This was it. Years of brain-numbing practice and memorization of theory far beyond adults, never mind academy children, had led Machi Aimi to this very moment. Now things were going to go very, very right, or very, very, very wrong.
The last hour had been a humiliation. Every hour at this time had been as well, since the semester began and Basic Chakra Control class had been added. Aimi, already the last in their class to unlock her chakra, had been unable to keep the scrap of paper on her head for more than a moment, and was singled out by her peers and sensei because of it.
That wasn't fabricated; it was a genuine shortcoming Aimi possessed. But it played into their plan nicely. Soon enough, hopefully, her lack of ability would cease to matter.
Now that the class was over, Aimi's classmates quickly flooded out of the room to enjoy the short break they were offered. With the exception of Aimi herself and one other, who remained seated at her desk.
Swallowing her nerves, Aimi shuffled up to Yoshiro-sensei's desk, shaking like a leaf all the while. She was terrified of the man, always had been, but again, that worked to their favor. It was hard to catch someone in a lie when they always acted nervous, always avoided eye contact, and always displayed closed-off body language. Aimi had no hope of fooling the man any other way.
"Yes, Machi-san?" Sensei asked in the same, detached professionalism that he always addressed his class with. He was the only adult Aimi had ever met that wouldn't address her or any other student with chan or kun honorifics, and she had never gotten used to that.
Her mind went blank, and the script they'd so carefully constructed disappeared from her mind, only to be replaced by static and a ringing in her ears. He was waiting for a reply.
"S-sensei," she stammered, and that was all her tongue was capable of.
If you forget, just show him.
That's what she had been told. So, with shaky fingers, she pulled out another piece of paper similar to the one she had just failed to stitch to her forehead. Only, instead of roughly torn, it was clean cut, and the side she kept facing herself wasn't nearly blank.
She couldn't sustain her chakra—all he could manage was a short pulse. But that was all that was needed. She let her trembling hand drop to her side, and the paper defied gravity, remaining stuck to her skin.
"You've done it," sensei said blandly. "Did you have a sudden revelation, or have you decided to feign incompetence until now? If that was your decision, I will not change the grade of the test you took today."
"Hai," she got out. "I mean, no. I…I did my best."
"So sudden revelation it was?" he asked.
"N-no, sensei. I c-can't do it with…" she took a deep breath. "P-paper you gave me."
"If you alter the paper in such a way that allows it to stick to your head without the proper application of chakra, then you have not succeeded in completing the exercise," he stated the obvious.
"That's not the point, sensei," the room's only other occupant suddenly spoke up from her seat near the middle of the class, drawing sensei's eye. "Machi-san has done something far more impressive than stick a piece of paper to her forehead."
"Imai-san," he stated in a suspicious tone that made Aimi's skin crawl. Perhaps it was her imagination, but that seemed to be his default attitude whenever Kasaiki-chan spoke to him, almost like he assumed her friend had an ulterior motive every time she opened her mouth. Now in particular, it made her heart race.
"Do you think you can fool sensei?" Aimi had asked, worriedly, only a week into their extensive preparations. "No one's ever been able to lie to him before."
Some had tried. All had been found out immediately, and punished publicly.
Kasaiki smirked. "Yeah, I can. Focus on your own stuff, and don't worry about me. When it comes to acting, I have a great teacher."
"Machi-san," Kasaiki-chan ordered. "Show him."
As if offering a steak to a feral coyote, Aimi edged towards Yoshiro-sensei, holding out that scrap of paper to him face down. The mild bemusement vanished from his face the moment he flipped it over.
"What did you do?" he asked Kasaiki-chan dangerously, slapping the seal down on his desk far away from himself as if it were soaked in the blood of a disease-ridden hospital patient.
"Very little," she lied. "Machi-san created this all on her own, with almost no guidance from me. And before you get too mad, please just hear us out."
This interaction had been meticulously planned. Sensei's anger was expected, and Kasaiki-chan had spent months finding the most effective way to diffuse it.
But when there was a puff of smoke and a giant of a man appeared directly next to sensei, Aimi (after shrieking in shock) knew that their plans had just gone out the window.
"I think this might be out of your wheelhouse, sensei," the man said. "Please, allow me to take it from here."
Aimi didn't know much about the shinobi world, but she knew people. She had been raised to be a subservient house-wife before her father had made the mistake of enrolling her in the academy, and she could recognize an order, polite as it may be, when she heard it. And, to her shock, Yoshiro-sensei listened. He bit his tongue, and sat back down.
Yoshiro-sensei was a jonin. Who in the hell had the authority to order him, and what were they doing in her classroom?
"Aimi-chan, that's your name, isn't it?" he asked, and all she could do was nod dumbly. His eyes flicked towards the center of the room. Kasaiki-chan hadn't reacted as embarrassingly as she had, but she still seemed off balanced. She had shot to her feet, as if unsure on whether or not to approach.
"And you're Imai Kasaiki-chan. My mother speaks very highly of you."
She was silent for a long moment. "You are…Hamamoto-san, aren't you? That's my inference, anyway, seeing as though I've never met you. Despite essentially living at your mother's house all my life."
Oh god. Not only was a powerful jonin here, but Kasaiki-chan didn't like him. And not only did Kasaiki-chan not like him, she was antagonizing him.
He smiled sheepishly. "Indeed. I am Hamamoto Atsuchi," he introduced for Aimi's benefit. "I happen to be somewhat of an authority on fuinjutsu."
"What's such a busy man as yourself doing at the Academy?" Kasaiki-chan asked caustically.
"Trying to be less busy," he said, thankfully not seeming to take offense. "Back to the matter at hand. Kasaiki-chan, I know you have…some sealing background, though I had thought you abandoned the art."
"I did. Like I said, Machi-san made the discovery that led to her creating the seal, with little guidance from me."
"Is that so," he mused, turning his full attention to Aimi, who gulped under the weight of his stare. Hamamoto-sama was terrifying in a different way than Yoshiro-sensei. He had a presence that commanded attention, both born from his appearance (giant, with a full beard and shinobi garb personalized with scrolls looped through strips of fabric sewn to his flak jacket) and the way he carried himself.
"Aimi-chan," he called her name, and ants felt like they were tap dancing on her spine. "Tell me about this seal you made."
"It…it's called the Ram Seal," she got out, some of her script returning to her. "When we do the paper sticking exercise, we use the ram hand seal to focus our chakra."
Hamamoto-sama nodded. "So you named the seal after it because it helps you achieve the same result."
"No," she said quickly, because Kasaiki-chan had drilled into her that this was important. "It's named that because it is the Ram Seal."
"In its written form," Kasaiki tacked on, and Aimi nodded emphatically, cursing herself for not saying that bit.
Hamamoto-sama frowned. "What do you mean?"
Kami. Oh, kami, this was really happening.
"Machi-san has been having trouble with the paper sticking exercise for a while," Kasaiki-chan said, making Aimi flush even brighter. "So, she asked me for help with chakra control, because mine is above average. I agreed, so I taught her one of the first exercises I did when I unlocked my chakra. It's essentially a mix between meditation and internal chakra control. Her goal was to become familiar with the flow of chakra, so she doesn't force it and strain herself. That's why her technique was failing in the first place. I know, because I had the same problem. Both of us are really good with internal chakra control, but we aren't good at anything that causes chakra to leave our bodies."
She decided to approach after all, though her posture was guarded.
"Machi-san did well with the exercise, though it didn't translate into adeptness with the paper sticking technique like I hoped it would. However, she did gain an awareness of the chakra networks in her hands."
She asked Aimi with her eyes if she could pick up where she left off.
"I thought if I could do what Kasaiki-chan could with her chakra, then I might be able to stick the paper," she said. "So I tried to…follow the chakra through my hands as I did the Ram Seal. But I couldn't concentrate for that long. I…I got frustrated. I didn't want to start at the beginning every time, so I started drawing them, a little at a time."
"What is them?" Hamamoto-sama asked for clarification.
"Her chakra coils," Kasaiki-chan answered. "The exercise I taught her involves sending pulses through her coils, and following them with her consciousness. It is extremely hard, even for people like us who are naturally gifted with unusual internal chakra control. She was supposed to start with the P-1 tenketsu every time, but she got frustrated and, I guess, mapped both her hands as they formed the Ram Seal. I saw the drawing and realized something. I'm sure you can guess what."
He nodded slowly, eyeing the scrap of paper with a frown. "Yes. The inner component is one found in a lot of seals, notably exploding tags. I assume that's what you recognized it from."
"Yes. I noted the similarity, and explained to Machi-san, in the broadest terms possible, what the concept of fuinjutsu was. I guess knowing that it existed was all that Aimi needed. She whipped that up on the spot. This was yesterday, by the way."
The eyes were back on Aimi. "I…I just did the exercise Kasaiki-chan showed me. The seal is just a drawing of my chakra coils. Everything around it was just other bits of my coils that I thought would go together. It just seemed like it would work."
Yeah, that didn't really make sense. But her tongue felt numb, her ears were hot and there was a ringing deep in her skull. She was having trouble speaking at all, much less saying anything that made sense.
"Aimi's seal is incredibly simple. From my experiences, I was sure that, if it did anything at all, it would only do something minor," Kasaiki-chan said. "So I got her some ink, and long story short, she successfully made a seal that draws out chakra effortlessly. I don't understand how, but she seems to have an innate understanding of the art. But I didn't want her to repeat my mistakes, so I insisted she show you, Yoshiro-sensei, so you might offer her some guidance. Kami knows I'm not equipped to help educate or supervise her."
Yoshiro-sensei said nothing, as if he took Hamamoto-sama's orders so absolutely that he didn't want to so much as offer input. His facial expression gave no clues either.
"I am intrigued by your discovery," Hamamoto-sama stated. "It makes me wonder if illustrations of the other hand seals can be found in fuinjutsu."
As Kasaiki-chan gave her a pointed look, Aimi realized that was her cue, and hastily reached into her pocket to withdraw a couple folded sheets of paper. She flattened them out to reveal diagrams of each of the twelve major seals.
"I suppose you would be the authority on that, sir," Kasaiki-chan said.
From the way his eyes widened, Aimi guessed that the answer was all of them.
"I…I've been thinking that maybe jutsu can be written as seals?" Aimi squeaked, and Hamamoto-sama's eyes shot back up to hers.
Every bit of this interaction was terrifying, but this was the riskiest part. Aimi had put years of effort into mapping her hands, and her ability still paled in comparison to Kasaiki's. She could form a pulse and follow it for a brief period of time, just like she claimed she could. But that only got her so far. What truly allowed Kasaiki to draft perfect seals, Aimi learned, was the same thing that allowed her to pick up jutsu so easily. She could merge together seal components and hand seals flawlessly on command. That was something her friend tried to impart in Aimi, with limited success. It was inevitable that she would be tested, and all her preparations hinged on her ability to follow through.
"Yoshiro-sensei," he announced. "I'm borrowing your student. Please excuse her for the rest of the day."
Aimi was taken to an empty classroom in the academy on another floor, shrinking into the massive man's shadow as they passed her whispering classmates. They must have thought she was in trouble for her terrible performance in today's Basic Chakra Control class. She tried to put it out of her mind—there was more important stuff to worry about.
"This should do," Hamamoto-sama said, opening a door on the floor above and peering inside. "Come in."
He gestured to the largest desk at the front of the room, which should only be sat at by a sensei. It felt wrong taking the seat herself, but she did, shrinking under the gaze of the man who seemed to grow to twice his already formidable size. She wished with all her heart that Kasaiki-chan was here, but she had stayed behind with Yoshiro-sensei. There was no one to step in if she floundered again.
"If you can make jutsu into seals, that would have massive implications," he said, before realizing she was seven. "I mean, it would be very useful knowledge for me and my team."
Aimi understood what he meant. Yoshiro-sensei and Kasaiki-chan talked the same way, so she needed to expand her vocabulary or be left in the dust.
"I would certainly like to figure out if it's possible, but I don't really understand how to go about it in the same way you have. Sure, I could—and have—replicated the effects of jutsu, but it seems as if you have a completely different method."
She nodded jerkily. Kasaiki-chan had told her that what was important here was to be as authentic as she could possibly be. She couldn't let Hamamoto-sama overestimate her abilities, only for her to let him down once their conditions weren't as fabricated.
"I…I think I need to know…I don't think I can do it if I don't know the jutsu. I need to know how it works to draw what it feels like. In my coils."
Another important point Kasaiki-chan needed for her to get across.
"I suppose that makes sense. Do you happen to know any jutsu?" he asked, and Aimi shook her head.
"No," she lied.
Aimi knew four jutsu, taught to her by Kasaiki-chan. They were all F-Rank jutsu, with a couple hand seals each to guide her chakra that overall made the act of using them easier than attempting the paper sticking method. For a brief moment. She couldn't sustain any of them, not like Kasaiki-chan could, but that didn't matter for her purposes.
"Then I suppose I better teach you one."
Her gaze shot up to his, attempting to manufacture a look of shock. But a single glimpse of his bearded face made her shrink away.
"H-hai."
He hummed in thought. "Now, what will it be? I know your talents do not lie in external chakra manipulation, so this will probably be difficult for you. We better go with an F-Rank. Let's try…Ninpo: Kami Ga Tokeru no Jutsu. It's a jutsu that's used to completely destroy paper documents without using a flame. The hand seals are I and Saru. I believe you learned the hand seals last semester, did you not?"
She nodded.
"Good. I want you to take your time. I'll wait here all day if I have to, without complaint."
That wouldn't be necessary, because her friend was a genius. She had accurately predicted that Aimi would be tested in such a manner, and made contingencies. Yes, they didn't want the person who ended up testing Aimi to overestimate her, but it was still a test she needed to pass. Her life depended on it. So they prepared, and Kasaiki-chan taught her the four F-Ranks she was sure they would task Aimi with writing in seal form.
According to Kasaiki-chan, it was only logical. Few ninja bothered to learn F-Ranks at all, even as beginners, so the ones they did know would have to have some relevant use in their everyday life. This one and Ninpo: Chisana Hikari no Jutsu were the two that Kasaiki-chan thought her examiner would be most likely to know, given their profession.
He gave her a piece of paper, and Aimi started clumsily forming signs. For several attempts, she failed on purpose. Then, she started actually trying, and failed by accident. It was always a hit or miss with any of the jutsu; she couldn't perform a single one consistently, and the nerves from her audience made it all the more difficult.
But she did it eventually.
"Good, good!" he praised, and she gave a soft smile, even as her lips trembled. Hamamoto-sama was scary, but he was so much nicer than Yoshiro-sensei. It was strange, but she liked it.
"Now, do you think you can make that into a seal?"
"Hai."
This was something she was far more confident in. Just as she had learned the jutsu before hand, she had also created and tested the written version. However, she still took her time, replicating the process so as to give Hamamoto-sama an accurate depiction of what it looked like.
Aimi meditated for a long while, cycling through the two hand seals. She even did her best to pulse her chakra and follow it through her system. Once he had, Aimi sketched her design on the piece of paper with pencil, as Hamamoto-sama watched with narrowed eyes.
"That certainly looks like a seal," he said slowly. "And it's safe. Are you up for testing it?"
"Hai."
She imbued the small amount of ink Hamamoto-sama offered her with chakra, which left her lightheaded. Still, she persevered, tracing over the outline she had made. Once the ink dried, she activated it, and watched with veiled satisfaction as the paper unmade itself, disintegrating into a thin layer of spongy silt.
"Amazing," Hamamoto-sama breathed. "This…this nearly defies understanding. I wonder."
He pulled out his own vial of ink, and imbued it in an instant (Aimi knew she could never have the chakra or external control to manage such a feat). He copied the exact same seal and tried to activate it. It didn't work, but he tried it again. This time he edited the connectors without mediating like she and even Kasaiki-chan always had to do, with surety born from experience and a great deal of practice. It worked just as well as Aimi's had.
"It's a core trait of Fuinjutsu that seals have to be tailored to fit a person's chakra signature," he announced. "By extension, different people use different components in their seals. But jutsu use the same hand signs no matter who casts them. Sure, the connections might vary, but still. This might usher in a whole new understanding of seal invention."
When he looked up at her, there was a wild excitement in his eye.
"Aimi-chan. How would you like a job?"
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
Yoshiro ended up canceling conditioning that day entirely, allowing his students for the first and last time an extended, early lunch. He needed to collect his thoughts, and his visitors wouldn't have gotten this much from spectating his students run laps anyway. He entered the room just across from the one Atsuchi had tested the girl he thought was one of his most hopeless students, massaging away the migraine that was already in full effect.
"Well, that was certainly a show," one of the room's occupants stated with humor. This was Date Fumio, one of Iwagakure's foremost experts in chakra theory. He was also a jonin who moonlighted as a consultant for the R&D department, and notably invented an unknown (even to Yoshiro) number jutsu and techniques that were added to Iwagakure's Arsenal.
"Most unexpected," said another. Ogino Masumi, the official liaison to the Earth Daimyo.
"I know," Yoshiro grunted. "This class…kami. My last two didn't cause me nearly this much trouble."
"You call it troublesome. I somehow doubt Hamamoto-sama would agree," said Date-san. "And to think, he found his diamond in the little civilian girl. From the profiles of your students, she was the last person I ever expected. Shame he didn't place a marker down in the room so we could spectate."
In the center of the table they all sat around was a crystal ball the size of Yoshiro's head. Inside it, he could clearly see an image of the academy's central courtyard, where his class was enjoying their unusual freedom, blind to the fact that they were undergoing the second most important assessment they would face whilst in the academy. Arguably, in their entire careers as shinobi.
"It's not just her. Your class holds many interesting characters, Yoshiro-kun," said the room's last and oldest occupant. Jin Toshiaki, a military advisor to the Tsuchikage who's strategies brought about several of Iwa's greatest victories during the Second Great Shinobi War. "None more so than the other one. The girl's friend."
Yoshiro groaned at the mere mention. "I can't with that child. Every time I think I've gotten through to her, she does something so stupid. And this, this takes the cake. And by Hamamoto-san's order, I can't even punish her—it's as if kami themself is enabling her recklessness."
Jin-sama hummed. "Have you considered that you are attributing to chance that which has a far more logical explanation?"
There was a pause as everyone considered the statement.
"Come now, Jin-sama," Ogino-san said. "You can't believe the Imai girl planned this."
"Why can't you?" he countered. "Yoshiro-kun, how many days has Hamamoto-kun been slated to observe your class?"
"...just once. Today was the only time he could spare. And even then, he had to reschedule twice." Forcing Yoshiro to rearrange his teaching plan for both days. Not that he was bitter about it or anything.
"Jonin, you don't find it suspicious that the girl just happens to unveil this little discovery the one day Iwagakure's fuinjutsu master is in attendance?"
"Of course it's suspicious," Date-san said. "But how could they possibly have known? We've been holed up in this little room all day. When we arrived and the few times we left, we did so under henge. These children couldn't have seen us, much less recognized us."
"And more importantly, this process is intentionally kept secret," Yoshiro added. "No one outside of the academy's faculty and the professionals we invite know that this is happening at all, much less at this time. And even if they did, I hand delivered and received each correspondence personally. I disposed of the letters, only notating their contents in a planner—coded—which I kept on my person at all times. Even if they did learn of the selection committee, plus its time frame, they would have no way of knowing which assessor would spectate and when."
"I am not so certain that is the case," Jin-sama said, to Yoshiro's annoyance. "It's revealed to the students that a committee including their academy sensei will decide their specializations, though details about the process and the time it will take place are kept hidden. They know that the results are revealed at the end of their sixth semester; it is not much of a reach for them to realize that the process begins a semester earlier. And while they cannot know when exactly the professional they want to prove themself to will be present, it is not impossible for them to figure it out when they are watching."
Yoshiro's frown deepened. "What do you mean?"
"A generic examination wouldn't be productive, especially for someone with so little free time. Like Hamamoto-kun and Date-kun, for example. So, what do you do?"
He could now see what the advisor meant. "The academy provides us with lesson plans that act as hidden tests. They are geared towards bringing out skills and traits that the observing professionals might find desirable in those pursuing their specialization."
"As you say. While the schedule changes greatly from year to year, those lessons do not. They can't. All it would take was for the student to identify the test, tie its significance to a desired specialization, and they would have a great advantage in skewing the results in their favor to attain their desired specialization."
His tone made it sound trivial, but it was anything but. There was nothing that made these targeted lessons stand out in any way. Especially Hamamoto-sama's; it simply consisted of an extended scenario in their Consequences class in the morning, followed by a unit on sketch artistry in their Shinobi Operations class (it was sometimes necessary to draw encountered enemies or locations for later identification). The latter at least bore some relation to fuinjutsu, but Shinobi Operations hadn't even occurred yet! It was after lunch!
"You realize what you're implying," Yoshiro said.
"That Imai Kasaiki and Machi Aimi deduced that Hamamoto-kun was spectating solely based off the contents of today's Consequences assignment alone," he said nonchalantly. "But not merely that. Prior to today, they must have had a plan in place that would allow Machi-chan to secure the attention of Hamamoto-kun, which could be implemented on a moment's notice. They had a script, one that Machi-chan was almost too nervous to follow. Imai-chan, at several points, had to bring her back on track."
He could see how the interaction could be interpreted like that. But still, it was a huge stretch.
"Though I doubt it's a product of intellect," Jin-sama added as an afterthought. "I think it far more likely that they learned definitely beforehand which unit tested each specialization. So, they could easily identify it the moment class began. I know you are especially cautious, Yoshiro-kun, but some of your peers aren't as much so. As the units are consistent among classes, perhaps one of them unknowingly provided an opening through which Imai-chan and Machi-chan learned the specifics of this assessment."
Though he hated to even consider it, one event came to mind. Last semester, someone, presumably a student, broke into the sensei's offices. Though the perpetrators cleverly left indications of their presence on the desks of every batch's teacher, it was decided that the culprits were most likely from Batch Sixty-Six. Their sensei admitted that some materials relating to the specialization assessment were present on his desk, but they, as a group, decided not to investigate, and only punish those responsible if they were idiots and let themselves be identified after the fact. Frankly, with what they accomplished, they deserved to be able to skew the results in their favor. It was unclear after the fact, however, if they managed to do so.
Which meant that it was entirely possible that the culprit wasn't among Batch Sixty-Six at all. Still though…
"If you're correct, most of what Imai said during the conversation was a bold-faced lie," Yoshiro said. "Machi always looks one wrong move away from a panic attack, so her behavior was expected. However, Imai…she can do many things. But not lie to me, successfully. Not yet."
Jin-sama smiled. "Are you sure about that?"
When Yoshiro didn't reply, he sat back in his chair, a pleased glint in his eye.
"I think I'd rather like to place my bid on her," he mused.
"Don't bother, Jin-sama," Date Fumio cut in. "I've already decided to select her as my top choice, and that's based on something far more tangible than a hunch."
Yoshiro's eyes immediately shot to his fellow jonin.
"What?" he snapped. "Why?"
Date-san seemed taken aback by the sudden vehemence. "On Monday, I observed her using a variation of the kawarimi no jutsu to gather her belongings from afar. Essentially a more primitive Ninpo: Kami no Te no Jutsu—her tether connected with its target, and attempted to switch spots with her. However, she seemed to eliminate her own pull in the opposite direction, so the jutsu simply shot her school bag towards her. Little use outside of the classroom, due to how easily countered it would be, but she used modified hand seals. It displays an uncommon aptitude for jutsu craft. During her lunch break, I also got a look at the book she was reading—it was a chakra composition text. Written by my late mentor, as a matter of fact. Then there was the matter of that affinity research you published in her name. That was already more than enough, but the explanation of the chakra control exercise she taught her friend was the final straw. I am now certain that she is the correct choice. What's with the face?"
Jin-sama burst out laughing. Yoshiro had grown paler and paler with each work he spoke.
"Kami," he breathed. "She did plan this. She knows everything!"
"Oi, matte. What do you mean?"
"Out of every specialization possible, there is none that she would want more than yours," he said through gritted teeth.
"Let her have it, then," Jin-sama guffawed. "But I want her too. It would be a waste not to nurture her strategic mind."
"She can't have more than one specialty," Yoshiro ground out. "It goes against the definition of the word."
"The girl can handle it. We've all seen her profile. Besides, she already has an additional free period."
That was true, as much as he hated it. His class was done with math for now; there were more important classes that would take priority (though they would briefly return to the subject in their ninth and tenth semesters). However, with his suggestion, Imai had (publically, at least) halted the majority of her projects, which had left her with little to do during the period he had excused her from. With few other options, she asked to continue to sit in on advanced classes alongside batches older than hers. Ergo, not only had she been excused from Math thus far, she had now completed other classes early as well.
"I don't want to give her preferential treatment," he said, the excuse sounding fragile even to him. Truthfully, he didn't want to let Imai in either specialization class, much less both. Because that would mean she won. Imai, an academy student, had beaten Yoshiro, a jonin.
"She would only be receiving the treatment that she herself has earned," Jin-sama pointed out. "But I know that's not the point. See reason, Yoshiro-kun. As always, this is for the good of Iwagakure. Remember when you were taken to the top of the Surmount?"
Jin wasn't present for that particular event, but he knew well what had happened and what had been said. It was a secret tradition that every ninja of Iwagakure, upon their promotion to jonin, was taken by the Tsuchikage to the peak of the Surmount, the tallest mountain that sat just behind the Tsuchikage's Palace. Upon its crest was a small shrine with a crystal clear pool, and in the center of that was an ornately-carved stone pedestal.
The Tsuchikage ordered Yoshiro, then twenty-one, to polish the ordinary-looking stone that rested on the pedestal, which he had done to the best of his ability. As soon as he was finished, the Tsuchikage appraised it, expressed his approval, and immediately tossed the rock into the pool surrounding them. Then, he took out another and put it back in place.
"Many see me as the stone that rests on this pillar," the Tsuchikage said. "And perhaps I do, some of the time. But any stone in this pool can be the stone. A time may come where it is you, Yoshiro-kun. Where Iwagakure is under the threat of collapse, and you are the one that must step up, make the choice, be the sacrifice upon which our collective well-being hinges. It falls upon you to make yourself the hardiest stone you can be, so that, when that crucial moment arrives, you can take the fate of our people upon yourself and prevail. That is the Will of Stone."
"You have been given the duty of shaping these stones to their utmost potential," Jin-sama reminded Yoshiro. "And here you have one who can become a diamond. Let go, Yoshiro-kun. Iwa needs a grand strategist, just as she needs a gifted researcher. And I, for one, can't wait to see what kind of piece Date-san and I together can craft Imai Kasaiki into."
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
AN: Hey y'all! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. A little commentary. I tried to drive this home in text, but Aimi's submarine technique (not that she calls it as such or even knows what a submarine is) is a pale imitation of Kasaiki's. Plus, her already limited awareness only even extends to her hands—no other part of the body is mapped. Be that as it may, it is still an impressive degree of internal chakra control, especially for someone her age. No one who knows her would consider that she could possibly achieve it (plus learn four jutsu, F-Rank as they may be). She probably wouldn't be able to, if circumstances were different. But remember, her life literally depends on it. In her mind, she can either learn everything Kasaiki teaches her, or she will die in the war. With the stakes so high, it should be no wonder that she's a nervous wreck all the time.
And we finally got a good look at Atsuchi! I've only been name dropping him the entire fic so far. Even more astonishingly, he's actually nice! I know, right? He's like the first Iwa shinobi we've met besides Kazuhiro who isn't a piece of shit. Though he doesn't visit his sweet mother, so don't forget that when judging his character.
This arrangement is primarily for Aimi's benefit, of course, but Kasaiki will get some stuff out of it too. Now that she has someone passing on teachings from an actual seal master, her fuinjutsu knowledge will grow in leaps and bounds, which will lead to some interesting developments. I know I haven't included much gamer stuff recently, but it just hasn't been possible so far because everything I have planned revolves around fuinjutsu. Now, finally, I can begin to actually get into that, starting next chapter.
On an unrelated note, Kasaiki has a new mystery sensei she picked up along the way. Who, and why do they care about teaching her how to lie? I suppose, now that I've typed that, there is an obvious suspect/reason, huh? But it actually has nothing to do with the Explosion Corps for once.
Also, she's dual majoring (lol). Gari's plan is really fucking backfiring, isn't it?
That's all. See you next week!