I tossed my Bo-staff from hand to hand and paced around Rina as she paced around me. Her eyes were steely firm, her breath even and legs set apart ready to bolt.

Like most people she stood a head taller than me and I smiled up at her, watching the nervousness behind her eyes lock away behind something else, a fury and thirst for power and perhaps vengeance.

When she explained she wanted to be strong like her father I immediately understood what she wanted and so I ask, “What do you believe about these rumours?”

Confused, her backward hold on her kunai loosens for a moment before she pieces together what rumours I’m talking about. Eyes narrowed, she takes a step, “I don’t know how it’s possible, Father was the strongest person and—”

I lurched at her before she could complete her reply. Bringing my bo-staff down on her head, her eyes go wide and she dashes out of the way and my smite craters a small part of the ground instead.

Startled, she leaps around the field away from me, skidding to a stop near the water and flurrying through hand-signs as I tell her, “Nothing is impossible.”

Yagura recognizes the hand-signs she flips through— Ox, Snake, Ram— and before her chakra takes hold of the water to divest it to mist— I remember exactly how to deal with this jutsu.

“Water Release: Hidden in the Mist.”

I grinned and kept my Bo-staff close as a heavy smog thickened around me, obscuring even the ground and any identifiable markers of the training ground.

With this I’ve already begun to enjoy Rina’s company. In my earlier challenges casting the [Water Dragon] I theorized I’d have an easier time if someone would just show me how it’s done right, if someone would cast a jutsu Yagura already knows so well and remind him of how it’s done.

Sure, I’m no Uchiha and I can’t see or precisely sense how chakra flows for any jutsu cast by someone else. But hand-signs are just that, they might not control how chakra moves directly but they’re the blueprint for starting most jutsu. Yagura, even body-snatched by me, remains a master at Water Release, it’s one of his biggest claims to the Kage title, the fact that he can wield Water Release like a fricking water bender.

What are hand-sign’s but a reminder? What is a spar but an exercise in murder?

The mist shifted some feet away even as I wince at my own bloodlusted thoughts. Water bender or not, Yagura is a Kirigakure shinobi and if the memories of dealing with this technique are as real as they feel then he certainly wasn’t the kindest person.

I wonder how long before I’m exactly the man in these memories. Given how easy it’s becoming to wield his power I wouldn’t wager long. These aren’t the times for peaceful rulers.

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Another shift in the mist nearby causes me to narrow my gaze around the thick impenetrable wall of fog around me, “You’re not good enough at Silent Killing to use it on me, Rina.”

Entirely a boast. Yagura’s hearing is insane and I can make out the scratch of her footsteps as she glides off the ground but if I didn’t already remember how to dispel her [Hidden in the Mist] technique I’d be a sitting duck.

My ears twitched at a sound behind me and I shifted my Bo-staff appropriately, deflecting a flurry of senbon meant to skewer me. Another disturbance in the mist comes from the front but at the same time shuriken and senbon soar at me from seemingly all angles.

Shurikenjutsu…or something else? I mused and rotated my Bo-staff in place while plucking some shuriken out of the air for myself— a skill I didn’t know I had until now. I launched three plucked shuriken at speed to my left, right and behind me while I glared at the impenetrable fog in front of me.

The clang of kunai deflecting shuriken confirmed my thoughts but before I can lurch at her position Yagura’s entire body clenches up with indecision and countering commands. I learn why instantly.

Rina’s foot surges under me from a puddle of water I’d failed to notice, slamming into my gut and thrusting me into the air while she reforms from the water to lurch at my prone, vulnerable form with a kunai, victory shining in her eyes.

I let Yagura’s body do as it pleases in my hasty defence and I come up with a half Tiger hand sign. The mist around us condenses to water in an instant and whips of water latch onto Rina’s lurching hand.

She struggles as I land, breath choked out of me by her kick with my fingers pressed into the half Tiger. Another thing I’d never done, I could feel my chakra within the whips holding her back and I knew all I needed to do to solidify my victory was a bit more chakra, so I fed it more.

The whips grew huge as the mist thinned— I was seizing control of the water in the air from her for my own uses— and before Rina knew what was happening she was locked in a floating orb of water.

“Water Prison.” I grinned at Rina now trapped in the heavy and sturdy ball of water, “Not bad, not bad at all.”

She gave up a sign of surrender and the mist begun to rise and fade away. Behind me I heard water splashing and turned to find a Water Clone of Rina being dispelled. I smirked.

She could have kept going, I didn’t know about that. I had suspected considering how her senbon and shuriken moved at me but nothing took my mind to a clone. I released my own [Water Prison] technique, sad to see its perfect form go and Rina collapsed to the ground out of breath.

“You give up too easily, Rina.” The Yagura in me critiqued, “You can breathe in water, can’t you?”

She nods and picked herself up, squeezing the water out of her shoulder-length purple chrome hair. “It’s harder when the water is dominated by someone else’s chakra and I can’t seize it back.”

I nodded at that and released my summoning on the Bo-staff, “I see…well, you’re certainly capable. I see room for growth.”

She grinned, looking relieved at the mention, “Really? So you’ll teach me from now on?”

As far as I know, taking on a student is a big responsibility and I’m only a couple of days away from being declared the Fourth Mizukage and there were many issues within Kiri I needed to take care of even before moving onto my schemes against Obito and the Akatsuki.

I shrugged, “I can’t promise anything except that sometimes I’ll say yes when you ask. Sometimes.”

She fell into a deep bow and yelled, “Thank you for the opportunity, Yagura-sensei!”

I cringed and fell onto my butt. As it turned out, sparring and training with a partner does help far more than by myself. I wouldn’t ever let her know but I was looking forward to more training sessions