"Fire Release: Flame Bullet!"
A stream of searing fireballs shot from Sarutobi Osamu's mouth. The moment the last one left his lips, he was already moving, a blur of motion as he lunged straight for Shimura Yuta.
He'd learned his lesson from their previous spars. Trying to out-ninjutsu a freak like Yuta was a fool's game.
Osamu had once been proud of his own prowess.
Mastering four C-rank techniques in three months was no small feat, a testament to his clan's heritage and his own hard work. But Yuta had dismantled that pride with infuriating ease.
This time would be different. His plan was simple: use the flame bullets as a diversion, close the distance, and overpower Yuta with taijutsu. It was his best shot.
Yet, as Osamu charged, he saw Yuta's lip curl in a faint twitch.
'Is he for real?' Yuta thought, a flicker of disbelief crossing his mind. 'He never learns.'
With a series of effortless, fluid sidesteps, Yuta evaded the incoming fire bullets.
Then, in the space of a heartbeat, he pushed off the ground. The earth cracked faintly under his foot as he became a streak of motion, meeting Osamu's charge head-on and erasing the distance between them in an instant.
Osamu's eyes widened, his breath catching in his throat.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
His talent for ninjutsu was monstrous enough. But this speed? It was unreal. Such explosive velocity wasn't just natural talent; it was built on a foundation of brutal training. A cold realization dawned on him.
'He's better at this, too?'
The thought was a death knell to his strategy. Yuta was already in front of him. A sharp crack split the air as Yuta's right leg snapped out like a whip, catching Osamu squarely in the torso and sending him hurtling backward.
He crashed into the hard-packed earth, skidding to a halt in a cloud of dust and a newly formed crater.
The loud impact drew the attention of Kurama Meyuri. She paused her own drills against a training post, her amber eyes lighting up with interest.
She glanced from the groaning Osamu to the composed Yuta, then back to her own solitary training. Suddenly, the repetitive strikes against wood seemed profoundly dull.
An idea, brilliant and simple, bloomed in her mind.
'Maybe… I could ask Yuta for taijutsu instruction sometime?'
It was perfect. She could hone her skills, find a natural reason to spend time with him, and… well, taijutsu practice inevitably involved a degree of physical contact. It was a perfect plan with triple the benefits.
A small, satisfied smile touched her lips.
The notion that Yuta might refuse didn't even occur to her. Over these three months, she had noted that his seemingly aloof exterior masked a genuinely kind nature—a kindness he seemed to reserve almost exclusively for her.
What she failed to perceive was that this very kindness was her unique privilege. Yuta's demeanor could shift in an instant, turning as cold and sharp as a kunai when dealing with their sensei.
Oblivious to her scheming, Yuta watched Osamu stir. To be fair, such prematurely mature calculations, while startling elsewhere, were almost mundane in their world. (The children in the shinobi world mature fast)
"Hey! Yuta!" Osamu groaned, pushing himself up onto his elbows and clutching his lower back. "Did you have to put your whole soul into that kick? I think you cracked a rib!"
Yuta knew the complaint was baseless. He had pulled the blow, holding back enough force to ensure Osamu would only be nursing his pride and a bruise, not a month-long hospital stay.
"Assemble."
The single, flat word cut through the training ground. They turned to see their sensei, Danzō, materialized from the shadows beneath a nearby tree, his arms crossed over his flak jacket.
Standing there in the dappled light, one had to acknowledge that Danzō possessed a severe, sharp-featured handsomeness in his youth. It was no wonder the Third Hokage had always kept him so close—a complicated, intimate rivalry that spanned decades.
It was a pity they were both wizened old men in the main chronicles; their fraught, lifelong dynamic would have been prime material for some fans. It seemed, however, that even the most ardent creators had their aesthetic limits.
"Danzō sensei."
"Danzō sensei."
Osamu and Meyuri spoke in respectful unison. Yuta, his mind momentarily adrift, was a fraction of a second late.
Danzō's gaze, heavy with implication, settled on Yuta. He despised inattention, but Yuta's progress over the last quarter-year had been staggering, far surpassing even his most ambitious expectations.
Every ounce of that skill was a step closer to victory in his long-standing wager with the Hokage.
For that, he could overlook a minor lapse. He cleared his throat, the sound like grinding stone, pulling Yuta fully back to the present.
"We have an outside mission," Danzō announced, his voice leaving no room for celebration.
"A real mission?" Osamu's eyes sparkled with barely contained excitement.
After three months of nothing but D-rank missions—finding lost pets, pulling weeds, painting fences—a mission beyond the village walls was a dream come true.
Danzō paid his enthusiasm no mind.
"Your objective is to eliminate a band of mountain bandits operating near our borders and rescue any civilians they hold captive. I will be observing, but I will not intervene. You will execute this mission alongside another genin team."
"The other squad awaits you at the main village gates. Move out now and rendezvous with them."
Without another word, Danzō vanished in a silent shunshin, leaving only a faint swirl of leaves behind.
"Another squad?"
Yuta's mind immediately thought of the most probable candidates: Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya. It was almost certainly them.
The Third Hokage, bound by the weight of his duties, could not easily leave the village. This joint mission was the solution, with Danzō acting as an unseen guardian.
As he'd said, he wouldn't lift a finger, merely shadow them from the treetops as a safety net.
'Even so,' Yuta mused, 'the great Danzō reduced to a babysitter for two genin teams. The irony was almost poetic.'
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