The forest remained silent, the mist crawling lazily through the lowlands without ever becoming a cloak for an ambush. The rhythmic thumping below proved to be nothing more than the tricks of an exhausted mind and the rustle of nocturnal creatures.
It was a typical, grueling, and draining watch.
By four in the morning, the conversation with the genin had withered away. Izumo and the others were locked in a losing battle with sleep, slumped against the stone battlements, while I continued to pace my sector with measured steps. My chakra had replenished over the hours, but my forearm was doing more than just throbbing—it felt as though it had been injected with molten lead where the old seal lay. I felt that if I triggered an impulse now, something would go wrong; an error was lurking somewhere in the flow.
When the sky overhead began to pale into muddy-grey tones, I finally let out a long breath.
"Shift's over," I rasped, watching the fresh relief squad ascend the stairs.
The genin snapped to life. Takeshi rubbed his bleary eyes, Ryoko stretched, and Izumo approached me, slinging his pack over his shoulder.
"Is that treat at your expense still on the table?" Izumo asked.
"Yeah. 3:00 PM at Hagane Burger," I replied, offering a tired wave.
I need to sleep, otherwise I'm just not going to make it, the thought flashed through my mind as I stood atop the wall, feeling reality begin to shimmer slightly before my eyes.
I took a deep breath, circulating chakra through my pathways. It answered with its familiar weight but obeyed, pooling into my legs.
"Flicker," I whispered, weaving a single sign.
The world blurred for a moment. My body, propelled by a violent surge of speed, crossed the distance to the ground faster than a blink. I landed by the Jōnin station almost silently, a faint swirl of dust the only witness to my arrival. I scrawled my signature into the logbook under the startled gaze of the duty officer and, without wasting a second, "flew" toward home.
My legs moved on autopilot through the familiar streets of Konoha. At my door, I nearly missed the keyhole entirely. Once inside, I didn't even bother fully undressing—I kicked off my sandals and shed my flak jacket.
The scrolls... right, the scrolls. I placed the copies carefully on the edge of the desk. But for now, it was time to sleep…
Half a day had passed. The sun had begun its descent, bathing Konoha in warm, orange hues. I stood on Training Ground 12, feeling the burger settling pleasantly in my stomach and the fog finally lifting from my mind.
Ten meters away stood Izumo.
How did we end up here? Simple: after our meal, once the others had departed, I decided to challenge him to a duel. To my surprise, Izumo agreed quickly—which suited me just fine. I wanted to see what he was truly made of, and I needed to measure my own progress.
So we stood there on the nearest training field, the dust swirling lazily between us.
"As soon as this coin hits the ground, we begin," I said, flipping a copper piece high into the air.
The metal flashed in the sunlight, tracing a high arc. Izumo spun a kunai expertly around his finger, catching it in a reverse grip. There was something predatory in his stance.
Let's see what you've got, I thought.
I slowly reached for the hilt of my new tantō. The steel left its scabbard with a faint, silken hiss.
The metal struck stone. Izumo exploded forward like a released bowstring. He didn't bother with ranged attacks; he closed the distance instantly, clearly hoping to overwhelm me with his speed and mass, since I was smaller than him.
He erased the gap in a single lunging stride, the kunai in his hand cutting a short, calculated arc.
Clang! Clatter!
The sound of the impact was unusual. Instead of the bright ring of steel on steel, there was a dull, heavy thud. My tantō, saturated with chakra, didn't even quiver. Izumo, however, felt a recoil as if he had struck a blacksmith's anvil. His momentum buckled, and I, seizing the moment, took a short step forward into his blind spot.
I didn't strike him with the blade. I delivered a short, brutal elbow strike to his core, lacing the hit with a Body Flicker impulse.
A sharp crack.
Izumo's flak jacket cushioned the blow, but the force was such that he was sent hurtling back three meters. He flipped in mid-air and landed on one knee, gasping for breath.
"What is that... density?" he wheezed, spitting dust. "Your tantō didn't even budge…"
He hasn't mastered chakra flow in weaponry yet, I realized, watching him grip his kunai with white-knuckled intensity. Izumo wasn't giving up. He snapped upright and lunged again, this time utilizing the Body Flicker himself. His speed spiked, his form flickering around me as he attempted to land quick, stinging strikes. To me, it was transparent.
Right side. Short thrust. Left side. Feint, I read him.
Izumo unleashed a three-hit flurry. I parried each one with the tantō, using nothing more than minimal wrist movements. Cling-cling-cling!
He failed, but he broke off and circled back. This time it wasn't just a Flicker; he moved in a zigzag, leaving sprays of water in his wake.
"Water Style: Water Jet!"
He spat a concentrated sphere of water directly at my face to blind me, simultaneously lobbing a kunai rigged with an explosive tag at my feet. I didn't budge. At the last possible second, I formed a single seal.
"Substitution."
The water jet and the explosion tore the log I had been sitting on moments ago into splinters. I materialized a meter away from Izumo, already in motion. My tantō remained in its scabbard—I wanted to test him in taijutsu. Closing the distance with a Flicker, I entered a tight clinch.
Izumo tried to drive an elbow into me, but I caught his arm and delivered a sharp, jarring strike to his shoulder, knocking his joint out of alignment. He snarled, manifesting a Water Bubble directly between us. The sphere of water expanded rapidly, attempting to swallow us both. It was a suicidal maneuver—he was willing to drown himself just to catch me.
I thrust my hand forward.
"Covering!"
A thin layer of wind chakra on my palm acted like a blade. I didn't just pop the bubble—I sliced through the very structure of the technique, and the water cascaded harmlessly over us both.
Seizing the second of his bewilderment that his "trump card" had failed, I swept both his legs and, as he began to fall, drove an open palm into his chest.
BOOM!
The momentum carried Izumo several meters until he slammed into a training post. It groaned under the impact. I stood over him, chest heaving, feeling the adrenaline searing through my veins. No lectures. Just the raw heat of the fight. Izumo tried to push himself up on trembling arms, his face a mask of mud and water, but he bared his teeth in a manic grin.
"Now... now that's more like it," he croaked.
Pity I'm only this strong against genin, I thought. Dominance is a heady feeling, but a deceptive one. If I had played around any longer, he might have caught me.
"Let's call it there," I said. "You need to learn how to coat your weapons with chakra." I said, offering him a hand.