I still couldn’t believe it. After so long, I finally had it—I had the resource I’d been chomping at the bits for. It was obvious that Asuma Sarutobi wasn’t helping me out for the most altruistic reasons, and why would he? I was the village’s Jinchuriki, a living weapon to be pointed at their enemies, so training me was as much in the village’s interests as it was mine.

Even if he was training me solely out of the goodness of his heart (which I very much doubted), what reason did I give him to do so in the first place? I probably looked like any other petty little shite scrounging for a way to one-up his classmates and who was I to presume I was the reason he even decided to train me?

Maybe Lord Third finally decided to do me solid, because right now, the evidence sure did point that way. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was true, but it wouldn’t hurt to be nicer to the old man next time he came around.

As things stood, there was no way to reveal my reasons for pursuing strength without my reincarnation coming into play. Without doing so, what could I tell him? That I did it on a whim, that it was for fear of war—or the sake of peace? Each reason sounded as empty as the last when it came from a five-foot-tall ten-year-old who knew nothing about the pain of loss.

It didn’t really matter whether or not I did. It was all about the optics—and worse, it came across as all too arrogant. No, the only way Asuma would believe me was if I gave an age-appropriate reason. Did that mean I lied to him? Not in my opinion. Some would call it a lie of omission, but I never said anything untrue… I just left out the more important reasons why I needed power.

The much more important reasons aside, I was frustrated that literal children were beating me in spars. Especially if I was going to be kidnapped by Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki in around two years—and that was a big if. For all I knew, maybe I’d die at the hands of Zabuza, or hell, any nameless mook between now and then.

So, my sole goal was to show Asuma Sarutobi everything I knew.

Doing so would allow me to take advantage of his knowledge to figure out the best direction for me to grow. I had my ideas on what I wanted to learn, but none of it would matter if I couldn’t impress him enough to take me on as a student in the first place. Falling into a crouch atop a tree branch, I launched myself forward by overloading the chakra sticking me to it in the first place.

Tree-hopping was as much an art form as it was a method of transportation. It wasn’t a skill limited to traversing forests either. The forest environment was perfect for it, but it was useful in any environment. Using too much chakra in the initial launch meant that you’d destroy whatever was under your feet, so it was one of those skills that required finer chakra control than most genin were used to.

That constant destructive capability was probably why the Academy taught us parkour from the very first day. Parkour was a way to traverse most obstacles without destroying the home of some poor civilian for no good reason. Being out in a forest meant that I didn’t have to worry about destroying homes, but I kept a tight hold of my chakra as an exercise in control more than anything else.

True to Asuma’s word, there was a large field past the thickly-packed cluster of trees. The grass was messy and overgrown in places, which made sense since it was pretty out of the way. I’d made sure to arrive half an hour earlier to get my warm-ups in before Asuma arrived.

To perform at my best, I needed to make sure that both my muscles and chakra network were ready to go, otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to get the most out of what I had planned. My prospective teacher arrived exactly thirty minutes later, a cigarette burning in his mouth. He wore standard-issue gear for the most part—which consisted of the village’s current flak jacket over a black Hidden Whirlpool long-sleeve and cargo pants—and landed a few feet away from me.

“Someone’s got a lot of energy this morning.” He pulled his cigarette free from his mouth and exhaled, his face contorting under the pressure of a slow, drawn-out yawn.

“Well,” I made a show of spreading my arms, “I’ve got to work up a light sweat. Who knows what we’re going to do today.”

He was silent for a single appraising moment. “...You’re going to be a headache and a half aren’t you.”

I grinned.

“Get down from the tree.” He turned around and finished the rest of his cigarette in a single drag, exhaling a cloud of smoke so thick it looked grey. “We’re going to play a game.”

I cut the chakra flow to my feet immediately and surrendered to gravity’s pull, flipping in midair. The fall wasn’t very high, so I landed in a crouch and let my knees absorb the impact. “You mentioned a game?”

“Yep. It’s pretty simple in theory. All you’ve got to do is hit me once. Me blocking doesn’t count either, has to be somewhere I don’t want to get hit. You manage that and you win.”

Excitement raced down my spine. I needed to make an impression on Asuma and a straight-up fight was the best chance. This was perfect because, to my knowledge, Asuma wasn’t S-rank like Kakashi or Might Gai, but he was probably the strongest shinobi in the village after them.

Surpassing him was a must, and this would let me know how big the gap between us was.

“And how do you win?” I asked.

Asuma stuck his hands into the pouch at his back and removed… a pear? I looked closer and saw the numbers circling it.

“This is an alarm clock. I’m going to set it for…” He scratched his chin and hummed. “Eh, I’ll be generous and give you twenty-five minutes. If you can’t land a blow in that time, I win.”

“Sounds pretty fair, but I’ve got a question.”

He walked to a nearby tree and levelled a trench knife against it. “It’s going to have to wait a minute.”

There was an audible hiss. I saw the hazy blue glow of chakra around the blade right before he swung it through the tree. The upper half toppled to the side and he popped the alarm atop the stump. I shook off my astonishment at how casually he’d used high-level chakra manipulation.

It was expected of most chunin—let alone jonin—and if I was aiming for strength beyond that, I needed to accept it as a fact of life just as he had.

I still had to collect my jaw from the ground, though.

“I wanted to know, what do I get if I win?”

Asuma frowned thoughtfully. “If you win, I’ll give you some gear. Good stuff that you’ll be able to use until you’re at least fourteen, maybe fifteen. Once puberty hits, you’ll need something bigger, but it’ll last you until then.”

“And if you win?”

Instead of answering, he smiled. “Time’s a ticking, kid.”

“Fine. Let’s do this.”

He extended his arm at the elbow and beckoned me in. I didn’t let it annoy me, and yet, the closer I got, the bigger he seemed. It wasn’t just the size difference, either. Something else was at play. His huge body cast a looming shadow over me, sucking the heat from the air.

One step forward and breathing became an ordeal on its own. For every bit of air I dragged in, thrice the amount left my lungs. In no time at all, my chest began to burn.

Asuma was a mountain, staring down at me with his unblinking, impossibly lifeless eyes. Gritting my teeth, I took a second step. The edges of my vision darkened while I fought to breathe, to move, to fight… and not to pass out.

I swayed before catching myself, turning my head to stare into the darkness swirling overhead. My legs were seconds away from giving out and as if things couldn’t get worse, something insanely powerful had turned its attention onto me.

I was lightheaded, being squeezed on all sides by a pressure I couldn’t pinpoint, and slowly suffocating. If I couldn’t move, then I’d simply have to close the distance by throwing myself forward using chakra. I moulded it with practised ease (despite the cold) and submerged myself in its warmth.

The heavy presence bore over me, but with my chakra as a pillar to lean against, I advanced. Breathing was still difficult, but with my chakra aiding me, I didn’t have to fight for it as hard. The pressure was there, but with my chakra as a barrier, it was a few feet away instead of right up against me.

More importantly, Asuma was big, but the distance between us was clear.

I lowered my guard. “What the hell is this?”

“How ahead are you? I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t know about genjutsu yet.” He tilted his head and all of it just… vanished. “To be fair, it isn’t exactly genjutsu in the first place.”

“Then what is it?”

“Killing intent. The only similarity it bears to genjutsu is that I use my chakra to influence you. I didn’t trick your brain, but nothing you saw was real.”

“...I don’t understand.”

Asuma rubbed the back of his neck. “This’ll have to be quick since we’re on a timer. Think of chakra like a kunai. You can use it on its own, but you can also apply various poisons to it, right?”

“Are you saying that chakra is the kunai and that you… added killing intent to it? That pressure wasn’t your chakra?”

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“What did you feel?”

“The air being pushed out my lungs and a lot of pressure,” I said, rubbing my chest uncomfortably.

“That was killing intent. It differs from person to person. You felt like that because my primary chakra affinity is wind, and I tend to use it the most in battle, which is why it’s reflected in my killing intent.”

“I get that,” I said. “But what is killing intent? Is it some kind of jutsu, and if so, how come you didn’t use any hand seals.”

“Killing intent isn’t a jutsu. It’s a state of mind; the willingness to die, and the willingness to kill, reflected in my chakra. ”

“Does chakra normally have that kind of… quality?” I asked.

“It does. But it’s mostly subconscious. I’m speaking as if it’s something you do consciously, but unless you’re specifically employing killing intent, or something similar, you’re not doing it on purpose.” He rubbed his chin and released a long sigh. “There’s a mental component to chakra, which is why you can’t efficiently mix it when riled up. You’ll come to realise that’s sort of a lie because it only refers to uncontrolled emotions. By focusing your fear, rage, or any other emotion, you can imbue your chakra with that quality and be all the more powerful for it, understand?”

“I think I understand the basics,” I said. “Chakra usually has subconscious qualities laced within it based on our state of mind. Killing intent is just battle experience consciously projected outward using chakra… right?”

He flapped his hand about. “Close enough. Any half-decent sensor could tell you more about how that looks, but I’m not one and neither are you. Now, enough talk. I won’t use any more killing intent so come at me. We’ve got… fifteen minutes left, give or take.”

That was as good a green light as I was going to get. Asuma stood at an intimidating height and me being a humble five-foot tall ten-year-old meant close-range combat was a no-go. It would mean telegraphing every blow and wasting energy trying to close the distance between us.

I made my hand seals and leapt back, vanishing into a rush of smoke that surged around me. A dozen clones burst through the fading smoke and, using their sheer number and the smoke as cover, I dipped into my pouch and gripped one of three smoke bombs I’d bought for this very fight.

I’d developed a newfound appreciation after being caught unawares by the things not once, but twice. It was the perfect tool for me, especially since the amount of smoke the Clone Jutsu released varied. The most important factor was chakra control, but a close second was the number of clones you wanted to create.

After a certain point, the smoke generated was more of a loss to the chakra reserves than a natural result of the jutsu. Most people eventually used the Clone Jutsu so much they didn’t generate smoke anymore—but I wasn’t most people. With my chakra reserves, I could effectively create a never-ending army of illusory clones and then use the smoke as cover to set up further attacks.

But that was only step one of my plan to fight Asuma.

“Okay,” I muttered, slipping a hand into my weapons pouch. “Where is he?”

The smoke was thick enough for me to just about see through it. After registering Asuma’s position and my quickly dwindling number of clones, I summoned one more clone and threw several shuriken towards the mass of bodies, clearing the ground in one enhanced step.

I flew through the hand seals for the Transformation Jutsu, following close behind the swarm of metal stars. Asuma deflected most with a kunai— except for me because I’d gone wide on purpose. He turned to face the clone I’d left in the smoke cloud and I shot over his head, undoing the transformation in time to stick to the tree.

Climbing into the safety of the canopy, I lay flat against a branch. I was slightly too far to hear what he was saying to the clone, but it didn’t matter. It was only meant to be a distraction for the next phase of my plan. Sliding back to the tree’s trunk, I stood perpendicular to it through sheer strength.

My back muscles strained at the effort, but I didn’t need to hold the position for too long. The bark crackled dangerously under my feet in warning and I could feel the upper layer starting to give way. I increased the chakra flow to my feet even more before ripping both kunai free from their holsters.

Kunai poised and ready, I shot forward at eye-watering speeds, raising the blades high above my head. Tears streamed out of my eyes, but I kept them open until I couldn’t any longer. When I opened my eyes, Asuma was gone, and I was on the fast track to take a massive bite out of Mother Earth.

“Slow down there. What are you trying to do, kill me?”

My rapid descent slammed to a stop, one of the kunai in my hands flew into the brush, and my kneecaps knocked together—yet I managed to chuckle. “You’re a jonin. It’d be disappointing if you didn’t manage to avoid it.”

I heard him hum. “Good point.”

Thankfully, he took a second too long to answer so using the only kunai I had left, I sliced the scruff of my shirt off and fell into a crouch. Before Asuma could let go, I blew myself off the ground using chakra and slammed an axe kick into his forearm. For a split second, his arm was a springboard, one I used to flip over his head and dip into my weapons pouch.

He sprung back in an agile backflip, scattering half a dozen shuriken across the field. I gathered chakra via the Confrontation Seal with my right hand and tossed a smoke bomb between us with my left. The smoke cloud tripled in size once I used the Clone Jutsu, summoning a small army of about a dozen clones.

This time, though, I joined the clones charging towards Asuma. While they didn’t cast shadows themselves, I could make sure that they covered my own. It was sort of terrifying to see how easily he made quick work of them.

Swallowing my unease, I guided my chakra, feeling it course down to the soles of my feet and blast me forward. I slammed to a stop behind Asuma and stabbed, striking nothing. A heavy hand settled on my shoulder and I immediately flipped forward, twisting around in mid-air.

“Talk about an overreaction,” Asuma said with a sigh.

I levelled my kunai at him. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“All of this—cut it out. I’m fighting you seriously here. I’m coming at you with everything I have and you’re treating it like it’s a joke.”

To a jonin like him, I was a joke, and therein lay the source of my frustration. While he was playing around with me, my enemies were growing stronger. There were people my age who’d completely curb-stomp me as I was right now. Knowing all I did, I couldn’t afford to waste time messing about anymore, and if that meant pissing off a jonin, that’s what I’d do.

“We both know I’m not any kind of threat to you, but I’m trying my best here. Do me the favour of at least reciprocating that, otherwise there’s no point to this.”

Asuma pulled out two trench knives and brandished them with a long sigh.

I could feel my kunai hilt through my clammy hand and eased out a breath. The blades glowed a faint blue and I crushed the urge to spring back behind the cover of smoke and clones. Doing so wouldn’t win me the spar. I wasn’t sure how long we had left, but if I wanted to land a blow before time ran out, close-range was the way to go.

Despite not being happy with doing so, I had a few ideas I could try in case my plan failed. He entered striking distance, and I jammed up, watching his metal-covered fist move closer to my face. It wasn’t like I froze on purpose, but there was a heavy pressure leaking out of him, and the closer he got, the more I felt it.

It wasn’t as focused or as strong as the killing intent from earlier, but it didn’t need to be to throw me off. I chewed the inside of my cheek, the pain reinvigorating my limbs, and dodged. Asuma twisted his wrist inwards and flared out his elbow, turning the blade towards me. The hazy glow of chakra was growing stronger by the minute, and if those blades were anything like my enhanced palm strike, I was better off staying clear of them.

Flipping back, I pumped chakra through my hands and blasted into the canopy. The field was relatively small and surrounded by trees on all sides. I flew through it, firing chakra through both my hands and feet each time I landed for maximum speed. Each time I landed on a branch, I summoned a clone and, once I’d circled the field, they burst out of the treetops.

I didn’t stay hidden this time and jumped out of the canopy from above, fitting three shuriken between my fingers. Asuma levelled both his trench knives at the clone army, spinning around the moment they touched down. They vanished in successive smoke clouds, and I gaped as I fell.

The knives had turned into handles for two dangerously visible serrated chakra blades. I hurled the shuriken and fell into the brush, springing forward as a fourth shuriken. Narrowly avoiding a wide slash that I’m pretty sure destroyed at least one of the shuriken I’d thrown, I plunged into the grass.

Asuma looked up in the direction the shuriken had come from and I waited until he’d completely turned his back before lifting the transformation. With the reveal of some kind of chakra lightsaber, I knew I had no chance at either long or close range. The only weapon I had left was my chakra repulsion, something I’d hit a dead end on.

Using chakra adhesion to stop me from being blown away forced me to take more of the backlash head-on, but my other choices were looking grim right now. Moulding more chakra than I thought I’d need, I divided some to stick my lead foot to the ground, sending the rest coursing up my body and down my shoulder.

This was it.

I slammed my hand into his back and let the chakra run wild. That proved to be a very, very bad idea. The upper bit of my arm bone popped out of the socket, rendering it completely useless—not that I’d be able to use it anyway—and my body shuddered, kept rooted to the ground by the quickly fading adhesion. I looked at my right arm in horror for a few seconds until the pain hit, bringing me to my knees.

The alarm clock blared across the field and I blinked at the world through hot tears.

“Kid!” Asuma appeared by my side. He tore away my already ripped shirt and took a look at my arm. “You’ve dislocated it, which you should be grateful for. It could’ve been much, much worse. Going this far for a spar; goddamn, what the hell is wrong with you?” He grasped my bicep with one hand and my wrist in the other. “Look at me.”

I did, with great difficulty, looking back and forth between his face and my arm.

“Explain to me exactly what that was.”

“Okay,” I said, gritting my teeth through the pain. “W-When you overload the chakra sticking you to a surface, it blasts you off, destroying whatever’s underneath. I had the idea to incorporate that into my taijutsu style. That kind of strength would let me end fights in a single—!”

He pulled down on my wrist, popping the bone back into the socket. I’m pretty sure I whimpered, but that was the sort of knowledge I’d take to the grave. A fresh wave of tears pooled in my eyes and I cradled the elbow of my now-relocated arm to my chest.

“In a single blow—and it would, if you knew what you were doing. All you’re doing right now is letting insane amounts of chakra rampage through your body and hoping that you can take it and that your opponent can’t.” He jabbed my throbbing arm, making me hiss. “Next time you want to experiment, make sure you go to someone who can help you, understand?”

Wiping my tears, I bowed my head. “...Please, help me. There are things that I want to try, but at the rate I’m going, I’ll end up crippling myself.”

“...To be fair, you did win, so you’re heading in the right direction.” He rubbed the back of his neck guiltily. “I’ll meet you here this time next week with the gear. Make sure you bring a list of things you want to learn and I’ll see what I can do.”

Rising to my feet, I rotated my shoulder a few times, wincing at the dull ache. I’d probably heal the damage overnight, but it felt like I’d fractured a bone. This was the first time I’d dislocated anything in both lives, and I wasn’t enjoying the experience.

“Thank you, Asuma.”

“Don’t sweat it, but take it easy today. Make a stop at the hospital and get your shoulder looked at by a medic just in case—here.” He scribbled something onto a sticky note he’d pulled out of his flak jacket. “This should get you in and out without wasting the entire day in a waiting area.”

I accepted the note and vanished into the canopy, leaving my new teacher behind. I’d stop at my apartment for a shirt before going to the hospital, partly because of the cold, but wandering around shirtless would just give the villagers another thing to complain about.

The spar hadn’t gone the way I hoped, but it was safe to say that proper chakra enhancement would be on the list of things to learn.