Like my father before me, I lived with the cost.
三
日
29 — THREE DAYS
BY THE SECOND DAY, Naruto had next to nothing to show for his efforts.
The brush trembled in his hand as he traced the final stroke of the containment seal. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple, threatening to drip onto the carefully inked characters below, and he held his breath, willing his hand steady as he completed the circle.
Then, he paused, still sitting cross-legged in the room, the unfinished seal staring back at him from the parchment. The ink hadn't dried yet, and he already knew this one would be equally pointless. No shift in chakra, no pull, no hum could make it useful. He might as well be staring at dead lines on dead paper.
He exhaled sharply and pushed a hand through his hair. The strokes were correct — he'd checked and double-checked. The structure was reasonably balanced. But something was missing. Something crucial. And he didn't know what. The problem remained frustratingly unchanged: he had no idea how to expand a pocket space beyond the small one he could currently manage — barely larger than a satchel — and still keep it stable.
"The size of the pocket dimension is proportional to the chakra invested in the tertiary binding array," it was claimed.
As if it were that clear and simple for anyone not truly gifted with Sealweaving. For those who couldn't peer deeper into the Unknown. As if he could just... pour more chakra in and watch the space expand.
He'd tried that yesterday anyway. The seal had glowed promisingly for about three seconds before collapsing in on itself, leaving behind a scorched circle and the acrid smell of burnt ink, which still seemed to linger in his nostrils even now.
And when it came to sealing different items… His current seal could either hold kunai, or some rations, or maybe a change of clothes. But anything larger caused the matrix to destabilize, chakra bleeding out through microscopic imperfections in the array. He'd tried strengthening the containment barriers, adding auxiliary support structures, and even experimenting with different geometric configurations. Nothing had worked.
Naruto picked up the brush again, turning it over in his fingers. The wood was smooth from hours of use, the bristles beginning to show wear from countless failed attempts.
He dipped it in the ink, watching the black liquid cling to the bristles. The theory was sound — he understood the principles well enough. Create a stable framework, define the boundaries, establish the dimensional fold, anchor it with precise chakra distribution. But something in the execution kept slipping away from him, and he spent much time trying to understand what it was that was the issue.
The sun moved across the sky, settling high up, and soon enough it was becoming darker again.
One more attempt. One more variation. Then two. And three. And more. Maybe if he adjusted the containment matrix, made it more flexible... or perhaps the problem lay in the anchor points. Could he distribute the strain more evenly across the array?
In the corner, a new stack of failed attempts sat in mute accusation. Each try had seemed promising at first. Each one had failed in its own unique way.
But he couldn't stop. Not when his safe passage to Fire depended on it.
He pressed his palms against his eyes until he saw spots, trying to clear his mind. When he opened them again, the seal configurations were still there, burned into his memory like afterimages. His fingers hovered over the parchment. Maybe—
A shift at the door flap, light but noticeable once you had heard it before.
Naruto blinked, drawn out of his thoughts, and turned toward the entrance.
Otsuru stood in the doorway, wrapped in a thick wool cloak, the faint scent of firewood clinging to her clothes. She carried that look again — the one that made her seem older than she was, like she'd already figured out half the world's problems and found them mostly amusing.
"Still hunched over these?" she asked, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. The way she moved reminded him of Uzushio's cats — unhurried but purposeful, completely at ease in someone else's space. Her eyes flicked to the scattered sheets of parchment, the half-ground inkstone, and the untouched bowl of broth sitting off to the side. She frowned. "Have you not eaten?"
"Not yet," Naruto grunted in response, tilting his head back until it thudded lightly against the wall. "But I will."
Otsuru made a noise that was neither agreement nor sympathy. She bent down, picked up one of the discarded papers with careful fingers, and studied it for a moment before clicking her tongue. Her nail traced one of the outer arrays with professional interest.
"Yeah," she said. "Looks about the same as the others."
Naruto sighed. "Thanks. That helps."
She set the paper down with more care than he'd shown it himself and straightened, adjusting the cloak over her shoulders. There was a patch near the collar, he noticed — neat, nearly invisible stitching in thread that almost matched. "Come with me."
"What? Again?" Naruto didn't look up. "I can't, I need to—"
"Come with me," she repeated, like he hadn't heard her properly the first time. "You're not making any progress sitting in here. Might as well meet some people."
"Sorry, but I don't need to meet people right now," he muttered, rubbing his eyes. "I need to figure out what's going on."
He wasn't certain why he felt so snappish — why every small thing grated under his skin. The sound of footsteps, the wrong kind of silence, even the way someone looked at him too long. It was easier to push people away than to explain the ache beneath it all — the heavy, restless sense of guilt he couldn't quite name. All he knew was that he didn't want to talk about it. Didn't want to be seen.
Otsuru huffed, unimpressed. "You're stuck," she said bluntly. "You've been staring at the same thing for hours, haven't you?"
Naruto didn't answer.
She folded her arms. "Then you need to step away from it. Come on."
Naruto stared at the half-finished seal, jaw tightening. He didn't want to leave it. Didn't want to stop... But forcing it wasn't helping right now. Finally, with a sigh, he pushed himself up to his feet.
Otsuru smirked, satisfaction lighting her eyes. "See? That wasn't so hard."
Naruto shot her a flat look, reaching for his cloak. "Just… don't take me too far. I need to get back to it."
"No promises," she said cheerfully, stepping aside to let him pass. "But I can promise there'll be warm food. And fire."
Naruto hesitated for only a second before following her out into the cold.
The Fujiki clan's camp sat just beyond the treeline, wagons circled like a makeshift wall. Their painted sides were dulled by travel and time — though at night, it was mostly shadows that hinted at them.
As they neared, the scent of woodsmoke and simmering broth reached Naruto. Laughter rang low, and voices wove in and out of conversation, drifting like embers. Naruto slowed, feeling a flicker of something unfamiliar tighten in his chest.
"Right," Otsuru muttered, glancing at him sidelong. "You've definitely been talking to walls too long."
Naruto frowned. "I don't—"
"Yes, yes," she cut in, tugging his sleeve and pulling him into the firelight.
A few heads turned. A woman tightening tent ropes glanced at him briefly, then went back to her task. Two men by the fire barely paused in their conversation. There was rhythm here — a quiet kind of knowing.
An older man rose from his seat near the flames, broad-shouldered, his beard streaked with gray. He studied Naruto. "This him?"
"This is him," Otsuru confirmed. "Naruto."
The man's eyes held the same sharp weight as a blade being tested against the thumb. "You don't walk like a soldier. And you sure as hell don't walk like a shinobi."
Naruto hesitated. "…I walk like myself."
A beat of silence. Then the man huffed, amusement creasing the corners of his eyes. "Fair enough." He gestured toward the fire. "Sit. Eat."
Some of the tension in Naruto's shoulders eased. He stepped forward and sank onto a thick log near the flames. Warmth bit at his cold fingers as he held them out. Someone passed him a bowl, and he murmured thanks before tasting the broth — rich, hot, laced with unfamiliar spices that burned pleasantly in his throat.
"…Are you really shinobi?" the man asked again, watching how Naruto cradled the bowl without hesitation.
Naruto paused mid-sip. A real shinobi, he thought, would've checked for poison. Or at least hesitated. He lowered the bowl slightly.
"I'm still training?"
The man chuckled. "Weak answer."
Otsuru leaned back on her hands, watching the fire. "Naruto's from Uzushio. Says he's a sealweaver."
Also in training, he thought.
A murmur rippled through the group, interest flickering behind tired faces. The fire crackled, sending sparks into the night.
"That's what Okiku said," one of the men — Taro, he'd learn later — mused. He was younger, coat patched at the elbows but neatly kept. "My grandfather used to tell stories about them. Said the best could carve a name into the air and make it stay."
"They can," Naruto said quietly, thinking of Shiori. Of Nagato. Of Tenjin. Names that burned in memory like their seals did.
"Used to," the older man said. But there was no edge in it. "Uzushio fell."
"Well," Naruto replied. "We still live."
"Far from everyone."
"So do you," Naruto said.
Someone laughed. The older man — Hakuri, Naruto would learn — studied him.
"We choose our distance," Hakuri said at last.
"So do we." Naruto's fingers traced the rim of his bowl.
Across the fire, a woman spoke, her voice carrying the soft lilt of the southern lands — not that Naruto recognized it yet.
"Isolation isn't the same as separation," she said. Naruto blinked, not sure why the words struck him. "People say Uzushio hides in shadow, hoarding its secrets like misers hoard gold."
Irritation flickered in Naruto's chest, sharpened by lack of sleep and the lingering weight of the dreams that haunted his nights — dreams he told no one about and didn't intend to.
"And what do they say about you, then?" he asked after a pause, quiet but pointed. "That you're rootless? Untrustworthy? That you carry curses in your carts and steal children in the night?"
Silence.
Too much. He knew it the moment he said it—
But laughter rose around the fire, and it wasn't bitter. There was understanding in it, even pride.
"They say we know things we shouldn't," Taro said, grinning. "That we keep to the old ways."
"That we're dangerous," added an elderly woman wrapped in a shawl of deep blue and grey. Her eyes gleamed like frost. "Because we know their roads better than they do."
"You're enjoying this," Otsuru murmured, amused. But she did, too — she'd been watching like someone enjoying a good play.
Hakuri's eyes crinkled. "The boy has spirit," he said, reaching for the kettle over the fire. "Though I wonder if he'll manage half of what he says he will."
Naruto, inwardly, wondered the same. He let none of it show. Instead, he let the moment settle, the fire crackling between them, sending thin wisps of smoke curling into the night, and he ate more of the stew. Somewhere beyond the wagons, a horse shifted, breath misting in the cold.
Taro's fingers tapped against his knee. "Since you're here… you should hear the story of the Ash Road."
Naruto glanced up. "Never heard of it."
"Most haven't." Taro's grin widened. "That's the point."
Before he could continue, Otsuru groaned. "Seriously?"
"Seriously," Taro said.
"Let me tell it, then. You always make it sound too grand." She tossed a twig into the fire, watching it curl into flame.
"The Ash Road," she began, her voice dropping just enough to pull Naruto in, "is a path that doesn't exist. Not on maps, not in ledgers. But if you know the signs — if you can read the wind and the stones — it will find you."
Naruto arched an eyebrow but said nothing, letting her continue.
"Many have sought it," she went on, "travelers who had lost their way, exiles with nowhere left to turn, fools chasing secrets better left buried. And every tale agrees on one thing: those who walk the Ash Road never return the same. Some say it leads to a city that was never built, a place made of whispers and unspent promises.
"Others claim it's a path between realms, where the dead walk and time bends like reeds in the wind."
The fire popped, sending a stray ember spiraling upward. Around them, the nomads were quiet, listening with the attentiveness of people who had heard this a hundred times and enjoyed it all the same.
Otsuru shifted, lowering her voice just a fraction.
"One man, long ago, sought the Ash Road more desperately than any before him. He was a great traveler — knew every hidden path, every forgotten trail. But the Ash Road eluded him. He chased rumors from village to village, following whispers like a moth to a flame."
She paused just long enough for Naruto to tilt his head, intrigued despite himself.
"Eventually," she continued with a forlorn sigh, "he met an old woman at the edge of a dying forest. She told him that the Ash Road could only be found by those who walked without direction, who let go of all certainty.
"So he did exactly that. He let the wind guide him, let the stones tell him where to step, let the rivers decide his path. And one day — or rather, a night, much like this one — he found himself somewhere unfamiliar, standing at the mouth of a road made of pale, ashen dust, stretching endlessly beneath a sky without stars."
Naruto leaned forward slightly. Even Hakuri seemed interested now, his impassive expression betraying the smallest flicker of interest.
Otsuru exhaled, clasping her hands in her lap, glancing up to meet Naruto's eyes. "And do you know what he found at the end?"
The pause was perfect. The silence, expectant.
Naruto frowned. "What?"
Otsuru smiled. "A very annoyed farmer who wanted to know why some fool was standing in his wheat field at midnight."
Silence.
Then — laughter. Taro was the first to break, slapping his knee, and soon the entire group was chuckling, some shaking their heads, others grinning into their cups.
Naruto stared, momentarily caught between disbelief and exasperation. "That's it?"
Otsuru nodded sagely. "That's it."
"And the Ash Road—?" At her grin and wink, he growled. "You dragged that out for nothing!"
"Not for not nothing," she said. "It's tradition."
Naruto exhaled, shaking his head as the fire popped again, sending another ember spiraling toward the night sky. He watched it vanish into the dark, feeling like he had just been played.
"Oh, come on," she said with a laugh. "We can't have you brooding all day, right?"
He muttered something in reply, but a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth anyway.
By the third day, Naruto felt ready to give up.
He hadn't meant to stay so long by the fire the night before.
The warmth had seeped into his bones, and the hum of voices had dulled the sharp edges of his frustration. For the first time in two waking days, his mind hadn't been consumed by broken seals and failed matrices and dead people and people who might die soon.
He had let himself listen — to the stories, to the laughter, to the small, unguarded moments between the nomads as they spoke of roads he had never traveled and places he had never seen.
But when he woke in a sweat the next morning, wrapped in borrowed blankets with the scent of smoke still clinging to his clothes, the weight of failure crashed down on him all over again. The storage seal was going nowhere. The preservation wards, no better. And worse still was the way his pulse still stuttered from the dream — a fire, again — thick with panic and shadows. He didn't have a name for what it was doing to him. Just that it clung to his bones long after waking.
And that weight, of course, became heavier during the day, when none of the ideas he tried out brought him any closer to accomplishing what he had set out to do.
He had dragged himself back to the small space where he'd been working, back to the ink and parchment and the same, unyielding problem. His brush had hovered over the page for a moment, fingers stiff from the cold. And then he had written, and written some more, his mind no clearer than it had been the day before.
Nothing had changed.
Retracing the lines of the seal with slow, deliberate strokes. Adjusting the containment array, reworking the anchor points, testing different sequences of reinforcement sigils. All in order to expand the inner space.
Nothing worked.
Again and again, the ink dried, the parchment activated and then became lifeless as his written rejection clause triggered, and his chakra stopped taking.
By midday, the frustration had curdled in his chest, bitter and heavy.
This was different from failing at something he didn't understand. He understood this — thought he did, at least — had seen seals that could accomplish what he wanted to do. He knew the principles, the mechanics, the delicate balance between structure and flow. He had studied the theory for years, had seen stronger Sealweavers execute it with precision.
So why couldn't he? Was it just a matter of his weak, artificial affinity?
Naruto pressed his hands against the parchment, as if sheer will could force it to yield. As if the weight of his frustration, his desperation, would somehow force the seal to work.
Failure was looming close. Was he really going to try and cross the ice storm with no guidance at all?
The ink smudged beneath his fingertips. His stomach twisted.
With a growl, he pushed himself up, chair scraping harshly against the floor. The room felt too small. Too quiet. Too much like the inside of his own head.
Naruto stood up without bothering to grab his cloak. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides as he paced. He wanted to hit something. To crack something open, let out whatever was clawing inside his ribs—
Cold slapped against his skin, but he barely felt it.
"You missed lunch," Otsuru's voice drifted toward him. "And you're making that face again."
Naruto turned to find her in the tent's door frame, arms crossed, watching him with an amused tilt to her mouth.
He exhaled slowly. His hand ached from hours of precise movements, and his shoulders had knotted into painful tension. The frustration that had been simmering all day threatened to boil over into something uglier.
Naruto grunted, turning back to his failed seals again. "I'm busy."
"Yes, I can see how productive you're being." Her voice was dry as she set a bundle beside him. "Eat."
The smell of stewed meat broke through his concentration, his stomach responding with embarrassing eagerness. How long had it been since breakfast? Had he even eaten breakfast?
"You know," Otsuru said as she plopped down across from him and started unwrapping the bundle, "most people eat before they turn into grumpy ghosts. You should try it."
Despite himself, Naruto felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. "Thanks for the advice."
She tilted her head, studying him with uncomfortable insight. "Did you ever think that maybe the problem isn't that seal?"
"What else would it be?" he grunted.
She shrugged, the gesture casual but her eyes sharp. "Maybe it's you."
His scowl deepened, because he didn't want to talk about this either. His mouth opened, but no words came.
"Walk with me," she said before he could respond, already rising to her feet. "After you eat."
Naruto wanted to refuse. To say something harsh, perhaps. He needed to keep working, needed to solve this before the storm came. But the food had awakened a gnawing hunger, and the small space was feeling rather suffocating.
"Fine," he muttered, and started eating.
Then, they walked in silence for a while, the frost-covered earth crunching beneath their feet.
The cold was sharper out here, the wind threading through the trees in restless currents. The forest wasn't dense, but it was enough to muffle the distant sounds of the camp, wrapping the world in something quieter.
Naruto walked with Otsuru through the frost-laced underbrush, the cold biting at his face. He still wasn't sure why he was following her, other than the fact that she hadn't given him much of a choice. Other than the fact her company was the only thing keeping him sane — a fact she seemed well aware of.
The camp slowly faded behind them, swallowed by the trees. Their pace wasn't rushed — Otsuru's steps were steady, practiced, her shoulders loose as if this was any other day.
Eventually, she spoke. "I'm taking you to see our seals."
Naruto frowned. "You could've just said that. And why are we taking the long way?"
She smirked but didn't answer.
He had gone to see them already, of course — it had been the first thing he'd done. But the scroll meant to explain them had been a disaster. A tangled mess of half-finished diagrams, contradicting annotations, and so much spilled ink that key sections were barely legible. It had left him more confused than before. Even the scribe who'd read the parts he couldn't decipher — Kyosei being Kyosei — aloud had only been of limited help.
Still… perhaps she could help him make sense of it. He couldn't truly see how right now, but who knew?
They walked a little longer before looping around, and the trees gave way to a rocky clearing.
The inside of the tent was dim, the air heavy with the scent of ink, parchment, and old wax. A brazier in the corner crackled quietly, offering some warmth against the cold creeping in from outside. There were several symbols here — a few hung from the walls, some were painted onto stretched hides, others stacked in thick, worn scrolls along the edges.
"You've seen them before," Otsuru said, settling onto a low cushion, "but you don't understand them either, do you?"
Naruto grunted. "That scroll was a nightmare. Whoever wrote it must've never heard of proper protocol. And the ones who came after..."
She only shrugged. He pulled a blank scroll from his pouch anyway, ready to start sketching. The sealwork here was different, unmistakably so. Apparent in more than just their notes. Unlike Uzushio's precise, interlocking scripts, or even the formulaic rigidity of Konoha's seals he'd read about, this was rawer, relatively old, and just barely structured enough to qualify as deliberate.
Still, seals were seals. Somewhere in the mess, there was meaning.
He didn't bother with the chaotic monstrosity of inkblots and crossed-out diagrams this time, preferring to simply observe the seals directly. Otsuru leaned forward, watching over his shoulder as he began tracing one of the symbols from the stretched hide with his finger.
"This one appears often. It's meant to 'hold firm,' right?" he murmured.
Otsuru shrugged. "If you say so. I only know what they're used for, not how they work."
That wasn't surprising. Most people used seals as tools, without thinking much about their mechanics, of course. He tapped the brush against the page, staring at the symbol.
"Well," he said, breaking the contemplative silence. "I read that your clan uses it for marking safe paths."
"Kinda?" She leaned forward, pointing at a different hide hanging on the wall, where similar symbols curved around the edges like flowing water. The firelight caught the aged marks, making them seem almost alive. "It's painted onto our banners and stitched into travel packs. Sometimes even carved into stones along certain routes."
Naruto's eyes flicked between them, a faint frown tugging at his lips.
"What about this one?" He gestured to another mark, this one jagged, like a branch struck by lightning. "It said it is a ward used to shield against storms."
"Mm." Otsuru tilted her head. "I only know that we place it around our shelters when bad weather's coming — to keep the storm out. I always thought it was a superstition."
Naruto clicked his tongue, studying the form. His brush moved in small, unconscious motions, mimicking the pattern in the air. Slowly, he drew the storm seal array beside the first one, adjusting the lines slightly. If he shifted the angle here, tightened the curve there…
"It's not for keeping the storm out," he murmured, half to himself. "It's redirecting it. See these flowing lines here? They're guiding the force away, not blocking it — I think."
Otsuru's brow furrowed as she studied the marks anew. "If you say so."
Naruto nodded, adjusting his grip on the brush. "These aren't just decorations or good-luck charms. They're functional."
Otsuru scoffed, but there was no heat in it. "You think?"
They spent the afternoon hunched over parchment, hides, and scraps of wood, piecing together what meaning they could from the forgotten symbols of the Fujiki clan. Mapping similarities, cross-referencing theories. Otsuru, for her part, helped in the way she could — pointing out where and how they were used.
"This one?" Naruto asked, gesturing to a symbol that curled inward, a closed loop surrounded by jagged marks.
Otsuru frowned. "That one's always drawn around our supply stores. I don't think they do anything, frankly."
"Supplies?" Naruto hummed, fingers tapping against the ink-stained scroll at his side. "Could have been preservation. Or security… maybe containment…" He copied it down, making a note in the margins.
In the process of deciphering what he could, Naruto learned more about the Fujiki than he ever had intended.
The pathfinder Kaede had painted marks like these — Otsuru said, pointing at specific ones — on trees fifty years ago. The clan elders had attributed successful mountain navigation to these symbols, whereas others credited her detailed knowledge of the passes. What couldn't be disputed was that her marked routes remained visible decades later, outlasting normal wear and weathering. Some had tried to reproduce her success with similar markings, but those attempts had faded within years.
Fujiki Masashi had survived an avalanche by repeatedly carving what he'd believed to be a protective mark into the snow below him. When found three days later, the snow around him had appeared unusually distributed. While senior clan members had cited this as proof of the symbol's power, others had noted that similar formations could occur naturally in avalanche conditions.
Kenji's marked blades had gained fame beyond the clan. Though many had attributed their durability to the symbols, his precise forging techniques had been equally noteworthy. Whatever it was, trade records had shown samurai traveling great distances specifically for his work.
Fujiki Ryuichi was long dead, but his boundary marks had been the most studied. Where he had placed them, travelers consistently reported difficulty finding the clan's settlements unless guided. After his death, others had recreated his marks precisely, but no one achieved similar effects. And so they kept using his, no matter how old or worn they had become.
Otsuru didn't hesitate to voice her doubts when she had some, but Naruto recorded the accounts anyway. Belief and practice had long since blurred together. His brush moved steadily across the parchment as she talked.
As the hours passed, his notes grew into a sprawling compendium — half-confirmed theories, guessed-at functions, and tentative links between symbols. He didn't understand everything yet, and he wasn't sure there even was a point to it, but he kept going.
By the time the light outside the tent had faded to dusky orange, Otsuru stretched her arms behind his head and exhaled.
"Alright," Otsuru said, standing. "Time to go."
Naruto glanced up, blinking as if coming out of a trance. He hadn't noticed how much time had passed, but now that she mentioned it, his stomach grumbled in agreement. And he felt dreadfully tired. "I think we should—"
Otsuru smirked. "You'll think better after a break."
Dinner was a lively, unhurried affair, more a natural continuation of the day than a pause from it. The fire crackled at the center of the camp as bowls were passed around, brimming with steaming broth and thick cuts of meat.
The scent of charred fat and simmering herbs curled through the air, mingling with the faint bite of the evening chill. Otsuru ate quickly, gesturing with her chopsticks as she swapped stories with an older clansman, while Naruto sat cross-legged, letting the warmth of the meal settle into his bones.
It was pleasant. More than that, it was easy — too easy. He listened more than he spoke, soaking in the quiet hum of a people accustomed to survival, practical and pragmatic, and still laughing.
But beneath that warmth, beneath the flickering firelight and hands passing him food, a cold weight pressed against his thoughts.
If he failed — and by now, he was almost certain he would — he would walk alone into the storm.
The same people who welcomed him now — perhaps from a whisper of pity or passing amusement — would not hesitate to let him go, to watch his figure vanish into the white, no matter how kindly they smiled tonight.
The thought unsettled him, this reminder that their comfort came with conditions. That he wasn't in Uzushio anymore.
The world never offered its hands without expecting something in return.
It was a lesson he would carry with him.
He had been given a place by the fire tonight, but it was borrowed warmth, no different from the cloak they had given him, or the campfire itself.
Naruto pulled the cloak tighter, folding it over itself for extra warmth. The layers pressed together, becoming one—
A fold.
The thought caught, crystallized. His fingers stilled on the fabric.
Isolation is not the same as separation. The words came back, unbidden, and to Naruto, the campfire conversation faded into the distance.
Not separation. Compression. Layers pressed so thin they became one, like the cloak against his skin. Not something held apart, but something indistinguishable, woven into the seal's very nature, so seamlessly that it could be drawn out again as though it had never left.
Not a pocket space.
Nagato had shown him compression. It was the principle that made his crushing wave technique possible. He had been called Uzushio's best, and yet — of all things, he had chosen compression. If anyone could have carved out separate realms, made pocket spaces bound by their own conditions, it would have been him.
That he bothered with compression instead meant something, Naruto decided.
And Gojō — Gojō didn't truly store anything at all, he simply recreated his shikigami anew. Or perhaps did he store the process, if that made any sense at all? If a step above was true creation, then a step below was—?
His eyelids drooped as his thoughts scattered, that space just before sleep where ideas and reality blurred. His head ached from lack of sleep. The concept was there, just within reach, but exhaustion pulled at him like an undertow.
He didn't need to go as far as Nagato or Gojō had gone, and perhaps he didn't need to figure out how to expand a pocket space right now either.
Not an item stored away. Not something held apart.
Something folded. Woven into the smallest possible form, using chakra as a medium. Transformed — something he knew he could do, as any other Uzushio ninja could.
A fold wasn't a pocket. A pocket held something separate. A fold was part of the whole. A sheet of paper folded a hundred times was still the same paper — it had only shifted its shape, compressed into itself.
That might have been part of what Nagato had done as well — only at the highest possible level. Perhaps, even, it was how he folded a technique into himself until it became his own, until there was no distinction.
His breath slowed. His mind quieted. And before the thought could solidify, the world dimmed, his knees folding beneath him as sleep claimed him by the campfire.
By the fourth day, Naruto caught a flicker of hope — small, almost imperceptible, but there.
He woke with a start, disoriented to find himself in his borrowed tent rather than by the fire where he'd fallen asleep. Someone had carried him back, tucked the borrowed cloak around him like something to be looked after. Another temporary kindness.
The confusion faded quickly, replaced by the crystalline clarity of the thought that had chased him into sleep. He sat up, pulse quickening.
Folding, not pocketing. Compression, not separation.
The sun had barely crested the horizon, the camp still wrapped in the hush of predawn chill. He dressed swiftly, gathering his things with renewed purpose. There was urgency in his movements now — not the frantic frustration of the previous days, but something steadier, sharper.
The supply room would be empty this early, giving him the quiet he needed. He pushed aside the weight of the blanket and lit the lantern. Its glow caught on the supplies he'd been given — a folded tent, clay jars of medicine, rations wrapped in oiled paper, spare clothes packed tight, water skins likely half-frozen by now.
Yes. Maybe he didn't need to hold things apart — if he wove them into something smaller, something seamless. A similar effect, without the need for expanded pocket pocket-space.
He moved quietly through the camp, feet light against frost-hardened earth. The fire had burned low, but watchful eyes remained. One sentry gave him a long look, then a slight nod.
The supply room wasn't warm, not truly, but the scent of dried herbs, oiled leather, and iron had become familiar. Crates lined the walls, each one carefully marked — food, tools, winter gear. Everything in its place. Everything with purpose.
Naruto moved toward the desk and set his things down. He had what he needed. Now to see if he could make it work.
The key to this folding would be an encoding of sorts — writing an object's essence into chakra, making it part of the seal itself. Weight, shape, purpose. All of it had to be preserved, translated into something chakra and ink could hold.
He knelt on the cold floor, a single kunai resting before him.
A fold. Not separation. Compression.
He exhaled slowly and formed the seal sequence for the Transformation technique. Chakra threaded through his fingers, washing over the kunai as he willed it into a smaller form. It flickered — shrinking, distorting — but the weight beneath his palm didn't change. He could have altered that too, but that wasn't the point.
The change was surface-deep, temporary. It would revert on its own. He let the technique drop, eyes narrowing. The technique was a foundation, a basic technique every shinobi learned for a reason, but it also felt shallow. Still, it could trick the world into believing something was different without permanently changing its nature.
This impermanence was both the solution and the problem.
If he wanted to fold and store something, the change had to last, of course.
His fingers traced the kunai's hilt as his thoughts aligned. The Transformation technique worked by overwriting an object's external properties, masking its true weight, texture, and presence. But beneath the chakra layer, in truth, the object remained the same, ready to resume its original shape: the technique's chakra consumption was thus relatively low.
He wasn't trying to disguise the kunai. He wanted to translate it, to fold it into something smaller — something he could more easily seal. To encode it into something else and store that instead. A seal, not a mask.
He tried again — same seals, same motions — but this time he didn't try to change the kunai's shape. He focused instead on its signature: the density of the metal, the faint chakra resonance embedded in its form (as it was with most inanimate objects, despite their innate lack of chakra), the weight that lived in his hands from years of wielding them. All that, he could only feel when it was fully within his chakra's reach now.
What made a kunai a kunai?
He concentrated, willing the kunai to become a shuriken, but halfway through the transformation, he paused. The blade flickered — its edges growing hazy, its presence thinning, like a shadow bleeding into mist. It hovered between states, not fully one thing or another.
And then it snapped back, weight slamming into his palm.
Naruto grimaced. One attempt wasn't enough. And he was going at it the wrong way. Contradicting himself. The ninjutsu version of the technique was too rigid. His mind and chakra were treating the kunai as something separate and foreign, something to be forcefully changed. Nothing to be integrated into himself in any way.
In this sense, a seal was more malleable.
He reached for his brush and sketched a simple storage seal — for chakra and ink — across the wooden floor. Most seals he'd seen in Uzushio — as a non-Sealweaver — locked items in stasis, trapping them in a static space. Locking them away until retrieval.
And just for a moment, he thought he understood why Gojō did things the way he did. Yes — perhaps it really was about sealing a process, not just an object.
With these thoughts in mind, he drew the array for the Transformation technique — or rather, the Fūinjutsu equivalent of it — and bound it to the storage seal, loosely.
He placed the blade in the center of the Transformation seal and tried.
This time, he let his chakra pass through the seal before it settled into the metal — feeling its weight, density, presence — letting it speak in the language of chakra before attempting anything else. Only when he had a clear sense of these qualities did he apply the Transformation component — less to transform the kunai, and more to translate those properties into a language of chakra.
The kunai shimmered, its edges wavering as if submerged in water. Not just physically, but in his chakra sense — its weight became pattern, its shape a resonance. The kunai hovered between states, half-sealed, half-whole.
"Seal," he whispered anyway.
Another flicker. A shift. The object's essence tugged into the seal, condensed into something more than matter, and less at the same time — information, a memory written in ink and will.
Although he felt he was getting closer, it was still resistant, still trying to return to its original form. Three more attempts produced the same result: a partial encoding that wouldn't hold.
What am I missing—?
No — not missing. Misguided.
He was still trying to force his way through the problem. For his fifth attempt, Naruto didn't change the seal design. He changed his approach to the problem.
Instead of trying to change the kunai, he acknowledged it. Recognized it as it was — edge and balance, weight and steel, purposely forged into form. Not so different from sealing, in truth. His chakra flowed softer this time, not as command but invitation. And something shifted.
The kunai responded — not resisting, but yielding. Its presence moved through the Transformation seal with grace, not force.
"Seal," he murmured again, hands trembling.
And this time, it held. Clean. Silent. Complete. There was no weight pressing back, no sense of resistance or delay. The kunai's essence settled into the seal like ink into parchment — not simply stashed away, but transcribed.
An object reduced to its core, stripped of its physical constraints, suspended in a state between existence and absence.
His heart kicked in his chest when he drew the seal he knew would be appropriate here — a simple Miu, in order to complete the binding of chakra to ink.
"Bind."
It held.
He exhaled slowly. The seal was stable. Chakra decay would remain within normal bounds.
Cautiously, he extended two fingers and applied chakra once more.
"Unseal."
The kunai unfolded — whole in his palm again, unchanged and perfectly preserved. He was sure of it: there would be no degradation, no slow rot like unsealed matter. It was, in practical terms, nothing more than ink and chakra. Something nearly entirely stripped of its physical constraints, suspended in a state between existence and absence.
Naruto stared at it for a long moment, feeling the residual hum of the technique beneath his skin. His chakra buzzed with the familiar sensation of a seal's completion, but something was different this time. Something in the way the energy settled, in how it resonated. Something in him had shifted, too...
I could make this seal stronger.
The thought surfaced slowly, familiar and foreign, like a memory he hadn't known he had. One he couldn't make sense of, but felt as though it belonged. Like an instinct remembered from another life. It felt true, just like one knew how to breathe, tighten a grip, brace before impact. If he just gave it more, something longer-lasting—
He exhaled slowly, pushing the strange thought away.
This had been relatively easy — kunai, to him, were a known quantity. He had spent years handling them, sharpening them, unsealing them from traditional storage scrolls. His chakra was already familiar with their weight, their balance, their presence. That wouldn't be true for everything else.
He looked over the supplies: tent, medicines, rations, water skins. Each one would need to be learned, its shape and weight and nature understood before it could be folded.
Naruto flexed his fingers, feeling the chakra still resonating beneath his skin. Dawn crept across the horizon, pale light filtering through the window.
One day, then?
By the time Naruto stepped out of the supply depot, the sky had begun to shift.
The sun was lowering, brushing the horizon with fading golds and deepening blues. The cold hit him sharply after the long hours spent hunched over his work. His body ached, exhaustion pooling in his limbs, and his fingers — stiff, overworked — curled around the scroll in his grasp. It felt heavier than it should, warm with the chakra he had poured into it.
Eyes turned toward him as he emerged. The settlement was stirring with the rhythms of evening — nomads tending their gear, preparing meals, securing belongings before nightfall. Conversations slowed, and glances lingered. As if they hadn't expected him to return so soon… or perhaps at all.
As eyes settled on him, curiosity sparking in their expressions, he felt something uneasy coil in his stomach. Naruto exhaled, steadying himself.
The incision on his flank pulsed faintly, and the seal he carried felt terribly inadequate compared to what he knew was possible.
He had been caught in it — no, consumed. There had been no room for anything else — only the slow unraveling of problem after problem, the intricate adjustments, the delicate balance between failure and something else that he wasn't sure he could call discovery.
Back home, he thought, a seal like this — flawed, clumsy, raw — would scarcely draw comment. Yes, in Uzushio, it would be a student's first attempt. A crude draft, not a finished design.
He forced the thought aside and made his way toward Otsuru — who noted he looked pale, and asked him if he was dodging sleep again — and her older sister, who studied him with a guarded, skeptical eye.
"Did you find what you needed?" Okiku asked, rather neutrally.
"I'll show you," he said, voice rough from disuse. I'll show them.
More faces turned toward him now. The elderly sat forward on their wooden stools, and younger members of the clan edged closer.
With deliberate care, Naruto unrolled the seal onto the snow-packed ground. The paper settled with a whisper, its intricate patterns catching the last gleam of sunlight. His right hand pressed the corners flat; his left hovered above the surface, fingers weaving through familiar signs with practiced ease.
A pulse of chakra flowed from his core, down his arm, and into the elaborate matrix of ink below.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
"Unseal," he commanded, feeding chakra into the activation circuit.
The seal flickered to life, lines gleaming with an inner light that cast bluish shadows across the watching faces. The air above the paper shimmered, and with a soft sound, like a sigh carried on the wind and through leaves, the contents began to materialize.
A water skin first — droplets of condensation clinging to its surface, cold but not frozen. Exactly as he had first sealed it this morning.
Then a sealed ceramic container, its medicinal contents as perfectly untouched as the water. A set of clothes, falling naturally into their folds, as it had been caught midfall. Tightly bundled ration packs. Finally, a folded tent completed the display.
Each item had demanded a unique approach. The water had been hardest — fluids were more difficult to encode without losing cohesion, he was nearly sure of it by now — and so, he had started with it. The medicines had needed careful handling to preserve their potency too, each component folded separately to maintain its integrity.
The silence that followed was absolute.
"Seal," Naruto said, pushing chakra into the matrix once more.
The items vanished, drawn back into the ink, compressed into pattern and chakra. He retrieved the seal with a quick motion, tucking it away.
The hush that had settled over the group deepened.
Otsuru stepped closer, her pale eyes locked on the scroll. "...You actually did it?"
Naruto rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the stiffness from his limbs.
"It's not perfect," he admitted, the words tasting bitter in his mouth. "It only works for specific items — the ones I trained it for. I will give you the exact list. And you'll need to reapply chakra daily, ideally — to preserve it for as long as possible, and to maintain the transformation, too. The structure isn't self-sustaining, though the ink will hold longer thanks to the preservation array targeting it — a rudimentary one I learned back home."
Otsuru repeated his words, adjusting his phrasing where she thought he meant something else. Even so, there was only so much she could do — she didn't speak Uminokoe. The others said nothing — just stared.
He cleared his throat, filling the silence with technical detail, compelled to justify it.
"The fold's capacity depends on the chakra storage arrays I wove — and how well I constructed them — so it's not as expansive as I'd hoped. Better than the broken storage seal you gave me to study, but..." Of course it was: he was sealing chakra and ink into chakra and ink. His fingers tightened around the seal, remembering countless failed attempts. "Unsealing still takes a bit too long—" no, perhaps that only mattered for battle "—But since the objects are compressed as chakra and ink, not stored in pocket space, they'll last longer — the seal will decay before the items do. Years."
He hesitated, then added, "I didn't finish the ice-melting seal. You'll have to melt water manually and store it — I'll show you how to do the latter. I know it's not ideal, not with the storm coming. But you said some herbs spoil if they're warm, others go bitter, even toxic. That medicine needs fresh ingredients, not dried-out scraps. So I focused on that."
He heard how fast he was speaking now, how his nerves edged through. But he couldn't stop.
"At least this much — the seal keeps things in their original state as long as it holds."
He outlined the fail-safes — the technical scaffolding beneath his design.
A threefold redundancy system reinforced the primary containment matrix — Uzushio standard. Auxiliary circuits redirected overflow through relief paths if destabilization began.
A passive array maintained structural integrity for thirty seconds after core failure, enough time for a reset or controlled release. An emergency release protocol embedded in the outer ring forced excess energy outward rather than imploding — standard practice.
He could have designed it for total collapse, destroying contents to deny recovery. But he hadn't. He'd chosen preservation over containment. If failure came, the seal would sacrifice itself to protect what it held.
Drawing a quick breath, suddenly desperate to end this scrutiny, he finished with, "That's all."
Silence again.
Then — motion. An elder woman turned away sharply, rubbing a hand over her face. A man let out a low, incredulous laugh. Otsuru's hands flexed, unsure whether to reach for the scroll or simply watch it.
The older nomads stared at the spot where the items had been, their expressions unreadable. Someone muttered what sounded like a prayer in their native tongue. Another breathed sharply through their teeth.
Naruto felt his stomach lurch slightly.
He'd expected mild interest — maybe a few questions, a polite nod of approval.
Not this.
Not this raw emotion, this intensity that felt disproportionate to the achievement. This was too much. It wasn't that extraordinary. Why—
A hand clapped his shoulder, nearly knocking him sideways. Another grabbed his hand, lifting it to look at it — no, to stare at it.
"You just did that?" Hakuri — he thought that was the name — laughed, stunned. "In four days?"
Naruto stiffened, uncomfortable with the praise. "It's not that impressive."
"Not that—" The words were echoed in disbelief. "You saying this is nothing to you? That you can do better?"
"No," Naruto said quietly. "But someone else—"
One of the elders stepped forward then, his weathered face solemn but his eyes bright with something Naruto couldn't quite name. "Preservation and storage in one," the man murmured. "That's better than anything I've seen in years."
It hit Naruto then, with an almost dizzying force, just how vastly different this was from home.
In Uzushio, Naruto believed that this sort of work would have been met with measured criticism, perhaps even disappointment. A training exercise barely worth mentioning, something a novice Sealweaver might present with apologies for its crude implementation.
But here, among people who had never seen the great sealing works of his homeland, they looked at him as if he had captured starlight in a bottle.
The understanding rippled through the crowd, just like his realization did through him.
Then, like dawn breaking over stone, the mood shifted.
Someone cheered. Another whooped. Laughter broke loose in scattered bursts. Hands clapped his back, ruffled his hair, gripped his arms in joy. The sound of their joy crashed over him like a wave, raw and overwhelming in its intensity.
Naruto stood still in the midst of it all, blinking as the voices swelled around him, trying to process this unexpected turn. They were celebrating him. Not his potential, not what he might become with proper training. But what he had already done.
Here and now.
Gods. For some reason, they were celebrating him.
This wasn't like Uzushio, where approval was measured, brilliance was expected and perfection seemed the baseline. Here, at this moment, he wasn't seen as a struggling student of sealing who should have chosen an easier, more fitting path. He wasn't viewed as someone reaching for mastery beyond his grasp. Instead, he was recognized as someone who had brought something of real value to people who could make use of it.
For the first time, his work wasn't theoretical.
It wasn't just a means to an end, wasn't just another stepping stone on an endless path toward an impossible ideal. Toward perfection. Here, he wasn't a student reaching beyond his grasp, a Sealweaver in name only. Here, under the deepening twilight sky, with the frozen wind carrying the sounds of celebration, his efforts meant something immediate and tangible.
His work was useful.
Naruto exhaled slowly, letting the noise and joy of it wash over him like a cleansing tide.
Maybe the seal wasn't perfect.
Maybe the balance of Will, Intent, and Restriction wasn't as precise as he had intended; wasn't as it should be.
Maybe, in a few months or years, he would look back at this moment and see every flaw — the inefficiencies, the wasted chakra, the crude shaping of the fold. Maybe he would grimace at his lack of refinement, knowing how much more precise he could have been.
And maybe he'd regret how much of himself he'd poured into it, a sliver of chakra and blood pressed into the seal's foundation permanently, tightening the bond beyond what theory required and what was needed. The act hadn't been fully thought out, not truly. It had simply felt right — like the difference between tying a loose knot and one that would not unravel.
Just… what felt right. Like the words he had spoken to Tenjin on the airship.
It was a small price to pay anyway, when the seal hummed beneath his fingertips, thrumming faintly with the imprint of his own energy. He had said the seal would last years, but deep down, he knew it might be more. His own loss, something he had been more than willing to give, if it meant reaching Konoha.
He breathed in, fatigue lingering at the edges.
For now, just this once…
He let himself see his work through their eyes. Let himself feel the pride they so freely offered. Let himself believe that maybe, just maybe, this imperfect creation was exactly what was needed here and now. That it mattered — that he mattered. That perhaps he was worth something, after all.
And that realization, this acceptance of joy found not in perfection, but in purpose, felt like finally learning to breathe after a lifetime of holding his breath.
Maybe that, more than anything else, was the greatest seal he had broken today.
Annex — On Scrollwork: Arrays, Spirals, and the Obfuscation of Seals
i/oiPvqx
A traditional sealing scroll is composed of one or several Arrays — the fundamental structures in which symbols are inscribed. Each Array follows the ancient Uzumaki spiral form, layering its contents in concentric rings that radiate inward toward a central point. By custom and function, a seal is drawn from the outermost ring inward, guiding the Will of the caster along a deliberate path.
This spiral arrangement that has given our clan its symbol is more than aesthetic, of course. It governs the flow of chakra, organizes meaning, and reflects the natural order the seal intends to invoke. Each ring adds complexity, shaping the seal's behavior through a language of symbols, ratios, and encoded patterns.
In some cases — such as the scroll illustrated here — the seal has been Obfuscated. This refers to a deliberate concealment of function through additional layers of symbolic misdirection, redundancies, or interpretive occlusion. Obfuscation is a technique used to protect, confuse, or restrict understanding, ensuring that only those with the proper insight or key may unravel the seal's true nature.
To the untrained eye, such Arrays may appear decorative. Within the spiral, however, lies a labyrinth of purpose.
So wrote Ishume of the Gakusha-ke, on the fifteenth day of the Rain-Month, in the Year 94 of the Water Cycle.
Annex — On Sealing Theory: Compression vs. Displacement-Based Storage
Among the sealing disciplines preserved within the Uzushio canon, few divisions are as foundational — or as philosophically divergent — as the distinction between Compression Sealing and Displacement-Based Storage Sealing¹.
In displacement-based methods — now increasingly employed beyond Uzushio's borders — an object is not refined, but removed from the material plane and suspended within a spatial holding construct², a tethered metaphysical chamber. Among lay practitioners, this is sometimes referred to, somewhat inelegantly, as a void space³.
These techniques rely on Arrays that establish a dimensional anchor — a tether woven from chakra and inscription — through which the object is displaced and stored in a realm beyond direct perception.
Such seals may, in time, come to dominate the field, given their relative ease of use and high storage capacity ceiling. There is no denying their efficiency. However, their structural dependencies render them inherently fragile⁴. The tether must be maintained through sustained chakra input or periodic reinforcement. Should the circuit fail, the result is often uncontrolled dispersal, object destabilization, or — in the worst cases — complete loss into the unbound void.
Among Uzushio's Sealwrights, these constructs were long regarded with cautious pragmatism⁵. Their utility was never denied, but their elegance was often questioned. In formal treatises, they are classified not as true seals, but as techniques of dimensional redirection — effective, yes, but crude in spirit, lacking in conceptual refinement.
Compression Sealing, by contrast, follows a different principle entirely⁶. Rather than remove the object from space, it refines the object's presence — distilling matter into its essential form by encoding its properties directly into the seal's structure. The object is not displaced, but translated: its mass, form, density, internal harmony, and chakra signature woven into the Array itself, suspended in a state between material and conceptual⁷.
This method demands just as much from the practitioner. A compression seal must not merely contain — it must comprehend. It must recognize the object not only as mass and shape, but as Meaning — and preserve that in symbolic form⁸. Where displacement-based seals offer convenience, compression offers continuity — a sealed item preserved not simply in condition, but in essence⁹.
It was said among some sealers that Compression was not storage, but conversation — a dialogue between form and meaning, rendered into symbol. Ink and Will¹⁰.
In his collected writings, On the Nature of Matter, Master Enji of the Hollow Weave School noted:
"The lesser seal hides the object.
The greater seal understands it."
Such techniques once marked the threshold beyond the Fourth Spiral of study¹¹. Students who sought Compression were expected not only to master Array construction, but to attune their chakra to the nuances of texture, resonance, and symbolic equivalence. To compress something well was considered a meditative act: not technical alone, but conceptual.
Still, there is a growing sentiment, even within some of the younger Houses, that Displacement-Based Sealing may represent the future¹² — a shift toward pragmatism over tradition. One cannot help but wonder if, in generations to come, the compression arts will fade from practice, remembered only in scrolls such as this.
So wrote Shizuri of the Kaihatsu-ke, in her marginalia on the Sealed Lectures of Master Enji, compiled on the third day of the Frost-Moon, in the Year 127 of the Water Cycle.
Annotations and Clarifying Notes
[1] Displacement-Based Storage Sealing — A formal term used in Uzushio scholarship to distinguish seals that remove material objects from their native plane and store them externally through a spatial anchor. This approach contrasts sharply with compression-based techniques that retain the object in altered form within the material world.
[2] Spatial holding construct — A metaphysical enclosure created and sustained by chakra tethers. It does not constitute a true alternate dimension, but a stabilized containment field layered through resonant chakra frequencies. These are often mistaken for dimensional spaces, though Uzushio theory classifies them differently.
[3] Void space — A dated colloquial term found in older instructional texts. Contemporary scholars increasingly favor "external spatial lattice" or "anchored storage schema." The term pocket-space, while still widespread in field usage, is considered imprecise in academic circles.
[4] Fragility of tethered seals — A key vulnerability in displacement-based methods is their reliance on continuous tether integrity. Disruption of the array can cause catastrophic seal failure, unlike compression seals which are generally internally self-contained.
[5] Cautious pragmatism — A widely held stance among some classical Uzushio Sealwrights (dated colloquial term for Sealweavers). To them, displacement was acknowledged as functionally useful but often regarded as an inelegant shortcut lacking philosophical depth.
[6] Different principle entirely — The heart of the distinction: Displacement stores matter externally; Compression transforms matter into encoded chakra-symbology within the existing material space.
[7] Material and conceptual — Compression Sealing does not suspend matter in space but abstracts it into a representational state. The object persists, but no longer in physical form — it becomes Meaning encoded in chakra and ink.
[8] Preserving Meaning — In Uzushio's sealing philosophy, to seal an object is to capture not only its shape, but its essence — the purpose it was forged for, the intent imbued into it, and the weight of its use.
[9] Continuity — A Compression Seal holds not just the state of an item, but its significance. It offers long-term preservation with less vulnerability to decay or external interference.
[10] Ink and Will — A classical phrase from the Hollow Weave School, used to define the soul of Compression Sealing. Ink is the medium, Will the binding force. The act of sealing is treated not as containment, but as dialogue — a quiet transmutation of understanding into form.
[11] Fourth Spiral of study — A symbolic threshold in Uzushio's pedagogical tradition, marking the point where a student transitions from functional technique to philosophical insight.
[12] May represent the future — A rare forward-facing comment in Shizuri's otherwise tradition-bound commentary, acknowledging the rising preference for practical over conceptual sealing methods.
Note: While Shizuri of the Kaihatsu-ke remains a foundational scholar in Compression theory, modern scholars widely acknowledge her notorious bias toward Compression methodologies, often to the exclusion of balanced comparison. Her methods, now over a century old, are increasingly considered outdated, especially given the growing consensus that Compression holds no inherent superiority over other forms.
Thus writes Naehiro of the Gakusha-ke, on the sixteenth day of December, in the Year 17 of the Fire Cycle.
i/oiPLYH : Naruto
i/oif8F7 : Extra — "Naruto: On the Importance of Proper Documentation"
AN: Huh, that's longer than I thought.
Next chapter: On The Road