"Hah! …Hng!"
"Put more into it! Raise your hands higher! And if I catch you shifting your footing again, today's training doubles!"
Taito barked the order with an intimidating presence. It was hard to believe someone barely in his teens could look so fierce.
Yoriichi breathed steadily. His glossy red-black hair was tied into a high ponytail now, and his body no longer looked frail. He stood tall in the middle of the courtyard, swinging the tachi in his hands again and again. With every slash, a faint lick of flame followed, and the air carried a scorched, searing scent.
"Alright. That's enough for today…" Taito's harsh expression softened, warmth showing in his eyes.
"Yes, Taito-sama." Yoriichi sheathed his sword—without a single drop of sweat on him.
A monster… Taito thought.
He remembered his own childhood training under Mifune—one thousand draws a day, then two thousand… eventually ten thousand. Every day ended with his whole body drained, and when the wind hit his sweat-soaked skin, the chill would wash over him in one sweep.
Taito looked at Yoriichi.
Those crimson eyes were always calm—like a bottomless ancient well. He stepped closer, measured the boy's height with his hand. Yoriichi was much taller than he'd been a year ago. There was more flesh on his bones now, and faint muscle definition had appeared on his arms.
He wasn't the helpless little boy anyone could bully anymore.
Yoriichi was five now…
Even the cheeks that had once been hollow from hunger were filled out by the cooks in Mifune's estate—soft and round with a hint of baby fat. The word "beggar" no longer had anything to do with him.
Who would believe that this child had once survived on discarded vegetable scraps?
The Second Shinobi World War had erupted, and its scope went far beyond just the Five Great Nations. Even the Land of Iron, the Land of Rain, and other smaller countries hoping to profit from the chaos were dragged into the fighting. But under the crushing power of the major nations, those greedy minor countries could only end up like weeds ground beneath a cart's wheels.
A few months earlier, Mifune had gone to the Land of Iron's border.
Hanzō of the Salamander had long watched this nation—one without shinobi—with predatory interest. He believed a traditional, rigid land like this had no place in the shinobi world.
At this time, Hanzō was still in his prime—radiant, resolute, still clinging to the ideal of peace for the Land of Rain. He carried the lives of tens of thousands on his shoulders.
He had to win this war.
Only then could that weeping country finally smile.
Yoriichi, too, had begun to understand more and more. The hidden memories inside him—memories of someone who didn't belong here—were slowly awakening. He was starting to grasp what kind of world he was truly in.
"Taito-sama," Yoriichi said urgently, his expression unmistakably sincere, "please send word to Mifune-sama. Hanzō of the Salamander may personally appear at the Land of Iron border."
Taito sighed helplessly and smiled.
Still clingy, huh… He was just a kid, after all.
"That isn't something you need to worry about," Taito said. "Mifune-sama entrusted you to me for now. My job is to train you into the strongest samurai."
He leaned forward slightly, right hand resting on the hilt.
That was an iaijutsu stance.
"Come on, Yoriichi," Taito said, eyes sharp.
"Show me what all that food you've been eating has turned into."
He didn't give the boy time to react.
More than anyone, Taito understood what kind of terrifying power was hiding in that small body. He couldn't let Yoriichi take the first move—if he did, Taito might not even get the chance to draw his blade.
Iaijutsu Slash!
Taito blurred forward with a burst of speed, closing in like a fish weaving through water. The silver blade tore through the air as he struck toward the most vulnerable point—
The neck.
Clang!
Taito smiled faintly.
Through the blazing red of Yoriichi's blade, he saw the boy's youthful face. The wave of heat rushing at him was so intense he could barely keep his eyes open, and he immediately threw himself backward to disengage.
Yoriichi hadn't used any special sword technique.
Neither Mifune's inherited style nor Sun Breathing was allowed in sparring. Mifune believed that if such dangerous, overwhelming techniques were used in practice bouts, the outcome would become meaningless—Yoriichi wouldn't improve at all.
So he had set a strict rule:
No breathing techniques during sparring.
Taito pressed in relentlessly, darting and shifting with bursts of speed—appearing and vanishing like a phantom.
Yoriichi retreated, forced into passive defense with horizontal blocks. His height was still his greatest weakness. Taito's strikes kept coming down toward his head—
—and yet every single one was stopped.
Yoriichi had never told them what the world looked like through his eyes.
Taito's burning, beating heart felt as if it were right in front of him. The scalding blood rushing through dense vessels, the muscles, the bones—everything was laid bare.
Muscle. Skeleton. Heart. Blood vessels.
Often, before Taito even swung, Yoriichi had already seen through the motion.
It was like playing hide-and-seek with a child. Where could they possibly hide? Behind the curtain, under the table—feet sticking out—or curled under a blanket like an ostrich, pretending that if they couldn't see you, you couldn't see them.
So naïve.
Yoriichi watched Taito closely, evading each strike with effortless precision.
Taito gave a bitter smile.
At some point, his techniques had started to look worthless in the boy's eyes. Yoriichi moved as if he could predict the future, his gaze burning with a fierce, steady light that threatened to swallow him whole.
'Do I get serious?' Taito challenged himself.
Then he shook his head.
No… he couldn't. No matter what, he couldn't use something truly dangerous against a child.
So he decisively slid the sword back into its scabbard, adjusted the disheveled fringe of hair on his forehead, and said lightly:
"You win. You win again."
Losing to Yoriichi wasn't hard for him to accept anymore.
Looking at Yoriichi's overly serious little face, Taito suddenly broke into a grin.
He remembered when Rikaku and Shusuke had sparred with Yoriichi—one blast of heat from the sword had singed Shusuke's hair clean off. Shusuke had panicked on the spot, convinced he was fighting a Leaf shinobi.
After all, people said the Uchiha Clan's Fire Style was the best in the shinobi world.
Yoriichi could "breathe fire" too—
Not from his mouth, but from his sword.
And he had those eyes: hot, steady, unwavering.
'Does he have some connection to the Uchiha…?'
Taito thought for a moment, then mocked himself and tossed the silly idea aside.
"Yoriichi," Taito said, hands on his hips and chin raised as if he hadn't just been thoroughly shut down, "after observing you, I'd say your strength has reached the level where you can take on missions. So I'm taking you out to see the world beyond these walls."
"Missions?" Yoriichi asked, puzzled. "Like… catching cats? Or cleaning streets?"
That was the kind of work Konoha's genin did—either searching for a missing cat, or on the way to search for a missing cat.
The Land of Iron didn't have dedicated schools for training children to become samurai. The country still used a clan-based system. Only children of noble families had the qualifications to become samurai, to read and write. They poured massive resources into the next generation—and naturally, they wouldn't allow them to become useless deadweight.
Samurai also didn't have clearly defined ranks the way shinobi did, so Yoriichi had a hard time measuring his own level.
He needed shinobi as a reference point.
"Of course not," Taito said, giving him a strange look. "Why would you even think that?"
Then his expression turned serious.
"We're going to the Land of Iron's border—to wipe out a group of Ame shinobi. Their incursions have been happening too often. Even merchant caravans have been robbed repeatedly."
"The samurai the Daimyō sends over are usually too weak. They always arrive too late."
Taito's emotions rose suddenly—not just because this would be Yoriichi's first real mission…
…but because it was his first real one, too.
A year ago, he should have already been traveling across nations, carving out a name for himself in the shinobi world—
…but he'd been delayed by the boy in front of him.
If he ever ran into Yoriichi again back in Furnace Alley…
Taito was pretty sure that the moment he laid eyes on him, he'd shamelessly cling on and drag him away—no matter what it took.