~ Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter!
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Training ground.
Three people standing in a row, but the positions had changed.
Tsunade on the far left.
Jiraiya in the middle.
Kitahara Kaede on the far right.
Once, Tsunade and Kaede were never more than an arm’s length apart.
Today, Jiraiya filled the entire gap between them.
Kaede glanced at Tsunade from time to time.
Ever since the fruit incident, she’d been deliberately avoiding him.
Five days combined.
Fewer than ten sentences.
He’d noticed on the very first day, and he understood the reason.
She didn’t know how to face him.
So it had come to this.
But today was the fifth day.
Longer than he’d expected.
Kaede frowned, not outwardly.
Just inwardly.
Not anxiety.
Closer to…
not being used to it.
No one beside him to bicker with.
No one to say “it’s not that impressive” while her eyes said the exact opposite.
Something was missing.
The moment that thought surfaced, Kaede stopped short.
Really?
He was inside a simulator.
These people were NPCs.
He was here to farm evaluations and collect rewards, not to make friends.
But once “something was missing” floated up, he couldn’t chase it back down.
He pulled his gaze away and didn’t look at Tsunade again.
Not that he didn’t want to.
He needed an opening.
Jiraiya stood in the middle, head swiveling left and right like a rattle.
Hey.
What’s going on with these two?
Normally they practically walked shoulder to shoulder.
Today there was a canyon between them.
A fight.
Had to be a fight.
Jiraiya’s eyes darted sideways, stealing a glance at Tsunade.
Her ponytail was tied a little higher today.
Her profile was taut.
She wasn’t acknowledging anyone.
His heartbeat jumped two beats.
An opportunity.
Once in a thousand years.
While the two of them were at odds, he could slip in beside her, offer a handkerchief, buy some pastries, and wouldn’t Tsunade look at him with completely new eyes?
Right after training he’d stop by that new wagashi shop…
“Everyone here?”
Hiruzen’s voice came from behind.
All three turned.
He stood beside a training post, spinning a shuriken in his hand.
“Today I’ll teach you a jutsu.”
Jiraiya’s eyes lit up.
“What rank?”
“A-rank.”
Silence for a beat.
Jiraiya’s mouth fell open.
Tsunade turned her head too.
A-rank ninjutsu.
A level most chunin would never touch in their entire careers.
The three of them were fresh Academy graduates.
Genin.
“Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique.”
Hiruzen tossed the shuriken into the air and formed a one-handed seal.
The shuriken spun, one became ten, ten became fifty, raining down across the target area in a sky-darkening spread.
The wooden wall bristled with metal.
Then they dissolved one by one until only the original remained.
“The principle is the same as Shadow Clone, but the chakra control required is far more precise.” Hiruzen lowered his hand.
“Uneven distribution means either too few clones, or all of them collapse.”
Jiraiya raised his hand.
“Sensei, how long did it take you to develop this jutsu?”
“About a week.” Hiruzen tapped his pipe.
“I was already a jonin at the time.”
Jiraiya’s mouth twitched.
Hiruzen turned to Kaede.
“You first.”
Kaede pulled out a shuriken and weighed it in his hand.
Seal sequence, chakra output rhythm, he’d watched it once.
That was enough.
He threw the shuriken and formed the seal with his right hand.
One became five.
They fanned out and drove into the wooden post.
Five clean thuds, metal biting into wood.
They held for three seconds.
Four dissolved, leaving the original.
The training ground went quiet.
Hiruzen’s pipe stopped halfway to his lips and stayed there.
In his lifetime he’d seen no small number of geniuses.
But this child, it wasn’t a matter of genius.
The level was simply different.
“Five clones.
Chakra distribution even, embedding depth uniform.” Hiruzen exhaled slowly.
“First attempt…
and you reach this.”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t need to.
Tsunade stared at the post.
A-rank ninjutsu.
Watched once.
Her fingers curled tight, then loosened.
She wanted to say something.
Wanted to say “not bad.” Wanted to say “tch, only five.”
Her lips moved and didn’t open.
Not because she didn’t want to speak.
She didn’t know how to start.
Five days without a word to him.
She’d been angry, genuinely angry, but somewhere in the middle of stewing, she’d lost track of what she was actually angry about.
Angry that he’d said “the big ones”?
That was a question about fruit.
Was his answer wrong?
It wasn’t.
So what was she angry about?
She couldn’t say.
She had a vague sense of something, but it was blurry and indistinct, like a rock at the bottom of a stream, you could see the shape but couldn’t get your hands on it.
What she remembered clearly: her face had burned, burning for no reason at all, and then she’d run.
After running, she felt embarrassed.
After feeling embarrassed, she wanted to see him even less.
Not wanting to see him, yet unable to stop stealing glances.
Every glance made it worse.
Five days of spinning in circles, tangling herself tighter with every turn, a knot pulled dead-tight with no end to pull.
Tsunade bit the inside of her lip.
Stop.
If she kept going her face was going to burn again.
Jiraiya didn’t notice Tsunade’s expression.
His eyes were nailed to the wooden post.
Top of the class at the Academy, him.
Strongest in real combat, him.
First name the teacher called, him.
And the one Tsunade was looking at.
Also him.
Why?
Why was it always him?
Jiraiya’s teeth ground together.
“I’ll go too!”
He yanked shuriken from his pouch, not one.
Six, wedged between his fingers.
Hiruzen frowned.
“Start with one—”
“Watch this!”
All six shuriken flew at once.
Both hands scrambled through seals, chakra forced through,
No splitting.
The six shuriken sailed out exactly as they were, every trajectory skewed.
Two buried into the tree trunk on the left.
One shot straight up into the sky.
The remaining three flew directly toward Tsunade.
Kaede’s body moved before the thought did.
By the time he’d stepped in front of her, his right hand had already drawn a kunai.
CLINK.
CLINK.
CLINK.
Three sharp rings.
All three shuriken knocked away.
Tsunade stood at his back.
Close.
Close enough that she smelled him first, and only then saw his back.
She hadn’t moved, not because she didn’t want to.
By the time she’d registered what was happening, he was already there.
Her mind went blank.
Then her heart dropped a single heavy beat.
Five days.
Five whole days she’d avoided him, ignored him, made sure to stand as far from him as possible in every formation.
He hadn’t asked once.
Hadn’t chased her.
Hadn’t explained anything.
But the moment those shuriken came flying, he blocked them without thinking.
No words.
His body just moved.
Tsunade’s fist clenched at her side.
The dead knot in her chest was yanked, hard, sudden.
It didn’t come undone.
But it loosened.
Kaede turned his head.
His gaze swept across her face, top to bottom, quick.
Checking she was unharmed.
Tsunade caught the look.
Her heart thumped again.
Jiraiya had gone rigid.
His face was white.
He’d almost hurt her.
“I…
I didn’t mean to—”
Tsunade stepped out from behind Kaede.
Her expression was calm.
The kind of calm that sent ice down Jiraiya’s spine.
One step.
Two.
Three.
She walked straight up to him.
“Tsu-Tsunade—”
The fist came down.
Jiraiya hit the ground face-first and skidded two meters.
“Idiot!”
Her voice cracked across the training ground.
“You haven’t even grasped the principle and you fire off an A-rank jutsu?
Were you trying to kill someone?”
Jiraiya lay flat on the dirt and said nothing.
He knew he was in the wrong.
Badly, completely in the wrong.
Tsunade dragged in two breaths, chest still heaving, then turned and walked back.
When she passed Kaede, her steps slowed for just a moment.
She didn’t look at him.
Eyes fixed on some tree ahead, unmoving.
“…Thanks.”
Quieter than usual.
Much quieter, like she was afraid someone else might hear it, or maybe afraid she would hear it herself.
Then she was gone.
Kaede watched her go.
Her ponytail swayed over her shoulder.
Her steps were a little quick.
But her back was perfectly straight.
Her ears were red.
The corner of his mouth moved.
Five days of cold war, over just like that.
…
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