Saturday arrived with the promise of two days off. For most of the kids at the Academy, it meant sleeping in or playing "Catch the Ninja." For Asahi, it meant forty-eight hours to solve the connection problem.
He woke up an hour before dawn. His body didn't need an alarm. He had learned to function like a clock, synchronized with the sun's cycle, not with the clang of bells.
He went to his sanctuary, the shed, out of pure habit. He stood in the middle of the three-by-three-meter space.
'I can't practice evasion here,' he realized. 'I can barely stretch.'
Kawarimi wasn't a static exercise like Henge. It required space. It required targets. It required the freedom to fail, and the shed was far too small for his spectacular failures.
He packed his textbook into his backpack and left the orphanage while the moon still hung low in the sky, silver and cold.
Konoha was quiet. The morning air was fresh, dense with dew and the faint aroma of freshly baked bread. It was a domestic peace that still, on some primal level, made his hairs stand on end.
'Where can I find a place to practice?'
His knowledge of canon was, as usual, useless and contradictory.
'Training Field 44, the Forest of Death?' His mind conjured images of giant snakes and saber-toothed tigers. '…No thanks.' Even if this world was a Ponyo-like utopia, he wasn't about to bet his life that Orochimaru hadn't left a few pets lying around.
'Standard training fields, like number 7?' Too public. They'd be full of Genin or even Jonin teams.
He needed a place abandoned. Forgotten. A place where no one would watch.
He headed toward the village outskirts, near the outer wall, where the practice grounds became more specialized and less maintained.
He passed impeccably kept training fields. He saw a silver-haired Jonin, vaguely recognized as Kakashi Hatake, supervising a trio of older Genin running across water on a small pond. The water glimmered under the soft light of dawn, and each step of the Genin created perfect ripples.
'Of course,' Asahi thought bitterly. 'Genin walking on water. Meanwhile, I'm at the level of "don't replace yourself with the ground."'
He kept walking, leaving the numbered and well-kept fields behind. He ventured into an area where the forest began reclaiming the land. The path became a weed-covered trail, crunchy under his shoes. The smell of wet earth and decaying leaves enveloped him.
And then he found it.
No number. No neat fence. Just a clearing, clearly man-made decades ago, now forgotten.
It was perfect.
The clearing was the size of half a soccer field. In the center, a dozen thick wooden posts, similar to the Academy's, but old, covered in green moss, and rotting in spots. A small stream ran along one side, providing a water source, the constant murmur of the current a silent soundtrack.
Completely isolated.
"All right," Asahi muttered, dropping his backpack with a dull thud against the ground. "Welcome to my new gym."
He retrieved the replacement log he had "borrowed" from the orphanage's woodpile. He placed it in the center of the clearing, like a mute witness.
Then he pulled out his textbook.
He sat and read the Kawarimi description for the tenth time.
"Unlike Henge, which is pure chakra manipulation, Kawarimi is a 'Movement Ninjutsu.' It uses chakra as the main propulsive force to move the user's mass to a nearby location, synchronizing the displacement with the placement of a decoy object. The key is the timing of intention and chakra release."
"Timing," Asahi repeated aloud, the word echoing in the silence of the clearing.
He stood about three meters from the log.
'All right. Timing. What does that mean? Do I jump while thinking about chakra? Is it like pressing A and B at the same time for a special attack in a video game?'
He formed the Ram seal.
'Intention: move behind the log. Physics: jump. Chakra: …Go!'
POOF!
A cloud of smoke and soot. When it cleared, Asahi was exactly in the same spot, coughing. The log hadn't moved.
"Standard failure," he said, breathless, noting it mentally.
'Attempt two. More chakra.'
POOF!
More smoke. Same lack of movement.
He sat down, frustrated. 'No. I'm thinking about this wrong. I'm treating it like a supplement.'
He recalled his Taijutsu analysis. 'When I throw a punch, my body works like a kinetic chain. Power starts in my foot, spins through my hip, transfers to my torso, and explodes through my fist.'
'But Kawarimi… isn't a kinetic chain. It's teleportation…'
'No,' he corrected. 'Iruka said it's a high-speed movement. That means physics still applies. It's not a Space-Time Jutsu like Minato's Hiraishin.'
An idea hit him. A horrible, counterintuitive idea.
'What if my problem… is my legs?'
He stood again. 'My body is so conditioned to move that the instant I think "move," my fast-twitch leg muscles activate. My calves and quads try to jump before chakra has a chance to do the work.'
'I have to unlearn the muscle.'
He stood in front of the log. This time, he did something different. He forced his legs to relax. Completely. He focused on keeping them flaccid, like cooked noodles.
'Don't jump. Don't move. Let the chakra do everything.'
He formed the seal and closed his eyes.
He visualized chakra flowing to his feet, not like a tingling, but like a jet engine. He visualized the spot behind the log.
'Move.'
P O O F!
There was a much bigger puff of smoke and a sensation of… pull.
He opened his eyes.
Dizzy. The world spun for a second. Chakra fatigue hit him like a hammer, far worse than with Henge.
He looked around.
He was exactly in the same place.
"DAMN IT!" he shouted at the empty clearing, his voice resonating through the trees.
He was about to kick the log in frustration when he stopped.
Something was wrong.
The log.
The log he had placed in the center of the clearing… wasn't there.
Asahi turned his head.
The log was now three meters to his left, exactly where he should have been if he had made a basic lateral jump.
Asahi stared at the log. Then at himself. Then at the log.
'…What?'
It took a solid minute of mental processing.
'I… replaced myself… with nothing? And moved the log instead of me?'
'Is this even possible?'
'I did a Kawarimi… on the log! I was supposed to move, not the decoy!'
He was exhausted, frustrated, and completely confused. He had failed—but in a way so new and spectacularly wrong that it was almost a success.
He collapsed against a tree, the rough bark scraping his back. The fresh air filled his lungs, heavy as lead.