~ Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter!
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The teacher dropped from the tree and swept his gaze across the scene.
Three kids.
One slumped against the tree roots, face drained of color.
One barely staying upright, leaning on the girl beside him.
Farther off, an adult lay sprawled on the ground, most of his clothes burned away.
Not a student.
The teacher’s brow furrowed.
He strode toward the fallen figure.
Tsunade kept Kitahara Kaede on his feet.
Her hand rested on his right arm, grip deliberately light, carefully clear of his left ribs.
“Once the teacher finishes checking, we—”
Her words cut off.
Just as the teacher closed in on the rogue ninja, the man’s right hand slid out from beneath his body.
In it, a slip of paper.
An explosive tag.
The seal was already lit.
He didn’t throw it at them.
He hurled it at the approaching teacher.
The teacher’s reaction was pure instinct.
His upper body leaned back as his hands flew through seals.
“Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!”
A wall of earth erupted from the ground, barely wedging itself between the teacher and the tag.
The explosion hit with a dull, heavy thud.
Dirt and debris rained down from the top of the wall.
The blast shoved the teacher back two steps.
His ears rang.
Earth and smoke swallowed his line of sight entirely.
He immediately sidestepped to circle the wall,
On the other side.
The rogue ninja was already on his feet.
A kunai in his hand.
Charging straight for Kitahara Kaede and Tsunade.
Kaede’s chakra was bone dry.
His limbs felt weak, his head was swimming, but his eyes were clear.
He’d already seen the enemy move.
Tsunade’s hand was still on his arm.
Kaede shoved her hard.
Tsunade stumbled backward into the bushes, her back slamming against a low branch.
The impact drove a muffled grunt out of her.
She rolled over and scrambled up, shoving leaves out of her face,
And saw Kitahara Kaede open his right palm, meeting the incoming blade head-on.
The kunai pierced through his palm and out the back of his hand.
Blood ran down the iron hilt.
Kaede closed his fist.
He locked the kunai and the rogue’s hand together and held on.
The rogue couldn’t pull free.
Couldn’t break loose.
Kaede kicked him square in the throat.
His windpipe had already been seared by the Fire Release.
The kick hit the same spot dead-on.
The rogue ninja collapsed.
This time, he didn’t get back up.
When the teacher emerged from behind the earth wall, this was the scene waiting for him.
Kitahara Kaede standing where he was.
His right hand hung at his side, the kunai still impaled through his palm.
Blood dripped onto the dirt, one drop at a time.
A seven-year-old kid.
The teacher’s steps faltered for a beat.
Then he walked over faster.
Kaede didn’t look at him.
He turned toward the bushes.
Tsunade sat on the ground.
A branch had scratched a shallow red line across her cheek.
She hadn’t noticed.
Every bit of her attention was fixed on his right hand.
On the kunai running straight through it.
Kaede raised his left hand and waved it at her.
“Just a flesh wound.”
Tsunade’s tears came down all at once.
No sound.
Her lips were bitten white.
Not a single sob escaped her, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
Watching her, something inside Kaede loosened a little.
His hand actually hurt like hell.
The pain of a kunai through the palm was blunt and deep.
Every heartbeat pushed the ache along the bone.
He could endure it.
But Tsunade reacting like this, the evaluation score should be enough.
Thinking that, the pain in his hand suddenly seemed less important.
The teacher pressed two fingers to the rogue ninja’s carotid artery.
Only after confirming there was no pulse did he withdraw his hand.
He turned around.
His gaze dropped to the kunai in Kaede’s hand, and he was quiet for a breath.
He didn’t speak first.
He reached into an inner pocket of his flak jacket and pulled out bandages and a tube of hemostatic ointment.
“…Come here.”
Kaede walked over and placed his hand in the teacher’s palm.
The teacher steadied his wrist with one hand and gripped the kunai’s hilt with the other.
“Bear with it.”
The kunai came out.
Blood surged from palm and back of hand simultaneously, more than expected.
Kaede didn’t make a sound.
His face went another shade paler, and fine beads of sweat broke across his forehead.
The teacher squeezed hemostatic ointment into the wound, then wound bandaging around it in three tight loops.
Fast, practiced hands.
When he finished, the teacher looked up at him.
Seemed about to say something, then didn’t.
In the end, just one line: “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”
Impossible to tell whether it was praise or a scolding.
Tsunade came over.
She stood beside Kaede, didn’t reach out, didn’t say anything.
Close enough that Kaede could hear her fighting to control her breathing, willing herself not to cry again.
His peripheral vision caught another figure.
Jiraiya.
The white-haired kid was making his way over from the tree roots, one step at a time.
One hand pressed to his stomach.
Face pale, steps unsteady.
When the rogue ninja had moved, he’d seen it.
He’d seen all of it.
He’d wanted to move.
Wanted to get up and charge over, do something.
His legs hadn’t listened.
His knees couldn’t find any strength.
His whole body had slid down from the tree roots, and then he’d scrambled back up, and by the time he was on his feet, it was already over.
Jiraiya’s gaze settled on the bandaged right hand.
It stayed there for several seconds.
Dark red was seeping through the wrap.
Jiraiya said nothing.
Kaede glanced at him and didn’t think much of it.
Jiraiya’s feelings weren’t his problem.
He wasn’t Kaede’s target.
“We’re heading back.” The teacher stood, hauled the rogue ninja off the ground.
“Exercise is terminated.
Follow me.”
The three kids fell in behind him down the mountain.
Kaede walked in the middle.
As they moved, Tsunade kept glancing sideways at his hanging right hand.
Only when the dark red on the bandages held steady — not spreading — would she pull her gaze away.
A moment later, she’d look again.
Jiraiya didn’t say a word the whole way.
Normally, he talked the most.
Any occasion, any situation, he could always find something to say.
Between classes he’d trail after Tsunade and chatter for ages, and even when she snapped at him, he’d just laugh it off without a care.
Now, nothing.
He walked with his head down, watching the path beneath his feet.
Occasionally he’d kick a pebble on the road.
He never looked to see where it went.
Just before the academy gate, Jiraiya suddenly spoke.
“Hey.”
His voice was quiet, a far cry from his usual volume.
Kaede turned his head.
“Teach me.”
Two words.
No preamble.
No follow-up.
Kaede looked at him for a moment and thought it over.
Jiraiya.
One of the future Legendary Sannin of Konoha.
The Toad Sage.
Teacher of the Fourth Hokage.
Right now he was just a seven-year-old kid.
One kick from a rogue ninja had sent him flying into a tree.
He’d slid to the ground and watched someone else protect the person he’d wanted to protect.
But his eyes held something.
Not talent.
Something rarer than talent.
“Pass the minimum bar in taijutsu class first.
Then we’ll talk.”
Kaede turned his head back and kept walking.
“…So that’s a yes?”
“Didn’t say no.”
At the academy gate, the three of them stopped.
The teacher gave a few brief instructions, then carried the rogue ninja off to report.
Tsunade reached out and grabbed Kaede’s left sleeve.
“Don’t use your hand to catch a blade.
Ever again.”
Her voice was flat, like she was commenting on the weather.
Like she was saying, do it again and I won’t speak to you.
Kaede looked down at the corner of his sleeve pinched between her fingers.
“Alright.”
Tsunade let go.
She stood there for two seconds, then turned and walked away.
Three steps.
She stopped and looked back.
“Come on.
Hospital.
Get that wound treated.”
Kaede followed.
…
➤ Next: The Last Piece