Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Those running the exam were surprised when we delivered the scroll to them walking from within the village to the entrance, they asked us to head back to the Kazekage tower where they were sending the teams as they passed.

As I turned and walked away Kakashi did a double take, "What happened to your back?" he asked shocked.

Ah that, "I got hit by the first one of those wind blades, I had forgotten about it."

Kakashi was not going to let it lie though, he grabbed my hand and dragged me into a side alley, "Turn around and let me at least close the wound you idiot, have you any thought for if your wounds get infected."

I smiled ruefully, "Didn't cross my mind" I said as I turned around facing out of the alley.

It was at that moment that Baki, Kazu and the girl passed, and we saw each other at the same time, his hands flinched towards a kunai he wasn't armed with before he thought better of attacking a foreign ninja, "I'll see you in the finals." He snarled.

Scary. Why was he so angry. "What issue do you have with us?" I asked

"Your teammate injured mine, it's unlikely she will be able to compete in the finals due to the muscular spasms she has been afflicted with since your teammate shocked her."

I looked back at Kakashi who didn't even look apologetic and was still busy healing my wound, "She was holding a kunai to my neck." He said simply.

I nodded to myself. That was true.

Baki snarled, "We will see how you like having a kunai actually embedded in you come the finals."

That was going too far, "I apologise if your teammate is suffering some lingering symptoms but we're shinobi, it's no one else's fault than hers for getting hurt the way she did."

He calmed a little but to me it felt like his fury just got colder, "I'm making it your fault." He said evenly before he turned and walked away towards the Kazekage tower.

"How do you think he got through?" I asked Kakashi, "He wouldn't have had time to nab a scroll from another team after chasing us would he?"

"He probably had one before they captured you, they were just helping each other out as Suna shinobi, they seem pretty close knit like that."

That was true enough I thought watching Baki's retreating back.

"That should do it." Kakashi finally announced after a few more moments of silence, I stretched forwards then backwards testing how it felt. No difference as far as I could tell, practically good as new.

"Thanks Kakashi, let's get to the tower. Sensei will probably be there, he'll be surprised we made it through I bet."

Minato was indeed waiting for us at the tower and when we arrived he congratulated us guiding us into the hall all successful teams were being gathered in..

"I never doubted my little prodigies for a moment" He said ruffling our hair.

"Sensei I don't know if you noticed but Ko isn't really all that little." Kakashi deadpanned.

"Was that a joke from you Kakashi?!" Minato gasped, embarrassed Kakashi went a light shade of pink and Minato chuckled, "Of course, of course. But you know, you'll always be my students, even if you do make Chunin first time around."

He laughed but there was a nervous energy to his eyes that I could sense in his chakra, I sent a questioning hand signal at him, he shook his head and sent me a return one from an angle Kakashi could not see simply saying "Later."

Luckily for Minato Karura chose that moment to appear, "Those of you present congratulations for passing the second stage of the suna exams," She announced, "You will all be taking part in the final part in one months time. This part of the exam will take the form, as is tradition, of a knock out style tournament."

I looked around, there were only eight of us, the other konoha team, the Suna team and us, so that meant one of the teams didn't make it, although for the sake of this tournament it made it a little easier in terms of the numbers.

"Those of you who feel they cannot continue to the third round please raise your hand." Karura instructed.

The suna kunoichi Kakashi shocked immediately raised her hand. Well there goes the neat number, it looked like someone was getting a bye.

Karura nodded and the suna nin stepped back, "no one else?" She waited a few moment and when no one else stepped forward she nodded and a Suna shinobi stepped forward from behind us with a box, "Very well step forward one at a time and select a numbered ball from this box, that will decide the matchups for the tournament, there is one black ball within the box, the individual that draws it will get a bye into the second round."

The suna nin stepped forward first drawing their numbers, the other Konoha team looked at us and I gestured them forward. 'I'm in no rush' I thought to myself, 'The likelihood is I'm paired up against a team that loathe me or fellow ninja from my own village.'

After the other team went Kakashi and I stepped forward and selected ours, I looked at mine for a few moments 'Of course' I thought a little ruefully before rejoining the others.

"Could you please announce your numbers now, starting with number 1."

"1," Announced Ibiki.

"2." Announced Tokara

I flinched, tough matchup anyway you cut it being up against your own teammate.

"3." Drawled Hayate

"4." Said Kazu

I could feel Kakashi beginning to sweat next to me.

"...5." Kakashi said at last.

"6!" Exclaimed Baki, he was sure to be happy with that result.

I turned to Kakashi, his relief was evident, "Then?" he prompted.

I nodded holding up the black ball, "I seem to have a knack for picking these." I joked.

"Very well. Then the Konoha shinobi Keiko will have the bye to the second round." Karura confirmed nodding, "You are free to remain in Suna for the month before the tournament or head back to your home village, whichever you think will be best to prepare yourself for the final tournament."

"If you think about it we are going to have to face each other at some point either way." I began, we had started making our way back to the hotel, it was the hottest time of day so I was looking forward to making use of my air conditioning seal again, "Because I don't plan to lose and I doubt you do either, so we would have seen each other in the final even if we were drawn at the two opposite ends of the brackets."

Kakashi nodded but he looked oddly at me a little oddly with an expression I couldn't quite decipher, he looked almost torn. I wonder if he had even considered the possibility he'd have to fight me seriously before today. Well no use confronting that right now.

"How are the prospective Chunin doing," A new voice piped up with a yawn, it was Shikaku, he joined our small procession with his usual hunched walk. "I heard you made it to the third stage."

Kakashi and I nodded, "I wasn't able to find out why people live here so you'll have to tell me." I said to Shikaku.

Shikaku yawned again, "What makes you think I know? I was hoping you could tell me, seems like a troublesome place to be if you ask me."

I almost threw myself at Shikaku but Kakashi caught me before I could and left me silently shouting profanities no one could hear an arms reach away, I spent so much time asking people about the village and it was on the behest of an errant curiosity he had!

"We were just heading back to the hotel, we have a month before the tournament so I think we'll be heading back to the village today, right sensei?" Kakashi said.

Minato and Shikaku shared a glance, "About that," Shikaku began, "Ko won't be returning to the village so quickly, there's a task he's needed for here, Minato and yourself will be returning though, apparently Minato has some ideas for your training already."

"Why can't I go back?" I asked

"It's not entirely within our control I'm afraid." Shikaku responded, "I'll tell you more this evening. Minato and Kakashi will be leaving this afternoon though."

"Why can't you tell us now?" Kakashi and I asked simultaneously.

"There are reasons why Ko is staying just as their are reasons Kakashi is going to Konoha to train, we can't tell you why in the middle of a road in Suna so you'll just have to trust us."

I glanced to my left and right, we had just stopped in the middle of one of the busier streets in Suna Shikaku did have a point, "You will tell us later?" I asked him suspiciously.

"Of course, now let's go." It might have been me but Shikaku looked more tired than usual.

"Let me get this straight." I began.

The day had turned to evening in the village, Kakashi had already left with letters written by me for Kushina, Jiraiya and Tsunade and a message to pass on to Tuechi letting him know that the food out here was nothing compared to his ramen and a request to have some ready for when I got back. It felt oddly weird leaving Kakashi at the entrance to the village and when he left he looked more torn than ever. When I got back to the hotel Shikaku had started laying a real problem at my feet.

"You want me to design a seal for a Jinchuriki, from scratch, within a month and have it be an improvement on the one used in this village and at the same time you are going to train me for the Chunin exam finals?" I said exasperated.

"That about sums it up," Shikaku said, he had taken a seat on the floor in the corner of the room, "This is an A, maybe even an S ranked mission straight from the Hokage and there really isn't anyone else available to take this on."

"But..." I let my hands hang in the air for a few moments before I suddenly remembered, "Wait, why did Kakashi have to leave me behind, he could have stayed to train."

"He has his own training just like you have yours, also I didn't want you distracted on something like this, it isn't an exaggeration that what you do over this next month will be part of the cornerstone of our partnership with the sand village going forward." He explained, he was the most serious I think I had ever seen him.

"I guess that means no Shogi for the month then." I tried to joke but Shikaku just shook his head.

"No Shogi. When you aren't working on that seal we'll be working this month to toughen you up." He said.

"Toughen me up? I don't know if you noticed but I hardly need more training in that area." I signed, smiling bemused at him.

Shikaku shook his head again though, "You're plenty strong Keiko but..." He scratch the back of his head before letting out a sigh with something very similar to 'troublesome' on his lips, "To be honest we weren't going to do this until later in your Shinobi career, when you were older than you are now, we wanted to leave you some part of your childhood considering how you seemed already to have grown out of it on arrival, but with the chance you becoming a chunin in this exam being very real it needs to be done. We can't have someone with some of your habits leading a team. You're tough Ko but not where you need to be."

I frowned, "What do you mean."

"It's been noted from your first arrival in the village that you act like someone much older, your eyes alone sometimes… Anyway whilst you have many of the attitudes of someone much older you still act like a child in many situations, or like a civilian that has never had to live the life of a shinobi. You've shown a great many bad habits." Shikaku explained, he wasn't looking at me but at the wall as if he was looking at some memory playing out before him.

"I don't understand." I said honestly.

"Well as a recent example how about that trap you fell into in the second part of the exam? Kakashi sensed it and had taken action to avoid it but it seems like you weren't able to pick up on the signs." Shikaku explained.

I thought back. Kakashi did seem like he knew about it before it even happened, the only warning from me was my gasp as I fell in but thinking back that couldn't have been enough to tip Kakashi off so quickly, he must have noticed something else. I must have missed something.

"To bring up an example before that, I've read the reports of how you were ambushed on your first mission outside the village and caught unawares by a missing nin hiding his chakra."

I thought back but couldn't see the similarity between the two, true I had been taken unawares both times but with the incident with the missing nin there wasn't any evidence I could have seen him coming.

"And in addition to those, another bad habit of yours is that you forgive too easily." I frowned at this and was about to argue but Shikaku waved my hands away, "I've played you enough at Shogi to know how you think Ko, and you are right… to an extent. By letting go of negative feelings and crowding out conflict mentally you can act without indecision which can help you on and off the battlefield."

I nodded along, that was a large part of my ethos in dealing with most things.

"The problem, Ko, is that in the world of Shinobi by letting go of those feelings today you open yourself to getting stabbed in the back later. Sometimes grudges should be held, sometimes it can be beneficial to hold those grudges. The main example of this I have seen from you is your, as far as I can tell, complete absolution of Danzo after what happened to you. That is a grudge you should hold Ko. You did well in realising he was acting outside of orders from the village but even after he was punished, however harshly, you should not have forgiven him for what he did to you. In situations like this you show the traits of a man who has never been placed in true warfare, a state that must be assumed from Shinobi at all times. To put it succinctly whilst you came to village showing many of the combat abilities we would look for in shinobi you also came without the attitude that gaining such skills would normally have brought, as if they were gained in a vacuum without any exposure to any actual combat."

I looked down at the floor in confusion. Was it really beneficial to think in such a way? Shikaku rose whilst I was thinking and slouched, looking out the window.

"There's one other example of this I've seen in your file. You almost instantly forgave Minato after he, regardless of his intentions, lied to you for the better part of a year. I'm not saying that to forgive him in that case might not have been the best decision. But from a shinobi point of view you were prepared to offer that leeway too quickly. One day that attitude is going to come back and bite you Ko." He crossed to the door. "Get some sleep, we start training early tomorrow." He left through the door and left me staring down at the floor.

Was Shikaku right? Was I too soft? Was I weak?

I awoke early as was my habit but this time it wasn't because of my sleep rhythm but because I had struggled to sleep all night. I sat up in my bed and fetched the bowl of water left by the door. There was no plumbing in Suna. With water being a limited commodity there was little point, instead if you lived here you drew your water from one of the wells scattered around the village, staying in a hotel though they were kind enough to leave a bowl of fresh water by each door in the morning.

I brought it in and splashed some on my face, looking into the mirror it seemed like the red lines from the corners of my eyes were leaking in to the whites of my eyes they were so bloodshot. I groaned internally and prepared for the day before grabbing one of the storage scrolls I had brought which contained one of the few large sealing scrolls I owned. If I was designing a Jinchuriki seal I was going to need it, though I had no idea where I was going to start, honestly I had a few ideas back when I was studying the scrolls Kushina supplied but they were modifications for existing seals, small optimisations. Thinking of creating a new one from scratch was an almost ludicrous idea. I wished, not for the first time, that I had brought some of Kushina's scrolls with me.

Shikaku met me outside the hotel, it was still early morning so the air was cool still and oddly refreshing.

"You look about as tired as I feel." He joked before he beckoned me to follow him and we walked in silence through the village, almost out of the entryway before he turned and opened a nondescript door that exposed a staircase cut into the rock going downwards, Shikaku closed the door behind us and we began making our descent torches lit our way at first but these quickly gave way to smokeless lanterns.

"The Kazekage has afforded us this space so that you can create the seal in relative secrecy, you probably know already but a Jinchuriki is one of a village's closely held secrets. By extension the seal that holds them is, if anything, even more so. If Suna wasn't so starved for sealmasters there's no way they would have turned to another village to craft one for them." Shikaku began to explain, in the sandstone hallway his voice took on a strange quality reminiscent of air being blown over a bottle.

"Fortunately this area also will also serve as suitable training area for you, you'll be spending your time evenly between the two, if there's anything you need for the seal let me know, I've no doubt the Kazekage will supply it." Finally we reached another door, we must be 3 or 4 stories underground, Shikaku opened it and my eyebrows shot up.

The space was immense, the lanterns which hung on the walls could not even light the entire space and I could only see the roof due to some kind of luminous lichen which gave of a faint glow of bio luminescence from the ceiling, Shikaku picked up a lantern that stood on a shelf next to the door and walked further in, "This space we will be using for your training," he said, "There is another room further in that you will be using for your seal work."

There was another room? How was the village not imploding into this void beneath it?

In the end the next room wasn't nearly as large and seemed to be set up specifically for the creation of seals with the entire floor a paper white. The floor even had the feel of paper though it couldn't be for no mark was held on it unless it was made from ink. Shikaku told me even that was absorbed and disappeared after a few days. A good place to lay out ideas then, the actual seal though would have to be written on my large sealing scroll. The door to the room was also sealed so that it could only be opened from the inside or by the Kazekage.

"You have until the afternoon," Shikaku yawned, "I'll be outside taking a nap if you need me." He said flashing me a small smile, before the door swung closed and I felt the activation of a small seal on the door.

Suddenly I remembered a question I had needed to ask, "Hey Shikaku," I whispered, opening the door, "How many tails does the biju we're sealing have."

"One." Came the distant reply from the darkness.

One. So the least of all the tail beasts. I could handle that. I hoped. I unsealed my sealing scroll, took some of the sealing equipment that had been provided in the room, scanned the space I had to work with and set to work.

'That was not a productive session' I thought on exiting the room. I had plenty of promising ideas from what I could remember from the scrolls back home unfortunately they were all so rudimentary, some sealed the biju behind a seemingly impenetrable seal but eventually these all became invariably unstable, eventually leading to the release of the biju, others allowed some amount of the biju to exude from the seal in return for higher stability for the seal but these I decided would eventually cause too great a burden to be placed on the host. It was a problem many of the scrolls I had studied had confronted too, unfortunately they didn't have many answers, only the seal the Uzumaki used seemed to be truly strong and stable but that relied on the particular peculiarities of the chakra the people of Uzushiogakure had held. Inapplicable here then.

Shikaku brought me out of my musing by tapping me on the head, "This," he began, "is exactly the type of habit we're going to work on during this month. Too often you turn inwards, thinking without thought of your surroundings. A little bit of healthy paranoia goes a long way Ko."

'Healthy… paranoia?' I thought sceptically.

Shikaku, ignored my apprehension and gave me a length of cloth, "It's a blindfold, put it on."

I still felt a little dubious but I did and Shikaku guided me to the middle of the room. I could still see some faint light from the lamps through the blindfold but even these disappeared as Shikaku began extinguishing them.

"You'll be trying to avoid my strikes, you'll only need to step to the side," Shikaku said, his voice coming from somewhere to my right, "I won't be holding back much so it'll be up to you how bruised you get today"

I nodded to show I understood which Shikaku must have seen using only the scant light of the lichen above us because I suddenly sensed his chakra almost disappear. I only had a vague sense of his presence, I couldn't even hear him move. And then he struck.

It felt like I had been hit by a boulder, I dropped to one knee as the wind whooshed from my lungs, curled around the epicenter of the blow, my stomach. At almost the same time I heard Shikaku's shout of alarm and my blindfold being pulled off, "Are you ok Ko? I nodded "Why didnt you avoid it?" He asked, lighting a lamp at his feet, he looked seemingly flabbergasted.

"How? I couldn't even sense where your chakra was." I signed weakly.

"My chakra? That's not what you should be looking for, sensing chakra is valuable in a battle where you have already engaged the enemy or in scouting but when you're in an ambush situation what you should be looking for is killing intent". Shikaku explained.

"Killing intent? How." I was aware of what killing intent was to a degree, Minato had told me about it before I even joined the village but I had never experienced it myself.

"How? Well… hmmm." Shikaku looked at me speculatively for a few moments, "Are you able to stand?" I nodded and heaved myself back to a standing position, "I've read from your file that you are able to exude killing intent yourself, could you try doing that now?" He asked.

I looked at Shikaku. It was hard to look at someone who had taught me so much the way he was asking me to but the still stinging punch added some motivation. I looked at him and did exactly as I had to Minato all that time ago.

The effect was immediate, Shikaku turned a light pallor of green and after a few seconds he barked out a breath as if he had forgotten to breathe, "T-That's enough." He said after he inhaled again.

I shook off the state I was in and looked at Shikaku again, "Was that ok?"

Shikaku wasn't slouching anymore, "Ko how can you do that and not be aware of killing intent."

I shrugged, "I've never needed to."

Shikaku shook his head, "Every shinobi needs to, that's likely how you keep falling into traps and ambushes." Shikaku sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, "Every attack has killing intent to some degree Ko, shinobi can sometimes keep a tight reign on their chakra all but making them invisible to even the most talented chakra sensor, killing intent though will reveal their presence moments before any attack and your potential to survive any given attack will depend on how early you sense that intent and how quickly you act."

I scratched the back of my head, "Then how do I go about sensing it?" I asked.

"Honestly every shinobi I've ever met has taken it as rote, it's something you should have learned instinctively, even civilians can sense killing intent, though they don't react very well to it." Shikaku explained, "I don't think I've ever heard of anyone actually needing to be taught to sense it. Perhaps it's related to your ability to give off such a large amount of it." Shikaku pontificated.

"Well… it appears I do." I signed frowning, maybe this was related to my reincarnation, I had lived an entire life in a world that didn't have this as far as I can remember, unlike chakra it wasn't something that was something that was central to your own life force so it seemed to be missable, at least to me. Maybe it is something akin to developing another sense

Shikaku looked at the ceiling for a few moments before he looked back at me, "Ok, let's see if you're completely killing intent blind, that seems like a good place to start."

I nodded.

Shikaku's eyes hardened, that was my first indication he was trying, over the next couple of seconds every lazy line erased itself from his body until he had drew himself up to his full height. He was looking at me with a gaze I had never before seen on his face. Viscous. Bloodthirsty. A few seconds later and even his hands were out of his pockets and then I felt something, it began as a prickling on my forehead like the first beginnings of sweat trickling down my brow, and then a feeling of despair in the very put of my stomach, one of my eyes twitched and I began to suddenly get a very visceral instinct to fight. Then it stopped and Shikaku drew within himself again, looking as if he had never changed.

"Anything." He asked.

I explained what I had felt and he nodded, "That's how most people usually experience it but usually at much lower levels. If you're going to be a Chunin you're going to need to be able to sense even the smallest amount."

"How much were you sending just now?" I asked

Shikaku chuckled, "Just about everything I had. But at least we know you have the capability, we can work with that."

It looked like I had a long way to go.

"Hey Shikaku, we've been at this for a while, I feel like it'll be almost midnight by now?" I whispered, the silence down in the cave was such that I didn't need to speak for Shikaku to hear me, which was lucky considering he'd have to strain to see my hands in the light of the lichen above.

Shikaku had begun training me to sense killing intent by doing the same exercise as before but gradually lowering the amount of intent in each attack, he also thankfully didn't strike with the same strength as he had earlier, I would still be bruised no doubt but it was a small price to pay and it provided plenty of motivation. So far I was able to avoid 1 strike in 3 but Shikaku said I was still nowhere near where he'd expect even an academy student to be.

"And?" Shikaku answered from the darkness, "A little sleep deprivation never did anyone any harm."

He meant to go through the night? "How am I supposed to work on the seal without any sleep."

"Get inventive." He replied, he sounded almost happy, for someone who didn't like troublesome things Shikaku sure seemed to like inflicting them on other people.

I rolled my eyes behind the blindfold, "You know I thought they were only going to torture me during the first part of the exam but it seems like they were-" I sidestepped just as a strike pierced the air where I was stood, "-just preparing me for you. Attacking whilst I'm talking isn't fair Shikaku." I sulked.

Shikaku just chuckled.

I stared down at my work so far on the seal. I didn't have anything concrete so far but I was beginning to pull thoughts together in a way that could be thought to be an idea. Maybe. If you squinted.

The problem seemed to be where to make the compromise, you couldn't lock all of the power of the biju away and still have it be a stable seal, you couldn't let some of it out as too much of it by far would come into contact with the host and they would be kaput - there hadn't been any seal devised that hold control of a biju's chakra with any degree of accuracy. In the end my mind ran in circles and I might have dozed sat on the floor, I can't be sure but whether it was seconds or minutes later Shikaku knocked on the door for me to come out and begin training with him again.

"How long are you able to stay awake?" I asked Shikaku, it had to be approaching the early hours of day 3 at this point and I was fairly certain the only thing keeping me awake was the occasional hit Shikaku landed, I was still improving but the progress seemed too slow even for me, I was now avoiding around 50% of Shikaku's strikes and he had said that he had dropped the killing intent a little since the previous day.

"Mah, who knows. I've never tried." Shikaku answered in his usual lazy drawl, "How's your biju seal crafting going?"

"Mah, who knows I've never tried." I replied back cheekily, I quickly got a punch for my trouble, "I think I've got some kind of an idea, I'm just trying to work out how to implement it."

Shikaku hummed in the darkness, "Think you'll finish in time?"

"Maybe if I could sleep?" I asked hopefully.

"Not happening."

I was at least glad that whilst I was crafting the seal Shikaku collected food, we had seemed to accept a schedule where we ate one large meal when I finished my seal work and snacks where necessary throughout the rest of the day.

Working on the seal that day I had to actively agitate the chakra through my muscles to keep myself awake and thinking, Shikaku told me if I fell asleep and he couldn't wake me up he'd have to fetch the Kazekage to open the door and if that happened my training would get worse. I think he has a real aversion to the sun in Suna, not that I could blame him, it was nice and cool in this cave.

When it came down to it the only way to keep the seal stable was to expose the host to some amount of biju chakra and I knew even if I was given a whole year I'd struggle to come up with anything that could handle and moderate a biju's corrosive chakra and continue to work in a stable manner, I considered letting some element of the demon's psyche through since that was at least a part of the biju I could perhaps specify using what I knew of seals but in the end I decided it would probably be a good idea not to expose a person to what all my scrolls called powerful angry demons.

Shikaku knocked at the door earlier this time, though perhaps that was my imagination since I did seem to have made a great deal of progress.

I found as the days wore on I was using more and more chakra to keep myself going, I had not noticed it before but the longer I was awake the higher the amount of chakra my body used to keep itself running. Now on the 5th (6th?) Day I was not just feeling tired mentally but also physically, I had not spoken since the start of day 4 and even Shikaku had begun to show some small indications of tiredness, his punches at one stage were slowing down giving me more time to sense his intent and dodge him but I think he realised since he sped up again not too long after. It didn't matter too much now though since I was avoiding 9 out of 10 strikes, at this point I wasn't sure whether it was a fault of my sleep deprived state that I was missing that occasional hit or the lowered intent but Shikaku had not lowered the amount he had used in a while so I think I was reaching the point where I could sense attacks in an ambush situation.

"Hey Shikaku, Don't you think this is enough, we can take a rest now right?" I asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid not Ko, you're still consciously thinking about sensing and then dodging the strikes, it needs to be subconscious, instinctual." Shikaku replied. He definitely sounded tired.

"How are you going to be able to tell whether I'm doing it institutionally without thinking about it?" I asked exasperated.

"Simple, I train you until you can't think." Shikaku replied shortly.

That did make a twisted sort of sense. Didn't stop me from grumbling in my mind though.

I don't know how much progress I would have made fully awake for the seal but I wasn't sure it would be this much, designs and symbols ran haphazardly across the floor, overlapping previous designs in many places, I would have thought this room the confines of an insane asylum had I not known anything about fuinjutsu or known that it was myself who made the marks. For all of their random lines and squiggles though I could see the beginning of a seal becoming evident, I had the compromise I was looking for. Whether it would work? I couldn't be sure, I could only spend my time here being as sure as I could be that it would.

I leaned against the wall and didn't even notice as the world began to tilt but recoiled and jumped mentally when my head hit the floor with a dull thump.

"That's not the sound of sleeping I hear in there is it." Shikaku's voice called through the door.

"No Shikaku." I whispered after opening the door. Not yet anyway.

The glow of the lichen above the two shinobi glowed faintly giving some ghostly outline to their movements, one hopped to and fro, lashing out randomly with a fist or a kick, his movements seemed lazy but they were nonetheless silent and his strikes were swift and polished. His opponent though simply turned, bent or rolled out of the way and had been doing so successfully for over an hour now.

"You're pretty much perfect at this now Ko, how are you feeling." One asked of the other.

He received no response however and after a few more strikes the speaker stepped back and lit a lamp revealing the one he called Ko who stood awaiting with a blindfold over his eyes, he reached over and removed the blindfold.

"Hey Ko, I think it's finally time for a break." he said again before seeing that whilst Ko's eyes were open there was no indication there was any activity lying behind them.

"Ah. I'm sorry to have pushed you so hard Ko, it was necessary though." He pulled out a storage scroll and unsealed a futon, he then reached out to Ko who flinched slightly but did not resist when the man guided him into the futon closing his eyes with his fingers, "Here you can use the futon I've been using whilst you worked on your seal."

He sat for some time observing, before extracting another futon from his scroll.

"Get some rest Ko, your training isn't over yet but that will be the hardest part." the man pulled a stopwatch out from a pocket, "Huh, good going Ko, we got this done in 9 days, considering where you started I'd call that record pace."

He didn't get any response from Ko but the boy did sleep with a smile on his face.

AN: Well I sat down to write this expecting it to be as hard as the previous chapter but I got it out within 2 days and I think it's even slightly longer. A lot has happened this chapter though and I think I should explain some of it for completeness because I know I've not been as clear on some things as I perhaps should be. So the reason why Keiko has fallen into a lot of the bad situations he's been in has been because whilst he was a great warrior in his past life he had no actual exposure to war or large scales battles so I thought that inexperience should count for something, and here Keiko is finally coming around to identifying that problem and, hopefully beginning to fix it. Its also related to his habit of being too kind to others and being too forgiving, Hiroyuki was never a hard man with his friends or relatives and there are few times where he'd have cause to, especially with the few memories he had remaining from his old life. That's just my interpretation though.

I appreciate the reviews and I hope you enjoyed this chapter I'll see you in the next one.