Blades flashed across Training Ground Thirteen, accompanied by an endless succession of metallic clashes.
Ren drove his short sword through the center of Shisui's silver web. Shisui twisted his wrist at the last possible instant, redirecting the thrust before immediately answering with a slash toward Ren's neck.
Ren ducked beneath it.
Their figures crossed, turned, and collided again.
Neither Ren nor Shisui had reached the age of ten. Their bodies were still developing, and neither possessed the physical strength of an adult shinobi. Even so, the swordsmanship they displayed had already surpassed nearly everyone in their age group.
From a distance, the duel looked less like a spar between two children and more like a contest between veteran swordmasters.
Every movement had purpose.
Every strike threatened to become decisive.
Rin and Kurenai watched with shining eyes. The excitement of the battle brought faint color to their cheeks, and neither could look away from the two figures weaving through the storm of sparks.
Even Asuma felt a growing sense of longing.
For the first time, he seriously considered abandoning his current path and becoming a great swordsman.
Whether swordsmanship was stronger than ordinary taijutsu or ninjutsu didn't even matter. This way of fighting simply looked unbelievably cool.
Fast movements, flashing steel, flying sparks—it was impossible not to attract attention.
Asuma looked at the short swords in Ren's and Shisui's hands, and an idea gradually formed in his mind.
Longer weapons offered greater reach, but shorter blades became more dangerous at close range. Ren could already produce such spectacular results with a short sword more than half a meter long. If Asuma used an even shorter weapon—perhaps a chakra blade only twenty centimeters long—wouldn't his fighting style become even more distinctive?
More importantly, wouldn't it look even cooler?
Asuma's eyes brightened.
It was decided.
Once he returned home, he would speak to his old man and find a way to obtain a pair of blades forged from chakra metal. Hiruzen was the Hokage; getting hold of a little rare metal shouldn't be impossible.
Asuma would then give the weapons an impressive name.
When the time came, he would reveal them during a spar and completely surprise Ren. Perhaps Kurenai would finally stop paying so much attention to that white-haired bastard and look at her actual teammate with new respect.
While Asuma quietly designed his future weapons, the battle in the clearing reached its final exchange.
Ren and Shisui rushed past each other.
Two arcs of silver light collided, producing a deafening clang that echoed between the surrounding trees. Sparks scattered in both directions as the impact forced them apart.
Ren slid backward several steps before driving one foot into the earth. Shisui retreated the same distance, his sandals carving twin trails through the dirt.
Both boys were breathing heavily.
Their sword arms trembled from fatigue, and sweat rolled down their faces. Neither had suffered a serious injury, but several shallow cuts marked their clothes.
Ren slowly lowered his weapon.
"Let's stop here. We'll call this match a draw and fight again when we have the opportunity."
Hatake Swordsmanship immediately voiced its dissatisfaction inside his mind.
Hatake Swordsmanship: Why stop now? Hmph, fine. You're still a beginner with the sword, and your movements remain unrefined, so I'll allow it this time. But the next time we encounter Uchiha-Style Kenjutsu, I'll make it suffer a crushing defeat!
Ren resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
The technique had become strangely competitive after meeting Shisui. Fortunately, Ren had already discovered how to handle its arrogant personality.
He shamelessly praised it in his mind.
"Of course. How could mere Uchiha-Style Kenjutsu compare with our family's invincible Hatake Swordsmanship? Of all the sword arts I've ever witnessed, I, Ren, declare you the strongest."
The effect was immediate.
Hatake Swordsmanship: Hmph! How many sword styles have you even witnessed? And who said we were family? Still…you possess at least a little judgment. The next time you summon me, don't let me see you repeat today's mistakes.
Hatake Swordsmanship favorability increased by 2!
Ren's lips curved into a satisfied smile.
A little shameless flattery was an extremely small price to pay for favorability.
Across the clearing, Shisui slowly returned his short sword to its sheath. As the blade disappeared, the fierce battle intent in his eyes faded with it. In a matter of seconds, he transformed from a dangerous swordsman back into the slightly shy boy who had emerged from the trees.
"Before fighting me, you had already completed three consecutive spars," Shisui said. "Your stamina was not at its peak. Moreover, your swordsmanship is profound. During the second half of our fight, it felt as though you could predict my movements before I made them."
He offered Ren a respectful bow.
"I learned a great deal from this match."
"The feeling is mutual." Ren exhaled slowly and sheathed his own blade. "Reaching this level at your age is astonishing. Whenever we have the opportunity, we should spar again and learn from each other's strengths."
Shisui's expression brightened. "All right. I'd like that."
Hatake Swordsmanship was considered a high-potential conquest target, so raising its favorability had never been easy. Under normal circumstances, Ren could only gain one or two points each day.
Its progress was faster than the Eight Gates but noticeably slower than techniques such as the Great Fireball Technique and the Mystical Palm Technique.
Yet this single duel with Shisui had increased its favorability by five points in total.
The discovery immediately improved Ren's mood.
Perhaps Hatake Swordsmanship could be stimulated through competition. If that was true, Ren only needed to find more shinobi who specialised in Konoha-Style Kenjutsu or clan-secret sword techniques and challenge them one after another.
Each duel might provoke Hatake Swordsmanship into working harder while increasing its favorability toward him.
The idea was worth exploring.
When Ren had time, he would need to arrange everything properly. Perhaps he could ask Minato for assistance. As an elite jōnin, Minato surely knew several skilled swordsmen throughout Konoha.
Inviting them for a friendly spar shouldn't be too difficult.
At worst, Ren would simply purchase a few extra packets of cigarettes as gifts. Many veteran shinobi seemed willing to do nearly anything after receiving tobacco and a little respectful flattery.
That could wait, however.
Ren turned toward Asuma, who was still mentally designing his future chakra blades.
"Asuma, do you still want to continue our match?"
Asuma returned to his senses and looked at Ren. After a brief hesitation, he shook his head.
"Forget it. You just finished fighting Shisui, and you've already used too much stamina. I'm not going to take advantage of you."
He lifted his chin and added, "We'll settle it next time."
Ren smiled. "All right. We can train here again when everyone has time."
He then looked toward Shisui. "You should come as well."
Shisui nodded without hesitation. "I will."
Meeting Shisui had been an unexpected but rewarding interruption.
Afterward, Ren, Asuma, and the others rested beneath the trees. They reviewed their respective fights, discussed their weaknesses, and exchanged several suggestions.
Once the afternoon began giving way to evening, they separated and returned home.
---
Over the following ten days, Ren's life settled into a stable routine.
Every morning, he ran several laps around the village to strengthen his body and improve his endurance. After breakfast, he went to Konoha Hospital to attend Tsunade's lessons.
The Advanced Medical Class became increasingly difficult.
Tsunade covered anatomy, chakra pathways, poison treatment, battlefield triage, and the subtle differences between accelerating cellular recovery and damaging a patient through excessive stimulation. Whenever the hospital became busy, she casually drafted Ren into providing free labor.
Ren suspected this had been part of her plan from the beginning.
Still, treating real patients gave him practical experience that couldn't be gained from books. It also provided more opportunities to improve the Mystical Palm Technique, so he didn't complain too much.
In the afternoon, Ren went to the training grounds.
He practised his ninjutsu, refined his swordsmanship, and occasionally sparred with Kakashi, Obito, Rin, or Shisui. Every opponent possessed a different fighting style, forcing him to adapt instead of relying on the same methods.
During this period, Team Minato also completed several D-rank missions and one C-rank mission.
The C-rank assignment was relatively ordinary. They encountered several enemy ninja during the mission, but none were particularly powerful, and Team Minato defeated them without much difficulty.
Ren never discovered whether Obito had actually found Kakashi after learning the truth about the White Fang.
Whatever happened between them, their daily interactions didn't appear to change very much. Obito remained loud, reckless, and occasionally foolish, while Kakashi remained irritable, aloof, and sharp-tongued.
They still argued.
They still competed over everything.
However, when Obito talked back to Kakashi, his words no longer carried quite as much hostility as before. He still challenged him, but there was now a faint restraint in his tone—as though he had finally begun to recognize the pain concealed behind Kakashi's cold expression.
Rin also made steady progress.
Under Ren's guidance, she learned the Water Clone Technique and Wild Water Wave. Neither technique transformed her into a powerful combatant overnight, but they gave her valuable tools for distracting enemies, maintaining distance, and surviving dangerous encounters.
Rin understood their importance and practised diligently every day.
Ren, meanwhile, continued raising the proficiency and favorability of his Great Fireball Technique, Phoenix Sage Fire Technique, Hatake Swordsmanship, and several other abilities.
Most importantly, he finally began properly testing the Death Mark.
The experiments revealed two significant problems.
The first was chakra consumption.
Death Mark's Phantom Stage consumed far more chakra than Ren had expected. The moment he activated it, his reserves began draining continuously, even if he remained completely still.
With his current chakra capacity, Phantom Stage automatically deactivated after roughly eight to ten minutes.
That was already a restrictive time limit.
If Ren repeatedly used chakra-heavy ninjutsu such as the Great Fireball Technique while maintaining Phantom Stage, its duration became even shorter—sometimes more limited than an Ultraman transformation.
The situation was troublesome, but not impossible to solve.
Ren was still young, and his body hadn't finished developing. His natural chakra reserves would continue expanding as he grew. More importantly, mastering additional ninjutsu enhanced his physique, which would further increase his stamina and chakra.
Death Mark also didn't necessarily need to be combined with ninjutsu.
Hatake Swordsmanship consumed much less chakra than repeatedly launching Fire Release techniques. If Ren built Phantom Stage around close-range sword attacks and used ninjutsu only at decisive moments, the ability would remain active considerably longer.
The second problem was far more complicated.
It was the same weakness Hizashi Hyūga had previously identified.
Even if Ren could connect the Three Basic Techniques without delay, his mind and nervous system still required time to react.
His Substitution Technique took approximately 0.2 seconds to activate. While Phantom Stage was active, the technique had almost no cooldown. Theoretically, that meant Ren could change positions and attack five times every second.
Reality was different.
Every large-scale shift in position forced him to adjust his posture, determine his new distance from the target, choose an attack angle, and launch another strike.
Those actions consumed precious fractions of a second.
As a result, Ren could only perform two or three effective attacks per second, even under ideal conditions.
That speed remained terrifying in a one-on-one battle.
Against multiple opponents, however, the difficulty increased exponentially.
Ren needed to track every enemy's position, direction, speed, and possible response. He also had to repeatedly select the safest and most advantageous locations for each Substitution swap.
The amount of information entering his mind became overwhelming.
After only a few rapid transitions, his thoughts began lagging behind his body. If he forced himself to continue, he risked appearing in the wrong location—or placing himself directly in the path of an enemy's attack.
Only then did Ren truly appreciate what Minato was capable of.
During the Third Shinobi World War, Minato would use the Flying Thunder God Technique to eliminate fifty enemy ninja within a matter of seconds. Throughout that brief massacre, his mind had to track dozens of marked locations, calculate attack routes, distinguish allies from enemies, and choose the correct destination for every teleportation.
The amount of information processed in those few seconds was unimaginable.
The fact that Minato's brain didn't simply overheat proved that the mental limits of ninja were just as extraordinary as their physical ones.
Ren ended another Phantom Stage test and leaned against a tree, breathing heavily. Sweat ran down his forehead as he reviewed the mistakes he had made during the exercise.
Chakra capacity could improve naturally.
Reaction speed and information processing required specialized training.
"It looks like I really need to discuss this with Minato-sensei," Ren murmured. "Maybe he knows how to strengthen neural reactions through deliberate training."
A thoughtful light appeared in his eyes.
If anyone in the ninja world knew how to think, react, and kill within a fraction of a second, it was the future Yellow Flash.