—————
Thirty-one days since graduation. Kim knew this because the metronome never stopped, and because he'd started marking the days on the inside cover of Icha Icha Tactics: Volume 4
He stood at the back of the training room with his arms crossed and his mask on and his synchronization humming at a frequency so refined it barely registered as effort anymore. Like breathing. Like blinking. The jutsu had become infrastructure — not something he did but something he was, a permanent state of receptive resonance that turned every room into a classroom and every person into a textbook.
Thirty trainees moved in the space before him.
They were different.
Not unrecognizably — Root's conditioning still held the shape, the rigid posture and suppressed expression and the mechanical efficiency of bodies trained to function rather than feel. But beneath the surface, in the places where Kim's teaching had been quietly, systematically doing its work, something had changed. They moved with intent now. Not just executing — choosing. The difference was visible in the way Trainee Four — the girl with the formerly dropped shoulder — now led with her left hand, the surprise weapon Kim had identified weeks ago. In the way Trainee Seven's grappling entries had diversified from predictable hip shots to a varied arsenal that included the collar ties Kim had prescribed. In the way all of them — all thirty — had found the specific weakness Kim had named and attacked it with the focused intensity of people who had been given, perhaps for the first time, a direction rather than just an order.
They had grown. Measurably, visibly, in ways that Root's standard assessments could quantify and that Kim's synchronization could feel. The aggregate chakra field of the training room was denser than it had been a month ago — brighter, more textured, each signature burning with greater efficiency and depth.
And Kim had grown more than any of them.
Jonin.
He let the word sit in his mind. Tested it the way you tested ice — carefully, with measured weight, ready to pull back if it cracked.
It didn't crack.
Jonin-level chakra reserves. Jonin-level combat perception. Jonin-level technique execution across — and this was the part that still surprised him, that still made his analytical mind stumble over its own conclusions — every major discipline.
Ninjutsu: five nature transformations. All five. The synchronization had been absorbing elemental affinities from every source it touched for months — fire from his native orientation, water from a Root trainee whose signature carried the ocean's patience, earth from another whose chakra was dense and immovable, wind from a third whose energy moved in cutting currents, and lightning from the ghost-traces of Sasuke's Uchiha heritage, sharpened by weeks of proximity to trainees whose own affinities had been cultivated by Root's demanding curriculum. Five elements. The full set. The thing that had earned Sarutobi the title "Professor" and that most ninja never achieved in a lifetime.
I can't use all five publicly. I can't even use three publicly. Two is prodigious. Three is suspicious. Five is the kind of thing that gets you strapped to a table in T&I while Yamanaka specialists take your brain apart like a watch.
Taijutsu: the composite of Academy fundamentals, Root's efficient combat methodology, Lee's speed-philosophy absorbed through a single street fight, and the accumulated combat data of dozens of sparring partners whose styles his synchronization had mapped and integrated. Not a single style — a mosaic. Pieces of everything, assembled into something that was uniquely, functionally his.
Genjutsu: the weakest of his disciplines, but still solid. The Uchiha ghost had provided the foundation — the perceptual enhancement that made illusion detection almost automatic — and Root's curriculum had added the offensive applications. He could cast, detect, and dispel at a level that would have satisfied most jonin-track evaluations.
Medical ninjutsu: his mother's gift. Not through synchronization — through family. Years of watching Lin work, feeling her chakra through the apartment walls, absorbing the particular warmth of healing-oriented energy the way a child absorbs language. His synchronization had refined it, deepened it, added the precision of the Hyuga whisper's chakra perception. He couldn't perform surgery. But he could diagnose, stabilize, and mend at a level that would have earned him a field medic certification if he'd been old enough to apply.
All-rounder. That's what they call it. A ninja with no gaps.
The irony is that I built this by finding other people's gaps and filling my own.
Kim watched the trainees spar. His enhanced perception — layered now, multiple trace bloodlines contributing simultaneously like instruments in an orchestra — fed him data on each exchange. He didn't need to intervene. They knew what to work on. They'd been told, specifically and individually, and they trusted the source.
That was the thing. The thing that made his chest tight sometimes, in a way that had nothing to do with chakra reserves.
They trusted him.
Thirty Root operatives — conditioned for obedience, trained for silence, shaped into tools by an organization that considered trust a liability — had learned to trust the masked instructor who told them where they were broken and showed them how to heal. Not because he'd ordered them to. Not because the conditioning allowed it. Because he'd been right, every time, about every weakness, and in Root's world, accuracy was the only currency that bought belief.
They are looking forward to it. The assessments. The "golden tips," as Seven started calling them before the others picked it up. They actually look FORWARD to being told what's wrong with them.
Because nobody else ever did.
Root says: you are a tool. Tools don't have weaknesses. Tools that fail are replaced.
I say: you are a tool with a dull edge and a loose handle, and here's how we fix both, and tomorrow you'll be sharper than today.
Turns out people respond better to the second one. Who knew.
The sparring period ended. Kim called them in. Delivered the assessments — thirty targeted observations, each one drawn from the synchronization's deep read of their chakra architectures, each one landing with the precision of a surgical instrument. He watched the cracks form in the blank masks. The small, involuntary signs of human beings receiving information that mattered to them from someone who mattered to them.
Good at teaching. I wrote it on the form and it was the truest thing I've ever put on paper.
He dismissed them. Removed his mask.
His instructor was waiting. Beside him: a case. Scrolls.
"Six," the instructor said. "Five B-rank. One A-rank."
Kim took the case. Opened it. Six technique scrolls, each sealed with Root's particular brand of security calligraphy — not the village archive's open-access formatting, but the restricted classification that said this knowledge belongs to the organization and, by extension, to Danzo.
The A-rank was on top. Kim read the header.
Oh.
That's… very good.
He closed the case. Looked at his instructor.
"Danzo-sama," the instructor said — and it was the first time Kim had heard the man use the honorific unprompted, "is pleased with your results."
Pleased. Danzo is pleased. The man who treats human beings like inventory items and emotions like inefficiencies is pleased because the numbers went up.
The numbers went up because I treated his tools like people. The irony would be funny if it weren't so dark.
"Thank him for me," Kim said.
"You may thank him yourself. He has expressed interest in a—"
"Thank him for me," Kim repeated. Mild. Pleasant. The voice of someone who was not going to meet Danzo in a dark room and was willing to maintain that position through whatever conversational maneuver was required.
The instructor paused. The mask tilted.
"…Understood."
Kim walked out with six scrolls and the particular satisfaction of having drawn a line and held it.
—————
The afternoon sun was warm. Kim walked through the commercial district with the scroll case under one arm and his mind running calculations.
Inventory. What can I show? What has a plausible origin story?
He'd been thinking about this for weeks — the cover problem. His technique library was expanding faster than any genin's should, faster than most chunin's did, and without the explanatory framework of a team, a jonin-sensei, or a clan archive to justify it. Every jutsu he used publicly needed an origin. A story. A reason it existed in his repertoire that didn't involve "I absorbed it through a secret resonance technique while sitting near someone who knew it."
Fifteen.
He'd landed on fifteen. Fifteen techniques he could demonstrate openly without triggering the kind of questions that led to investigations.
The five B-ranks from Sarutobi: those had a clean provenance. The Hokage's gift, witnessed and recorded. Anyone who asked could be directed to the official record.
Three Academy-standard techniques at enhanced proficiency: transformation, replacement, body flicker. Unremarkable in kind, remarkable only in execution. Easily explained by "I practiced a lot."
Two fire techniques: his native affinity, documented since enrollment. A genin developing fire jutsu was expected, not suspicious.
Two techniques from Root's standard curriculum that overlapped with publicly available methods: a basic earth wall and a wind-enhanced shuriken throw. Both existed in the village archive. Both could be credibly claimed as self-study.
Three techniques borrowed from his mother's medical practice: diagnostic pulse, basic wound closure, chakra-assisted bone setting. Explained by "my mother is a medical ninja and she taught me." True. Incomplete. Sufficient.
Fifteen techniques across three elements and two specializations. For a recently graduated genin with five chakra natures and a documented history of rapid improvement, that's… aggressive but defensible.
The other forty-odd techniques stay hidden. Along with the two additional elements, the genjutsu library, the advanced medical applications, and everything Root has put in my hands.
Five natures. All five. And I can only show two for now
He stopped.
Wait. Think about this differently.
Five chakra natures was, historically, the marker of a once-in-a-generation talent. Sarutobi had all five. So had a handful of other legendary figures. The trait wasn't impossible — it was improbable. Rare enough to draw attention but not so rare as to be inherently suspicious.
If I reveal them gradually — one per year, maybe one per major event — and frame each as a breakthrough achieved through intense training… five elements over five years. By then I'll be seventeen, established, with a track record that makes the progression look natural rather than impossible.
Year one: fire and wind. Native affinity plus the most common secondary development.
Year two: add lightning. Aggressive but plausible for a confirmed prodigy.
Year three: earth. Expanding the toolkit. "He trains constantly. He's dedicated."
Year four: water. "The kid's a generalist. Unusual but not unprecedented."
Year five: all five. "He's the next Professor."
By which point I'll either be strong enough that nobody can force answers out of me, or the war will have started and nobody will care about the origin of my techniques because they'll be too busy trying to survive.
He resumed walking. The plan settled into his mind with the comfortable weight of a well-designed structure — not perfect, not complete, but sound. Load-bearing. Built to withstand scrutiny from multiple angles.
Danzo wants to keep me happy and busy. He's investing. Six scrolls, including an A-rank, as a reward for results he can measure and report to whatever internal metrics he uses to justify his operation's existence.
Even bad guys can't argue with good results.
Especially bad guys. Because bad guys are, at their core, pragmatists. Danzo doesn't care about my methods. He doesn't care that I'm teaching his tools to think for themselves. He cares that the output has improved, that the numbers are up, that the assets are performing at a higher level than before I arrived.
He's funding his own subversion and evaluating it positively.
If this weren't terrifying, it would be the funniest thing that's ever happened to me.
Kim turned onto the commercial road. Three blocks north: the bookshop. One block south: the Iron Maiden.
He went south.
But first, he stopped.
—————
The flower vendor was an old woman named Hanako who operated from a cart near the central intersection. She sold arrangements that ranged from "funeral" to "apology" to "I have romantic intentions and no idea how to express them." Kim had never bought flowers before. He assessed the options with the tactical precision of someone selecting equipment for a mission.
Roses: too aggressive. That's a declaration. I'm not declaring anything. I'm… testing the perimeter.
Lilies: too formal. That's what you bring to a dinner party. I'm not attending a dinner party.
Chrysanthemums: that's a funeral flower, Kim. Read the room.
He settled on a single stem — something purple, small, delicate without being fragile. Hanako called it a bellflower. Kim didn't know what that meant in flower language and suspected it didn't matter, because flower language was a system invented by people who were too afraid to use actual words and he was not going to become one of those people.
I'm just going to hand it to her and see what happens.
"What happens" might involve kunai. You understand this.
Yes.
And you're doing it anyway.
Yes.
He also bought apples.
This was the strategic component. The flower was provocation — deliberate, transparent, designed to elicit a reaction that would tell him something about where he stood. The apples were the cover story. Apples were practical. Apples were food. Apples said "I was shopping and thought of you" rather than "I have been thinking about you constantly and it's affecting my mission readiness."
Six apples. Good ones. Firm, red, the kind that crack when you bite them.
If the flower gets me killed, the apples might save me. "I was just bringing you fruit, Tenten. The flower is decorative. It's for the shop. Shops have flowers. That's a thing."
That excuse is terrible.
I know.
He carried the flower in his left hand and the apples in a paper bag in his right and walked toward the Iron Maiden with the steady pace of a man who had fought ANBU trainees, decoded bloodline mechanics, and stared down two of the most powerful men in Konoha.
His heartbeat was approximately twice its resting rate.
Jonin-level power. Cannot handle a twelve-year-old girl with an oil smudge.
The universe has a very specific sense of humor about me.
—————
The bell chimed. The door opened. The shop smelled like weapon oil and metal and—
Cleaning solution. Something citrus. The sharp, chemical scent of a space being scrubbed rather than merely maintained.
Tenten was on her knees behind the counter.
Not in the way that the Icha Icha books would have described — she was literally on her knees, with a rag in one hand and a bucket beside her, scrubbing the floorboards with the methodical intensity of someone who had been raised in this shop and considered its maintenance a personal responsibility. Her hair was in its usual twin buns, but loose strands had escaped and were sticking to her forehead with sweat. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow. There was — Kim noted with the helpless precision of someone whose observational capabilities had been enhanced by multiple bloodline traces — a streak of soap suds on her left cheekbone, almost exactly where the oil smudge had been last time.
She's always got something on her face. That's not an observation. That's a pattern. A beautiful, maddening pattern that I will not comment on because the last time I noticed something about her appearance she threw a measuring weight at my head.
"We're closed," Tenten said without looking up. "Cleaning day. Come back tomorrow."
"Even for a loyal customer?"
She looked up. Recognition. Then the expression — the one he'd catalogued and memorized and probably thought about too often. The one that said you again with a warmth buried so deep beneath the exasperation that most people would have missed it entirely.
Kim's synchronization caught her chakra signature — the familiar frequency, the warmth that matched his mother's, the thing that his rational mind classified as cognitive bias and his everything-else classified as home.
He did not synchronize with her. He had promised himself that. The line existed and he would not cross it.
"Kim." She sat back on her heels, rag draped over one knee. "I'm literally on the floor."
"I can see that." He stepped inside, letting the door close behind him. The bell chimed again — a small, bright sound in the quiet shop. "That's dedication. Most shopkeepers would hire someone."
"Most shopkeepers didn't grow up learning that every blade in the shop is a family member and the floor they sit on deserves respect." She blew a strand of hair out of her face. It fell back immediately. "What do you want? I don't have the fifteen-meter wire yet. Supplier's delayed."
"I'm not here for wire."
"Kunai?"
"No."
"Shuriken? Senbon? Explosive tags? Whetstone? I have a new composite whetstone that—" She stopped. Her eyes had found the flower. "What is that."
Kim looked at the flower in his left hand as if noticing it for the first time. An acting choice. A deliberate, transparent, absolutely foolish acting choice.
"This? It's a bellflower."
"I can see it's a flower, Kim."
"It's for you."
The shop went very quiet. The kind of quiet that had weight — that pressed against the walls and the weapon racks and the two people standing in it. Tenten's expression underwent a rapid, fascinating sequence of transformations: surprise, confusion, suspicion, a flash of something warm that she killed so fast Kim almost missed it, and finally a careful, guarded neutrality that was itself a tell.
"Why," she said.
"Do I need a reason?"
"People don't bring flowers to weapon shops."
"This person does." Kim extended the flower. His arm was steady. His heartbeat was not. "Also—" He held up the paper bag with his other hand. "—apples. I figured you could use a snack. Cleaning is hard work."
Tenten looked at the flower. Looked at the apples. Looked at Kim.
She took the apples.
"The flower is unnecessary," she said.
"Noted."
"Impractical."
"Also noted."
"It doesn't go with anything in the shop."
"It goes with you."
The words left his mouth before his brain could review them. His internal editor — the careful, strategic part of him that vetted every statement for tactical implications — screamed in a frequency that only dogs and deeply embarrassed twelve-year-olds could hear.
Tenten's cheeks went pink. Not red — pink. The particular shade that appeared when someone was caught off-guard by something they weren't prepared to process and their circulatory system responded before their composure could intervene.
She took the flower.
Kim's heart did something that his medical ninjutsu training identified as premature ventricular contraction and his emotional vocabulary identified as victory.
"You're—" She held the flower at arm's length, examining it as if assessing a weapon's balance. "You're doing this on purpose."
"Doing what?"
"This." She gestured at him — at his face, his posture, his general existence — with the flower. "The… showing up. The lines. The—" She narrowed her eyes. "You flirted with me last time. And the time before that. And the time before that."
"I'm a repeat customer."
"You're a repeat nuisance."
"Is there a difference?"
"The difference is that nuisances get banned from the shop."
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
They looked at each other. The soap suds were still on her cheek. The flower was still in her hand. The apples were on the counter beside the bucket and the rag and the tools of a girl who cleaned her family's shop on her knees because she believed the floor deserved respect.
Kim smiled. Not the calculated smile. Not the mask. The real one — the one that felt like letting go of something he'd been holding too tight.
"The apples are good," he said. "Firm. The kind that crack when you bite them. My mom says those are the only kind worth eating."
"Your mom sounds like a smart woman."
"She is."
Tenten looked at the flower again. Then, with a motion so casual it was clearly practiced, she tucked it behind her ear. The purple stood out against her brown hair — a small, bright point of color in a shop full of steel.
"It doesn't mean anything," she said.
"Of course not."
"I'm wearing it because it's convenient. My hands are full."
"Obviously."
"And the apples are just because I'm hungry."
"Naturally."
"And you should leave now because I'm cleaning and you're standing on the wet floor."
Kim looked down. The floor was, in fact, wet. His sandals were leaving prints on the wood Tenten had just scrubbed.
"Ah."
"Kim."
"I see the problem."
"The problem is your feet."
"I'll move."
"You'll leave."
"I'll leave slowly." He took a step backward, toward the door, hands raised in the universal gesture of peaceful retreat. "Just — one thing."
Tenten's expression shifted to the specific wariness of someone who had learned, through repeated exposure, that Kim's "one things" were rarely one thing and never simple.
"What."
"The flower brings out your eyes."
The kunai hit the doorframe two inches from his left ear.
Kim was already moving — the body flicker activated on instinct, Root-trained reflexes launching him through the door and onto the street in a burst of speed that would have impressed his ANBU instructor. A second kunai embedded itself in the wooden post outside, precisely where his right shoulder had been a quarter-second earlier.
"GET OUT OF MY SHOP, KIM!"
A third kunai. He dodged it. Barely. The edge caught the hem of his shirt and pinned it to a market stall's support beam for half a second before the fabric tore free.
"I'M OUT! I'M PHYSICALLY OUT! I AM NO LONGER IN THE SHOP!"
"YOU'RE STILL IN RANGE!"
He ran.
Not the tactical withdrawal of a trained operative executing a strategic retreat. He ran — flat out, arms pumping, paper bag of remaining apples clutched to his chest because he'd had the presence of mind to grab it on the way out but not the presence of mind to not say the thing about her eyes.
Behind him, Tenten's voice carried down the commercial road with the particular acoustics of righteous feminine fury: "AND DON'T COME BACK UNTIL THE WIRE'S IN!"
Kim ran for three blocks. Turned a corner. Pressed his back against a wall. Breathed.
His shirt had a kunai-cut in the hem. His heart was hammering. His face was doing something that felt structurally incompatible with the composure of a jonin-level operative.
He was grinning.
She kept the flower.
She put it in her hair.
She tried to kill me, but she kept the flower.
He looked at the apple bag. Five left out of six. He bit into one. It cracked between his teeth — firm, sweet, the kind his mother said were the only kind worth eating.
She has excellent aim. Every kunai was placed to miss. She wasn't trying to hit me.
She was trying to establish a boundary.
The boundary is: "I am not ready for what you're doing, but I am not uninterested, and I need you to know both of those things simultaneously."
I can work with that.
He ate the apple. Leaned against the wall. Let the grin fade into something quieter, warmer, the expression of a boy who had just gotten exactly the response he'd wanted from exactly the person he'd wanted it from.
Power and image, Naruto. Power and image.
And occasionally, running for your life.
—————
Home. Door. The familiar smell of lavender and soy sauce and the particular warmth of a space that held, within its modest walls, everything that mattered.
Kim made dinner. Fish — hot, always hot, grilled with the soy-ginger glaze, served over rice with steamed greens on the side. He set the remaining apples in a bowl on the counter. Four for the family. One for his lunch tomorrow.
An apple under the counter. A flower behind her ear. Kunai holes in the commercial district's infrastructure.
Romance.
Karen appeared from the living room. She assessed the dinner with the critical eye of someone who was, gradually and without admitting it, learning to cook by observation.
"Fish again?"
"You don't like fish?"
"I like fish. I'm noting the frequency."
"You're nine. When did you learn the word 'frequency'?"
"You say it in your sleep."
Kim paused, spatula in hand. "I talk in my sleep?"
"You say weird things. 'Frequency.' 'Resonance.' 'Five meters.'" Karen shrugged. "Mina thinks you're casting jutsu. I think you're just strange."
I need to stop talking in my sleep immediately. That is a security vulnerability that eclipses everything Danzo has ever done to me.
"I'll work on it," he said.
They ate. Mina described her latest drawing — a tree, she claimed, though Kim's assessment placed it somewhere between "abstract expressionism" and "the visual representation of a sneeze." Karen reported progress on the eighth kata, requested evaluation tomorrow, and informed Kim that she had taught Mina the fifth kata's opening sequence "without any tornado princess modifications."
"I added them later," Mina whispered to Kim behind her hand.
"Good girl."
"I heard that," Karen said.
"You were meant to."
After dinner, they talked about the hot springs trip. The one from two weeks ago — the family outing that Kim had organized and his mother had attended and that had become, in the small mythology of their household, a landmark event.
"Mom splashed Mina," Karen said, and the way she said it — with the careful tenderness of someone handling a memory they didn't want to break — told Kim everything he needed to know about what that afternoon had meant to her.
"Mina splashed everyone," Kim corrected.
"I AM A WATER NINJA," Mina announced, slamming her hands on the table.
"You are a six-year-old who got soap in my eyes."
"WATER NINJA."
Kim cleared the dishes. Karen dried. Mina drew — tonight's subject was "the hot springs," which looked like a circle with smaller circles inside it and wavy lines that might have been steam or might have been the visual representation of joy.
He put them to bed. One, two, three checks. Karen asleep — straight, contained, even in unconsciousness holding herself with precision. Mina asleep — curled, chaotic, one arm flung off the futon and the other wrapped around a stuffed animal whose species had long since become indeterminate through love-wear.
The balcony. The stars.
Kim leaned on the railing and felt the evening settle. His tongue — the seal was weaker now, noticeably weaker, the composite harmonics slowly unraveling the binding matrix like water eroding stone. Another week. Maybe two. And then the seal would be decorative, a mark without meaning, a lock without a mechanism.
Jonin level. Five natures. Fifteen demonstrable techniques. Thirty students. A dissolving tongue seal. Six new scrolls including an A-rank.
And a girl with a flower in her hair who throws kunai at my head.
He pressed his thumb into his palm.
This is the life, huh, Dad? This is what it looks like when your mediocre son finds a loophole and rides it all the way to the top.
You'd hate the Root part. You'd understand it — you were pragmatic, you knew how the village worked, you knew the shadows had teeth — but you'd hate it. You'd say something quiet and disappointed and I'd feel terrible and I'd do it anyway because the alternative is being too weak to keep them safe.
You'd love the teaching, though. You'd love that your son is good at making people better.
And you'd absolutely love that I ran three blocks from a girl with a kunai.
He smiled. The scar pulled. The stars were indifferent.
Big man. Thirty students who call my advice "golden tips."
And I still can't get through a conversation with Tenten without property damage.
What a life.
He went inside. Checked the girls one more time. Retrieved the book from under the mattress. Opened to the bookmark.
Chapter 14. The protagonist visits the blacksmith's daughter at her shop. Brings her flowers. She threatens him with a hammer.
Kim stared at the page.
Jiraiya, you prophetic bastard.
He read until midnight. Slept with the book on his chest and the smile still on his face and the faint taste of apple on his tongue.