"Put hand seals aside for now." Genzo let out a drunken hiccup. "Yesterday, I told you to stick that leaf to your forehead. How many seconds did you last?"
"Three seconds."
"Then keep practicing." Genzo tapped his iron crutch against the ground. "If you can't hold it, don't even think about practicing ninjutsu. Without chakra control, even if I handed you the Fireball Jutsu, you wouldn't spit out a single ember. You'd only burn your own mouth to ash."
Sosuke put the scroll away.
He picked up a dead leaf from the dirt and pressed it against his forehead.
He mobilized his chakra.
A current of heat surged through his meridian pathways, rushing toward his head. It was volatile. If this were yesterday, the raw force of it would have immediately blown the leaf away.
But today, it felt different.
Perhaps it was the effect of the Fūri liver he had consumed last night. Sosuke could feel an almost imperceptible 'lightness' woven into his chakra. Though faint, the sluggish, mud-like viscosity that usually plagued his energy flow had smoothed out.
Buzz.
The leaf trembled once, then locked firmly onto his forehead.
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
The leaf didn't move an inch.
Genzo, who had been pouring liquor down his throat, abruptly froze. He narrowed his bleary eyes, studying the sweat-drenched teenager.
"Interesting," Genzo muttered.
'Yesterday he was a piece of trash, and today he's found the knack for it?' This rate of progress was abnormal for an overaged apprentice who had only started at fifteen.
"Don't get cocky."
Genzo suddenly raised his hand, hurling his empty liquor bottle like a cannonball. It was blisteringly fast.
Sosuke instinctively tilted his head to dodge.
Crash.
The bottle smashed into the pile of garbage behind him, shattering into jagged shards. But in that split second of evasion, his concentration wavered. The leaf fluttered down from his forehead.
"Rigid," Genzo sneered. "On the battlefield, nobody is going to wait for you to stand still and refine your chakra. You have to move. When you run, when you jump, even when you're taking a blade to the gut—your chakra cannot break."
He pointed his crutch at the sprawling mountain of trash behind them.
"Climb it. Don't drop the leaf."
It was a decaying hill composed of scrap metal, rotting wood, and domestic refuse. It stood over ten meters high, boasting a steep incline that threatened to collapse at any moment.
Sosuke picked up the leaf and reattached it.
He began to climb.
The garbage underfoot was loose and slippery. Every step required meticulous calculation. He had to maintain his physical equilibrium while simultaneously dedicating a fraction of his mind to sustain the chakra suction on his forehead.
It was difficult. Dividing his attention proved costly.
He barely managed two steps before his foot slipped. His balance broke, and the leaf fell.
"Ten push-ups," Genzo's voice drifted up from below.
Sosuke didn't waste breath arguing. He walked back down the trash heap, knocked out the push-ups, picked up the leaf, and resumed.
Once, twice, ten times.
Fall, climb, fall again.
His clothes tore against the debris. His palms were sliced open by rusted shards of iron, leaking blood that mixed with the grime.
This was a battle against gravity. And a battle of sheer willpower.
On Sosuke's forehead, his chakra acted as an invisible hand, gripping the dry, yellowed veins of the leaf in a deathlock.
One step forward, two slips back.
The garbage mountain reeked with a suffocating stench. Buried here was Konohagakure's daily waste, and buried alongside it was the last of Sosuke's modern-day squeamishness.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Sosuke reached the halfway point. The muscles in his thighs trembled, spasming from severe overexertion. Sweat poured into his eyes, blurring his vision.
"Don't stop," Genzo hollered from the base, holding a new bottle like he was watching a cheap stage farce. "Stop, and your breath breaks. Your breath breaks, and you tumble right back down."
Sosuke gritted his teeth.
His lungs felt like they were on fire. It was either the residual chakra from the Fūri liver wreaking havoc, or simple hypoxia. But he couldn't stop.
To gain strength, he had liquidated his savings and consumed a toxic organ that ordinary men wouldn't dare touch. If he couldn't even conquer a literal pile of garbage, what right did he have to survive in this brutal world?
"Move!" Sosuke let out a low, feral growl.
He exerted an explosive burst of force, stepping off a discarded washboard to propel himself two meters upward.
The leaf fluttered.
Sosuke's mental focus tightened instantly, clamping down like a vice and maximizing his chakra output.
It stabilized.
Finally.
A blood-grimed hand gripped a splintered wooden plank at the summit. Sosuke hoisted himself over the edge. He lay flat on the peak, gulping down air thick with the scent of hydrogen sulfide.
The leaf remained plastered to his forehead. Though thoroughly soaked with sweat, it hadn't fallen.
"Get down here," Genzo shouted from below. "Don't just lie there playing corpse like an idiot. Keep it up and the crows will mistake you for carrion and peck your eyes out."
Sosuke peeled the leaf off.
He slid unsteadily down the slope. Upon touching down, his legs gave out, nearly sending him to his knees.
Genzo tossed him a filthy rag to wipe his hands.
"Your control barely passes. You can start practicing hand seals."
Genzo picked up the scroll, pointing a calloused finger at the diagram of hand signs. "Now, I'll teach you the logic behind hand seals."
"Logic?" Sosuke asked.
"What do you think hand seals are? Magical incantations?" Genzo scoffed. "They are switches. The twelve seals correspond to the nodes of the twelve major meridian pathways. The Rat seal mobilizes the kidney's water energy; the Horse seal mobilizes the heart's fire energy."
Genzo extended his withered fingers, rapidly forming the 'Tiger' seal.
"Watch closely. The angle of your fingers, the pressure of your fingertips pressing together—these all dictate the nature transformation of your chakra. Don't just blindly memorize the shapes. You have to feel it. When you form this seal, you need to know which nerve in your body twitches, which current of energy shifts."
Sosuke looked thoughtful.
This was remarkably similar to the concept of 'programming' from his past life. Hand seals were the input code. Chakra was the electrical current. Ninjutsu was the final, executed program.
"Try it," Genzo instructed.
Sosuke took a deep breath. He no longer merely mimicked the physical motion. Closing his eyes, his hands slowly formed the 'Ram' seal.
He felt for it.
As his thumbs and index and middle fingers interlaced, he sensed a faint tremor in the warm current resting in his abdomen.
'This is the switch.'
'Even the simplest Basic Three Jutsu is the optimal code perfected through trial and error by countless predecessors,' Sosuke realized silently.
Leaning back against the shipping container, Genzo spoke up. "Keep practicing. Just focus on these three seals. Practice until your fingers cramp. Practice until your hands move on their own, without a single thought."
Standing in the junkyard, Sosuke began the tedious, repetitive drills.
Ram. Snake. Tiger.
These were the hand seals for the Clone Jutsu.
He practiced continuously until dusk. Sosuke's fingers swelled up like carrots, making even the slightest bend agonizingly difficult.
"That's enough. Get out of here." Genzo unceremoniously kicked him out. "Bring two bottles of good liquor tomorrow. Today's booze was too weak. Tasted like horse piss."
Returning to the shop, the first thing Sosuke did was not rest.
Instead, he boiled a basin of water and poured a bottle of medicinal trauma wine into it. Then, he submerged his swollen hands into the scalding liquid.
This makeshift physical therapy would accelerate his recovery.
The water was blistering. The sharp, medicinal sting of the liniment seeped through his open pores and drilled into his flesh. Sosuke stared at his hands. All ten fingers were horribly red and inflamed, resembling carrots boiled in a pot.
The joints of his index and middle fingers in particular—having held rigid seal postures for hours—were now twitching involuntarily.
He closed his eyes, enduring the piercing, bone-deep ache.
He soaked them for about twenty minutes until the swelling subsided slightly. Drying his hands, Sosuke applied a thick layer of medical ointment—a highly effective remedy for external trauma.
That night, he fell into a dead sleep.
He didn't even dream.