Sena began to describe the conditions of the mission, her tone smooth and confident, almost like a lesson. She painted the opening beats of the fight with small, precise gestures that matched her words. I leaned forward to cut her off once, but she hushed me with a finger to her lips. That was insulting enough, so I cut in anyway.
"It is a mission," I said flatly. "You might reveal something we are not supposed to say."
Takemura nodded, held back by discipline even as curiosity tugged at his face. Sena only tilted her head, the corners of her mouth lifting in that calm, practiced way of hers.
"I know the rule book cover to cover," she said, voice steady. "I know what I am doing."
She went right back to speaking, not missing a beat.
Her storytelling was annoyingly good. She shifted pace at the right moments, quick when the fight surged, unhurried when tension needed to settle. Her words flowed clean, trimming anything that would drag and focusing on what kept it alive. I had to admit she knew how to hold attention. She was careful too. No mention of Aoya's combination setups. No word about my Stormdrive.
It still grated. I tried to interrupt again, and Genta shot me a look like I had stolen food off his plate. I waited, tried a second time, and Shizuru joined him with a quiet, sharp glare that said let her finish. Outnumbered, I sank back and let out a long, heavy sigh that carried my objection for me.
By the time Sena finished, Genta had wound himself up. He jumped to his feet, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth.
"You have to train with me!"
I raised an eyebrow and kept my voice calm. "I already do. Almost every day when we are not on missions."
He shook his head so fast his hair whipped around. "No. I mean for real. I want us to go all out, without holding back."
Shizuru spoke before I could answer, voice even with a cautious edge. "Genta, he might actually hurt you by mistake, given he was able to take down a chunin."
That should have ended it, but Genta's shoulders went stiff and Takemura's eyes brightened. The old soldier leaned forward like he had been waiting for this line all morning.
"Do not worry, Genta," Takemura said. "I will train you harder than ever. Let us go. There is no time to waste if you want to catch up to Noa."
Usually this was where Genta would groan and try to slip away from extra drills. Instead, his whole face lit up.
"Let's go, Dad." He pointed at me, already declaring victory. "I will exceed you in no time."
They stood together and charged the door at the same moment, jammed shoulder to shoulder in the frame, and stalled there.
"Move aside," Takemura said, giving him a shove.
"You move," Genta shot back, pushing like he could win a strength contest against his father.
A sharp smack landed on the back of his head. "Idiot. Respect your father and let him go first."
Genta rubbed his scalp, grumbled about unfair treatment, and hurried after him.
Silence settled once the door slid shut. The three of us left behind stared at the empty doorway, still processing that they had decided, on the spot, to start a dramatic training march without asking anyone for input.
I rubbed my face. "They really are something."
Sena chuckled. Shizuru shook her head. I could not tell if either of them was impressed or horrified.
The house eased into a softer quiet. Heat clung to the air. The tick of cooling cups marked the seconds. Light from the courtyard pooled on the tatami and edged the table in pale gold. Shizuru sat straight with her hands folded, eyes steady. Sena lounged with one ankle tucked behind the other, cup balanced on her palm like she was testing its weight.
"There is something I need you to know," I said, lowering my voice. "During the mission, Aoya used a combination technique. She braided a tornado with vacuum slashes and bullets, then used the vortex's rotation to drive their speed to absurd levels. It cut like a saw while shielding her, a frighteningly clever method that was both offensive and defensive from almost every angle of approach."
Shizuru's gaze sharpened. "You should not be telling me this." Her tone stayed even, but the room felt smaller. "Information from a mission goes through the report. Passing it around is reckless."
She held my eyes for a long breath, displeasure there, and something else under it. Trust. On the table, a ring of steam curled and faded above her tea.
"I am telling you," I said. "Keep it to yourself. Think of it as a puzzle we will need to solve for what comes next."
She gave a small nod. "Fine, but what exactly are you planning?"
I smiled. "This."
Then I turned to Sena. She had not blinked much through the whole exchange, which meant the gears in her head had been spinning the entire time.
"I want to develop something," I said. "I have a concept. Your help matters."
Sena's focus sharpened immediately. Her posture shifted ever so slightly, as if the weight of my words pulled her in.
"You have that trick," I went on, "where your chakra lingers. You let it seep into the air, into the soil, and it stays there for a while. I noticed it during the mission. How much control do you really have over it?"
Sena rested her chin on her knuckles. The polished smile slipped into something smaller, more honest.
"Enough to mark an area and make it feel like me," she said. "I can use that lingering chakra for my own purposes, but it is not easy. It takes tremendous control and a ridiculous amount of chakra. If I keep feeding it for long enough, the surface will hold a trace of it. Fog is easiest to work with, stone is the hardest, and wood or paper fall somewhere in between. Why are you asking?"
I let the quiet breathe for a heartbeat.
"I want to build a technique that uses my chakra nature as fuel to control a wide area," I said. "Not a stronger blast, but a better stage. I want the terrain itself to serve as part of the technique, something I can prepare first and call on when needed."
Shizuru looked back to me. "You want persistent effects."
"I want the ground and the air to help," I said. "Only a little at first. Nothing anyone can point at. If we place the right signs into the field, maybe the next spark does not have to fight for a path. Maybe it chooses the one I set."
Shizuru went very still. "You are not asking for a stronger jutsu. You are asking for something new that belongs to you."
"Exactly."
Sena leaned forward, her tea forgotten. "You want me to show you how to lace an area with chakra so your techniques flow more easily. That is what you are really asking."
"I want to try it," I said. "I will not give you the whole technique yet. I need a proof of concept first. If it fails, it stays between us and dies here. If it works, we push the idea a little farther next time until we reach the final form."
Sena tilted her head, eyes bright. "What do you need from me?"
"Two things," I said. "First, a steady layer of chakra, more precisely a mix of lightning chakra with one of its aspects. Second, a way to anchor it to natural features so it does not scatter. Roots, stone seams, packed earth, water lines, and especially open air, since that will be the main medium."
She smiled, small and sharp. "I can help with that."
Shizuru exhaled and turned to me. "And what do you want from me?"
"You are one of the sharpest people I know," I said without hesitation. "I need your help on the design. Which chakra coils to use, how to arrange them, and what hand signs might ensure the effects I want. I want you to help me shape a technique from the ground up. Your clan's experience with jutsu that interact with the environment could also hint at where to push and where to stop. I am not asking for secrets. Do not tell me anything you should not. All I want is for you to tell me if I am going in the wrong direction, and I will change course, without needing to know whether that advice comes from your own reasoning or from your clan's understanding."
A complicated look crossed her face, then settled into something like resolve. "I can do that."
Sena's eyes lit up with genuine excitement. "I would be glad to help you create something new."
Shizuru's expression softened into a rare smile. "Since we were placed on different teams, we have not had much time together. If this makes you more social, that will be its own reward."
Her laugh was light, carrying a warmth that eased the air around us. Sena joined in with a quiet chuckle of her own, and for a moment the three of us simply sat there in the soft glow of the afternoon, the tension of earlier conversations fading into something gentler.
I leaned back, letting the silence linger, and felt the weight in my chest shift into something steadier, warmer.
I thought to myself, not for the first time, that I have the best friends I could ever ask for.