With his Hyuga Assault cancelled, Shiki decided to put more time into training and after various complaints from interested parties, interpersonal relations as well.
Unfortunately, the latter began to cut into the former quite severely.
After all, if the boy dared to send shadow clones to entertain the girls that wanted to spend time with him and they found out . . .
Safe to say, the end result would not be pretty.
Still, Shiki did put in training when he could.
Originally, the girls, as in Mei and Benihime, thought it was a good idea to join him, increasing their time together however . . .
Things did not go according to plan.
The boy's training was just too brutal.
It was not that the girls were making any attempt to follow it, Shiki did not want it and the girls did not even have the idea in the first place, they knew how suicidal his training load was.
No, the real issue, was that he ramped up the intensity so much, that they could not even bear to watch the boy putting himself through what they could only describe as self-torture.
Shiki's current training was based on his Ryumon legacy.
With the Nirvana Seal holding things up, the boy did not need to worry about completely collapsing his body so he started the training earlier than the optimal age recorded in the bloodline memories.
Ryumon training involved breaking one down and then, through various secret medicines, help build it back up much stronger.
With his spoils from the Land of Medicine, Shiki was able to mass produce the various poultices, oils and essences required.
And with the Nirvana Seal, he could go much harder.
More accurately, he needed to go much harder.
By thoroughly breaking down his body and then activating Nirvana Seal: Transcendence to assist in the recovery process not by raw healing but by pouring in the stored and meticulously curated genetic information, Shiki could accelerate his own evolution to a massive degree.
He had assembled so many pieces of the Otsutsuki genetic legacy already that developing a Sage Body or a Dojutsu was not far fetched in the slightest.
The only question was whether he would get a dojutsu unique to himself or an already existing one.
But it would still take some time until his training bore fruit.
Meanwhile, despite being far too young for such considerations, the girls in his life demanded all kinds of attention and, even if he still lacked any sort of sexual attraction to them, he did care for them so blowing them off was not an option.
*
It was a pleasant afternoon, not too hot, not too cold, with a pleasant fragrant breeze blowing across one of Konoha's parks.
There, on a wooden bench Uchiha Mei was tightly hugging Shiki with her whole body as if he was a big plushie.
'This was truly a grave miscalculation.' The boy thought to himself.
Mei was already fifteen, the prime age for romantic matters to start gaining more serious weight in her life.
Shiki on the other hand, was always keen to remind her that he was seven and he looked at most ten even if he certainly did not act like it.
Basically, he was announcing he was too young to pay attention to such matters in order to curb Mei's enthusiasm.
Alas . . .
The bespectacled girl's thought process wandered in a most unfavorable direction.
'Wait a minute, if Shiki was my age, being too clingy and overly affectionate in public would be shameless and indecent but since he's significantly younger . . . Isn't hugging, hand holding, lap pillows and such perfectly fine and natural?' That was her thinking.
'That's right I'm just a beautiful and dependable girl spoiling my younger brother-like figure. Perfectly natural!' Mei arbitrarily decided.
'If in the future, our close and affectionate bond develops in a more romantic direction, it would be nothing if not reasonable right?'
And so did the current situation come about.
"Want to spar with onee-san later?" Mei took the boy out of his musings with an offer, getting more and more in character with her imagined big sister persona.
"Sure but you need to go easy with those eyes of yours." Shiki accepted but also reminded the bespectacled girl to be cautious.
"Worried about getting thoroughly suppressed by your onee-san?" Mei questioned with a teasing smirk.
"You know what I'm talking about." The boy argued.
"I can take a loss but your eyes can't take too many wins." He added.
He jumped out of the girl's embrace and turned to face her, holding her head in place, a hand in each cheek.
"Don't overdo it." He gravely said, a serious expression on his face.
In contrast, Mei's face lit up with a beaming smile to the point her eyes became crescents.
"Are you listening to me?" The boy questioned.
"Mm! Mm!" The bespectacled girl nodded enthusiastically.
Shiki could only shake his head in exasperation, hoping some of his warning did register.
Meanwhile, Mei hid a more devious smile.
'I always take your words seriously but if I showed that, I wouldn't be able to enjoy your attention and worry for me.' She thought to herself.
She knew it was not very nice to needlessly make Shiki worry for her but could a young teenage girl in love really be blamed for seeking her crush's attention?
*
Then there was Kurogane Benihime.
Despite being the exact same age as Shiki, she approached things far more maturely than her rival in love.
It was one of the things that made her more in tune with the boy and, despite the saying that opposites attract, a relationship with zero commonality would also face serious problems.
Beni, aware that they were both too young for such things and of Shiki's lacking enthusiasm for matters of romance at least for the time being, decided to play the role of a confidante and support.
And she was successful, despite not knowing her for as long as some others, other than Mito herself, the boy placed the most amount of trust in the former Land of Iron young lady.
He had felt her resolve to let go of everything to follow him and knew in his heart that she would always have his back no matter what.
All this along with her dojutsu's scouting abilities meant it was not long until she started participating in Shiki's investigations.
'Play the Onee-san card all you want. At the end of the day, I'm the one always by his side when it matters most and he'll never forget that.' That was how the girl thought.
There was no need for overly affectionate displays or excessive words.
Benihime trusted that the tacit understanding that grew between her and Shiki would someday evolve into something more.
*
Jumping back into present time, The young boy and girl pair were currently making the final assault plans in preparation for that night's meeting.
Mito had completed her long distance communication project by means of fuinjutsu and steps had already been taken to set it up.
Once night fell, Mito and Shiki would call upon only their most trusted allies to coordinate the upcoming operation.
+++++
Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
500 Power Stones = 2 Bonus Chapters
1000 Power Stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -