Soseki sat hunched over a stack of paper in the corner of the orphanage library, the afternoon light slanting through the dusty window. Books surrounded him—some half-open, others bookmarked and tucked to the side. Fuinjutsu for Beginners. The Sealer's Toolkit. Kanji and Calligraphy. And two new additions: .Introduction to Projection Seals and Barriers 101. The first had a bookmark halfway through. The second sat untouched at the edge of the table.
He'd flipped through the Projection book once, just to refresh his memory, see if anything clicked. The first few pages were marked, but the bookmark sat stubbornly at the same spot it had been three days ago. He'd skimmed, realized he was in over his head, and set it aside.
Barrier 101 he hadn't even opened. Yorozu's voice echoed in his memory, her ever playful voice laced with a bit of firmness "Projection first, okay Soseki? You'll thank me later. Had to learn that the hard way."
He'd never been the type to take free advice for granted.
Three days since the forge. The initial rush of that revelation had faded, replaced by something quieter and more stubborn. It was passion—a hunger for the art that refused to be satisfied with just understanding. His wrist ached when he turned it the wrong way. His fingers bore the permanent shadow of spilled ink. All of it was a testament to the hunger that had taken root in him.
He'd spent those three days cycling through the fundamental seals one by one. Storage. Container. Unseal-Only. Once he'd deciphered the kanji, these three came easiest. These were the absolute basics of fuinjutsu. If you can't grasp this much, the art just isn't for you.
Next came Tracking, Message, Seal Removal, and Item-Specific Storage. These four needed more hours in the lab to crack. Among them, two were miscellaneous, and the other two maintenance-related. But Soseki had his eyes on a particular seal: the Tracking Seal.
As its name states, it helps with tracking. But not in the way he expected.
The creator of this seal is able to feel the preset chakra "anchor" you've set in the tag, bleeding chakra slowly, enabling you to find whatever it's been placed on. When Soseki first laid eyes on it, he'd envisioned it differently. He imagined a beacon, something that could be felt within a specific radius once placed. He realized the basics weren't as simple as they seemed. They were the easiest ways to utilize seals, and eventually build upon those principles once the practitioner reached a higher level. It was a real eye-opener.
He could draw each one from memory, trace the stroke order without looking at the manual, and explain the theory behind every curve and line. The practical application, however, was another matter entirely. One major problem: chakra to activate the seals. Which Soseki had none of.
But the harder ones still eluded him. The Lock Seal teased the edges of his understanding—he could draw it, he could explain its structure, but he couldn't grasp its underlying uses and implications. How did it distinguish between the creator and anyone else? How do you lock or deactivate a seal without it completely backfiring in your face? The concept was slippery, refusing to settle in his mind.
And Preservation, that was its own mess and a half. Its principles flirted with something deeper, something that felt uncomfortably close to space-time manipulation, a soft-core version of the kind of fuinjutsu that trifled with concepts far out of his knowledge. He understood the theory the way someone might understand a foreign language. Enough to recognize the words, not enough to speak them.
Then there was the Light Seal. Stubbornly out of reach. He'd read the theory five times, copied the diagram until his hand cramped, but the seal refused to click. It was a form of projection, something he hadn't even begun to grasp, and the harder he pushed, the further it seemed to slip away. He could feel the edge of the idea, but not the shape of it.
His troubles prompted him to visit Yorozu. She gave him a short explanation on the topic, then handed over her old cadet work from her Barrier Corps days for him to study.
The explanation was a pleasant eye opener but still did not progress his understanding to a level he would rather however.
Through all the studies and learning, the library was not the only place Soseki occupied. Though his table was neat, inks lined up in rows, incorrect kanji on practice sheets folded to the side for later review. Outwardly he was organized and kept. But internally, his mind juggled a million topics, activities, questions, and qualms a minute.
When he needed a bit of inspiration after hitting a slight roadblock, the clearing had become his outlet.
The grass was flattened in patches where they'd run drills, the trees scarred from Arashi's kunai practice, the dirt scuffed and worn.
Soseki's legs burned, his lungs desperately vacuuming in the air as if every breath were a delicacy he feared might be snatched away. Arashi's voice reached him through the haze, steady as a hand on his shoulder.
"C'mon Soseki, halfway through. You got this."
To Soseki's chagrin, a bitter grin tugged at his lips as he exhaustedly parroted, "Half... way?"
Something he noted about Arashi: when they were training, it was never about him keeping up. It was more akin to survival.
Arashi, for lack of a better word, was a freak. Everything about him screamed "ninja." A natural-born shinobi, from the way he breathed to the way he shifted his center of mass. The boy moved like water, possessed freakish kinesthetic intelligence. Every motion fluid, every transition seamless. He didn't waste energy, didn't hesitate, didn't stutter.
In every sense of the word, he was a genetic outlier. And what was even scarier was his drive. He chased strength like the world would end in a week—never a missed day of training, always improving a facet of his ninja expertise.
There was something magnetic about that drive. Arashi's ambition for greatness was infectious. More so, it drove Soseki to give it his all as well, even as his body protested for him to stop.
The routine was inhumane, yet it was one Arashi stuck to like gospel. Arashi always started with what he called "field work," something he described as a short jog to get the blood pumping and the body working.
It sounded normal in theory—until Soseki found out what a "jog" meant to Arashi. The brunette's speed was unmatchable for anyone his age, and his pace never wavered. Same stride length, same push-off power, same breathing speed.
Soseki always had to try extra hard to catch up, even though he often lagged behind. But that wasn't the worst of it. Arashi's training methods were among the most unorthodox ways Soseki had ever seen someone torture themselves.
From running upstream, fighting against the current, to tossing rocks in the air and catching them with a perfectly timed jab. He was definitely creative… or masochistic. Soseki couldn't figure out which.
"Now that you're here, I can start training proper." Arashi tossed over his shoulder while finishing his stretches.
"P-proper?" Soseki murmured. "What you just showed was not... proper..."
Soseki's world was still tilting from the spinning Arashi had made him do forty rotations, eyes closed, arms outstretched. By the time he opened his eyes, the ground had become unreliable, the trees shifting in and out of focus like they had minds of their own.
Then the first stone hit his shoulder.
"Ow—"
The second clipped his ear.
"Hold on—"
The third caught him square in the chest. By the time he had his bearings, Arashi had already launched a dozen more, each one finding its mark with infuriating precision. The stones weren't particularly large, they were pebbles really, but they stung nonetheless, and the force behind them was enough to bruise.
Soseki dodged, ducked, stumbled sideways. It didn't matter. Arashi's aim was preternatural—every throw adjusted for Soseki's movement, every trajectory curved just enough to meet its target. Twenty minutes in, Soseki's arms were covered in red welts and his ribs ached from the constant pelt.
But then he noticed something. The moments he got hit hardest were when he looked. He realized his eyes were a liability, showing him movement that wasn't there, delaying his reactions just enough for the next pebble to find its mark.
So he stopped relying on them entirely.
He closed his eyes and began to listen, feeling the shift in the air before the throw, hearing the subtle weight change in Arashi's stance, the faint rustle of fabric as his arm drew back. At the end he still got hit, but it was noticeable less to Arashi's surprise.
"Soseki, you're amazing. You're already getting the hang of it with your eyes closed. Thats real talent right there, I'm impressed" Arashi called out.
"Well then it's about time for you to get some payback don'tcha think? Let's switch."
Soseki didn't argue. He took his position next to the pile of pebbles. Arashi began to spin, his movement, as always, looking effortless. When he stopped, the world was clearly still spinning for him. Yet he appeared to still be somewhat grounded, his head swaying ever so slightly.
'It appears he didn't make this on the spot just to bully me with rocks. This is something he's practiced—he's almost not disoriented at all.' Soseki mused
"You've done this before," Soseki called out, matter-of-factly.
Arashi let out a sheepish grin. "Ha, yeah. I have. This isn't my first time. Actually, I'm pretty used to the spin. So I started closing my eyes to make it harder."
"Harder? It's the opposite for me, it makes it easier really," Soseki replied.
"Well, you're compensating for your speed, so I'm guessing the eye disorientation is just extra noise for you. That's normal when starting out," Arashi noted.
'This is surprisingly comprehensive for an eight-year-old... And he does have a point. Closing your eyes during an exercise like this limits outside information, making it way harder to navigate. But it's the opposite for me. Weird.' he was lost in thought.
"Well then, start throwing before my very limited nausea runs out. In fact, I'll make it harder for myself. I'll close my eyes," Arashi said, giving Soseki the go-ahead.
'Can't really fault him,' Soseki thought, letting out a wry grin. 'For someone as naturally gifted as Arashi, you can't call that arrogance, it's merely just confidence in his ability. He's so sure of his other senses, so certain of his body's ability to react, that he's handicapped himself to make the exercise harder.'
He adjusted his grip, planted his feet, and threw a clean, straight shot aimed directly at Arashi's center mass. Arashi easily sidestepped it.
'I'm making this too easy for him. Need to shift my attacking angle.'
Soseki moved to the opposite side and ripped another one at him.
This time, Arashi spun, his back twisting, letting the stone glide past him.
Hmm. Tricky. I don't have enough force or speed to be threatening. I have to predict everything before the throw and move accordingly. Arashi is just too quick, the time he needs to think and calculate is effectively cut in half. And I'm not throwing nearly as fast as he was.'
Soseki threw again. This time, he added a subtle shift to his step. It was a faint, an audible weight change that made it sound like he was repositioning clockwise. Instead, he pivoted counterclockwise, his arm whipping through the opposite arc.
The stone sliced through the air.
Arashi's body reacted to the feint, committing to the wrong angle, his weight already shifting the wrong way—playing right into Soseki's hands.
Soseki let out a small grin 'Shows him. In a world like this, deception is the friend of the clever'
His triumph was short-lived. Arashi recovered fast, faster than anyone had a right to—but not fast enough. The stone grazed the bottom of his forearm, then glanced off his stomach.
Arashi's eyes snapped open. For a split second, a faint flicker of surprise crossed his face. Then a slow grin spread across his features.
'As shrewd as always, aren't we, Soseki?' His hand moving to the spot where the pebble hit him. 'Never a dull moment with this one. He's perfect. He makes the gap between us feel like a hair's breadth with how crafty and ingenious he is.'
'There is no doubt in my mind. There's no greater person I can proudly claim as my rival.'
Arashi was beaming. He could hear it. A structured, melodious rhythm. A wonderful motif that signified only one thing: the gears in Soseki's head beginning to turn with a brilliant resonance. It started soft, almost imperceptible, then built into something more insistent—a quiet whir of mental machinery, each cog clicking into place. A sound he was starting to grow quite fond of.
Soseki could feel the atmosphere shift. The excitement rolling off Arashi was palpable—the same electric charge that had crackled between them during their first spar. It made the air feel thinner, sharper.
Soseki didn't just enjoy it. He craved it.
Being taken seriously meant being worth the effort, and that thought drove him to dig deeper, to find the cracks in Arashi's armor that no one else could see.
The rest of the exercise was a blender of tricks. Each stone came with its own puzzle, and no two were ever the same. Soseki switched from throwing to lobbing, giving the stones different arcs, aiming at spots where he thought Arashi would dodge to. He feinted throws without actually releasing, flicked his wrist so only the breaking of air could be heard, broke rhythm, baited Arashi into committing to the wrong angle.
It worked. Arashi was put on his toes, and he enjoyed every second of it. The unpredictability, the feel of battle where you never knew when the next hit would come.
He had to adapt; realizing he couldn't rely on raw instinct anymore, he started thinking about what Soseki was trying to do, not just what his body was doing. His mind had to catch up to his body.
They cycled the exercise twice more. Soseki went again and did noticeably better than the first time. His dodges were sharper, movements smoother than last. Arashi tried to recycle some of Soseki's tricks, but they didn't land the same way. For one he simply lacked the finesse it took to pull them off effectively, and second Soseki, well, he knew his own moves.
So Arashi defaulted to what he did best: throwing harder and faster. It gave Soseki a better run for his money. Every rustle of a leaf sent his mind into overdrive, every neuron firing to anticipate where the sound came from, how fast the air was displacing, where to move his body to take minimal damage.
When they finally stopped, Soseki was covered head to toe in bruises, welts, and marks. Arashi wasn't unscathed either, but nowhere near as bad. They talked about the exercise afterward—what worked, what didn't, how their approaches had differed.
Soseki found himself dissecting the structure of the drill, the way it seemed designed to expose a trainee's weaknesses while simultaneously sharpening their strengths. The thought that an adolescent had come up with this was almost far-fetched. If Arashi really had designed it himself, it would be nothing short of remarkable.
Though Soseki suspected the kid didn't fully understand the underlying implications of what he'd put together.
The other exercises where light sparring followed a similar rhythm but in different facets of shinobi training. They trained on the riverbank near the training ground, the stones slick with spray and shifting underfoot, forcing them to read the ground before committing their weight. It was less about speed and power, more about control and finesse.
Then came the leaf game. They sparred under a tree with falling leaves, where they had to avoid getting hit while tripping their opponent or throwing them into a leaf's path. You could even shake the tree to make more leaves fall, which trained awareness and environmental adaptation.
Arashi made it a challenge: whoever got touched by more leaves had to do cleanup on tomorrow's training, which, as Arashi revealed, had a lot of bukijutsu and accuracy drills.
Surprisingly, it was a close game. Arashi secured the win with 58 leaves touching him, while Soseki had 64. The reason for such a close margin was Soseki's wit—he always managed to get into favorable positions while herding Arashi into dead ends, where he'd either have to take a push into a leaf or dodge into the path of one. But Arashi's speed and instincts were just enough to get him out of the way, and he made fewer passive slips than Soseki.
All in all, this was Soseki's favorite drill so far. He had a blast with it, and it was significantly less painful than the former.
By the time the sun began to dip, Soseki was exhausted. He hated being tired, but this time it felt earned. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he began to embrace the feeling. His body had seen better days—aching muscles, swelling on his arms and legs that let out a passive heat. His mind was buzzing, yet somehow calm.
And somewhere between the bruises and the growing understanding of his own limits, he realized something. He was learning how to fight. Arashi's drills at first seemed like silly exercises, but they all had a purpose. They honed instinct, trained the body to multitask under pressure, taught him how to think on his feet, how to read an opponent, how to use the environment and his own limitations as tools.
Now he was getting seriously skeptical about where Arashi had gotten these ideas for training.
Arashi clapped him on the shoulder as they walked back toward the orphanage. "You were amazing today, Soseki. Keep this up and we'll be battle ready in no time."
"As humble as ever, aren't you, Arashi?" Soseki replied, not looking at him, still deep in thought. "You know as well as I do that you're leagues ahead of me in the ninja arts."
"And it's all the more impressive that you're keeping up so well." Arashi's signature warm, gentle smile spread across his face—something that was starting to become a trademark of his. "You're truly one of a kind, you know that?"
Soseki broke out of his thoughts and looked at his friend's beaming face. "Right."
He said it simply, allowing the calm of the evening to wash over them.
A/N: No excuse with this one again, spent more time figuring out the chapter name than actually writing the chapter. This is a longer one so hope ya'll like it. Better late than never né?