"Yuu-kun… and Kakashi-kun… are both amazing."
"Not just ninjutsu—even swordsmanship…"
Rin let out a long breath, clutching the strap of her ninja pouch tightly. Her palms were full of sweat.
As one of the same graduating class, she could clearly feel just how enormous the gap was between herself and those two geniuses in front of her. Especially Mikami Yuu—just a few months ago he hadn't stood out that much, but now he was already making her feel like she was looking up at a mountain. His rate of improvement was so absurd it felt unreal.
At this pace, Rin was genuinely worried she'd become the burden of the team.
Beside her,
Obito wasn't thinking about any of that. He flipped to his feet and shouted, "Switch! Switch! Yuu's sword broke, so now it's my turn to fight Kakashi!"
"…"
Kakashi had originally been planning to go rest for a bit, but when he heard Obito, he paused, then sighed.
"Fine. If you can last two minutes against me, I'll count that as your win."
"?"
…
As Obito started tangling with Kakashi,
Mikami Yuu returned to the side and sat down next to Rin.
"Rin, how's your tree-climbing and water-walking practice going?"
"Mmm… a little better than yesterday. I can climb halfway up a tree without falling now. As for water-walking… I still have trouble keeping my balance. My chakra flow isn't stable enough."
Rin said softly.
"Show me once."
Mikami Yuu said.
At his request,
Rin stood up and coated the soles of her feet with chakra. She stepped barefoot into the stream beside them, took two steps—and as expected, her body wobbled. The chakra under her feet destabilized, and with a splash she stepped right into the water. Mikami Yuu grabbed her from behind and pulled her back before she could get soaked head to toe.
"It's still the same issue—your chakra distribution is uneven."
Mikami Yuu raised a finger and pointed vaguely at her ankle and calf. "Just now—here, and here—your muscles were too tense. That interrupts chakra flow. Relax a little, and let the chakra flow out through the Yongquan point on the soles of your feet. Spread it evenly across the whole sole, like a soft cushion supporting you."
"Mm…"
Rin answered quietly. Her pale, wet toes curled slightly, a little awkwardly, as if she felt embarrassed by the close contact.
But after that, she still followed Mikami Yuu's advice, trying hard to relax the tension in her calves, adjusting the chakra output, and attempting it again.
To put it simply…
For the past few days, life for Mikami Yuu's team had been extremely monotonous.
Every day was basically: eat, sleep, beat up Kakashi.
They'd also squeezed in around a dozen D-rank missions.
The missions ranged from cleaning debris out of river channels, to helping villagers find lost pets, to assisting with fence repairs, gathering herbs, cleaning training grounds, and chasing off wild boars ruining farmland… all kinds of random work.
Obito had plenty of complaints about it, of course. He felt someone of his strength shouldn't be wasting time on such ordinary missions. But Minato's orders were absolute, and Kakashi kept consistently suppressing Obito whenever he got out of line, so the team stayed mostly stable.
As for today, Minato had shown up once in the morning, then been called away halfway through because something came up at the Hokage Building. So it was only Mikami Yuu and the others training here on their own.
Actually, Mikami Yuu had been wanting to leave the village, since he still had the "clear Great Fireball's name" mission to do. But considering Obito and Rin still weren't quite there yet—they hadn't even mastered tree-climbing and water-walking—he could only wait a little longer…
"BAM—!!"
Obito's body flew high into the air and landed on the ground not far from Mikami Yuu and Rin.
"One minute and forty-nine seconds. That's five seconds longer than last time."
Kakashi stood with his hands in his pockets and said from a distance, "At your current level, what you should be thinking about isn't when you'll leave the village. You should be thinking about how not to drag the team down. Otherwise, when a mission goes wrong, Yuu and I will have to split our attention to protect you."
"What did you say?! Who needs your protection?!"
Obito jumped up in anger.
Just as Kakashi curled his lip, ready to mock him some more, a flash of pale golden light flickered in the distance. Then a familiar figure appeared there—
Minato, who had been gone for most of the day.
"Kakashi, how's it going?"
"Minato-sensei…"
When Minato arrived, Kakashi went over and gave him a report on today's progress.
Minato listened patiently, then swept his gaze over Mikami Yuu and the others, smiling gently.
"Looks like everyone's been training seriously. That's a relief. Originally I wanted you to spend a little more time consolidating your basics, but as it happens, there's a C-rank mission available now. Do you think you're ready for it?"
"C-rank mission?"
We're leaving the village??
Mikami Yuu's and Obito's eyes lit up at the same time.
Mikami Yuu was excited because it meant he might finally be able to do Great Fireball's mission.
Obito, meanwhile, was simply being overambitious and wanted to skip straight to the good stuff.
Only Kakashi frowned slightly, catching the hint that something wasn't right.
"Minato-sensei… isn't this too soon? A normal genin squad usually goes through at least half a month of adjustment before even considering an out-of-village mission."
The smile on Minato's face faded slightly, and he sighed.
"Yeah. Under normal circumstances, that's true.
"But you've all noticed it too, haven't you? There are clearly more wounded in the village lately, and the intelligence from the border… isn't optimistic. We may not have enough time to prepare step by step. We need to form effective combat capability before the situation gets worse."
The atmosphere turned heavy in an instant.
Mikami Yuu and Rin had both been to Konoha Hospital, so they knew exactly what Minato meant.
Kakashi had just recently come back from outside the village.
Even slow-to-react Obito felt that something was off and stopped complaining.
Seeing that,
Minato smiled again and added, "Still, there's no need to worry too much. Because of Kakashi and Yuu, the average strength of this squad is already higher than a normal genin squad's. And C-rank missions usually don't involve enemy ninja, so I decided it was worth trying.
"Don't worry. If something unexpected really does happen, I'm still fairly confident I can bring all of you back to Konoha."
Then,
Minato took out the mission scroll and let Mikami Yuu and the others read it.
The mission was to escort medical personnel and supplies to the border of the Land of Fire.
Departure was the day after tomorrow.
The moment he saw the mission, Mikami Yuu immediately thought of his father, who was still serving border duty. He wondered how things were going for him now. By the timing, his rotation should've been almost over…
"That's the basic situation."
Minato said. "You can end training early today and head home. No missions tomorrow—rest, pack your things. Even though it's only a C-rank mission, there's still some danger involved, and unexpected situations are always possible. Make sure you bring enough tools.
"We gather at the village gate the day after tomorrow at seven in the morning."
"Got it."
Mikami Yuu and the others nodded.
Only after Minato had left
did Kakashi glance at Mikami Yuu and say, in an almost casual tone:
"Hey, Mikami. You're interested in swordsmanship, aren't you?"
~~~
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