I arrived at Mira's home.
"So, you're the brat I have to watch," he said, giving me a critical look.
"Yeah. Nice to meet you," I replied, bowing politely.
He grunted. "Come in. That's your room. You can use the groceries. Don't disturb me." I nodded
Every day after that, I sat silently in the corner of his workspace, watching. Mira's hands moved with practiced precision, ink gliding, seals forming like flowing script.
Eventually, I started asking questions.
At first, he was annoyed—gruff, muttering curses under his breath—but he always answered. Patiently, even if he pretended not to.
One afternoon, as I tried imitating a basic seal stroke, he froze.
"You brat," he barked. "Did you just use chakra while drawing that?"
"…Maybe," I said, bracing myself.
"That's dangerous! Don't ever do that again. You could've blown your fingers off." He paused. "…You succeeded though. Not bad."
A thrill shot through me. Got you, old man. My talent will win you over sooner or later.
"Don't become arrogant just because of it," he added sharply.
Mira didn't immediately start teaching me. Of course, not—nothing in my life could ever be that simple.
Instead, he shoved an old scroll into my hands one morning and grunted: "Read."
So, I did. Or at least I tried.
The scroll was filled with neat, elegant strokes, diagrams, and symbols arranged in obsessive precision. My eyes burned after ten minutes.
"Fuinjutsu," Mira began, settling beside me with the air of a man about to lecture a brick wall, "is the art of shaping reality."
Outside the body. Already bad news how can I do that when my control inside of my body is barley passable?
He tapped the scroll with one ink-stained finger.
"There are four fundamentals. If you fail one of them, you'll either waste chakra… or die."
"Jutsu, the one your parents always use, controls chakra inside your own network," he explained. "But seals? Seals force chakra into a path outside the body."
He tapped the circle.
"Shape determines flow. Circles hold. Triangles pierce. Spirals trap. Line thickness changes pressure."
He drew a thin circle—chakra leaked through it like air escaping a balloon.
He drew a thick circle—the ink pulsed unevenly.
"Too thin, too thick… both useless."
Next, he drew the character for contain—just a simple kanji.
"This is structure," he said. "A seal is made from layered meaning."
He added small radicals—lock, bind, stabilize.
"Combine symbols right, and they support each other."
Another brush stroke—this time crossing the wrong way.
The entire character warped.
"Combine them wrong and symbols cancel out, distort, or explode."
He eyed me pointedly.
"You're not drawing pretty pictures, brat. You're programming reality."
„Cool. Absolutely no pressure at all" I grumble.
Then Mira dipped the brush in a faintly glowing ink—his chakra infused into it.
"This ink contains Yang chakra. That is what breathes life into a seal."
He brushed the symbol again.
It glowed faintly alive, humming gently.
"Without Yang, a seal is dead. Just calligraphy."
Finally, he drew a very small, tight circle.
Inside it, he tried to add the character for bind.
The lines touched the edges.
Too cramped.
The ink trembled.
"If the meaning doesn't match the shape, or the chakra doesn't match the meaning—"
He snapped the paper in half with a single motion . „Dead"
Days passed.
My world became circles, lines, radicals, ink consistency, stroke pressure, theoretical chakra tuning—over and over and over.
At first, it was fascinating. Then tolerable. Then mind-numbing.
I wasn't allowed to add chakra. Not even a drop.
"Not until you can draw the same symbol perfectly two hundred times," Mira said.
So I spent four straight days practicing a single character: bind. My wrist cramped.
Finally, one afternoon, boredom fused with overconfidence and created the worst idea of my life.
Mira stepped out to buy vegetables.
I sat alone at the table, staring at my hundredth perfect bind.
"…It should be fine," I whispered.
I infused the ink.
For half a second, the symbol shimmered.
Then–Crack.
Chakra snapped back like a whip. My finger burned. The paper ignited with a sharp, violent spark that shot up my palm then my arm.
"OW–!"
I fell off the stool, clutching my hand.
The door slammed open.
Mira stormed inside.
"What did you—" He froze, eyes widening at the scorch marks. "YOU BRAT!"
He grabbed my wrist, inspecting the spreading chacra recoil and infused his own chakra. After a short while the pain stopped.
"I told you—I told you—never use chakra without supervision! Do you want to die?!"
I felt something tighten in my throat. Shame. Embarrassment. Stupidity. All of it.
„I thought I was ready," I whispered.
Mira's jaw clenched. He didn't yell again. Somehow, that felt worse.
"No more fuinjutsu," he said flatly. "You're done."