"Akio, you've reached your limit. We should head home now." Akio heard his brother say.

Akio had fallen again. It was starting to happen more frequently now. We had been training at training ground 6 since early in the morning with only one break for lunch. Akio was low on chakra, physically exhausted from the endurance training, and bruised from the sparring, but he refused to stop until he hit his brother.

"O-only I can decide my limit Hikaku. I-if I don't place one on myself, then I have no limits. If I have no limits, I can keep going forever!" Akio said as he made my way to my feet, only to stumble and fall again.

"That was a nice little speech, but if you can't even stand back up I don't think you can keep going. You did well today Akio, there's no shame in stopping here." Hikaku said.

What he said was true, but Akio just shook his head. "H-how can I ever become a great ninja if I can't even land a s-single hit on you?" He slowly made his way to a standing position. After he took a few seconds to catch my breath, he started walking towards my brother one more time.

"I won't stop until I hit you!" He said. Hikaku just watched with a smile on his face as Akio slowly made my way to him. He didn't even try to move when Akio was right in front of him. Nor did he move when Akio raised his fist and hit him in his chest.

"You did it Akio! Are you happy now?" He asked.

"No. You let me hit you." Akio said, pouting and crossing his arms. This made him laugh.

"Of course I did! If I didn't let you hit me we would never be able to leave this training ground. You may not think so, but I'm tired Akio. All I want to do right now is eat and go to sleep. Whether you want to admit it or not Akio, you can't keep going. If we leave now, I'll treat you to some ramen from my favorite place. What do you say Akio?" He asked.

"Well…" Akio said, not entirely convinced.

Hikaku sighed. "All you can eat." He said.

"Deal! But I want to do one more thing before we leave." Akio said.

Hikaku sighed again. "What is it?" He asked.

"I want to try the fireball jutsu again!" Akio said. This made Hikaku frown.

"Akio, you don't have a lot of chakra left. The odds of you being able to perform that jutsu right now are extremely low." Hikaku said.

"I just want to try one more time! I promise if I don't get it this time I won't complain at all heading back." Akio pleaded. Hikaku just rolled his eyes, knowing that he would still complain.

"Well Akio, at least you're persistent in your training. One more try. After that we leave. You know the hand signs so get to it!" Hikaku said.

Akio nodded and started the hand signs.

"Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger!" On the last one he put his left hand to his mouth in a cone shape and blew. What came out was an extremely small fireball. It sailed across the training ground and collided with a rock, where it fizzled out.

Akio immediately started jumping in the air, celebrating.

"I FINALLY DID IT!" Akio shouted.

Akio heard Hikaku start clapping and looked over at him. "Congratulations Akio! I knew you could do it! And to think, you managed to do it at a younger age than even me. Good job bro!" He said.

Akio stopped his celebrating and gave his brother the peace sign.

"It was no-"

That was all Akio got out. The next moment he got hit with a massive wave of fatigue. In the next moment, Hikaku was standing behind him, supporting him.

"Remember that thing I said about you being low on chakra? Well now you barely have enough to stay conscious." Hikaku explained.

Akio was so exhausted at that point he couldn't say anything. He just leaned against his brother's chest.

Hikaku chuckled softly and lifted Akio up in his arms. "Man, you sure have gained some weight."

Akio weakly pushed against his chest. "Put me down!" he complained. He was practically a ninja now! What kind of ninja had to be carried by their brother?

"Calm down Akio, I promise when I think you can walk I will put you down." He said.

Akio wanted to complain some more, to force Hikaku to put him down. But he didn't have any more energy. Akio closed my eyes and slipped into blissful unconsciousness.

Hikaku just smiled down at his little brother. "Good job bro, you've really come a long way in just a week. I can't wait to give you this gift when you wake up." He said. With that he grabbed his bag and left the training ground.

…

When Akio awoke, the first thing he noticed was that he was being carried. He looked up and saw his brother looking down at him. "Glad to see you finally woke up. I was getting tired of carrying you." He said.

"Hmph, you didn't have to carry me in the first place. I'm practically a ninja now! I don't need my brother carrying me around." Akio said.

'I can't believe he's letting that fireball go to his head. It was barely the size of a Frisbee,' Hikaku thought to himself. 'Should I really give him this gift? His ego is definitely going to go through the roof once he gets it. Ah, mom and dad would probably be upset if I didn't since he at least managed the fireball jutsu.' At the thought of his mom and dad, he was reminded of what was going to happen to his mom and dad. It immediately put him in an unpleasant mood. 'It probably already started.'

"Hikaku what's wrong?" Akio asked. His brother was staring ahead of them with a frown on his face. He looked upset.

Looking down and seeing his brother worrying about him, he quickly put on a smile. 'This may very well be my last time seeing Akio. I don't want him to have to worry about me.'

"I'm fine Akio! I was just thinking you're getting too heavy." Hikaku lied.

Akio crossed his arms. "Like I said, you didn't have to carry me." He said.

With that, he got out of Hikakus arms.

"Well Akio, I couldn't just leave you on the training ground. Mom and dad would have been mad. Also, I don't know what I would have done with this little gift I got you." Hikaku said.

At the word gift, Akio immediately turned on his brother. "Gift? What you get me!? Where is it? Is it edible?" He probably would have kept asking questions if Hikaku didn't put his hand over Akio's mouth.

"You talk waaaay too much. Just close your eyes Akio." He said.

Akio complied. "I hope it's something cool! Like a pet wolf or something!" Akio said.

Hikaku deadpanned. "Akio, do you really think I would have something dangerous like that around? Even if I did do you think I would really give it to you as a gift?" He asked.

A beat.

"…Maybe." Was Akio's answer.

Hikaku just shook his head and smiled. "Well hate to disappoint you but it's not a wolf. Now open your eyes."

Akio immediately opened his eyes. What he saw immediately made him smile from ear to ear. It was a sleeveless button up shirt on the back of it was the Uchiha symbol.

"This is my gift to you for finally getting our clans fireball jutsu down." Hikaku said with a smile on his face. He then had to stop Akio from trying to take off his shirt.

"Akio wait until we get to an alley or something! Don't take your shirt off in public!"

Just to let people know, this story will have a lot of OC's. But I won't focus entirely on them. Drop a review and let me know what you think. Anything to help me improve is welcome.