Shorai strolled toward the clearing, watching Naruto's silhouette through the haze of dust. The boy was gasping for air, his orange jacket stained with dirt and sweat as he prepared for yet another attempt. Shorai adjusted his focus, feeling the familiar hum of the Reality Stone beneath his ribs. He carefully stabilized his triple-layered mental shield and expanded his perception, keeping a phantom-like tether on Tsunade's presence. He knew she was watching from the shadows of the rocks.
"Yo. Any good news for me?" Shorai asked with a half-smile, masking the rising anxiety he felt at the Sannin's scrutiny.
"..." Naruto lifted his head, his azure eyes bloodshot but burning. "I'm still trying." He straightened his back, glancing down at his trembling, red-raw palm. "Your pointers helped... but this damn jutsu won't stay still! It's like trying to hold lightning in a paper bag."
"Did you go back to the stage two exercises like I told you, Naruto?" Shorai asked calmly.
"I... I didn't," he replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "But I did manage to focus more on the output! I can feel the power now!"
"Power without precision is just noise," Shorai countered, crossing his arms. "Stage two is the engine; stage three is the steering wheel. You're revving the engine, but you're forgetting how to steer. If you don't find the balance, you'll just keep blowing the balloon apart before the shape can even form."
Shorai walked over to a nearby tree where a bag of training supplies sat. He pulled out two balloons—one heavy leather, the other thin, delicate cloth.
He raised the leather one in his palm. "Watch. Give it exactly the amount needed to pop. No more, no less."
The balloon distorted, bulging and straining under the internal vortex. It hummed with a violent vibration, held at the absolute edge of its structural integrity for three seconds before Shorai gave it a final, surgical pulse of chakra. Bang.
Without skipping a beat, Shorai raised the cloth balloon in his other hand. He channeled a swirling vortex of energy inside it, but this time, the delicate material didn't even ripple. It sat perfectly still in his hand, though a faint, high-pitched whistle came from within.
"Search for the limit of the form," Shorai explained. "Understand where you cross the line. You need to stir the air inside the delicate one without breaking it. That teaches you containment. Then, slowly add more chakra and re-learn how to hold that weight."
"Ahm... if you say so..." Naruto took a leather balloon, his frustration replaced by a newfound focus.
Shorai stood by, occasionally offering a quiet correction or a different balloon. He caught the moment Tsunade finally retreated from her hiding spot an hour later. 'Tomorrow... is the day.'
The change in approach was a double-edged sword. It slowed Naruto's immediate progress, forcing him to juggle sensations and compare the two stages rather than brute-forcing the result.
'Perhaps I was too optimistic,' Shorai mused, watching Naruto's brow furrow in concentration. 'But the outcome will be greater. He won't just have a Rasengan; he'll have the efficiency to use it without draining his reserves in a single shot.'
They trained until the first sliver of dawn touched the horizon. With a final word of encouragement, Shorai left Naruto to his "burden" and headed back to the hotel.
—
Shorai woke as the sun began to dip below the skyline. The room was no longer silent; the muffled voices of Jiraiya and Naruto drifted through the door.
"Good morning, old man. Sleep the whole day away?" Jiraiya chuckled as he entered, looking refreshed.
Shorai let out a heavy, bone-deep yawn, eyeing the blonde boy standing dejectedly by the Sannin's side. "I was helping him train, Jiraiya-san. My own progress demands a heavy price in rest. So... where are we going to celebrate?"
"Shorai... I lost it," Naruto muttered, his shoulders slumped. "I had it this morning! I swear! But then the damn thing just... vanished. I couldn't get the balance back in time for the display."
Jiraiya reached out, roughly ruffling Naruto's hair. "You did your best, kid. Honestly, I'm impressed. Even if the display failed, you're a hair's breadth away from full mastery. To get this close in less than two weeks is unheard of."
"Jiraiya-san, give me the bottom line," Shorai said, his eyes narrowing. "What about the bet?"
"Well, the jutsu isn't stable yet," Jiraiya explained. "But Tsunade… she actually proposed an extension. Two more days. She's also altered the rules—you won't have to reveal your secrets or hand over the wallet's contents. At least, not until she takes the office and decides to demand them."
"That sounds suspiciously generous," Shorai noted, sensing the catch.
Jiraiya let out a stifled laugh, trying to hide a smirk. "There is one condition. You lost that part of the wager, Shorai. Until we return to Konoha—and until Tsunade accepts the position of Fifth Hokage—you'll address her properly."
Shorai's face darkened. He already knew what was coming.
"No… way…"
"Your… Wisest Big Sister," Jiraiya finished, finally breaking into a roar of laughter.
"Fuck," Shorai whispered, a rare, flat curse escaping his lips.
Both Naruto and Jiraiya froze, staring at him in shock. It was the first time they had heard the composed, clinical boy use such language. Shorai didn't give them time to lecture him; he turned on his heel and walked out into the cool night air.
—
He found her at the entrance of the hotel, leaning against a stone pillar beneath the dim glow of the streetlamps.
"Oh. There you are, rude boy," Tsunade said with a faint smirk. "Trying to hide from your new Big Sister?"
Shorai did not rise to the bait. He met her gaze with his usual quiet, unreadable stare, then turned and began walking down the street.
"What? No stinging reply? No lecture?" Tsunade raised a brow.
Shorai simply turned and began walking down the street.
"Hey. Where are you going?"
"To train," Shorai replied flatly. "I do not have time for small talk."
"Training? What kind?"
He did not answer.
"Shorai."
Something in her voice made him stop. He halted, looking over his shoulder.
"Yes?"
Tsunade's teasing expression had faded. For a brief moment, she looked less like one of the Legendary Sannin and more like someone carrying a weight she had never set down.
"Is it true?" she asked. "About my research." Her eyes lowered. "Did it really save you?"
Shorai turned to face her fully.
"Yes. The medical foundations you established in Konoha were one of the reasons my body survived its early years."
Tsunade was quiet. Her fingers curled faintly against her sleeve.
"I…" She looked away. "I spoke too harshly that night."
Shorai blinked. "What is this? A trick? Some delayed genjutsu meant to repay me for my manners?"
"Do not push your luck, brat." The edge returned to her voice, though it lacked its earlier force. "I simply recognized that I spoke on impulse. I was drunk."
"And?"
"And I have been thinking about what you said."
Shorai studied her in silence. Her guard was lower than before—not gone, but cracked enough for the grief beneath it to show.
"Whatever you decide, Tsunade-sama, you are still the one who must live with it," he said at last. "No one else can carry the consequences of your choices for you."
Her golden eyes narrowed slightly. "You speak as though decisions are simple."
"They are not," Shorai replied. "They are only unavoidable."
He stepped closer, his voice calm rather than cold.
"You are not a fool for refusing to return to a place that reminds you of everything you lost. And you are not weak for still being hurt by it."
Tsunade's expression tightened.
"You speak too easily about things you have never lost, brat."
Shorai held her gaze. "Perhaps I do. But I know what it means to decide whether loss controls the next step."
The street fell quiet between them.
"Konoha holds the memories you hate," Shorai continued. "But it also holds the people and moments you loved. No one can separate one from the other for you. You do not need to pretend that their deaths stopped hurting."
His gaze briefly lowered, the words becoming more measured.
"But if you allow Nawaki's and Dan's dreams to end with them, then grief becomes the only thing they left behind."
Tsunade's breath caught almost imperceptibly. She turned her face away before he could read the emotion in her eyes.
"I sometimes wish…"
"Be careful what you wish for," Shorai interrupted quietly. "Expectations and reality rarely become the same thing."
A bitter, almost ironic expression passed over his face.
"I cannot reshape reality to match my desires. Neither can you. All we can do is choose what we become within it."
Tsunade said nothing.
Shorai straightened, restoring some distance between them.
"I was honest with the Third Hokage, and I will be honest with you. Honesty creates trust. Trust strengthens bonds."
His eyes met hers again.
"If you become the Fifth, I want that trust between us. I will not always tell you what you wish to hear, Tsunade-sama. But you will know that I mean what I say."
For a long moment, Tsunade simply watched him. The usual amusement was absent from her eyes.
"You really are a strange child," she murmured.
"So I have been told."
Shorai turned away.
"You gave Naruto two more days. Use them as well. Not to decide because of me, or because Jiraiya wants it, but because you decide what kind of future you can still live with."
He paused without looking back.
"Good luck, Tsunade of the Senju."
He left her beneath the moonlight, alone with the memories she had spent years trying to outrun.
—
At his secluded training ground, Shorai summoned his clones and distributed chakra pills.
"If it weren't for the Soul Space's mental simulations, this would take months," Shorai said, looking between his two duplicates. "We understand the transformation now. What remains is finding the 'perfect state' and bridging the gap."
"Yet you were cutting corners with Swift Release," the Stoic clone remarked. "You could have reverse-engineered Ice Release weeks ago if you were not so concerned with your 'foundation cycle.'"
"Rushing leads to death," Shorai countered. "I need to understand how my body responds to the element naturally before I use the Stone to force a warp. If that artificial change damages me irreversibly when the effect is removed, I may not get a second chance."
His gaze hardened.
"And dependence is weakness. You know better than anyone that simply using its power can be dangerous. What if a deity-level entity—an Ōtsutsuki, or something similar—can strip away the Stone's layers? If I lack the foundation beneath them, I will be left with nothing."
"A valid concern," the Whimsical clone added, though he still looked smug. "An overlay is just a layer. But if we internalize the sensation, it becomes ours."
Shorai closed his eyes, triggering the Stone to overlay the "Perfect Water Mastery" state. The relaxation was immediate—a cold, calculated clarity that made his chakra feel like a fluid, living thing.
"Yin Release," the Stoic clone muttered, his eyes narrowing as he studied the sensation. "I have a strong suspicion now. The Yuki clan does not merely combine Water and Wind Release. Their bodies possess a Yin-dominant predisposition that allows thermal extraction."
His gaze sharpened.
"That inherited component is what creates the gap between imitation and true inheritance."
"And Swift Release is Yang-dominant," Shorai said, his brow furrowing. "The balance is delicate. If I force myself too deeply toward Yin, my already unstable pathway system could collapse."
He looked down at the water shifting around his fingers.
"Three affinities. Two directions of focus. The farther I lean toward one side, the farther the other must travel to keep pace—physically and mentally."
They spent hours in the Soul Space, repeating the sensation of the "perfect state" until the residual memory began to stick. When they finally emerged, Shorai was physically and mentally drained. He sat by a newly formed waterfall of his own making, munching on a chakra pill.
"Next step is repetition," the Stoic clone said, leaning against a rock. "Heal yourself. Process the experience. The fight with Orochimaru is coming, Shorai. Don't oversleep the climax."
"My own clone acting like a parent," Shorai muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "What a forbidden jutsu this turned out to be."
"Who else is going to make sure and prevent you from taking a fool's route, but me?" The Stoic clone gave him an icy, piercing glare. "Get back into the Soul Space. We're not finished yet."