While Ren climbed down the tree in defeat and Yohei picked himself up off the ground, a thought from the previous day resurfaced in his mind.
"Right!" he said suddenly, turning toward Hayama, who was still smiling as he watched Ren sulk. "Sensei – why is it so hard to swim here?"
Hayama gave him a look, eyebrow raised, before chuckling. "I was wondering when one of you would ask that."
Turning away, he walked toward the river as the genin watched. Kneeling at the riverbank, he submerged one hand into the water and moved it around as if searching for something. After a moment – and with a hint of strain – he pulled his arm back out.
In his grip was a porous black rock, roughly twice the size of his fist.
More interesting than the stone itself, however, was what was attached to it.
Clinging to the surface was an aquatic-looking plant, with thick, glossy, light-blue leaves curving gently outward from a short central stem. Even more unsettling were the numerous surprisingly thick, milky-white roots that appeared to have bored straight through the rock, erupting from multiple points and intertwining across its surface.
The tips of those roots were stranger still.
Most writhed chaotically, like worms or pale tentacles – but the ones closest to Hayama's hand were actively trying to wrap around his fingers, latching onto his skin.
"This," he said calmly, bringing it closer for the genin to see, "is Chakurami – a species of aquatic plant that has mutated under prolonged exposure to chakra. A rather remarkable little thing."
The roots twitched eagerly as he spoke.
"Those pseudo-roots are its primary feeding method. Instead of sunlight and carbon dioxide – or oxygen – it absorbs ambient chakra in the water. The leaves, meanwhile, are mostly bait. They don't taste like much, but they act as potent stimulants and induce a mild sense of euphoria, which tempts animals into eating them."
His tone remained instructional, almost gentle.
"And that," he continued, "is when the pseudo-roots – closer to prehensile haustoria, really – latch onto their prey, penetrate bodily openings, and keep them restrained while draining their chakra until death."
Silence fell heavily over the group.
Two of the genin stared at the plant with expressions ranging from dismay to outright disgust, while their sensei regarded the parasitic thing in his hand with unsettling calm.
"And why," Ren asked, his voice noticeably higher than usual as he glared at the river, "are we swimming in a river with those in it?"
Hayama laughed. "You don't need to worry. Chakurami only prey on small aquatic animals. See?" He held up his hand. "It isn't trying to burrow into my skin – just feeding on the chakra leaking from my body."
As he shifted his grip on the stone with his other hand, the plant's haustoria released him easily, retreating back toward the rock.
"To answer your question, Yohei-kun," Hayama continued, "the reason it's so difficult for you to swim here is because this section of the river is densely populated with them. Your chakra control isn't the best yet, so when you reinforce your body, you leak chakra into the water."
He smiled faintly.
"That excites them, so they increase their absorption rate, which creates a localized suction effect."
"That's awesome," Yohei said genuinely, eyes wide as he stepped closer to their sensei. He carefully passed a finger through the plant's writhing pseudo-roots, smiling as it reacted to his presence – completely missing the horrified and disbelieving look on Ren's face. "Could these be used to neutralize captured ninja? Like, dump them into a pool filled with these and just… keep them there until their reserves are drained–"
Hayama shook his head, smiling indulgently. "No, unfortunately they don't quite work like that. Truthfully, the 'suction effect' isn't draining you per se. What's happening is that when the level of the chakra covering you drops, your body instinctively compensates by pushing more chakra outward. That lowers the efficiency of your Enhancement and depletes your reserves faster."
He glanced at Yohei pointedly.
"Now that you're aware of it, you should be capable of ignoring that instinctual response and lowering your leakage. Furthermore, if your control were good enough to begin with, there wouldn't be any leakage at all – and the Chakurami wouldn't even notice you."
"But, Hayama-sensei," Souma called out, confusion clear in his voice, "doesn't water-walking work by expelling chakra? Wouldn't that mean they'd just eat the chakra Ren pushes out to stay on the surface?"
"Hm…" Hayama hummed thoughtfully, glancing at Ren – who suddenly looked hopeful, breaking into a grateful smile as he looked at Souma. After a moment, he nodded.
"I'm sure Ren-kun will find a way around it."
"Snrk."
Ren shot him a glare as he held back from laughing.
"Alright, enough lazing around," Hayama said briskly. "Yohei and Souma, back to the trees. Ren, stop glaring at the water – you need to learn to deal with the current before you even start worrying about the Chakurami."
"Yes, sensei," they chorused, each with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Tightening his grip on his kunai, Yohei focused back on the task at hand, eyes tracing the height of the tree in front of him.
'Last time I started it at the right moment… but I used too little chakra,' he thought with a scowl. 'How much did I even use?'
He grimaced.
'Damn it, this is like trying to measure distance with your eyes closed. If I can't even quantify how much I used last time, how am I supposed to know how much to use now?'
"Yohei," Hayama called out, "stop thinking and just do it. This isn't the kind of thing you can learn through planning – you have to try until you get it right. Trust me."
Yohei glanced sideways and saw that Souma was already at it again – only to overshoot and blast himself away from the trunk in another shower of bark.
Yohei nodded seriously. "Yes, sensei."
'Alright. Just do it, right? But what if I-'
Instead of charging forward, Yohei walked calmly toward the tree and placed one foot against the trunk.
His tongue peeked out from the corner of his lips as he focused on the chakra flowing through his body.
Slowly, carefully, he pushed it toward his feet.
'Sloooooowly…'
It was kind of like playing one of those quick-time games – he had to apply pressure to a button, in this case his tenketsu, but release it just before hitting the red line. That red line being the moment when it started to feel like his feet were pushing away from the tree instead of sticking to it.
After a few minutes locked in intense concentration, he broke into a wide grin as he felt it click.
It was like a bubble popping and a magnet snapping against metal at the same time.
'Fuck yeah! Now, memorize this feeling–'
Having achieved what he wanted, he calmed his breathing and focused on the sensation of chakra flowing out of his body, doing his best to ignore the sound of a tree being repeatedly blasted nearby – and Ren's frequent, very audible falls into the water.
He had to correct himself around a dozen times before it finally felt stable.
'I did it! Now for the other foot,' he thought.
And so, with one foot firmly glued to the tree, Yohei lifted his other leg, ready to apply the same sensation to it-
-and in the very next instant, his world became noise and flashes of color as the bark beneath his planted foot exploded. He was launched spinning into the air, hit the ground hard, rolled like a kicked ball, and only stopped when Hayama's boot came down gently on his chest, arresting his momentum.
"Ow…"
Hayama's faintly amused – but mostly unimpressed – look down at him was almost as painful as the impact itself.
Ren's laughter in the background was definitely more humiliating, though.
"Do you really think that if there were an easier or less humiliating way to teach you this technique, I'd be hiding it from you?" Hayama asked dryly. "Remember when I told you that shinobi long ago used an inferior method that was later replaced? That's how they trained for it. You tried to apply the mechanics of the modern version mid-process and disrupted the flow, instead of just sticking your limbs."
"Sorry," Yohei apologized, mortified.
"Don't be sorry," Hayama replied. "Be better. And please, give me some trust."
"I do! I'm sor-" Yohei cut himself off, lips pursed, before letting out a breath. He stood and bowed properly. "I will, sensei."
"Good. Back to work," Hayama said, smiling as he ruffled Yohei's hair.
As Yohei bent to retrieve his fallen kunai, he caught a dripping wet Ren smirking at him out of the corner of his eye.
'Dumbass,' Ren mouthed silently.
Eye twitching, Yohei raised his hands beside his head, wiggled them like fins, and mouthed back, 'Glub, glub.'
As the two of them continued exchanging faces and silent insults, Souma once again went flying from his tree in an explosion of bark.
Hayama dragged a hand down his face, torn between laughing and screaming at all three of them.
-~=~-
In the end, none of them managed it.
Yohei's attempts had lasted longer than Souma's, and both of theirs longer than Ren's – who had barely endured a few minutes of water-walking before turning pale and breathless, forcing him to move on to the next stage of the day's training.
Recovery of chakra.
Caked in dirt, splinters, bark, and sweat, Yohei sat down beside his already meditating teammates. Still panting, he took several deep gulps of air before settling himself properly. He crossed his legs, rested one arm over his knee, and raised the other before his chest – index and middle fingers extended, thumb pressed against the ring finger.
That was the Seal of Confrontation.
It was, all things considered, the most basic hand seal of all, and the very first taught to any prospective ninja at the Academy – for good reason.
The moment he formed it, Yohei felt something shift, like a switch being flipped. The chakra within his body began to move almost of its own accord.
That was the power of a seal: a somatic command, a physical trigger that guided the energies of the body along pathways the conscious mind might not even be aware of.
Knowing what he knew now, Yohei couldn't help but wonder – was this an actual underlying mechanic of the universe, or something deliberately engineered into the Chakra Pathway System? This strange, unnatural organ created by the Sage of Six Paths himself.
'Wasn't there something about his edgier son discovering their existence? Or did he just discover another use for them?'
Yohei wasn't quite sure, to be honest.
"Yohei, focus."
His sensei's gentle chiding pulled him out of his thoughts. He obeyed, turning his attention inward – toward the process unfolding within his body.
The creation of chakra.
Well… sort of.
Here's a funny thing about chakra: if you have it, you can't live without it. Once it enters your system, even just once, you're addicted for life – your very biology adapting to depend on it.
What that means is that when someone says "I exhausted my chakra," what they really mean is:
"I used up all the chakra I could without fucking dying."
Or fainting, if they were lucky.
The point was, there was always a non-zero amount of chakra circulating in a living being within the Elemental Nations. That was what people meant when they said everything has chakra.
And paradoxically enough –
You had to use it if you wanted to make more.
As had been explained before, there were several organs involved in the creation of chakra – most notably the heart – which acted as furnaces for its production. They did this autonomously, mixing the physical and spiritual energies guided into them by the meridians.
That was why, even if you did nothing at all – just by living – you would eventually recover your reserves.
However, those natural reserves were not the limit of what you could use. They merely represented how much chakra your body could store passively. If you wanted to perform a technique that required a large amount of chakra, or empower yourself beyond a baseline level, then you needed to mold more – and you could keep doing so as long as your stamina hadn't run out.
This act of forcibly molding chakra was accomplished by drawing a trickle of energy from the reserves stored in those special organs and making it circulate through the body without expending it. That circulation excited the meridian system, causing it to draw in more physical and spiritual energy from the cells and the soul, stimulating the chakra-producing organs to output even more.
Technically speaking, simply making chakra flow in a random pattern around the body would be enough to achieve this.
But doing so was wasteful.
Not only would it require exemplary control to avoid leakage, it was also slow and inefficient. A far better method involved a cluster of tenketsu located in the abdomen. By forcing chakra to rush through them in a tight spiral while maintaining strict control, one could increase its internal "pressure." Once a sufficient amount had been built up, it would be released throughout the body – only to be drawn back again into the spiral, repeating the cycle.
The sensation of it all was…
There really wasn't anything else quite like it.
It was draining, yes – but energizing at the same time. The coolness of his chakra pooling in the belly and spreading outward through the body was comforting, almost soothing, leaving a sensation of freshness like he had just taken a bath. By the end of it, you felt simultaneously ready for a nap and capable of running a marathon.
The process itself was also an excellent exercise in control. The better your chakra control, the faster you could spin the spiral, the less energy you would leak, and the more efficiently you could mix your energies. That meant not only recovering your reserves more quickly, but also exhausting yourself far less in the process.
'Hmm… I wonder if I could…'
As Yohei sank deeper into the repetitive rhythm of chakra molding, he decided to alter his usual meditative breathing pattern – switching instead to one of the methods described in the Water Breathing scroll.
Inhaaaaaale.
Exhale.
Inhaaaaaale.
Exhale.
Slowly, he drew as much air as he could into his lungs, then immediately expelled it, only to pull more in again – flooding his blood with as much oxygen as possible.
Within moments, Yohei began to feel lightheaded, a strange buzzing sensation spreading through his mouth and fingers. At the same time, though, he relaxed even further – sinking deeper into the rhythm, into the trance, as the feeling washed through his body.
It worked.
By engaging in the process this way, the oxygen flooding his blood gave his cells more fuel. They responded eagerly, becoming more active and providing increased physical energy to the meridians. Meanwhile, his mental state of deep focus and quiet introspection stirred his soul, making it more responsive, more present, and thus providing more spiritual energy in turn.
The cycle fed itself.
Later, he would grin giddily at the fact that, despite being the last one to begin recovery, he had still been the first on his team to fully refill his reserves. For now, however, he was far too deep in the trance to pay attention to anything beyond his breathing and the steady cycling of chakra.
Because of that, with his eyes closed, he completely missed the look of surprise – bordering on disbelief – that crossed his sensei's face as his admittedly poor chakra senses picked up on the sudden rush and abnormal increase of energy flowing through his student.
-~=~-
"Stop grinning," Ren snapped. "You look stupid like that."
'Heh.'
"Don't be grouchy, Ren-kun," Yohei replied cheerfully.
"Even if it isn't the biggest, and even if it has problems getting up, what matters is what you do with it, you know? I'm talking about your chakra, of course." He said with an innocent expression that wouldn't have fooled a child.
"Problems getting–" Ren began indignantly, cutting himself off before breaking into a harsh laugh. "You fucker. You know, I'm pretty sure I have some poisons back home that, if mixed right, would leave you with 'problems getting up' for the rest of your life."
"Now, now, Ren-kun!" Yohei chided. "Performance issues are perfectly normal among boys your age. That's no reason to resort to violence."
"Oh, I'll show you violence," Ren promised with a bloodthirsty grin as he stalked closer. Yohei had finally stopped pretending, returning the look with a challenging smirk of his own.
"If you two are quite done?" Hayama cut in dryly. "Time is passing, and I will keep you here all night if that's what it takes to finish your training."
"Yes, Sensei," they chorused, breaking their standoff and moving toward him.
Still, the smaller boy couldn't resist one last quip. He leaned in, whispering while shooting Yohei a sideways glare.
"I'm going to fuck you up tomorrow."
Yohei smirked.
"Bring it on, Wimpy-kun."
Hayama let out a quiet sigh before straightening and fixing them with a serious look. He felt a small measure of satisfaction when both boys immediately stopped bickering and snapped to attention, standing straight and waiting for what he had to say.
'At least they know when to take things seriously,' he thought.
"For the last part of today's training," Hayama began, "we'll be working on your nature releases."
He gestured toward where Souma sat a short distance away, hands extended in front of him with fingers spread and palms facing each other. A faint aura of clear blue chakra coated his hands in an agitated dance – occasionally, sparks crackled across his skin, and now and then a visible current jumped from one hand to the other.
Souma's expression was one of deep concentration: eyes narrowed, brows furrowed, sweat slowly beading on his forehead.
"I assume your family has already provided you with a training method, Ren?" Hayama asked.
The red-eyed boy nodded. "Nascent Dragon Breath."
"A solid foundation," Hayama approved. "How far along are you?"
In response, Ren closed his eyes, formed the Dragon hand seal, and drew in a deep breath until his lungs were full. When he exhaled, he did so slowly – and instead of air, a steady stream of fire poured from the small opening of his mouth, extending a couple dozen centimeters outward.
He maintained it for nearly thirty seconds before it sputtered and died.
"Good," Hayama said with a pleased smile. "Fast buildup, stable output, and good timing. How long have you been practicing?"
Ren scratched the back of his head, glancing off to the side. "Six months? Maybe closer to seven."
"Well above average," Hayama nodded, "especially for your age. We'll keep working on this until you can maintain a consistent stream for a full minute. After that, we'll move on to something more advanced. If you keep progressing at this pace, you should manage it before midyear."
He gestured toward Souma. "Go sit near him and begin."
Ren nodded and moved off.
"And you, Yohei?" Hayama continued, turning to the last of his students. "You mentioned you have no prior training in Suiton. I'm the same, but I do know the foundational exercises – unless you've already found something suitable."
"I did find something, Sensei, but…" Yohei chuckled sheepishly. "I kind of need a tub for it."
Hayama gave him a knowing look. "I can guess the method. Do you have a water flask?"
"Uh – yeah?" Yohei reached into one of his pouches and pulled it out, holding it up-
-and Hayama's arm moved.
Yohei blinked.
A heartbeat later, he stared in mute disbelief as the upper half of his canteen – cleanly sliced by the kunai in Hayama's hand – slid off and fell to the ground. All that remained in Yohei's grasp was the bottom half, now resembling a shallow cup more than anything else.
Yohei shot the man a dry look, considering – perhaps for the first time – that his sensei might be annoyed with more than just Ren for what they had done to his clone back during the test.
For his part, Hayama simply patted Yohei on the shoulder, a serene smile on his face. "Start small. Try to fill this cup before we move on to a bucket. Once you can manage that, we'll consider using a tub for your training."
With that, he leapt away in a single smooth motion, landing high among the trees. He settled on a shaded branch, watching the genin from above.
Yohei let out a sigh, then chuckled and decided to do as he was told.
Tilting the sliced canteen, he confirmed that it was empty, then walked to the river and filled it about halfway – just enough that the tip of his finger would be submerged when he dipped it inside.
Sitting down near his teammates, he began to review the words he had read in the Water Breathing manual scroll, near the end, in the section on Elemental Chakra Flow. While the manual itself focused almost exclusively on Water Release, Yohei's own studies were enough to give him broader context.
'Nature Transformation is the process through which an individual makes their chakra mimic an element of nature,' he recited silently. 'Usually Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, or Water – depending on affinity, which is determined by both genetic and individual factors. While it is possible to learn an element outside one's affinity, doing so is significantly more difficult.
'This grants chakra three primary capabilities: First, it can incorporate the attributes of the element itself - Fire Chakra burns, Earth Chakra becomes heavy, and so on. Second, it can control that element as it exists in nature. And Third, it can create more of that element – though such constructs are temporary and dissipate once the chakra sustaining them runs out.
'The Raikage's Lightning Chakra Cloak is an example of the first, he recalled. The Hiding in the Mist Technique is the second. And the Fireball Jutsu is the third.'
There was also the detail that certain elements were safer – or more practical – to use in specific ways.
It was far better to turn Fire Chakra into fire away from your body than to make your chakra itself burn hot. Unless you had a specific technique or a specialized constitution, elemental chakra could still harm its user - and burning from the inside was a particularly horrible way to die.
'Water, on the other hand, is good for almost everything,' Yohei mused. Though simply giving chakra watery properties isn't very useful on its own. That's why there are so many different training methods, depending on what aspect you want to improve.
For him, it was the creation aspect that came first in his list of priotities, while control came second.
And for that, the exercise he was about to attempt was just about perfect.
Just get a container and fill it with water created from your chakra.
Eventually, he would do it with an empty cup. For now, though, having it half-filled with real water would help him grasp the sensation of what he was trying to create.
'Water chakra is about flow, cohesion, and controlled yielding – compacting chakra into a denser form such that it becomes a unity, while still allowing it to move.'
Falling back into the breathing method he had used during meditation, Yohei closed his eyes and let his awareness slowly withdraw from the world around him, preserving his focus only on the cool liquid touching his finger as he lazily drifted it through the water.
'The keys to Water chakra creation are calm focus, continuity, and pressure without rigidity. This isn't like fire that requires a burning will, or like earth that demands constant pressure.'
As he pushed chakra out through the tenketsu in his hand, Yohei felt the water begin to stir around his finger – though not due to any real control over it yet. It was simply reacting to the repulsive force of raw chakra.
Still, he left it alone.
He wasn't blasting the water out of the cut canteen, and constant corrections would only interrupt the process rather than help it.
Instead, he continued moving his finger slowly, tracing repeating patterns through the water. As the motion created gentle currents, he focused on coaxing his chakra to follow those same paths – matching its flow to the water's own movement.
'Water is soft, yet it erodes even the hardest materials. It yields, yet it is unstoppable. It is shapeless, yet cohesive. Water exists in constant change, without clear beginning or end – moving, shifting, turning, twisting…'
The key was to keep everything in motion.
There was no need to force pooling or create sudden spikes. As long as the circulation remained smooth and uninterrupted, the process would eventually resolve itself.
Without realizing it, he extended that same mentality inward.
The cool, fresh sensation of chakra pooled into a whirlpool in his gut, flowing through his body like a river – circling, returning, moving to his hand and out, then back again.
Yohei had no idea how long he remained like that.
He was snapped out of the trance by a sudden spark – followed by a now-familiar weight pressing against his chest as the Chaos Scroll activated once more.
His eyes flew open.
Startled, he shifted – and the movement disturbed his finger in the cup, splashing water onto his lap.
"Wait…"
Looking down, he realized that the container, which had been only half full before, was now filled almost to the brim. If not for the water he had just spilled, it would already have overflowed.
Letting out a disbelieving huff, Yohei glanced around. His teammates were still fully absorbed in their own training.
Looking up, however, he met Hayama's gaze.
The man was staring down from his perch in the tree, an intense, unreadable expression on his face.
Still stunned, Yohei lifted the cup slightly and gestured up at him, as if to ask – 'Do you see this?!'
Huffing silently, Hayama smiled and nodded proudly at him before mouthing, 'Keep going.'
Yohei beamed back and gave him a double thumbs-up before hurriedly slipping his finger back into the cup. Closing his eyes, he tried to quiet his excitement – both from the success itself and from the unexpected reward – so he could continue his training.
-~=~-
In the end, Yohei never quite managed to slip back into that same mindset before Hayama called an end to their training for the day. Still, it was hard to feel disappointed when even what little he had already accomplished should have taken weeks – if not months.
Not to mention the constant weight of the Chaos Scroll pressing against his chest, a steady reminder that he really didn't have much to complain about.
That presence, however, also reminded him of something he should have done the previous day – something he had completely forgotten due to sheer exhaustion.
So when the training wrapped up and his teammates slowed their pace, waiting for him so they could walk back to the village together, Yohei waved them off instead. He told them he had something to ask Hayama.
Weirdly enough, that earned him understanding and commiserating looks rather than the confusion or curiosity he'd expected.
Hayama watched the scene unfold with plain amusement.
Turning back to him, Yohei raised an eyebrow and pointed his thumb at the increasingly distant silhouettes of his teammates.
"Any idea what that was about, Sensei?"
Chuckling, Hayama stepped closer and gestured toward the sliced canteen Yohei was still holding.
"Usually, Nature Transformation is a deeply frustrating subject at the start," he explained. "It's not uncommon to spend weeks trying to change the nature of your chakra and have absolutely nothing happen. Then, suddenly, you'll get a brief success – only to spend several more weeks unable to replicate it, with no idea what triggered it in the first place."
He smiled faintly.
"It often takes months before the training stops being an act of hope and starts becoming repetition."
Realization dawned on Yohei's face. He nodded slowly.
"So they think I'm upset because I didn't manage to do anything… and that I'm asking for extra training or something like that?"
"Most likely," Hayama agreed, humor lacing his voice. "Are you planning on telling them the truth?"
"Hell no," Yohei replied instantly, grinning. Then he tilted his head in thought. "Well – no. I'll tell Souma. But I really want to see Ren's face when I pull off a Water Release jutsu when he least expects it."
"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Hayama said dryly – though the smile on his face betrayed him.
"So," he continued, turning more serious, "what was it you actually wanted to talk to me about?"
"Right!" Yohei said, snapping his fingers. "Do I need to do anything special to get permission to go to the Training Ground you used for our test?"
Aside from a brief flicker of confusion, Hayama didn't visibly react to the question. Instead, he answered with one of his own.
"And why would you want to do that?"
"Well, I really like camping," Yohei said with a laugh – one that turned sheepish when Hayama only gave him a dry look. "And the Training Grounds looked like the perfect place for that…"
"And the real reason?" Hayama pressed.
Chuckling awkwardly, Yohei looked down.
"I want to see some Chakra Beasts."
Tilting his head, Hayama raised an eyebrow.
"Did you develop a taste for their meat? You shouldn't have run out yet, not with how large the one you and the boys killed was – unless you let it spoil or gave it away."
"Err… not really?" Yohei scratched his cheek. "I mean, it is delicious, but I'm pretty sure I still have enough to last me the rest of the month. Mom can't decide whether she's happy eating something I 'hunted' or exasperated that she needs to find even more ways to cook pork."
Hayama blinked, visibly confused, before realization dawned on him and he chuckled.
"That was surprisingly quick."
"Eh?"
"Usually genin only get it into their heads to try taming a Chakra Beast after seeing someone use a Summoning Contract in person. Is that what happened?"
Laughing, Yohei shook his head.
"No, I just – well, I read about them recently, and it sounded really coo- useful. Really useful. I mean, can you imagine if we had that boar on our side in a fight?"
He gestured vaguely.
"Between me, Ren, and Souma, you could say I'm our shield – but I'm not actually much tougher than them."
'At least not until I get an excuse to reveal Iron Body.'
"So having a summon that could fill that role would be amazing."
"I'm sure," Hayama drawled. "And I assume getting a ninken or saving up to buy a Summoning Contract doesn't sound quite as amazing as training one yourself, hm?"
"Oh, come on, Sensei," Yohei protested with an unashamed grin. "Doesn't the idea of defeating a monster with your own hands and making it obey you get your heart pumping? That's a man's romance!"
The older man snorted.
"You do realize that the odds of finding a Chakra Beast that hasn't gone insane from its mutations and is willing to be tamed are close to zero, right?"
He gave Yohei a level look.
"There's a reason why doing so and giving them to the Village is considered a B-rank mission – even with the relatively low risk."
Yohei gave him a challenging look in response. "Wasn't part of the reason you took us as your team because we're lucky?"
Hayama went silent.
He stared at Yohei with a perfectly neutral expression, making the boy immediately start sweating and wondering if he'd just crossed some line.
Then Hayama laughed.
"Hahahaha! That's right," he said, shaking his head with an exasperated but amused look. "It was, wasn't it? Still, I can't let you just wander into Training Ground Twenty-Seven without supervision or support."
Yohei opened his mouth to protest, but Hayama raised a hand, cutting him off.
"That said," he continued, "I can get you permission to enter Training Ground Eighteen."
Yohei blinked.
"It's larger than Twenty-Seven, but the ambient chakra density there is lower. That means the Chakra Beasts that appear are generally weaker." Hayama fixed him with a sharp look. "Even so, I won't allow this if you're doing it on a whim."
He began ticking conditions off on his fingers.
"You have until the end of the week to bring me a scroll detailing the equipment you intend to carry, as well as a summary of the most common methods for containing Chakra Beasts and identifying signs of intelligence."
Yohei straightened instinctively.
"If I'm not satisfied with either, you won't be going," Hayama continued evenly. "And even if I am, you're only permitted to go on Sundays, so you can rest from training on Saturdays."
His gaze hardened slightly.
"And don't get the idea that I'll go easy on you if you come back exhausted. Training the following day will proceed as normal. Understood?"
Practically trembling with excitement, it took everything Yohei had not to punch the air or jump in place.
"Yes, Sensei!" he said fervently.
-~=~-
Yohei still carried that buzzing excitement as he rushed home.
If anything, by the time he crossed the threshold, he was even more exhilarated than he'd been when Hayama gave him the opportunity he needed to set Plan Mugetsu into motion.
And that was due entirely to the weight of the Chaos Scroll pressing inside his chest.
After kicking off his shoes in a hurry, he bolted upstairs and into his room. Without hesitation, he bit into his dirt-caked finger, drawing blood to summon the otherworldly artifact into his grasp.
The Chaos Scroll materialized in a swirl of energy.
Hands trembling, Yohei undid the latch and opened it with bated breath.
He gasped.
Inside lay a new seal - far more intricate than the previous ones, not that it made much of a difference, since he still had no idea what the hell the symbols meant.
More impressive than the design, however, was the color of the glowing paint it was inscribed on.
"Golden…" Yohei murmured in awe.
With careful reverence, he pressed his palm to the seal. The Chaos Scroll vanished, and in its place a smaller scroll dropped into his hand.
"Am I really getting something above C-rank…?" he whispered hopefully.
Reality, however, was often disappointing
As the summoning smoke dissipated, Yohei stared down at what he was holding.
A plain grey scroll.
Blinking in confusion, Yohei frowned. "Only D-rank?"
The words had barely left his mouth before he slapped himself.
"No – what the hell am I even talking about?" he snapped under his breath. "Most of what I have is D-rank, and it's already enough that I managed to change my fate."
He dragged a hand down his face.
"I've got multiple bloodlines. People would kill for even one of the rewards I've gotten – never mind the chance to keep getting more."
With a frustrated sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"For fuck's sake, what is wrong with me?" he muttered. "Not even a week in and I'm already this arrogant. Acting like I'm owed something."
He exhaled slowly.
"Get a grip, Yohei."
After a moment, he opened his eyes again and looked down at the scroll resting innocently in his hand. Then – despite how ridiculous the gesture was – he gave it a deep, formal bow.
"Thank you."
Straightening up, he undid the latch and unfurled the scroll, eyes scanning the description of its contents.
[覇気演出之書 – Haki Enshutsu no Sho - The Treatise on Aura Projection]
|D-Rank Manual|
This manual teaches the art of cultivating Aura – the intangible impact one leaves on others through posture, timing, and controlled self-presentation. Through its lessons, the reader is trained to recognize moments ripe for dramatic effect: entering a scene at precisely the right second, positioning oneself against striking backdrops, maintaining composed body language, and projecting confidence even in silence.
Techniques include positioning on elevated terrain, deliberate stillness, calculated turns of the body, and subtle gestures that leave strong impressions. The manual also addresses Aura Preservation, providing methods to minimize unseemly mistakes such as awkward pauses, stutters, or tripping – and, more importantly, how to recover gracefully when they occur. By controlling reactions and redirecting attention, the practitioner learns to prevent momentary failures from diminishing their Aura.
Yohei stared at the scroll.
"…What the fuck."