AN: This is the other chapter I promised I made some goals at the end of the chapter.
Also do you guys want an Auxiliary chapter for this fic aswell?
Like to know how the future Harem. Should I keep it vague?
My DxD fic is growing faster than my Naruto fic over at Ff.net and WebNovel.
Chapter 15 - Training with resolve
One month passed.
Kumogakure did not heal completely at that time, but it stopped bleeding.
The broken western cliff road had been reinforced with fresh stone release supports and steel anchors. Temporary bridges were replaced with stronger ones. Damaged shelters were repaired, cracked seals were rewritten, and the three unstable residential routes were slowly opened again under BOLT supervision.
The village still carried scars from the 8 tails incident.
Blackened stone.
Rebuilt walls.
New memorial tablets.
People missing from places where they used to frequent. But Kumogakure kept moving.
That was one thing Antares had learned about the village.
Kumo did not stop.
Not for grief or pain, and definitely not fear.
It carried all three and kept climbing.
Antares stood at the base of an old mountain training ground with white medical bandages wrapped around his knuckles.
His body no longer felt like it was filled with broken glass. His chakra coils still ached if he pushed too hard, but Amai had finally cleared him for basic physical training under strict supervision.
Strict supervision meant Misaki would be there. Which meant there was no escaping from her.
She had checked him herself three times that morning before allowing him to leave the hospital district. Then she checked him again when they reached the training ground. Then she placed her fingers against his wrist and sent a thin thread of chakra through his coils while staring at him like she was daring his body to lie to her.
Antares had stood very still.
He was not stupid.
Mostly.
Misaki finally pulled her hand away.
"Your coils are stable," she said. "Not fully recovered, but stable enough for light physical conditioning."
Antares looked toward the mountain.
The mountain looked back.
Tall, cold and unbothered.
Its lower cliff face had not been shaped by nature alone. Countless years of brutal training had carved scars into the stone. Fist marks, kick marks, elbow dents, cracked ridges, and old impact craters covered the mountainside like a record of pain left behind by generations.
Some marks were shallow, barely more than bruises in the rock.
Others were deep enough that Antares could have crawled inside them if he wanted to embarrass himself.
There were long grooves where bodies had been dragged across stone, old fractures where lightning enhanced strikes had split the surface, and smooth patches where repeated impacts had worn the mountain down like flowing water over centuries.
A few craters were too large to be called training marks.
Those were probably his father's.
Misaki noticed where he was looking.
"Light," she repeated.
Antares coughed.
"Yes, Mother."
"I mean it." she said again staring at him
"I know." Antares said looking embarrassed
"You are not to use chakra unless I tell you."
"Yes, Mother." Antares said respecfully
"You are not to imitate your father and his brutal training regime" Misaki mentioned not wanting her son to damage him self badly
Antares glanced at Ay.
The Third Raikage stood a few steps away, rolling his shoulders with bandages wrapped around his own knuckles. He looked entirely too comfortable in front of a mountain that had clearly suffered from knowing him.
Ay looked back.
Antares looked away.
"Yes, Mother."
Misaki's eyes narrowed.
"And you are not to imitate your brother either."
Unruly Ay, standing nearby with his arms crossed and a grin on his face, looked slightly offended.
"What did I do?"
Misaki turned toward him. "You exist." since Unruly Ay is a know trouble maker and always imitates his father even his brutality in training their body.
Antares lowered his head to hide his smile.
Unruly Ay opened his mouth, paused, then wisely closed it.
Ay gave a low grunt that might have been a laugh.
Misaki reached into the pouch at her waist and pulled out three paper seals. Each one was covered in black ink and small circular formulas that looked simple at first glance, but Antares knew better.
His mother did not make simple seals.
"These are resistance seals," Misaki said.
Antares immediately became interested.
The fear of his mother faded beneath curiosity.
"What kind of resistance?"
"The kind that keeps you from doing something foolish too quickly."
Unruly Ay laughed.
Misaki ignored him and held up one of the seals.
"They recreate the feeling of moving through water. Every movement becomes heavier. Your muscles must work harder, but without needing you to carry external weights that might damage your joints."
Antares looked at the seal with new respect, he had heard of similar thing but in fanfictions, Naruto anime doesnt go indeapth into these things.
"That is actually brilliant."
"I know," Misaki said proud of her work, just pure confidence.
Antares respected it.
Misaki continued, "The seals currently have ten levels. The higher the number, the stronger the resistance. Level one is light. Level ten is not to be used without me present."
Ay looked at the seal in her hand.
"Level ten?"
Misaki did not look at him.
"No."
Ay grunted.
Antares was starting to realize his mother had a special talent for hearing the thoughts of reckless men.
Misaki placed the first seal against Antares' upper back.
The ink spread out for a moment before sinking into his shirt and skin like cold water.
His body immediately felt heavier.
Not crushed or trapped but noticibly slower.
He lifted his arm and felt as if he were moving through a shallow river.
His eyes widened.
"This is level one?"
"Yes."
Antares looked at Unruly Ay.
Misaki placed a second seal on his brother.
Unruly Ay rolled his neck and asked his step mother "What level?"
"Three." she answered him activating the seal on him.
His grin widened. "Only three?"
Misaki looked up at him. "Would you like level four?"
Unruly Ay shut up as he felt the effects of the seal come over him.
Ay stepped forward.
Misaki placed the last seal against his chest instead of his back.
The ink sank in.
"Level six," she said.
Antares stared at his father.
Ay flexed his fingers once.
The air around him seemed to bend slightly as the seal activated. His shoulders dipped by the smallest amount before settling again.
'That was it?, no complaints father is truly a beast' Antares though amazed at the endurance of a kage, and to be fair he thinks his father could probably go higher.
Just a slight adjustment.
Antares felt both inspired and personally insulted.
'Level one makes me feel like I'm walking underwater, and this man barely reacts to level six.'
Unfair.
Completely unfair.
Then again, that was the point.
The mountain did not care about fairness.
Ay stepped in front of the cliff face.
"Watch."
No long speech.
No explanation, just that one word.
He raised his bandaged fist.
For a moment, nothing moved.
Then his arm blurred.
BAM!
The punch struck the mountain with a sound like thunder.
Stone cracked outward from his fist in thick lines, spreading across the surface like broken glass. Dust fell from above, and a shallow crater formed where his knuckles had landed.
Antares stared and thought. 'This reminds me of Garp and Aokiji training'
Unruly Ay grinned.
Ay pulled his hand back, the bandages were scratched, but not torn.
"That is the result of stance, body, and resolve," Ay said. "Not chakra."
Antares blinked.
"No chakra?"
"No chakra." Ay confirmed
Ay turned slightly.
"If you rely on chakra for everything, your body becomes lazy. If your body is weak, chakra only hides the problem until someone stronger exposes it."
Unruly Ay stepped forward next.
He rolled his shoulders, planted his feet, and punched the stone.
Bam!
His strike was nowhere near their father's, but it still left a visible mark in the mountain. A thin crack split beneath his knuckles.
Unruly Ay looked back at Antares with a smug grin.
"Your turn, brat."
Antares walked forward.
Every step dragged against the resistance seal.
Level one.
Only level one.
He already hated it, the fact he was so weak.
The mountain face stood in front of him.
Gray stone.
He lifted his fist.
The bandages around his knuckles felt too clean.
His heart beat faster.
He remembered the hospital.
The Root operative.
The blank mask.
His body refusing to move.
The pain of trying to perform one push-up.
He remembered his mother's hands shaking.
His brother lying unconscious.
His father was standing in the doorway with exhaustion hidden beneath the iron will.
He remembered the future too.
Konoha.
Danzo.
Wars.
Jinchuriki.
Akatsuki.
Madara.
Obito.
Black Zetsu.
Kaguya.
Names stacked on top of names until the future felt like a mountain much larger than the one in front of him.
That was the problem.
He knew too much.
And somehow, not enough.
His knowledge had already started becoming unreliable. Root had come for him now. The timeline was not waiting politely for him to grow up. The world was changing because he existed.
Maybe some things would still happen.
Maybe some things would not.
Maybe the future he knew would break into something worse.
His fingers tightened.
'What if I cannot stop it?' The thought came suddenly.
Ugly and honest.
What if knowing the future was not enough?
What if all his plans fell apart?
What if his family died anyway?
What if he trained for years and still ended up too weak when it truly mattered?
The resistance seal pressed against him like water.
His arm felt heavy.
The mountain waited.
Antares grit his teeth.
'No.'
Fear was not useless.
Fear told him what mattered.
But if he let it decide everything, then he would spend his whole life reacting to shadows.
He did not want that.
He wanted strength.
Not just to survive.
Not just to avoid death.
To protect.
To choose.
To stand in front of the people he cared about and not be moved.
Antares inhaled slowly.
He planted his feet the way he had seen his father do.
He wasn't as good at it like his father. But he tried.
He turned his hip.
Raised his fist.
Then punched.
Thud.
Pain shot through his knuckles.
The mountain did not crack.
It did not chip.
Antares pulled his hand back and stared at the stone.
There was no mark.
Not even a small one.
Unruly Ay leaned over.
"Did you touch it or apologize to it?"
Antares glared at him.
"I punched it."
"Could have fooled me."
"Ay," Misaki warned.
Unruly Ay raised both hands. "I am encouraging him."
"You are mocking him." Misaki chastised him
"That is how I encourage him."
Misaki stared.
Unruly Ay looked away.
Ay walked behind Antares.
"Again."
Antares looked up at him.
Ay's face was calm.
Not disappointed or amused.
He was just calm. That somehow helped.
Antares faced the mountain again.
His knuckles throbbed.
He punched.
Thud.
Still nothing.
"Again," Ay said.
Thud.
"Again."
Thud.
The resistance seal made every motion slower. His shoulders started burning after the fifth punch. His legs trembled after the tenth. By the fifteenth, his breathing was uneven.
By the twentieth, his knuckles felt like fire.
The mountain remained unchanged.
Antares hated it.
Then he understood why his father liked it.
The mountain did not flatter him. It did not care about his name, bloodline, memories, future knowledge, or reincarnation. It did not care that he was scared. It did not care that he had almost died.
It gave him the truth every time his fist landed.
He was weak.
For now.
Thud.
His fist struck again.
This time, a tiny spot of dust fell from the stone.
It was probably nothing.
A coincidence.
A loose grain.
But Antares saw it.
So did Ay.
So did Misaki.
Unruly Ay opened his mouth.
Misaki looked at him.
He closed it.
Antares pulled his fist back.
His hand hurt badly.
His arms shook.
His body wanted to stop.
The future was still terrifying.
War was still coming.
Danzo was still alive.
Konoha was still dangerous.
The world was still too large for a child who could barely bruise a mountain.
But for the first time since waking up in the hospital, Antares felt like he had found something real.
Not a plan.
But a path, a painful, slow and humiliating path but a path nonetheless.
Ay placed a hand on his shoulder.
"That is enough."
Antares looked at him.
"I can do more."
"I know."
"Then why stop?"
"Because training is not only about how much pain you can endure. It is about returning tomorrow and repeating it all again."
Antares froze.
Returning tomorrow.
Not breaking himself once to prove a point.
Not trying to become strong in a single morning because fear made him impatient.
Returning.
Again and again.
Until the mountain remembered his fist.
Antares slowly lowered his hand.
"Ok, I understand."
Misaki's expression softened slightly.
She walked over and took his hand, unwrapping the medical bandages enough to inspect his knuckles. They were red, swollen, and slightly scraped, but not bleeding badly.
"You are done for now," she said.
Antares nodded.
No argument.
Misaki looked surprised.
Ay looked pleased.
Unruly Ay looked betrayed.
"What happened to him?" Unruly Ay asked. "He listened."
Antares gave him a tired look.
"I can still insult you while listening."
"There he is." Said Unruly Ay, since his little brother always had a spark to him but today he seemed off
Misaki shook her head and reached into a storage scroll.
With a puff of smoke, several wrapped rice balls, a water flask, tea, and a small container of ointment appeared on a flat stone nearby.
Antares stared. "You brought refreshments?"
Misaki looked at the three of them.
"I know who I married and what I gave birth to. Of course I brought refreshments."
Ay took the water flask without shame.
Unruly Ay grabbed a rice ball.
Antares sat down carefully on a low rock, every muscle in his body grateful for the break.
Misaki began applying ointment to his knuckles.
It stung.
He hissed.
"Good," she said.
"Good?"
"Pain teaches the mind."
"That sounds like something Father would say."
Ay grunted from where he stood drinking water.
"I agree with her."
"Of course you do she's your wife" say Antares sarcastically.
Misaki wrapped his knuckles again, gentler this time.
For a few minutes, they rested.
The mountain stood in front of them.
Silent.
Patient and unchanged.
Antares looked up at it while chewing slowly.
The future still waited somewhere beyond the clouds.
He could not control all of it.
He could not guarantee who would live, who would die, or how much of his knowledge would remain useful.
But he could control this.
His breath.
His stance.
His fist.
His decision to return tomorrow.
Antares looked down at his bandaged hand.
Then he looked back at the mountain.
It had not cracked.
Not yet.
But one day, it would.
And when that day came, he would be a little closer to the kind of strength he needed.
Not just strength to survive.
Strength to protect what was his.
Strength to face the future without being crushed by it.
Ay finished drinking and set the flask down.
"Break is over."
Antares blinked.
Misaki looked at him.
"Not for him."
Ay paused.
Misaki smiled.
It was not a request.
Ay grunted.
"Fine. For us."
Unruly Ay groaned dramatically.
Antares smiled as his father and brother returned to the mountain.
Level three and level six.
Two fists struck stone.
Bam!
BAM!
The valley answered with the sound similar to thunder.
Antares sat with his sore hands in his lap, watching them carve their resolve into the mountain one strike at a time.
His turn would come again tomorrow.
AN: Hope you guys enjoyed, drop some power stones
Goal - 50 power stones - 1 extra chapter
Goal - 15 reviews/comments (From different people) - 1 extra chapter