May 14th?It was an important day. Not a training day, or one to meditate on his bde, or even cut his flesh to train his ingrained oni abilities. No, the purpose that had him filled with electric excitement was one of a far more modest origin.

  Tobio and Tekuno were heading out to sample as many restaurants and stalls as they could in one day. Ami had begged off, ciming that she didn't want or need the incoming massive influx of calories. Hibachi had family concerns that had kept him otherwise indisposed. Personally, Tobio thought that they just weren't strong enough to muscle through eating that much food, but he'd concede that he was a bit of an outlier. If there was anything that oni excelled at, it was doing things to excess. Drinking, fucking, and indeed, eating.

  So it'd be up to Tobio and Tekuno to eat enough delicious food in their stead. It was a sacrifice, but it was one he was willing to make. There was even the possibility that he'd manage to convince his sensei to get him some alcohol while they were out and about.

  It was a bit of a distant possibility, yet legally, Tobio was an adult as a Genin. Legally, Tekuno-sensei was his adoptive guardian where Konoha w was concerned, in regards to the right to choose specific medical treatments for him if he was unconscious, so maybe the man would be reticent to let a child drink. Or perhaps he'd be more than willing to let Tobio get shitfaced for the first time in his new life.

  Kami, he just wanted a strong drink.

  Walking through the vilge, he didn't take long to get to the agreed-upon meeting spot with Tekuno in front of the first of the restaurants they'd be hitting up that day. The thing that threw him for a loop, though, was that his sensei wasn't alone. An unfamiliar girl was standing with him.

  She looked roughly around his age, but with a complexion and hair color that certainly marked her as profoundly foreign. With a red pack on her back and a Takigakure forehead protector on her arm, he was more than a little confused as to why there was a Taki-nin in their vilge. Perhaps they'd realized they still owed him money.

  That would have been a pleasant surprise. But then the more he stared at the girl, the more recognition began to creep over Tobio. Because he had seen her before. How could he forget a cute tomboy from Naruto, dead before their time, and Fū definitely qualified.

  "Hi!" A cheery, unfamiliar voice greeted, as Tobio was guided along by Tekuno. "I'm Fū! You must be Tobio, right?"

  Deep in the annals of his heart, Tobio wondered what he had done to make such a grievous, terrifying change to the timeline. Currently, the host of Chōmei was not supposed to be in Konohagakure. She was supposed to be well away from their Hidden Vilge, and over in Takigakure getting abused or something. Not that he didn't feel for the girl's backstory, seeing as just about every jinchūriki was abused at one point or another for some reason.

  To this day, he isn't sure why vilgers chose to antagonize jinchūriki. It was an awful survival strategy to keep poking your resident nuke until it exploded. In some respects, it was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, as of course a lifetime of being ostracized would result in an unstable individual, even if most people bmed it primarily on the 'demons' sealed inside of them. Gaara was an outlier, though, when it came to crash out jinchūriki.

  That, however, was neither here nor there. What was making his mind race was the fact that she was not in Taki, and what reasons there might have been for this. Of course, the answer was retively simple when Tobio thought about it, the world slowing down as Depths of the Mind gave him the breathing room to consider the situation.

  He was the reason.

  Not him, specifically, but the mission they'd done in Takigakure. If the minor vilge couldn't even maintain control of its internal security and had to be bailed out by three foreign Genin, that was the kind of security pse that would have made it a ughingstock worldwide. Maybe it already had, and he just wasn't aware of it.

  Allowing them to maintain stewardship of the Seven-tails, after such incredible negligence in vilge security, wasn't just dumb. It was, to put it simply, willfully stupid for the leadership of Konoha. Just about all the other major Hidden Vilges had multiple-tailed beasts in their ranks, except for Sunagakure, and this...was Konoha's opportunity to get in on that monopoly.

  Though to be fair, Suna was also in a desert, where their given jinchūriki had such a massive home field advantage they'd staved off invasions for decades.

  "R-Right," Tobio stammered out, trying to rebance himself in the wake of how much he'd…possibly fucked things up. Or not. It depended on whether or not the other vilges figured out they had the Seven-tails, and what the Akatsuki did in a few years. "Pleasure to meet you. You're from…Takigakure?"

  "Yep!" She beamed, pointing to her forehead protector, which was on her arm for some reason. "I'm here on a super-secret diplomacy mission, on behalf of my vilge. It's…different, in a lot of ways, but pretty fun so far."

  Either she was aware that this was some unofficial handover of herself, or Fū wasn't, and it'd come as a nasty surprise when she figured out the real reason she was there. Either way, he wasn't going to be the one to tell her.

  "I've been checking up on her, as an honored guest of Konoha, and figured it'd be nice to invite her for our food run," Tekuno expined. "You've got a way with people, y'know, so I figured you'd get along with her."

  He gave his sensei a long, nguid blink. "…I have a way with people?"

  "Well, you made Ami's prickly barbs recede and managed to motivate Hibachi into taking his training more seriously than ever," his sensei pointed out. "If that isn't charisma, I don't know what is."

  "Oh, and you also helped Lord Shibuki repel those invaders a few months back!" Fū pointed out, and Tobio felt his eyebrow twitch at her words. "I'd love to hear that story."

  Given how she'd said it, no malice was intended. She might not have even known what the real story was, or how cowardly Shibuki was during that entire affair. Tobio would never miss an opportunity to talk mad shit about that guy. "I…could maybe talk about a little of it."

  "Great!" She shot him a beaming smile, energetic and bright in a way that was disarming, as she set her hands on her hips. "Oh, let's get moving too. I'm already peckish."

  This wasn't quite what he had in mind with a rexing, cool trip to a bunch of different restaurants with his sensei. But how hard could entertaining a 'diplomat' really be?

  All Tobio could do, at that moment, was wonder if he'd made the right choices. He didn't regret ensuring that his friends, or himself, were alive through his actions. Putting Suien in the ground wasn't something he'd think twice about doing again…

  Even if he thought he might have done it more thoughtfully, if he had to do it again. Some people might not have considered almost dying worth it, but the rewards from living through the encounter were well worth it. An asauchi, a weekly elixir, and more perks besides. That being said, the consequences could theoretically be beyond his capability to handle.

  Whenever the Akatsuki started to go after the jinchūriki in earnest, they wouldn't hesitate to roll up on the Hidden Vilges to take what they wanted from them. Having Chōmei and Kurama in the same pce would turn Konohagakure from a tempting target, into a more strategically viable one.

  And that was just off the top of his head. There was every opportunity he was forgetting about more possible outcomes of this situation. He didn't have access to the high-level communiques that higher-ranking shinobi no doubt got their hands on. How other Hidden Vilges might find this consolidation of power threatening, if they figured out that Konohagakure had moved Chōmei's container closer to home.

  That was…a future problem, if he was being entirely honest—nothing he needed to worry about in the here and now. No, Tobio only had one genuine concern at the moment.

  How was this tiny tomboy eating more food than him?

  It was a ridiculous thing to get bent out of shape about, if he was being honest. The three of them were situated at the first of their stops, a stall providing small karaage appetizers, which Tekuno had sworn by. But Tobio was a growing boy, and naturally had asked for more. Then Fū did the same.

  She followed suit at the next stall. And then the pce after that.

  He was…more curious than not where she was putting it all. He was a boy on the verge of being a proper teenager, being able to eat functionally his body weight in food was a given. That was before you considered that Oni were known for excess in everything, and his capacity to functionally cause most food to vanish was easy to understand.

  At most, he had to assume it had something to do with the demands of being a container for a tailed beast. That was his best guess, though, and what Tobio didn't know about jinchūriki could fill a book. How their internal seal affected their biology for example, and it did affect them biologically.

  One only had to look at Naruto's appearance and 'whiskers' to confirm that much. If he had to guess, Fū's changes were a bit more reserved, in that her hair was a shade of mint he wasn't positive existed anywhere else in the Elemental Nations.

  Or, he could be entirely off-kilter here. This was brave new territory, and he was still feeling a little off-kilter by someone beating him in this regard. Chances were, he could be projecting capabilities onto her that just weren't there.

  "...This is a first for me," he admitted, as he watched Fū finish off a bowl of ramen, slurping up the broth greedily. "How can you eat so much…?"

  "Mmphff?" She blinked, swallowing and wiping her mouth with her hand. "Oh, that? I've always had something of an appetite."

  "My wallet can tell," Tekuno joked.

  That got a scoff from Tobio, as he squinted at his sensei. "You've seen how much I can put away. Don't act like you're surprised by this."

  "I'm really not," he admitted readily, shrugging softly. "But I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with who and what you were."

  His 'bloodline'.

  Shaking his head at his sensei, Tobio turned back to Fū with a smile. "How's the food compared to Takigakure?"

  "It's a lot more diverse," she commented, beaming bright. "I didn't really get a ton of chances to taste it myself, but we usually relied heavily on a lot of the fish in the ke inside our vilge."

  "So plenty of freshwater fish, I guess?"

  "Mhmm! Sometimes people would catch a boar, and you could keep chickens, but we were a pretty fish-heavy vilge."

  "I'm more partial to pork and beef myself."

  "Same! Oh man, Lord Shibuki treated me to a tokachi butadon before I headed out here, and it was so good. I'm kind of hankering for it again."

  Hmm. "I could make some sometime, or teach you, if you'd like. It shouldn't be that hard." His mouth opened up and spat out some nonsense before he could even stop himself.

  But someone would have thought that she'd been promised the world, just from his words. "R-Really?"

  "Well, some people have said I'm a pretty good cook, so…"

  That got a snort out of Tekuno, as both of his eyebrows raised high. "You're better than pretty good, brat. If you'd flunked out of the academy, I have no doubt you could have made a great living as a chef."

  "He's that good?" Fū asked, gncing over at Tekuno.

  "He's even better," his sensei shamelessly praised. "I'll put it this way. I've had food in almost every Elemental Nation, and Tobio's is still at the top of my ranking lists. Whatever he's got in those hands is practically magic."

  Well damn. Tobio felt his face all hot underneath the deluge of hype put on his cooking skills. He knew he was that good, quite possibly the best in the world, but it was a whole other thing to have that sort of excellence spoken aloud by someone he respected.

  Fū had stars in her eyes, which made him feel even more pressed to keep his word here. There was something earnest about the girl, and how she responded to what he might consider basic human kindness. Then again, considering how he knew she'd been treated in Takigakure…

  It was even more of a reason for him to stick to the effort of teaching her. And besides, he couldn't see it being that onerous of a task to teach her. Maybe he could teach Ami at the same time. They'd probably get along just fine, right?

  Yeah, this sounded like a good idea.

  "I've never had someone teach me how to cook…" She admitted, looking down at her feet nervously. "But if you're willing…I'll happily take the lesson."

  Tobio studiously ignored the beaming, proud look his sensei gave him. He was already feeling a bit bashful from the stream of praise before. No point to give himself an even bigger head in the process.

  "Be prepared," the boy warned her, grinning widely. "I've got a high standard for cooking these days."

  Fū gave him a sharp nod, eyes gleaming with determination. Before they could continue, Tekuno-sensei gently cpped his hands to get their attention. "As much as I'd love to continue this conversation…we ought to get a move on? We've still got a few other pces to check out."

  That was met with agreement from the two kids, as the group ambled off. All the while, Tobio and Fū made idle conversation as the day transitioned into evening, and eventually their stomachs were truly too full to continue. Everything taken together, though?

  …It was a pretty good outing, all things considered, even if he'd been a little blindsided by Fū's appearance. It was just another thing he needed to take into account when figuring out what a clusterfuck his future had become. Compared to his more immediate concerns about the upcoming exams, though, anything that'd happen with the tomboy was bound to happen well in the future.

  He had some time before things popped off, or otherwise got crazy. Which meant that for now, his main focus was polishing his weak points.

  May 20th?Much of the time, Tobio rarely had anything bad to say about his sensei's training methods. Compared to what he'd seen of the Jōnin-sensei in canon, he definitely was receiving some of the better training for the other members of the Konoha Twelve. The only way his opportunities would have been even more improved, was if he'd somehow roped in Might Guy for further assistance.

  …With all that said, he'd had more fun in the past than now.

  "Gah!" Tobio yelled, as a resounding blow from Ami crashed against his cheek. Not as damaging as it might have been on a normal Genin, but it still smarted something fierce. "My good looks!"

  "You don't have any good looks!" Ami retorted right back, bounding back out of his retaliatory backhand.

  Normally, neither she or Hibachi would have been able to contest him physically. That wasn't knocking either of their skills, his baseline was just naturally so much rger than their own, and it'd only improved further over the st few months. But the weights that his sensei had acquired were doing their job.

  Perhaps too well.

  He'd gotten used to moving around, walking, hell, even using his typical range of chakra adhesion to water or vertical surfaces just fine. But getting the overall bance right so that he was able to duck, dive, roll, and dodge at his best? That was a work in progress.

  Something that Ami and Hibachi were keen to take advantage of. It wasn't as if he'd say they hadn't earned it, being the training dummies Tobio had been using for months off his own stupidly impressive physique. But the boy would be lying if he said it wasn't a little irritating to have his body so sluggish under the physical strain of the heavy weights.

  Coming from behind was Hibachi, and his preternatural senses for danger were the only warning he got. Twisting around, he hastily caught one of Hibachi's thrown fists, only to grunt as the boy followed it up with a brutal knee to the stomach.

  Brutal for anyone else, that is. His teammates had long since learned precisely how durable he was, and how they could go all out against him in a way that they never could against anyone else who wasn't a Jōnin. Great for their training, and likely good for Tobio too, given now he had a real challenge keeping up with them, sweating it out underneath his clothes.

  …Still a little irritating.

  "Hang in there, Tobio!" Tekuno-sensei called out, having pulled out a chair, kicked his feet up on a nearby stump, and zily sipped tea from his fsk. "You've got em' on the ropes!"

  Those words were punctuated by Ami leaping onto his back, and beginning to try and choke him out. Fortunately, her tiny bicep just wasn't big enough to be anything more than an inconvenience. Still…

  Was it too te to swap teams? These two brats seemed way too into trying to get even with him. It's almost like he'd been trouncing them for as long as they'd been a team in spars, and they had a bone to pick with him or something.

  Weird.

  Either way, his taijutsu was improving, if only because he was forced to rely on his raw skill rather than his unnatural advantages. His style was still borne of Tobio's primal, Barbarian-based skillset, but it was starting to become his own, one dull thud of a fist against his ribs and face at a time. Still…

  "This teamwork training sucks!" He called out, indignant to the world.

  A ugh erupted from Ami at that, as she darted in for a kick. "The shoe is on the other foot noOOOOW!" Her defiant yell kind of turned into a squeal as he grabbed her leg and just threw the girl bodily, sending her rolling across the dirt.

  "What if you get hit with a genjutsu? Your team needs to practice to take you down," Tekuno catastrophized. Then, took another comfortable sip of his tea. "Just, uh…keep doin' what you're doin', kids. Sensei's taking a zy day."

  Which wasn't an unfair proposition. Maybe it was just that fairness felt a long way away when he was getting beat up by his 'friends'.

  Altogether, as the month comes to a natural close, everything sort of progresses apace.

  The efforts to work on the modified substitution jutsu haven't panned out yet, but certainly not from a ck of trying. Just about the entire team had come together to try and crack the code, so the speak. Though Tobio's prodigious intelligence and cognition was doing the brunt of the work, it wasn't as if having more help wasn't good too.

  First and foremost, was the problem of making a tie with jutsu to another person. This was more of a known issue, as they were effectively making a cooperation jutsu, which led to Tekuno providing more documentation for them to sift through. A lot of their teamwork training sessions just ended up being the three of them sitting in a clearing, and reading books.

  Technically, Ami and Hibachi mostly kept referring back to the text. Tobio's photographic memory made it impossible for him to forget anything he read.

  Toward the end of the month certain realities were becoming exceedingly clear. When performing a cooperative jutsu, Shinobi effectively created a chakra resonance between themselves. Usually this required a lot of teamwork, meditation, and learning to act in tune with another person's chakra network, to the point where cooperation jutsu were not the most common thing to run into out in the world.

  That said, Team Eleven had some rather significant advantages.

  Sworn Brotherhood wasn't just doing the heavy lifting with all of that supporting work, leading to a successful cooperation jutsu. It was the load bearing pilr that made the entire thing not only feasible, but also economical to any degree. That preternatural sense of where any of them were, at any given time, along with their rough condition and health, was basically equivalent to some of the information a trained Sensor could have gotten from each other.

  The perk wasn't the objectively strongest one he had. But it was the perk that Tobio was slowly but surely coming to love the most, if only because of the deeply hidden depths within it. The raw mechanics of the modified substitution weren't finished yet.

  However, the groundwork needed for it to function…was id, and in due time he didn't doubt that they'd be able to make it happen.

  June 3rd?The best part about having a massive, fuck-off sword? Tobio would have to admit it was probably the sheer comfort he got from swinging it around. His ōdachi was a massive hunk of steel, one that made him feel like he was living his every childish fantasy anytime he used it in a fight. Though, there were some downsides.

  Barbarian was great for giving him a style to work off, but he still needed to train to advance it. Why couldn't his life work on video game logic? Well, even more than it already did with the System handing him out perks.

  But swordsmanship training was truly no great issue. Though his sensei was mixing it up this time around.

  "You're not training me yourself?" Tobio asked, as the two of them walked to another training ground. "That's…"

  He didn't even know how to feel about that. For as long as he'd been in this new world, this new body, Tekuno-sensei had been an overarching presence in his life. Not being under his instruction felt wrong, somehow.

  "It only makes sense," Tekuno sensei started. "Over the course of your career, you're gonna have many teachers. Not just me, but hopefully other superiors that see the same potential in you that I do. All of them are gonna have their own fields of expertise, and skill, that would even blow me out of the water."

  Which made a great deal of sense. It wasn't as if Naruto learned a ton from Kakashi over the length of the series, though, he wasn't entirely sure who he learned from the most. The Toads, maybe?

  Man, he felt bad for Ninja Jesus. The dude couldn't catch a break with getting a good tutor for the life of him.

  "Who've you got lined up to teach me then?"

  "Me."

  It was all Tobio could do not to jump, as yet another Jōnin appeared from behind him. There had barely been a flicker of warning from his danger sense, though that was probably because the guy didn't mean him any harm. His senses would have probably screamed a bit louder if it'd been an actual ambush.

  "Do Jōnin get a kick out of scaring Genin like this?"

  "Yes."

  "No."

  Tekuno and the unidentified man exchanged a brief gnce, Tekuno's easy smirk cshing against the other man's neutral expression. There was a camaraderie there, a shared friendship, that was likely a bit beyond the professional.

  Gesturing at the steel-haired man, Tekuno continued. "This is Hayama Shirakumo. We were on the same Genin team, and if I'm being honest, he's more of a specialized swordsman than I am."

  "You spent too much time pying around with your traps for Sensei to take you seriously there," Shirakumo interjected. His voice was deep, and he had a professional demeanor, but there was a glint of amusement in his eyes when he teased his friend.

  "Shut up. Where was I?"

  "Foisting off your responsibilities on me, because I'm the better swordsman?"

  "Ah, yes, that. But really, does it matter if you're a better swordsman if you get blown up before you can reach me?"

  Tobio got the feeling that this was a longstanding argument between the two men, and politely cleared his throat to remind them that he was still there. Both of them blinked, before Shirakumo clicked his tongue in irritation.

  "Let's agree to disagree there. Anyway, like tubby said, I'm Hayama Shirakumo. Jōnin, captain, and kenjutsu specialist." He jerked a thumb back at the sword on his back, before continuing. "You're Tobio."

  "That is my name."

  "You want to be a swordsman, and think you've got what it takes?"

  "I mean…" Tobio tried not to smile a little, as he reached up and patted his sword. "I've got some skill."

  Tekuno was even nodded. "Of course, the little guy's practically a prodigy with the sword. You two will get along swimmingly." His sensei was already taking some steps back, grinning toothily all the while. "Well, I've got two other rugrats to take care of. Make sure not to kill my Genin, Shirakumo."

  "I'll try."

  "Good enough!" Tekuno ughed.

  No, that was not good enough, sensei! Tobio shot Tekuno's broad back a worried look as the man began to walk away, before the sound of rasping metal caught his attention. Shirakumo was drawing his katana, fixing Tobio with a determined look.

  "We'll need to see where you're at before I can make any suggestions on how you need to improve. Draw your bde." Nothing in his tone made it seem like much of a suggestion.

  The resulting ass-kicking with live steel was perhaps a humbling experience that Tobio needed.

  He'd assumed that just because he'd taken down some Takigakure Jōnin, he was hot shit. Granted, it hadn't been with a sword, and he'd effectively done a suicide move to do it…but he still had that kill on his record. That body was left in the dirt as a direct result of his actions.

  Yet even so…he had eyes, but could not see Mt. Tai.

  "Sloppy."

  He was scrambling back out of the way of a bde that was coming for his throat. Tobio didn't know if the man was going to cut his throat. His sense of danger was screaming at the boy loud enough that it certainly felt that way, as Shirakumo advanced.

  It wasn't a fast rush, but the kind of slow, methodical walking pace that still had Tobio on the backpedal, as he was faced with a true master of the bde. Tekuno-sensei was a good swordsman…but he didn't live and breathe the sword like Shirakumo did. He didn't have that bde intent, that naked skill to effortlessly parry Tobio's novice cuts and return them with a flurry of swipes too fast for the boy to see.

  "You call that a cut? Where's the follow-through?"

  Bit by bit, whatever ego that had been building around his swordsmanship was broken down. It was systematic, purposeful, and still reminded Tobio that there were heights to this world that he hadn't reached yet. Each shallow cut that nded against his arms, leaving him bleeding in the dirt, slowing bit by bit…

  This was the part of being a swordsman he'd been missing. That key, critical piece of the puzzle that not even his sensei could provide.

  "That brain in your skull? Useless right here and now. The only thing in this terrible world here and now should be your willingness to cut me down, and the will to see it through."

  Eventually, though, all good things had to come to an end. He colpsed, sweating, tired, and bleeding from a dozen different pces that hadn't hit anything vital. Somehow.

  Elder ninja training bullshit, if he had to guess. Or sensei had told Hayama precisely how much damage Tobio could take before he'd begin to break.

  Shirakumo barely looked tired as he zily cleaned his bde while Tobio did his best not to colpse. It was, to be clear, another reminder of how far he needed to go to reach the peak of this world. That said, it didn't mean that he was upset to have the measuring stick. On the contrary, the grind and climb were half of the fun of a journey like this.

  It'd make it all the sweeter when he inevitably surpassed his teachers.

  "…Adequate." Shirakumo stated, humming softly. "For someone who's been wielding a bde for as long as Tekuno says you have. You've got talent."

  Panting, Tobio struggled to push himself upright, looking up at the man, panting all the while. "Hah…really?"

  Dropping to a crouch, the older man's stare bored into Tobio's eyes the entire time as he spoke. "During the spar, you were probing me, testing feints, and never making the same mistake twice. Your killing intent is also more developed than a child your age normally has, but we'll chalk that up to your st eventful mission. And you've got the fundamentals of your own, personal style. It'll do for something to work on."

  Managing to get himself into a sitting position, Tobio sheathed his bde, resting it in his p. "So what do you think I should work on, though?"

  "In the month before your exam?" Shirakumo shrugged. "We've got two main options. Polish your swordsmanship as much as we can in that time allotted, or go for something…exotic."

  That made him perk up, interest piqued. "I like exotic things."

  Shirakumo rolled his eyes. "Most Genin your age do. I wouldn't even bring it up if Tekuno hadn't said you were a fast learner, with a sublime handling of your fire release."

  Lifting his sword, the man concentrated…and then, the bde rippled with a cutting edge of wind. It made Tobio's eyes widen, because he recognized that technique just fine, without it even being described.

  "This is called chakra flow. It's an advanced technique, best used on chakra metal, but your bde seems…unique, if it could stand up to my own. And with fire release training in it, you can create some very nasty jutsu ter on."

  It came down to a question. Did he want to focus on swordsmanship, or focus on making his sword set itself on fire in a cool way?

  …Was that even a debate? As much as Tobio would have liked to make himself out to be so much more mature than his peers, he was just as susceptible to the allure of tremendous supernatural ninja powers. Was it childish?

  Probably. Would he keep to the excuse of being twelve until he couldn't anymore? Of course. You'd only be young once.

  And if he was remembering the series correctly, this was a good stepping stone to some kind of chakra mode. He didn't have the internal reserves to fuel something so insane quite yet, and engineering something from scratch was bound to be complicated. But if nothing else, it was well worth the effort.

  "I wanna learn about chakra flow," Tobio shamelessly admitted, eyes glued to the bde in Shirakumo's hand. "If nothing else, it'll be a challenge."

  His swordsmanship was bound to grow naturally, in leaps and bounds. An opportunity to learn from someone advanced enough with nature transformation to perform chakra flow was a much rarer kind of opportunity. He didn't intend to squander it.

  "It'll be a lot tougher than just learning straight swordsmanship," the swordsman warned, eyes glinting with something indecipherable. "And there's no guarantee you'll make progress this month. Are you still sure?"

  That only made him want to dig his heels in even more. "I already said I'd do it. I aim to keep my word."

  Whatever he might have internally thought of those words, his new teacher could only give the boy a sharp nod. "We'll start at the basics then, and go from there."

  Sitting down across from each other, the man rested his bde in his p, as he stared ahead at Tobio. "When it comes to training my wind release, it's a function of…rotating two opposing forces of wind against each other. But you're unfamiliar with wind release jutsu, yes?"

  "Yeah. Doing what you do to transform your chakra probably isn't gonna cut it for me." Maybe when he started to sit down and learn some wind release, though…

  "Understandable. So we'll focus on the way to do this for fire release practitioners. For you, what is fire?"

  A more complicated and philosophical question than Tobio had been expecting. It made him blink, as he tried to ponder it. "Well…"

  What was fire to him?

  "…It's hunger. That yawning, never-ending burning rage in my chest when I use a fire release jutsu, just barely kept from burning me to a crisp." Especially when he considered the effects of his Origin on his supernatural powers.

  After all, a person's Origin was a fragment of Akasha itself. Serving as the starting point of life, your spirit would form around that core concept, creating an individual's soul. It influenced you from the moment you were born, to the end of your life. Metaphysically, it also influenced your Magecraft and other supernatural abilities, though said influence tended to be a bit negligible.

  At least until you started the three stages of connecting to it.

  Stage one, where Tobio was, was where you discovered what your Origin was, flicking on a switch almost. Many Magi struggled to replicate their peers' work, unless they had a simir or identical one to begin with. For him, it was probably why he found it so easy to make explosions with fire release, or would find simir jutsu just as easy.

  The subsequent stages weren't so beneficial or clean, though. When it came to stage two, that was where your inner world started leaking out into reality, superimposing your dysfunction and trauma via a reality marble. And stage three…

  Well, if he hit Origin Actualization, hopefully someone would be around to kill him before he burned the world to a crisp.

  Pcing a hand on his chest, Tobio closed his eyes and reached deep. Deep enough to focus on nothing more than the flickering ember that rested there even now. Waiting and beckoning to ignite, and set the world abze at the slightest provocation.

  "The breath of light is hot, is it not?" Shirakumo's words were…deceptively light and distant, the more Tobio sank into his pseudo-meditative state. "To begin, you have to find that ephemeral, flickering ember inside of you for us to get started truly. I know it may take several days of meditation, but-"

  "Are you talking about that spark inside my chest? I already found it."

  There was a long, drawn-out pause. Whatever Shirakumo was thinking, he wasn't sharing it with Tobio. If anything, the length of it worried him, as he cracked open an eye to look at his tutor. Only to find the man's eyes boring into his face with a worrying intensity.

  "…Is there something wrong?"

  "Are you telling me you found your inner fme? That quick?" There was a hint of something…incredulous, in the usually calm man's expression.

  At that, the Genin could only shrug. "I didn't know it was supposed to be hard."

  For most people, he guessed from the contextual inferences that it must have been a challenging feat. But fire was, and probably always would be, the element that he was closest to. On a fundamental basis, because it was the closest thing to properly manifesting his origin.

  Other people did not have all their metaphysical weight leaning on one element like that. An unfair advantage, sure. On the flipside, some people could look you in the eyes and throw you into a time loop illusion where they tortured you for days, so…

  Yeah, Tobio wasn't going to compin if he just so happened to have a bit of a cheat here.

  "That's…impressive," Shirakumo admitted, sighing softly. "Then perhaps this'll be easier than I thought. Let's continue from there…"

  During the month's sessions with Shirakumo, Tobio learned quite a few things about stoking that inner fme inside of himself. First of all, for a non-Uchiha or Senju shinobi, he had a seemingly shocking proclivity for the nature transformation of fire compared to even regur prodigies.

  With each training session, he felt the compounding effects of Depths of the Mind compressing his learning into a tighter and tighter ball. Until the time came to put that training into practice. To tinge his chakra with the heat of his burning soul.

  Okay, maybe that was a little bit dramatic. But his teacher's way of describing things was rubbing off on him.

  Standing in front of him with crossed arms, Shirakumo watched with a neutral expression on his face. Meanwhile, Tobio had his bde held out, focusing on the razor's edge. Unlike the process of wind chakra flow, where you had two opposing edges on a bde, fire was all about pouring your fire-nature chakra to create an incinerating edge. To stoke the fmes, as they bloomed across the surface of your weapons.

  With a regur sword, it would have been deeply challenging for Tobio to manage this in a single month. A chakra steel bde would still make it tough. But with a massive weapon that was functionally an extension of his very soul…?

  That was a very different proposition.

  Tobio breathed in. He breathed out. And then, he let his sword ignite.

  "Ignite."

  It was beautiful, the way heat and fire bloomed across the expanse of his asauchi. His bde wasn't just hungry for his chakra; it was practically gluttonous for it, resonating with him in a way no other weapon on the pnet could compare to. Tobio knew that, just the same as he knew what went up had to come down eventually. Much like any other fundamental truth of the world, he didn't question it. Merely accepted that fact, and moved on.

  Unfortunately, he could only hold that for a few seconds, and it guttered out before long. It was disappointing, but the surprised expression on Shirakumo's face made it clear he hadn't even been expecting that much so quickly.

  "…You've got a strong talent for fire release," his new mentor commented, wryly observing him. "One that Tekuno understated. I'll have words with him ter."

  That made Tobio clear his throat, moving to wipe some beads of sweat off his forehead. "I don't think my sensei even knows how fire-aspected I am, so go easy on him."

  "I'll have to take your word for it," he nodded, frowning slightly. "Let's continue to practice until you've got it down consistently, though."

  "Yes, sensei!"

  If he was being honest, this could hardly count as training for Tobio, as they honed chakra flow over the rest of the month in the odd practice session here and there. He was in his happy pce, learning how to burn and cut things simultaneously.

  What more could an Oni ask for?