“I can die?”

That sounded needlessly ominous to Takuma, but the surprise lasted only a few seconds. There were a hundred different things that could kill him, and there were plenty of shinobi who knew how to mask their chakra.

“How so?” he asked.

“Are you aware of chakra exhaustion?” asked Daiki.

“When a shinobi uses up all of their chakra… which leads to death. Does that have something to do with the risk of death associated with chakra masking?” asked Takuma.

Chakra was akin to the life force, and using it all up was a well-documented cause of death among shinobi. There was a reason why chakra management was so crucial among shinobi, as running out of chakra literally spelled death, even if they defeated their enemies.

Daiki continued, “There’s the traditional chakra exhaustion or Type-1 chakra exhaustion—when you use up all your chakra and there’s not a drop left in your body and you die. But there’s another type of chakra exhaustion, Type-2 chakra exhaustion. That passive mixing of chakra by the body is essential for keeping your body alive. If, for any reason, that passive mixing is cut off, you are immediately under the threat of death.

“Your organs start to fail. Your heart slows down, your lungs can’t filter air, the kidneys can’t clear toxins from your blood, your brain starts to shut down, and the sensory organs stop communicating. It’s hazardous. One moment, you’re healthy, the next moment, you are in a worse condition than a hundred-year-old man under round-the-clock care.”

“And we are trying to limit that passive chakra mixing,” Takuma commented.

“Indeed. We shinobi who train to utilize chakra are different from civilians. Our bodies naturally produce excessive amounts of that passively mixed chakra. We can limit that flow because we have an excess of it, but if you push it too far and accidentally cut the flow—which is not difficult to do—you push yourself into a high risk of dying by Type-2 chakra exhaustion,” said Daiki.

“I have a question,” said Takuma. “Let’s say I accidentally cut the passive mixing of chakra. What if I then actively mix chakra and manually circulate that?”

“Excellent question. The problem here is that when you cut the passive mixing, you then become unable to mix chakra actively. I haven’t done it, so I don’t know the sensation, but someone with the experience told me that it’s akin to tripping a fuse. You simply lose the ability to mix the two energies. You could be completely rested with full tanks of both energies, but once you cut that connection, you will be unable to do anything with those full tanks.”

Takuma hummed. He focused inside, and it was as easy as a thought to command his Physical and Spiritual Energies to mix and have a gush of chakra flowing through the chakra pathway network. It was an uncomfortable thought to lose something that seemed so natural.

“The fact we know all of this and that you said you talked to someone with experience—meaning they lived to tell the tale means that there’s something more to it,” Takuma asked Daiki.

“That there is,” Daiki smiled. “If you cut off the passive mixing of chakra, it resumes after some time. However, that time varies from person to person. It could be a few safe seconds or a couple of minutes, but you’re dead by that time. And it’s not constant— one day, your passive production could kick start within a quarter of a minute, but another day, you’re struggling for two minutes without a peep.

“That’s why it’s dangerous. There’s never any surety in it.”

Takuma breathed out. He thanked himself that he delayed learning chakra masking. If he were in the village, he would’ve picked up a guide scroll to learn at his own pace because he couldn’t have taken time off his already hectic schedule to learn from a teacher. Now, with all the free time he had at Camp Banana, Takuma could learn directly from someone experienced like Daiki.

“That’s why Hajime wasn’t worried and laughed. He doesn’t have to risk his life to detect chakra signatures, but you have to put yourself at risk to hide from him,” said Daiki. “Most don’t progress after attaining a basic level of proficiency because of the fear that if they push it further, they’re putting themselves under greater risk—true, but if you want to be great, you embrace that risk.”

Daiki smiled as though the prospect of living on the edge of life and death was thrilling to him.

Takuma gulped.

It was true, then it was a very dangerous way of thinking.

“Before I teach you the trick, a few other things to remember,” said Daiki. “It should be obvious, but you can’t actively mix chakra while trying to limit the passive mix— that defeats the purpose of it all. The more chakra you have in your body, the louder you’re to a sensory-nin.

“Second, it’s unhealthy to limit the passive mix. We have an excess amount, but our bodies have adapted to that amount as our natural, and you’re essentially doing something unnatural to your body. Limit your chakra for too long regularly; you will feel sick, tired, and weak. So, no overdoing it in training.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Takuma.

“Let’s head back home to start and hope you don’t die.”

Takuma laughed.

As they turned back to move to their home, they encountered a small entourage of Hidden Steam shinobi walking towards them. They were immediately recognizable as everyone was dressed in Hidden Steam colors. A middle-aged man led the group. The group's body language suggested that the man was an important personage, or at least higher-ranking than others.

“Who are they?” Takuma whispered to Daiki.

He was aware that there was a small group of Hidden Steam shinobi in Camp Banana for ‘coordination.’ But it was plenty clear that Hidden Leaf was in charge of all missions that came to Camp Banana. The Hidden Steam group had some say and power— but not much.

“That’s Tokubetsu Jonin Benzou,” Daiki whispered back. “He’s the highest-ranking Hidden Steam shinobi in Camp Banana and the one in charge of the Hidden Steam shinobi here.”

“So a big shot,” Takuma said.

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As they passed by each other, Takuma’s eyes met with Benzou. Takuma sent a respectful nod to Benzou, which the older man returned. The interaction ended as they passed by each other.

“He looked stressed,” said Daiki.

“Who won’t be after getting that kind of news,” Takuma assumed Benzou, who was stationed at Camp Banana so close to the gold mine, would be stressed about the presence of five jonin in his territory.

Takuma said,

“Well, I hope he and the other higher-ups make the right decision.”

———

.

Iori smiled at the sun shining bright in the sky. It was a rare day that the sun had risen so brightly, so Iori had pushed a table out in the open as she worked on her seals with the sunrays warming her. The near-constant overcast sky was depressing, so she greatly appreciated every moment of sunshine she could get.

Iori hummed to herself as she worked.

“You’re in a good mood.”

She looked up to see Takuma walking towards her.

“Ugh, just looking at you makes me tired,” she said. He wore weighted gear every second of the day, and Iori couldn’t imagine herself lugging that around all day long, even though she spent most of her time making seals in her room.

“And I can’t imagine myself sitting in one place all day long,” Takuma replied as she sat on the ground beside her.

Iori was working, but she didn’t mind some company. She could make explosive tags in her sleep after creating thousands, if not tens of thousands of them. Having a conversation partner wasn’t a bad thing right now.

“That ink is expensive, isn’t it,” said Takuma.

Iori glanced down at her inkpot of the special chakra ink used for fuinjutsu. The chakra ink was a base for creating seal-specific inks by adding other ingredients. There was also an ink slab on her table on which she had mixed a blend specially designed for explosive tags. There was an entire population of fuin-nin who seldom touched a brush to make seals and entirely focused on making chakra ink and developing ink blends for a variety of seals.

“It is expensive,” she said.

“You know, I always wondered about this. I was wondering if you could answer my query,” he said. “I use Grade-1 explosive tags, but whenever I go into a weapons store, there are so many different types of explosive tags—but all of them are Grade-1. I noticed all of them have different patterns. What’s the deal with that?”

Iori laughed, “They’re not patterns; they’re called formulas. Do you buy your explosive tags randomly every time you need more?”

“No, I chose the kind my teacher recommended.”

“That’s one way to do it. Maybe that’s why you didn’t notice,” Iori’s hand moved on the tag paper as she drew the formula in a swift and unbroken manner without a hint of hesitations in her brush strokes. “A seal can be broken down into three basic components: the seal formula, ink blend, and the fuin-nin putting together a seal. These three basic components decide how the final seal will turn out.”

She turned to look at the spread of explosive tags she had created and picked up one where the ink had dried. “Here, look at this. Do you have an explosive tag on you?” Iori gave the explosive tag to Takuma.

“Always,” Takuma took an explosive tag from his pouch and held the two tags beside each other.

“Notice the difference?” she asked.

“Yeah, the patterns— the formulas are different,” he said.

“Correct. There are dozens of different formulas that could be used to make an explosion tag. Every one of them results in an explosion, but they all achieve it in a different way, and that’s where the difference lies— if you burn both of those, you will notice the difference in detonation time, explosion direction, and concentration— and there are other factors like durability against tamper, success rate, and shelf life.

“And then there’s the fuin-nin side of things that don’t concern the shinobi using the tag. The time it takes to complete a seal, its sensitivity to chakra, and the actual functionality.” She pointed at the tag she had given to Takuma. “That tag is going into an emergency cache deep in the battlefield. The formula used has a long shelf life; that tag will last for a year before it starts deteriorating and becomes a dud. It will explode just like any other tag, but because we can’t access emergency caches every month, that tag needs to last long for it to be useful in the cache.”

“Wow,” Takuma gazed at the two tags in his hands. “There’s a lot to it, isn’t there.”

“There is. Half of it, you don’t need to know, but every shinobi should be aware of the important half. Like a shelf-life option— if you know how long the tag will last, you will know when to replace it.”

“Where do I learn all of this?”

“Just ask the shop to give you the catalog. Every tag on sale will be listed there, along with all the necessary information. That tag must be your teacher’s preference, but you can choose your own.”

“This is a whole lot more interesting than I thought it would be,” Takuma said. “What about the ink blend? How does that come into play?”

Iori held up her ink pot. “This is chakra ink—ink infused with chakra. You use this as a base and add other ingredients to make a blend suited for a purpose. You can’t use the blend for an explosive tag to create a storage seal. Good quality increases shelf life and reduces the chances of pulling a dud. A tag cheaper than its contemporaries almost always means they are using a lower-quality blend.

“This base chakra ink is not cheap, and you have to add other ingredients on top of that. I’m telling you, the real money is in selling this stuff. If I had the money, I would open a chakra ink factory. But it costs too much to enter the competition— the Hyuga crushes anyone who dares enter the market.”

Takuma stared at the ink pot for a moment.

“Yes, I remember now. It wasn’t my department, but I do remember there being cases of ink theft,” he said.

“Police Force, right. Yeah, this stuff can sell for a lot if you’re able to get a hand on it. I have a liter of it hidden in my bedroom,” Iori winked.

Both of them laughed.

“And I assume the third component is a fuin-nin’s skill,” said Takuma.

“Yup, you can have the greatest formula and the highest quality blend, it’s all useless if you don’t have the skill for it,” she said.

“No wonder you guys make bank,” said Takuma.

“I’m still waiting to make bank,” Iori sighed.

Takuma stood up and patted her on the shoulder.

“You will make it one day. I believe in you. Don’t forget the little old me when you become a lady of vast riches.”

Iori laughed, “Thanks. You going?”

“Yeah, that’s it for today. I’ll see you later, alright?” Takuma said as he walked away while waving.

Iori watched Takuma and sighed. Just watching him walk away was tiring.

———

.

“Did she find out?” asked Takuma.

“If she did, she didn’t say anything,” replied ‘Takuma.’

Takuma stared at his water clone, impressed with what he had just accomplished. Iori just had an entire conversation with a water clone without realizing she was talking to one. He was hiding behind the house as he couldn’t be away from the water clone lest it would return to water, which was a limitation he was completely fine with— there was only so much one could ask from a C-rank jutsu.

“So, what did you talk about?” asked Takuma.

“We got into a conversation about fuinjutsu and fuin-nin,” the clone replied.

Takuma listened to the clone carefully, not intending to miss out on any information. Unlike the Shadow Clone Jutsu, the Water Clone Jutsu lacked the information-transfer-on-jutsu-release feature. Which was why the Water Clone Jutsu couldn’t be used for reconnaissance missions or for the cheat-like training exploit.

“And that’s about it,” the clone told Takuma everything about their conversation.

“Alright, I will remember it,” Takuma nodded before releasing the jutsu. The clone turned into a water splashed wide on the ground.

Takuma stretched his arms up above his head and decided to head back home. When he reached the building, he noticed one of the Hidden Leaf shinobi with a handful of letters. He immediately broke into a jog.

“Hey, is there anything for me? I’m Takuma.”

“Takuma, Takuma… found it, yeah, there’s one,” said the man.

“Nice. Thank you,” Takuma said as he opened the letter on the spot.

It was from Maruboshi.

A smile appeared on Takuma’s face as he read his teacher’s neat and flowing brush calligraphy. The first two paragraphs were routine. He chuckled at how formal Maruboshi sounded in writing. As Takuma read further—

“Huh…”

The Hidden Leaf shinobi looked up at Takuma, whose expression had flipped from joy to grave solemnity.

“Is something wrong?”

Takuma didn’t reply because he didn’t hear it.

All his attention was focused on the one line he had just read.

[—The Uchiha Clan has accused Shimura Danzo of Bloodline Theft—]