and exploded outward, kicking up a ring of dust.
Clone 1 rolled up the scroll. "Data ready for upload."
"Dispel," the original ordered.
The clones popped.
Rush.
The sensation hit Nanami like a physical blow to the temple. He fell to his knees, clutching his head. It wasn't just memories of punching; it was the feeling of over five thousand punches instantly wiring themselves into his nervous system. His brain felt like it was being rewired by a heavy-handed electrician.
Every mistake a clone made was instantly corrected by the collective. Every perfect strike echoed through four minds.
Simultaneously, the logic of thirty different minor seals flooded his mind.
Nanami stayed on his knees for a full minute, breathing heavily.
"Ow," he whispered.
He slowly stood up. He shook out his arms.
He threw a punch.
It was fast. It was terrifyingly fast. It felt... lighter. Cleaner. As if his arm moved before his brain even issued the command.
"Three point eight seconds," Nanami estimated. "Getting closer."
He picked up the scroll and his bag. His head was throbbing, but a small smile played on his lips.
"Compound interest," Nanami muttered, walking home. "It works."
The week passed in a blur of repetition.
Monday through Saturday followed a strict schedule. By Wednesday, Nanami realized that Netero's "Prayer" was not just a physical motion. It was a state of mind. The clones accelerated the process, allowing him to slip into that state of zero thought faster each day.
And the scroll?
The clones had dissected it. They had torn the minor seals apart metaphorically. Nanami knew the Introduction to Minor Utility Seals better than the author probably did.
Sunday arrived.
Nanami stood before the gates of the Senju compound again. He wore the same white shirt, freshly laundered. He carried the scroll.
He walked to the main house. A servant guided him to the room.
Mito Uzumaki was alone.
She sat at the low table, a pot of tea steaming before her. The room was silent.
"Welcome back, Kento-kun," she said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes were sharp.
"Good afternoon, Mito-sama," Nanami bowed and sat.
"One week," she noted. "Did you finish the reading?"
"I did."
"It was a scroll of minor seals," Mito stated. "Nothing dangerous. Nothing flashy. Simple utility. What did you learn?"
"I learned that even minor things can be optimized," Nanami replied, placing the scroll on the table.
Mito smiled, a small, dangerous thing. "Show me. There is a 'Sound Dampening' seal in Chapter 4. It creates a small bubble of quiet for reading. Draw it."
Nanami reached into his pouch and pulled out a brush and a tag.
He moved quickly. He didn't just copy the seal from the book. He modified it.
The book uses a static absorption method, Nanami thought, his brush flying. It absorbs sound waves until the chakra runs out. Inefficient. If I invert the frequency...
He drew the modified seal. He slapped the tag onto the table.
"Hah!"
He channeled chakra.
Silence.
It wasn't just quiet. It was absolute. The sound of the tea kettle bubbling vanished. The sound of the wind outside vanished. The air felt heavy, completely void of vibration.
Mito tapped her fingernail on the table. No sound. She clapped her hands. No sound.
She waved her hand, dispelling the chakra flow to the tag. Sound rushed back into the room—the bubbling kettle, the rustling trees.
"That wasn't absorption," Mito noted, looking at him with keen interest. "The standard seal absorbs sound. You... canceled it."
"Active noise cancellation," Nanami explained, his corporate presentation voice taking over. "Instead of absorbing the wave, I wrote the seal to detect the incoming frequency and emit an identical wave in the opposite phase. They cancel each other out. It requires constant calculation, but uses ninety percent less chakra than absorption."
He pointed to the spiral anchor on the tag.
"It turns a reading light into a void. Useful for stealth. Or sleeping in a noisy classroom."
Mito stared at the tag. She stared at Nanami.
She had expected him to memorize the seals. She hadn't expected him to apply advanced wave theory to a D-rank library seal.
"You took a parlor trick and turned it into a tactical asset," Mito murmured. "Because the original was 'inefficient'."
"Waste is the enemy of profit, Mito-sama."
Mito sat back. A look of genuine satisfaction crossed her face.
"You have the Ink Sight. And more importantly, you have the mind to use it."
She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a small, heavy object. It was a brush. But the handle was made of black bone, and the bristles were snow white.
She placed it on the table and slid it toward him.
"This was my first brush," Mito said softly. "It is made from the bone of a chakra beast from the Land of Whirlpools. It responds only to those with Ink Sight."
Nanami reached out. His fingers closed around the cold bone handle. It hummed against his skin, a resonance that felt right.
"I accept you as my disciple, Nanami Kento. From today, you will learn the true art of Fuinjutsu."
Nanami stood up, walked around the table, and knelt before her, placing his forehead on the tatami mat.
"Thank you, Shishou."
"Raise your head," Mito commanded.
Nanami sat back up. "Shall we begin the first lesson?"
"Not yet," Mito said, her expression turning serious. "There is another matter. Tobirama has requested a meeting with you."
Nanami froze. The Hokage.
"Regarding?"
"Regarding the crater you left in my garden last week," Mito said dryly. "And the technique you used to make it. He is currently in a meeting with the Elders, but he will return shortly. He asked that you wait for him."
She gestured to the sliding doors leading to the garden.
"You may wait in the training yard. Do not leave the compound."
"Understood," Nanami said, suppressing the urge to sigh. More interviews. The HR department goes all the way to the top.
Nanami bowed and stepped out into the garden. It was the same spot where he had fought Daichi. The crater had been filled in, fresh sod laid over the scar in the earth.
He walked to the shade of a cherry tree and sat down on a stone bench, placing his bag next to him.
"Psst!"
Nanami didn't jump. He just turned his head slowly to the left.
Peeking out from behind a stone lantern was a head of blonde hair.
"Coast is clear," Tsunade whispered, checking the windows of the main house before sprinting over to him. She looked anxious, twisting the fabric of her kimono sleeve.
She stopped in front of him, hands on her hips.
"Well?" she demanded. "Don't keep me in suspense! Did she eat you? Did she throw you out? Did you cry?"
Nanami looked at her. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the black bone brush. He twirled it between his fingers.
"I did not cry," Nanami said calmly. "And I have secured the position."
Tsunade's eyes went wide. She stared at the brush. "No way... that's the Bone Brush! She actually gave you that? That's a family heirloom!"
"I am officially a disciple," Nanami confirmed, pocketing the brush. "Though the workload is likely to be severe."
"YESS!" Tsunade shouted, pumping her fist. Then she remembered where she was and clamped a hand over her mouth, looking around fearfully. "I mean... yes! I knew you could do it!"
She sat down next to him on the bench, grinning like she had won the bet herself. "This is great, Kento! Now you can come over all the time! We can train, you can help me with homework."
Then she noticed he wasn't leaving. "Wait, why are you sitting here? Usually, you run away the second the work is done."
Nanami leaned back against the tree trunk, looking at the main house.
"I have been ordered to wait," Nanami said grimly. "The Hokage wants to speak with me."
Tsunade's smile vanished. "Granduncle? Oh." She winced sympathetically. "That's... intense. He's not like Grandpa. He doesn't give out candy. He mostly gives out glares and missions."
"I figured," Nanami sighed. "Any advice?"
"Don't lie," Tsunade said immediately. "And don't look at his feet. Look him in the eye. He hates it when people look down. He thinks it shows weakness."
"Eye contact. Honesty. Standard interview protocols." Nanami nodded. "I can do that."
"Good luck," Tsunade stood up. "I gotta go before my mom catches me skipping chores. Don't let him scare you, Kento! You're the guy who rewrote a seal in a week! You got this!"
She flashed him a thumbs-up and darted away into the bushes.
Nanami sat alone in the garden. The wind rustled the cherry leaves.
Tobirama Senju, he thought. The creator of the Shadow Clone. The inventor of the Flying Thunder God. The man who hates Uchiha almost as much as I hate overtime.
He closed his eyes, centering his breathing.
Just another meeting with the CEO. Keep it professional. Keep it brief.
Nanami waited, the silence of the garden heavy with anticipation.