Chapter 14: Syntax Error

It was a beautiful day. Not too hot, not too cold, just the right amount of sun, and a nice comforting breeze. By all means, taking an early morning walk with my best friend should have been quite pleasant, if not for two things.

One, I had far too little tea—and by that I mean none—in my system, thanks to tossing my alarm clock out the window and oversleeping. Two, I had a headache. Three, I kept thinking about numbers. Four, it was still happening. Five, this was making my headache worse. Six, three rounds of processing back to back may have been a bit much.

Seven, four I couldn't even remember if I eight 5 for breakfast. Oh no the numbers doubled were16 and 10.

48 6f 77 20 64 6f 20 49 20 6d 61 6b 65 20 69 74 20 73 74 6f 70 0d 0a?

"Satoya, you okay?"

"54 68 65 20 6e 75 6d 62 65 72 73 2c 20 4d 61 73 6f 6e 0d 0a!" I responded. "57 68 61 74 20 64 6f 20 74 68 65 79 20 6d 65 61 6e?"

"Ugh, not again."

He put me in a headlock and gave me an aggressive noogie. "Earth to Satoya. Anybody in there?"

I wriggled free. "Stoppit!"

"You okay now?"

I gave a thumbs up. "Never better."

"Uh-huh," he deadpanned. "C'mon, we should hurry up before we're late."

That begged the question, why was Naruto even still walking with me? We were almost at training ground 3three 3three 3three.

I slapped my cheeks. "Aren't you supposed to meet your own team?" I asked. "Not that I don't appreciate the company, but they might get worried about you."

Naruto wrinkled his nose. "I am heading to our meetup spot."

Did Kakashi just tell them to meet without checking if the training ground was free?

I quickened my pace with Naruto lagging behind, and stumbled into view of a distraught girl and grumpy boy sitting in the grass and staring in opposite directions.

For a moment it looked like Sasuke smiled when he noticed our approach, but that image was quickly replaced by his customary scowl.

My brain is so scrambled I must be hallucinating.

"About time you showed up, dumbass," Sasuke said.

"Oi who you calling dumb?" Naruto snapped, "At least I wasn't dumb enough to show up too early."

Sakura watched their exchange with a pout, and Sasuke got ready for another fierce rebuttal.

"Did either of you two have anything to eat?" I interrupted, taking a seat on the ground next to her. "I brought food because I overslept and skipped breakfast."

Temptation danced in Sakura's eyes as I held up a ration bar, but she quickly squashed it down with pure force of will. "No," she grumped, giving Naruto and me a pointed look, "I don't want to get puke on my outfit."

"{Someone's hangry}," I mumbled. Sasuke on the other hand muttered thanks and gladly took my offer.

"Sasuke?" Sakura gaped. "What are you doing?"

"Not like we're forced to eat this right now," he replied.

Seeing Sakura's downcast expression I held out another ration. "Take it. I packed more than enough."

"Thanks, Satoya… Sorry about acting rude." Her apology almost seemed aimed at Sasuke rather than myself.

"Don't sweat it. You're not you when you're hungry," I replied, chuckling to myself at the memory of that stupid commercial. "At least you didn't turn into a tiger or something."

She threateningly raised her fist with a glint in her eye. "The first rule of kunoichi class is..?"

The smile froze on my lips.

"Please, not you too," Yuu said, inadvertently saving me from a Bad End. "If you encourage him he will never quit uttering his nonsensical phrases."

"Oh hush, you know you love them," I said.

"I believe you are mistaken," Yuu replied.

"Am I out of touch?" I questioned.

"No, it's the children who are wrong," Yuu and I answered at the same time, though his voice lacked any emotional inflection.

Yuu gave Sakura a look that communicated 'you see what I mean?' and she quickly apologised.

I sensed a familiar presence nearing our clearing. "Whatever you're apologising for, don't. These two idiots are incorrigible."

Akuma wore the same battle getup as during yesterday's test and carried a lengthy wrapped package in her arms.

I stuck out my tongue. "What's that in your hands?"

"Something special for Yuu," she said, sticking her tongue out just the same. She unwrapped the package, and unsheathed a smooth, dark blade. A trio of wolves was engraved along the flat edge, shaped to look like they were sprinting toward prey.

"It's chakra conductive," Akuma explained. "I already have mine here too." She tapped the blade at her side, which was wrapped in a far nicer sheath than her previous one.

Yuu's eyes shone. "It's beautiful. How could I ever repay you?"

"No worries. Dad insisted you deserve it for all the good business he got over the years."

Team Seven leaned in to peek at the sword, which Yuu smugly showed off. I, of course, already knew Akuma had been making it for him—the wolves were my handiwork. My own chakra ingots were still waiting for me at the forge.

Nibbling away at her ration bar, Sakura asked, "How is chakra metal different from steel?"

"It's alloyed with a special material," Akuma explained. "Though this batch was enriched somehow. According to dad, the Land of Snow came up with some new technique."

Uranium. When I first heard about it I felt very off put. Thinking about it some more, I figured if there were any real danger of going nuclear in the near future, it would have come up in canon.

Sakura chewed over the explanation. "Really? Why does that change how it works?" She was about to take another bite of her food, when someone snatched it out of her hand.

"What did I say about breakfast?" Kakashi chided after popping up out of nowhere. "And here I thought you respected your dear teacher."

Kakashi then turned to my team. "As for you three; try as I might, I was not able to convince the Hokage to hand me the real best genin." He winked. "Also, I believe your sensei is off in training ground 44. You couldn't have possibly gone to the wrong spot, could you?"

44. Fortyfour. Shi Shi. Death death. How funny.

"Kakashi-san," Hayate said, disabling his invisibility. "Please don't direct my genin into danger."

"I was doing no such thing," Kakashi innocently replied. "I was merely advising these cute little genin to stay far away from my test for their own safety."

Hayate shook his head in exasperation and faced us. "Good morning, team. I'm glad to see you all here on time. In case you were curious, we are sharing ground three because many jounin are running their tests today. This will not be a regular occurrence."

"And here I thought you wanted to swap students," Kakashi said, glumly kicking at a cone on the ground.

Hayate scratched his chin. "Maybe I should. See how you like it when they toss coal dust at you," he said. "Team five, let's head out. It's better to stay far away from Hatake shenanigans."

He didn't wait for our affirmation before leaping into the forest. My friends and I wished team seven good luck and dashed after him.

Hayate finally stopped when we reached the far end of the training ground. "This should be enough distance," he said. "For today, I will start you on basic squad tactics. As you have already trained together for a long time, I suspect we will be graduating to more advanced topics relatively quickly."

"What sorts of topics?" I asked.

"Kenjutsu, naturally," Yuu replied in Hayate's stead.

"While that will be included, it will not be our focus," Hayate said. "I am an infiltration and investigation specialist first and foremost. Therefore that will also be our team's primary function."

Intel gathering? That was such a redshirt occupation! 'Why don't I check out this Akatsuki base? Oh shit Zetsu ate me!'

"That's so lame!" Akuma shouted.

"I see you aren't enthused," Hayate noted. "But I assure you infiltration skills are useful for a great deal of things."

Yeah, like getting eaten by a snake, or killed by Pain, or caught peeping on Kabuto before the chunin invasion and—

My heart skipped a beat and my eyes widened in recognition. Hayate Gekko. A chunin exam proctor murdered before the invasion. It was the Shisui situation all over again. Fuck.

"Satoya, were you paying attention to what I just said?" asked Hayate.

"You—" are going to die. "I—" don't know what to say. "Are you planning to proctor for the chunin exams?"

"Naturally not. I have a team to take care of," Hayate replied. "Returning to the topic at hand, I understand you may find this upsetting, but shinobi cannot simply seek out danger. Those that survive the longest are the ones that best evade detection."

Truthfully, I may not have given this point enough consideration. Why bother with personal might if I could just silently nudge things along?

Because that's lame as hell!

Beyond that knee jerk response, it was also important to keep in mind this entire world was based on a shonen battle manga. If the future I knew was a genuine possibility, it meant the story's foundational tropes must also exist.

Might makes right.

Not to mention the very real possibility things went wrong. Take Hayate as an example of how well stealth did as a long term strategy. If I ever came face to face with a Bijuu, S-rank missing nin, or a resurrected Madara, I sure as heck wouldn't just keel over and die like fodder.

"I don't have much faith in that strategy, sensei," I announced. "There are all sorts of cataclysmic forces in our world. Any kind of planning goes out the window if we ever stumble into them. We need firepower, even if as a last resort."

Hayate mulled it over, but he wasn't convinced yet. To really drive my point home, I added, "Also won't we need to show off our battle skills during the chunin exams? I recall the finals are usually structured as some kind of tournament."

Finally it seemed something got through to him. "You have a valid point,"—Yes!—"Limiting you three to my own area of expertise would be short sighted. I seem to have forgotten that my own teacher had not only imparted his wisdom, but helped us forge our own path."

"So you're not mad at us?" Akuma asked in disbelief at his sudden 180.

He rasped a chuckle. "Why would I be angry? You gave me the opportunity to be a better teacher," he responded. "If each of you tell me something you wish to learn by the end of today. I will do my best to procure materials for tomorrow. It may require a lot of self study if it is a topic I know little about."

Us three3 three3 three3 civilians got a legitimately devoted teacher for our team? I'm impressed.

There was no way Konoha's bureaucratic body had expected Hayate Gekko to be competent. Why in the world would they give team seven Kakashi of all people, and then give a bunch of randos to Hayate?

Although critiquing Kakashi in this world by what his manga counterpart did is hardly fair. Maybe he'll be a great teacher this time around.

Akuma spoke up beside me, "Alright sensei, you better be ready to teach me everything you know about kenjutsu!" Her eyes shone with the flames of determination—literally. "I wanna be able to use this chakra metal to its utmost potential!"

Hayate only laughed. "I like your conviction. Let's first see how you do in today's exercises. We'll start with five laps around the grounds to warm up. Make sure to smile as you run past your classmates."

The first lap was fine enough, we saw Kakashi reading his Icha Icha as his team left for the forest. We all smiled at him as we ran by. "No outside help!" he decreed. "I'm not here to test more than three people."

I snorted and we continued our warmup. Hayate was waiting for us back at the start with a conniving grin. He held up his hand, "Four more to go," and shimmered out of existence—a bunshin.

Before I could question the theatrics, I nearly stumbled over my own feet dodging a wooden kunai. "What the—"

I caught a glance of Hayate dashing across the trees in the corner of my eye. Of course the warmup wouldn't be simple.

We upped our tempo. This time when we reached the forest's other side, Kakashi was already out of sight. The field where he once stood was littered with holes, and the forest was on fire behind it. Sounds of a clone massacre echoed from beyond sight. I couldn't make out any more details than that since a sinkhole suddenly opened up beneath my feet and Akuma barely dragged me out in time to save me from getting blasted with paint.

"Don't get distracted," Hayate advised from somewhere nearby. I couldn't sense his chakra at all.

When we finally collapsed into the clearing after our fifth lap, our teacher rewarded us by dumping a bucket of water over our prone bodies. He went on to explain it had been a lesson about never letting our guard down, even in what one considered friendly territory.

In my opinion he just wanted revenge for our surprise attack yesterday, but I didn't have the energy to complain—far too busy keeping my breakfast on the inside of my body. I should have just taken the L and relied on chakra for the whole warmup. Cardio and migraines were a bad combination.

We continued with more ordinary team-building exercises that all followed the same basic premise: Complete a simple objective—like reach the top of a tree or gather a mcguffin from the forest—while Hayate engaged to make things difficult. Half the time we had to give up completely and retreat back to our 'safe zone'.

Hayate was more than happy to remind us multiple times that nowhere was truly 'safe', which is how we wound up covered in sticks, leaves, and dirt.

"Sensei, you suck," Akuma grumbled.

Hayate had the gall to look dejected when he heard that. "Even if you might not agree, I'm doing this for your own good. It is of utmost importance to accurately assess the potential danger on any mission. To know when calling it off entirely is the smartest move and how to escape mostly unscathed."

As compensation for his 'pranks', Hayate treated us to some Konoha street food for lunch. I ate some chicken skewers, while Yuu and Akuma shared a big batch of dumplings. We returned from our break to an empty training ground.

Team 7 must have finished their test.

I wanted to go look for Naruto right away, but Hayate had more training in store. We were taught various strategies of how to deal with opponents who were faster and stronger than us, and also how to push our advantages when we knew we were the superior force.

I had newfound respect for how well Naruto's clones worked together. A group of people attacking a single target without getting in each other's way was a lot harder than he made it look during clone wars.

Besides team-based approaches, Hayate also gave each of us one-on-one coaching to improve any gaps he saw in our fighting styles—specifically the way we employed Kenjutsu. I personally still didn't like swords very much, but I'd gladly suck up any nuggets of wisdom I was offered.

As the day drew to a close, Hayate finally called us up and asked the promised question, "Besides swordsmanship, what do you three wish to learn more about?"

Akuma spoke up first. "I'd like some ranged firepower for when people won't fight fair,"—she squinted at Yuu and me—"Also I wanna learn how you do that awesome move with the afterimages you showed us."

He nodded, glancing at me next. I'd given it a bunch of thought, and there was indeed a skill that fell right into Hayate's area of expertise.

"I assume you know how to suppress your chakra," I said, "I would like to practise circumventing it." Otherwise I'd never be able to catch black Zetsu.

Yuu stated his wish last. "Fuinjutsu. I believe sealing techniques will greatly benefit my ability to ensnare and ambush opponents. They will also serve as a secondary avenue of protection should stealth fail to do the job."

Woah, is Yuu more genre-savvy than me? I'd totally forgotten about sealing after being told it wasn't accessible to anyone below genin rank. Though with how difficult it supposedly was and how much stuff I already had on my plate, it probably wasn't worth pursuing.

"Understood, I will make sure to procure some materials for tomorrow," Hayate said. "I wish you a restful evening. We will meet back here at 8 a.m."

I rushed home as soon as we were dismissed for the day, nearly getting caught on a clothing line as I leapt to the rooftops. Thankfully, dashing from place to place was an accepted method of travel, especially with my newly minted headband.

I knocked on Naruto's door as soon as I arrived. "Oi, you there? How was the test?"

He should have been home by now…

He's probably hanging out with Kiba or something.

I felt a pang of jealousy. What am I, his mom? I cooked and ate dinner for one, busying myself with meditation and study while I waited for his return.

It was dark out by the time Naruto finally stepped through my front door. "Hiya Satoya!" he said, casually opening my fridge to get a glass of milk without a care in the world.

"Young man, do you have any idea how late it is?"—I snatched the carton from his hands and put it back in the fridge.

"Uhh, late?" he tried. "I passed Kakashi's test!"

I let out a short breath of relief from finally hearing those words. "He kept you busy until now?" I questioned. "Don't think I didn't notice that abrupt topic shift."

"Actually, Kakashi invited us out to dinner. I met up with team 8 in the afternoon though, they also passed easy peasy."

"Kakashi invited you out?" Nope, don't question it. "Why did that take so long?"

"He showed up super late!" Naruto said. "And then he gave a dumb excuse about needing to hide from a leafy green beast or something."

Now there's the Kakashi I know and love. Then again, the prospect of dealing with Gai in this universe scares even me.

I harrumphed. "You could have at least left a note," I said, "But I'm glad to hear you all passed too."

The universe wasn't primed to explode just yet.

The following morning of training with my team went very similarly to our first. Running laps around the training ground while dodging projectiles, three on one spars against our teacher, and various tracking and formation drills. Not the most exciting, but frankly I was just glad Hayate wouldn't be forcing us into D-rank missions for the time being.

The afternoon, however, was a whole different story. As promised, our sensei gave each of us introductory lessons in our previously chosen fields of study. He handed Akuma and Yuu a bunch of scrolls and pulled me over to the training ground's forest.

"The majority of Konoha's sensors have bloodlines to aid them," he stated, "the Hyuuga have their eyes, the Inuzuka have their noses, and the Aburame have their insects. It's not easy to quantify how effective a unique ability is without testing it first. Few people without bloodlines are declared sensor-nin."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, sensei." I chided.

"I did not intend to berate you," he said. "Everyone can learn to feel chakra signatures to a degree. Only the truly exceptional are officially declared sensor nin. To start off, try and describe how my chakra differs from yours."

Yeah, as if that was so simple. I had no exact methodology for keeping people's auras apart. Besides the obvious stuff like unrestrained signal intensity corresponding to pool size, most characteristics were subliminal.

"Chakra capacity is the most obvious; mine feels larger," I said, feeling my ears burn—I hate sincere immodesty.

"Do you notice any other differences between us?" Hayate asked, gently cycling his chakra to provide an easier read.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. His aura seemed relatively grounded, though focusing my full intent on the signal revealed the slightest undercurrent of taut anxiety.

I cut off my empathic inspection. "You seem worried about something."

"Worried…" he shook his head. "Do you mean to tell me that you can recognize my emotional state?"

"Is that so strange?" I asked. "I'm not feeling the emotion directly, just the idle movement of your chakra."

"Are you sure you aren't misinterpreting? You couldn't possibly—" Hayate caught himself. "May I try something?"

"Sure, go ahead." I tossed my arms up. "You're the expert here, after all. In all likelihood I've just been imagining the sensation this whole time."

Hayate cleared his throat. "Save the sarcasm for after the test, please. Can you detect the same fluctuations now?"

I huffed out and repeated my earlier methodology. "A little bit, maybe. Though they're lessening as we speak."

Hayate tapped his leg. "What I just did is the most basic defensive tool against killing intent," he explained, "and projecting intent is, strictly speaking, not a chakra technique. It can be done even when chakra-exhausted."

"Sorry, how does that factor? When people project killing intent you feel the emotion directly, which I just explained I don't do."

"Killing intent emits raw spiritual energy, and defending against it requires closing off your mind, meaning no more spiritual energy can leak into your network."

"So I'm not sensing the emotions, I'm sensing the way that a person's emotional state affects their chakra," I concluded. "Big difference."

"Empathic sensing is normally a directed effort, and only highly skilled interrogators can subvert a target's awareness," he explained. "You have a gift, Satoya."

"I'm glad we clarified that and finally landed back where we started," I snarked, netting me a glare of disapproval. "What? You said to hold off on being sarcastic until after the test."

Hayate sighed, getting back to his feet. "I suppose I deserve that for not believing you. Describe what you sense now that I've removed the excess emotional influence."

Lacking emotions, his chakra felt like cool, soothing earth—solid and dependable. That description sounded like vague bullshit to me, but Hayate seemed satisfied. Next, he proceeded to reduce his aura more and more until I just barely lost the ability to sense him. He then created a clone and sent it out into the forest, advising me to go and search for it while he got back to the others.

Most of the afternoon went by with little progress on my end. The first time was easy with a bit of extra effort, and the second required me to pull out all the stops using various meditative tricks I'd gleaned over the years.

Level three had me totally stumped. No matter how well I tuned out my other senses, I could not find his clone for the life of me. Hayate gave good advice, but he also added the caveat that improvement was an incremental process.

Time… it's all about time. I didn't have time. This needed some drastic measures.

Transcend the flesh. Embrace the log!

Cross-monkey-boar—wait. I cancelled my technique and my chakra sputtered out of existence.

I couldn't rely on just turning myself into an inanimate object to improve my focus. How in the world would that be useful in a combat setting? Too expensive and too time consuming.

So what the heck else could I do? Genjutsu? I had no idea what part of my brain was even responsible for sensing chakra. Figuring that all out would require even more work than just learning it the normal way.

Shadow clones it is.

The week drew to a close and our training maintained its intensity. As promised, a large part of it focused on stealth and misdirection. I was decent at the latter. However, a cover identity would be worthless for infiltrating a location that lacked civilians, which is why Hayate introduced us to chakra suppression.

Unfortunately, suppressing my chakra felt like my chest was getting crushed and my body was yearning to explode at the same time. Keeping it up for more than a few seconds was torture, and doing so for an entire minute literally made me throw up.

I wound up skipping the day's sensory tutoring session to sit in the shade and recover. With my back propped against a tree trunk I listened to the clang of Akuma and Hayate's blunted swords in the distance. I also heard Yuu hiss out some colourful language while drawing one of his practice seals.

"What's got you so riled up?" I asked. I had nothing better to do at the moment after all.

He drew in a sharp breath. "This accursed array!" he snapped, "It's just so… so… argh!" He dropped his ink brush onto the grass and rubbed his stained hands across his forehead. "It is meant to emit green light when I feed it chakra, but it just keeps fu- fizzling out instead."

The way his voice had gotten progressively shriller amused me to no end. Nevertheless I swallowed down my urge to laugh. "Do you know why it's fizzling out?"

"Of course I know," he bit back. "I can't keep my stupid fingers still enough."

"Mind if I watch you draw out the seal? I might be able to give you some advice on your brush technique," I suggested.

He looked at me as if I was the second coming of the Sage. "I would appreciate that, Satoya. Perhaps your frivolous enjoyment of drawing could be helpful to shinobi work."

Ouch man. Guess this really does have you pissed off.

Slowly scooching up to my friend so as to not further upset my stomach, I peered over his shoulder as he worked. "You said this seal was supposed to glow green?"

"Yes; and it is not a seal, it's a technique formula," he explained, "Seals specifically restrict or bind. Formulas can apply to anything. However, the best, permanent sealing techniques all use technique formulas."

"Fuinjutsu, Jutsu-shiki; {potayto, potahto}. Who cares about semantics anyway?" I said, watching him copy off his template.

I couldn't spot any glaring faults in his recreation. None at least, that by my estimation would have totally disrupted the chakra flow.

"Arrays care about semantics, Satoya," Yuu eventually responded, rolling his eyes, "Which is why I must draw each perfectly, lest it does not convey the correct meaning."

"So it's just a sentence spelled out by chakra-conductive ink?" I probed, trying to decipher the strange structure in front of me.

"It uses special terms and symbols," Yuu clarified "Though in essence, yes. A phrase conveys meaning, which determines the result. This, for example,"—he traced his finger along the template's central symbol—"is the origin point. Absorb, which wanders to convert, followed up by emit."

I pondered his explanation and checked over the sample. He had kept his description very concise. The three runes were truthfully composed of more than one symbol each. A larger symbol, which represented the command word like absorb, was bound to a smaller symbol depicting the subject of the command. The phrase was really 'Absorb: Chakra'.

Travelling along the thin lines of ink, linking the symbols like wires in a circuit board, lead to the second command, 'Convert: Chakra'. Following that directive, it finally landed on 'Emit: Light'.

Wait, what?

I wrinkled my nose. Sure, it was meant to be a beginner's seal, but to me it looked downright sloppy. The array was meant to emit green light. The final command also correctly stated to emit light. Yet, the variable 'light' had no prior definition at any point in the seal.

I asked for clarification, and according to Yuu the intent behind words determined their meaning. The variables' names were simultaneously their own definitions. Even so, would the emitted light not still need to originate from somewhere? Aha! The designer never defined what the chakra should be converted into!

It made less sense the longer I stared at it. "Yuu, have you actually tested the template?"

He looked at me for a short moment. "No…"

He hastily snatched the sheet from my hands and shakily moved his hand to its centre. The symbol promptly began to glow a dim blue as the chakra travelled along to the next line of code and…

"NO! I spent an entire afternoon copying this drivel and did not bother testing it first!" He tightened his grip around the sealing paper, crumpling it up in rage. "Fu—" he choked his words back and took a calming breath. "Nope. Never again. I shall simply get someone else to make the entrapping seals for me in the future like any sane individual."

He dropped the wrinkled parchment like a piece of trash and walked away.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up about it. It's not your fault," I shouted after him, picking the now much more dishevelled sheet up off the floor. "At least you can probably get Hayate to pay you back somehow!"

My words probably didn't reach him, considering the scowl painting his lips as he stiffly stepped over to our teacher. Knowing Yuu, he was about to give him a devastating tongue-lashing. Scratch that, he just unsheathed his sword. I chuckled to myself as I unfolded the discarded array. My eyes wandered back and forth between the drawing and the discarded writing supplies. It couldn't be that simple, right?

Let's see, If I just add a bit of something over here; Maybe change the phrasing a bit…

The array only took about a minute to finish. I wasn't quite sure whether the symbols I used for my slapdash commands would function as intended, but since Yuu mentioned it was exactly the intent behind them that mattered, it was probably fine. I pushed in a trace amount of chakra and to my delight, the array lit up in the desired colour.

It wasn't exactly an impressive amount of light, the material quality and improvised command structure likely limited the efficiency, but better than nothing.

I made up for it by overloading the circuit with chakra, which made the whole sheet glow like a cartoonishly radioactive lump of metal and elicited an equally cartoonish villainous chuckle. A few moments later the low-quality paper burnt out and the symbols faded from sight.

Without the lightshow to distract me I became aware of the slack-jawed trio of people standing behind me. "How did you get it to work?" Yuu choked out.

"Uhm… I just took your copy of the template and modified it a bit," I replied. "It's no big deal."

Judging by Hayate's expression, I could not be more wrong. "Satoya-kun," our sensei said, "Fixing an array with zero prior experience in Jutsu-Shiki is the opposite of 'no big deal'."

Really? This is just basic code...

I looked back at the stack of unused paper. "I've been working on my calligraphy for a long time," I defended "and this isn't what I'd call complex."

Hayate raised an eyebrow. "I take it you are not interested in furthering your studies on Jutsu-Shiki?" he posed, "I won't force you to learn something you do not wish to, even if it's a waste of potential."

It wasn't that I disliked the idea. I honestly just hadn't considered it worth my time. Or even really considered it much at all in recent years. Konoha's only seal master was never in town, and all the teacher's I asked told me it was too difficult and dangerous to learn before graduation.

Nevertheless, with the clarity of hindsight I should have at least tried it out.

"I haven't really given it much thought," I said. "What would mastering technique formulas be good for?"

Hayate smirked. "Think no further than the fourth Hokage and Hiraishin."

"I'm sold."