---

  “Well… there was a new classmate today.”

  “A new classmate?” Homura didn’t look up from his bowl, but Reiji heard the attention in the pause.

  “Yes. I wanted to ask—have you heard the name Uzumaki before?”

  Homura’s chopsticks stopped. That alone was answer enough.

  “Uzumaki,” he repeated. “Your classmate is an Uzumaki?”

  “Yeah. Uzumaki Kushina.” Reiji frowned. “I swear I’ve heard it somewhere. I assumed it was a famous clan.”

  “It is,” Homura said quietly. “Some would argue they mattered almost as much as the Senju and the Uchiha when Konoha was founded.”

  Reiji blinked. “If they’re that important, why have I never seen any?”

  “Because they don’t live here,” Homura replied. “They never did. Their home is Uzushiogakure—an island nation off the western sea, with whirlpools so thick ships learn to fear the coast.”

  “Then why aren’t they in the village if they’re a founding clan?”

  Homura exhaled through his nose, as if the question annoyed him. “Because ‘founding’ doesn’t always mean ‘belonging.’ The Uzumaki are allies. Not citizens.”

  He studied Reiji for a moment. “Have you heard of Mito Uzumaki?”

  Reiji’s eyes widened. “The First Hokage’s wife.”

  “Exactly.” Homura’s tone stayed even. “They’re known for their vitality and large chakra reserves. But more than that…” His gaze sharpened slightly. “Their fūinjutsu.”

  “Sealing,” Reiji said at once.

  “Yes. Few clans can claim to rival them in it.” He paused, then added, almost unwillingly, “They also tend to be a bunch of redheads.”

  Reiji’s mouth twitched. “So it was with their help that the First Hokage sealed the tailed beasts.”

  “And later used that power as a political tool,” Homura corrected calmly.

  Reiji scowled. “I still think giving them away was stupid.”

  Homura’s eyes lifted—soft, but warning. “Do not speak lightly of men who held the world together with their hands. It is easy to judge a decision when you know what came after.”

  Reiji lowered his gaze. “…Right.”

  Homura nodded once, satisfied, and continued. “The Uzumaki are one of the few clans that never bent themselves into a hidden village. They are a nation in their own right. Powerful enough that they don’t need to hide.”

  Reiji absorbed that, then looked up again. “And now one of them is in my class.”

  Homura’s stare held on him a fraction too long. “Tell me—this Kushina. She is a girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Homura looked away, but something complicated moved in his expression—something tired, almost sad. “So it’s time.”

  “Father?”

  Homura’s voice lowered. “Be kind to her, Reiji.”

  Reiji frowned, unsettled. “Why?”

  “Because the world was not kind to her,” Homura said. “And it will not suddenly become kind now.”

  He set his chopsticks down. “Also… she may be useful to you later. Understand?”

  Reiji hesitated. Then he nodded. “Yes, Father. I’ll try.”

  “Good.”

  They returned to their meal, and the silence that followed felt heavier than before.

  When they finished, Homura added, “Get up at dawn tomorrow. We’re going outside.”

  Reiji’s eyes lit up. “You’ll train me personally?”

  Homura nodded once. “Yes. It’s time you learned an essential technique for a shinobi.”

  Reiji leaned forward. “What is it?”

  Homura’s gaze stayed on his bowl as he asked, “Tell me, son—do you like climbing trees?”

  ---

  They woke before sunrise.

  Reiji dressed in silence, pulling on his kimono, wrapping his hands with bandages, and fastening his ninja pouch at his waist. After a brief hesitation, he strapped a second pouch higher on his thigh, hidden beneath the folds of his clothes.

  When he stepped outside, his father was already waiting.

  Homura stood with his cane planted in the dirt, the early breeze tugging at the empty sleeve where his right arm should have been.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They crossed Konoha while it was still half-asleep. The streets were mostly empty—only a few merchants were awake, setting up their stalls with sleepy faces. Lanterns made small puddles of light on the ground.

  Homura walked neither too slow nor too fast. Too fast for a man who needed a cane, perhaps—but still measured, deliberate. His right leg spasmed faintly when it struck the ground, and his gait had an awkwardness that made the effort visible.

  Reiji noticed anyway.

  He always noticed.

  Soon the village gates rose ahead of them—huge and imposing, framed by high walls that swallowed the dawn. Two guards stood posted on either side. They nodded as the two passed, but their eyes lingered a fraction too long on Homura’s face—long enough to be impolite, short enough to pretend it wasn’t.

  Neither Reiji nor his father reacted.

  They continued down the road for a while, the air cold and clean, until Homura suddenly veered off the path.

  He slipped into the forest without warning, cane tapping against roots and stone, and Reiji followed without hesitation.

  The trees closed around them. The sounds of the road disappeared, replaced by damp earth, rustling leaves, and the steady rhythm of Homura’s steps.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  After a few minutes, the forest opened into a small clearing, trunks standing close on all sides.

  Homura stopped.

  “Here,” his father said.

  Reiji felt the question rise and forced it back down. He waited, standing in the center of the space with the trees pressing in around them like silent witnesses.

  Homura turned slightly, his gaze settling on him.

  “Show me what you’ve got.”

  Reiji blinked. “What?”

  “The basics,” Homura said, as if Reiji were being slow on purpose. “Start from the beginning. Don’t disappoint me.”

  Reiji’s mouth tightened. “You dragged me into the forest to watch me do henge?”

  Homura’s cane tapped once.

  A kunai whistled through the air.

  Reiji barely had time to register the glint before he threw himself sideways, heart slamming into his ribs. The blade sank into a tree trunk behind him with a dull ‘thunk.’

  He spun back, furious. “What the—!”

  “Shut up,” Homura said calmly. “It’s serious.”

  Reiji stared at him, breathing fast.

  Homura’s expression didn’t change. “I won’t move from here,” he added. “And I won’t use anything beyond what the Academy teaches you. Bunshin. Henge. Kawarimi. Weapons. Use what you’ve got.”

  Reiji’s eyes narrowed. “What, you think I’m afraid of a crippled man?”

  Homura’s gaze flicked over him, cool and unimpressed. “I am still an adult. And I was an active shinobi before I was injured.”

  He lifted his cane slightly, as if it were merely an extension of his hand.

  “You’re lucky,” he continued. “Later, you won’t get sparring partners who care if you live through the lesson.”

  Reiji gritted his teeth until his jaw ached.

  Fine.

  If it had to be serious, then he would be serious.

  He reached into his pouch, snapped two smoke bombs to the ground at his feet, and in the same motion sent a pair of kunai flying toward his father.

  Smoke erupted in a thick grey bloom, swallowing the clearing—turning Homura into a shadow with a cane.

  Homura did not cough. He did not flinch.

  Reiji heard the steady tap of the cane, then the dull ‘clack’ of metal as the kunai were batted aside casually—like unwanted insects.

  Reiji moved through the smoke fast and low, feet light, trying to keep his breathing quiet. He slipped around to the side, then farther, then—

  A voice cut through the haze.

  “Good,” Homura said, as if speaking to the air itself. “Now you’re taking it seriously.”

  Reiji didn’t answer.

  Instead, he formed the seal and sent an Academy bunshin darting out of the smoke to the right—loud on purpose, kicking up dirt, snapping branches.

  At the same time, Reiji went left.

  The bunshin charged, reckless and obvious, kunai raised high.

  Reiji stayed low, silent, circling toward where Homura had been.

  Three.

  Two.

  One—

  The smoke thinned. The clearing returned in pieces: tree trunks, early light, scattered kunai in the dirt—

  —and Homura standing exactly where he’d been at the start, not a single step taken.

  Listening.

  The bunshin lunged first, kunai driving straight for Homura’s chest.

  Homura didn’t even look at it.

  His head turned, eyes already fixed on the real threat.

  On Reiji.

  Reiji’s stomach tightened.

  ‘He knows.’

  Reiji struck from behind, kunai in hand, driving for the gap beneath the ribs—hard, fast, precise.

  For a man with a cane, Homura moved with sudden, unsettling speed.

  *Clack.*

  The cane snapped up and knocked Reiji’s blade aside.

  At the exact same moment, the bunshin’s kunai passed through Homura like mist.

  It vanished with a soft *poof* behind him, as if embarrassed to have existed.

  Before Reiji could recover, Homura’s good leg swept low and cut his footing out from under him.

  Reiji’s breath hitched as the ground vanished.

  The cane hooked the front of his kimono—fabric caught at an angle that turned it into a lever—and Homura hauled him forward as if he weighed nothing.

  Not thrown.

  Placed in front of him like a shield.

  A kunai whistled in from the treeline—one Reiji had thrown earlier, timed to arrive through the thinning smoke.

  For half a heartbeat, everything slowed.

  Reiji’s breath caught.

  Homura didn’t blink.

  The kunai slammed into Reiji’s chest—

  —and there was a sharp *poof.*

  A log replaced him.

  The blade buried itself in wood.

  Reiji was no longer there.

  He was crouched in the brush ten metres away, heart pounding, fingers tight around another kunai.

  *I got out.*

  On the log, a second kunai lay almost unnoticed—its paper tag already hissing at the edge.

  Homura’s eyes flicked to it instantly.

  The cane tip lifted—already moving.

  He leaned in and, with one precise movement, sliced the burning tag clean off the kunai.

  The paper spun into the air.

  Homura flicked his wrist.

  The tag shot toward the bushes—fast and neat, straight at Reiji’s hiding place.

  “Rule one,” Homura said calmly, “don’t hide near your own blast.”

  Reiji’s blood went cold.

  He sprang sideways on instinct, throwing himself out of the bushes and onto the bare dirt just as the paper flared.

  *BOOM.*

  The explosion punched dirt and leaves upward, swallowing the edge of the clearing in a thick brown cloud. Heat licked past him. Pebbles and grit stung his cheek and forearms.

  He rolled once, came up low, coughing, eyes watering.

  “What a merciless son,” Homura’s voice said mildly, from directly behind him. “You could have killed your father, you know.”

  Reiji didn’t jump—only because he refused to give him the satisfaction. He kept his eyes forward and scoffed.

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “Like that could kill you.”

  He glanced back, wary despite himself. “And you say that after what you just did?”

  Homura looked at him as if Reiji had asked why water was wet.

  “If you had died from that,” he said evenly, “it would have proven my incompetence.”

  He paused just long enough to let the next words land.

  “And afterward, I would have killed myself in shame.”

  Reiji stared at him.

  Then, because this was his father—and because the world was unfair—Reiji found himself rolling his eyes instead of arguing.

  “So?” he demanded. “Are you satisfied?”

  Homura studied him for a moment, gaze sharp, assessing him.

  “It was within my expectations,” he said at last.

  Reiji felt his shoulders loosen despite himself.

  “It is,” Homura added, “acceptable.”

  Reiji exhaled through his nose and nodded like it hadn’t mattered.

  Homura stood silently to the side, watching his son collect himself.

  “So,” Reiji said at last, still breathing hard, “are you going to tell me why you brought me here? Don’t tell me it was just to see if you could excuse murdering your son while teaching him.”

  The corner of Homura’s mouth twitched, faintly amused. “As entertaining as that notion is, no. Unfortunately, this is for academic purposes.”

  Without another word, he walked to a tall tree at the edge of the clearing. Then, in front of Reiji’s stunned eyes, he stepped onto the trunk.

  He didn’t jump. He didn’t lunge. He simply placed his foot against the bark as if the ground had decided to follow him upward.

  His cane tapped the trunk as he climbed, as though it helped him ignore gravity. It didn’t. The tapping was just habit. Control. A reminder of what he lacked, and what he still had.

  He continued up, steady and deliberate, until he reached a thick branch. He stepped onto it, turned calmly—like a man crossing a hallway—and looked down.

  “Do you see why it’s important now?” he asked.

  Reiji, still staring, could only nod. A few seconds later he managed, “How did you do that? Is it a jutsu?”

  “Not quite.” Homura’s voice stayed even. “It’s an application of chakra.”

  “My chakra can do that?” Reiji frowned. “How could I never notice it before? My feet never stuck to walls.”

  “Ratio,” Homura said.

  “Huh?”

  “Your chakra circulates evenly through your body,” Homura explained. “But you can control it—move it, shape it, release it. The Academy drills you with the basics. I’ve drilled you with the basics. You should be capable of this now.”

  Reiji’s eyes glittered. “So if I control the amount of chakra I gather under my feet, I can do it too?”

  “Exactly.” Homura began to descend, walking back down the trunk with the same maddening ease.

  Reiji watched him drop to the ground. “How much should I gather?”

  “It depends on the person,” Homura said. “Height, weight, constitution, chakra reserves. Everyone’s body is different. There’s no number I can give you. You’ll learn through trial and error.” He paused. “I estimate it will take you about a month to master it.”

  Reiji rolled his eyes. “It’s just manipulating chakra. How could it take a month? Give me a day and it’s in the bag.”

  Homura’s expression stayed calm, but there was quiet amusement in his eyes. “Some people can learn it in a day,” he said. “But you? I doubt it.”

  Reiji flushed. “You’ll see.”

  He stormed toward the tree Homura had climbed. Up close, it looked taller—less like a tree and more like a wall. He glanced back and saw Homura already making himself comfortable, lowering himself against another trunk with care, cane planted beside him. He pulled out a book as if this were a peaceful morning stroll.

  Reiji gritted his teeth and faced the bark.

  He drew a slow breath, then closed his eyes and turned his awareness inward.

  He found his chakra the way he always did—in the pulse behind his ribs, in the warmth of his breath, in the invisible current that ran through him like something separate from blood. It felt cold, but not freezing. Cool in a way that kept his head clear even under the sun.

  It moved in him constantly, circulating like small rivers returning to the same places—stomach, chest, head—then spreading again.

  Reiji furrowed his brow and guided that current down toward the soles of his feet. He gathered it there, concentrating, compressing, forcing it to stay—

  Then he stepped.

  The moment his foot touched bark, the chakra surged.

  He snapped back a step as if the tree had rejected him.

  He blinked and turned toward his father.

  Homura didn’t look up from his book. “Too much,” he said. “Lower.”

  Reiji tightened his jaw and tried again.

  He stepped.

  *Boom.*

  The bark cracked under his foot and he jolted back.

  “Lower.”

  Again.

  *Boom.*

  “Lower.”

  Again.

  *Boom.*

  Reiji’s breathing sharpened. The trunk bore new marks where he’d failed.

  “Low—"

  “I know,” he snapped at last, flushing with embarrassment.

  He inhaled hard, forced the heat down, and tried again—this time with as little chakra as he dared.

  He placed his foot carefully.

  *Step.*

  It stuck.

  Reiji’s eyes widened. A grin spread across his face and he turned—

  —and the instant his attention shifted, his foot slipped and he dropped back to the ground.

  Homura’s voice was dry. “It’s not something you can do while thinking about something else.”

  Reiji scowled and faced the tree again.

  *Step.*

  *Step.*

  He managed a second step—barely—face strained as he wrestled his chakra into place. But inside him the chakra fought back. It didn’t want to sit still. It wanted to return to its circulation, to flow the way it always flowed, like his body rejected stillness.

  His concentration faltered.

  He slipped again.

  Homura closed his book with a soft sound.

  “You’re trying to control chakra like it’s stone,” he said. “It’s water.”

  Reiji blinked. “What?”

  “Does your chakra lie still in your body?” Homura asked.

  “…No.”

  “Of course not.” Homura’s voice stayed calm. “Like blood circulating in your veins, chakra circulates through your pathways. If it stopped, you’d die.”

  Reiji went pale.

  Homura watched him for a beat, then added, almost impatiently, “Don’t worry. You’re not capable of doing that by accident. Nobody is. The body protects itself—like how it stops you from biting off your own fingers.”

  Reiji swallowed.

  “You have to let it flow,” Homura continued. “Don’t try to make it sit still. Match its rhythm. Its speed. Guide it where you want without trying to strangle it.”

  Reiji nodded, understanding settling in his eyes.

  He tried again.

  And again.

  And again.

  But every time he thought he had it, he slipped.

  The sun climbed. His legs started to burn. Sweat dampened the collar of his kimono. His pride burned hotter than his muscles.

  *Why is it so hard?!*

  Eventually Homura spoke again. “Come. It’s time for breakfast.”

  Reiji turned, breathing hard. “Father… why can’t I do it?” he demanded, frustration breaking through. “Am I that untalented? How can someone master this in one day, let alone just accomplish it?”

  Homura studied him for a moment. Then he said, quietly, “It’s a curse that comes with being blessed, son.”

  Reiji frowned. “What?”

  “It’s true some people can master it quickly,” Homura said. “But it’s much easier to tame a small stream than a raging river.”

  Reiji stilled.

  “Having large chakra reserves is a gift,” Homura continued. “And it is also a burden. The larger the flow, the harder it is to control precisely.”

  Reiji’s mouth twisted. “You set me up.”

  Homura’s eyes narrowed slightly. “If your head weren’t so big, you wouldn’t be fooled so easily.”

  Reiji scratched the back of his head, awkward, and didn’t argue.

  Homura’s tone returned to its steady severity. “This exercise will teach you control. With your reserves, control matters more, not less. So take your time. Don’t rush because of something as stupid as pride.” He paused. “When you tell me you’ve mastered it, I want you to be able to do it without thinking. Under stress. Half-asleep. Do you understand?”

  Reiji’s frustration didn’t vanish—but something sharper replaced it. Interest. Challenge.

  He nodded, eyes bright. “Yes.”

  “For not forgetting where arrogance leads,” Homura added, “you’ll cook lunch today.”

  Reiji slumped. “You could just say you’re lazy…”

  ---