The day after Izumi’s birthday, a knock sounded at Linbei’s door.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
The rapid pounding carried an air of impatient excitement.
Linbei had just stuffed the last bite of an onigiri into his mouth; before he could even swallow, the sudden noise made him choke, and he had to thump his chest repeatedly.
“Coming, I’m coming—”
He pulled the door open to find Izumi standing outside, clutching the scroll to her chest.
Her cheeks were flushed red from the cold wind, and her breath condensed into white mist before her.
Her eyes sparkled like two grapes freshly plucked from water, and the corners of her mouth were turned up high.
“Linbei-kun!” Izumi lifted the scroll slightly.
“Let’s learn the Fire Dragon Jutsu!”
Looking at her excitement, Linbei couldn’t help but smile.
“Come in.
It’s cold out.”
Izumi trotted inside and sat down by the low table, carefully placing the scroll on its surface.
As she untied the ribbon and unfurled the paper, a faint scent of ink wafted through the air.
Linbei sat across from her, his gaze falling on the scroll.
The content was far more detailed than he had expected.
It began with a basic introduction to the Fire Dragon Jutsu—a B-rank Ninjutsu of the Fire Style, and an advanced version of the Fireball Jutsu.
The middle section contained detailed diagrams of the hand sign sequence and chakra flow.
Every gesture was drawn with crystal clarity, and the path of chakra through the meridians was marked with red lines.
The final section detailed training points and common mistakes, written in neat, meticulous calligraphy.
“Itachi wrote this himself?” Linbei looked at the handwriting, somewhat surprised.
“I think so,” Izumi nodded.
“I’ve seen the clan’s Ninjutsu scrolls before; they’re all printed.
This one is clearly handwritten.”
Linbei fell silent for a second.
A handwritten B-rank Ninjutsu scroll.
It wasn’t just a random copy; it was hand-transcribed, hand-drawn, and hand-annotated with key points.
Itachi had truly put his heart into this for Izumi.
“Linbei-kun?” Izumi tilted her head, watching him.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.” Linbei pulled back his wandering thoughts and focused on the scroll again.
“Let’s start learning.”
There were only six hand signs in the sequence.
Tiger—Ox—Monkey—Rabbit—Rat—Boar.
Linbei studied the diagrams on the scroll three times, closed his eyes to simulate the finger movements in his mind, and then opened them.
His hands began to form the seals.
Tiger.
Ox.
Monkey.
Rabbit.
Rat.
Boar.
Six gestures, completed in two seconds.
It wasn’t incredibly fast, but every gesture was as precise as if it were a reflection in a mirror.
Izumi watched from the side, her mouth slightly agape.
“Linbei-kun, you’re so fast…”
“It’s alright.” Linbei stretched his fingers.
“Itachi is much faster than me.”
This wasn’t false modesty.
Itachi could probably complete those six signs in a single second.
But Linbei didn’t need to compete with Itachi—he just needed to master the technique.
More important than the hand signs was the flow of chakra.
The scroll laid it out clearly.
The chakra path for the Fire Dragon Jutsu was completely different from the Fireball Jutsu.
While the Fireball Jutsu involved gathering chakra in the throat and exhaling it all at once, the Fire Dragon Jutsu required the user to first compress, rotate, and split the chakra within the chest cavity before releasing it through the throat.
Compression.
Rotation.
Splitting.
These three steps were the core of the Fire Dragon Jutsu.
The more tightly the chakra was compressed, the faster it rotated, and the more fire dragons it could split into—each with greater power.
Linbei committed every word and every line on the scroll to memory.
It wasn’t the kind of memory where one has a “general impression.” It was like a photograph; the entire content of the scroll was etched perfectly into his mind.
The angle of every gesture, the trajectory of every red line, the phrasing of every sentence—he remembered it all with absolute clarity.
This was likely one of the abilities Tom had passed back to him.
A photographic memory.
“Thank you, Izumi.” Linbei closed the scroll and pushed it back toward her.
“Just consider it a thank-you for the cake Tom made me.” Izumi clutched the scroll back to her chest, smiling sweetly.
“Besides, didn’t we agree?
We’re going to practice this technique together.”
Izumi stood up with the scroll and walked to the door, then turned back to look at him once more.
“After school, shall we go to the river to practice?”
“Sure.”
Izumi ran off with a laugh, her geta clicking against the snow.
Linbei stood at the doorway, watching her figure disappear at the end of the alley.
He looked down at Tom by his feet and said, “Let’s go.
It’s time for us to head to class too.”
“Meow.” Tom yawned and hopped onto his shoulder.
After school that afternoon, Linbei didn’t head straight to the forest as usual.
Instead, he took a detour to a wasteland on the northern side of Konoha.
This wasteland lay between the village walls and the river.
The ground was a vast expanse of gravel and sand, devoid of any vegetation.
There were no trees or houses nearby, and the closest building was hundreds of meters away.
Even if he set a fire here, nothing would burn.
“This is the place.” Linbei set his schoolbag on a large rock, walked to the center of the clearing, and rolled his wrists.
Tom sat on the rock, pulled a parasol out from behind his back to open it, and then produced a hot drink, settling into a spectating pose.
Linbei ignored him.
He took a deep breath, and his hands began to form the seals.
Tiger—Ox—Monkey—Rabbit—Rat—Boar.
The six gestures took only 1.5 seconds this time.
It was nearly half a second faster than this morning—the result of him secretly practicing all day during class.
The moment the sequence was complete, he felt the chakra in his chest begin to flow according to the path marked on the scroll.
Chakra surged up from his dantian, gathered in his chest, and began to spin.
It wasn’t a slow, gentle rotation, but a high-speed, violent whirl, like a miniature tornado forming in his ribcage.
Compression.
Linbei grit his teeth, forcing the chakra in his chest toward the center.
Under the pressure, the chakra became denser and hotter, its temperature rising sharply.
He felt a scorching sensation building in his throat, like a ball of fire burning in his chest, ready to erupt at any moment.
Release.
Linbei opened his mouth and exhaled the compressed, rotating chakra in one go.
“Fire Style: Fire Dragon Jutsu—!”
A massive plume of flame erupted from his mouth, condensing in mid-air into the shape of a fire dragon.
The dragon had its maw wide, fangs bared, and mane flowing, rushing forward with scorching heat and a deafening roar.
The fire dragon flew about ten meters before slamming into a pile of rubble on the wasteland.
*BOOM!*
Gravel sprayed and sand flew.
The flames exploded against the ground, kicking up a heat wave that instantly evaporated the surrounding snow into white mist.
The rubble pile was blasted into a large crater, the stones at the edges glowing red and emitting wisps of blue smoke.
Linbei stood where he was, gasping for air.
He had succeeded.
Though there was only one dragon, though its form wasn’t quite sharp enough, and though its power was perhaps not even a tenth of the technique’s true potential—he had successfully released the Fire Dragon Jutsu.
A B-rank Ninjutsu.
In less than a year since starting school, beginning from zero, he had learned a B-rank Ninjutsu.
The corners of Linbei’s mouth curled up slightly.
But he wasn’t satisfied.
“The scroll said that those with high proficiency can increase the number of dragons and even control their direction,” Linbei muttered to himself.
“I only have one right now, and it just goes in a straight line.”
He closed his eyes, recalling every detail of the release.
The chakra compression wasn’t tight enough.
The rotation speed wasn’t fast enough.
And the splitting step had been skipped entirely—he had simply expelled all the chakra at once to form a single dragon.
In a true Fire Dragon Jutsu, the split should happen within the chest first, forming multiple chakra cores before releasing them individually.
“Again.”
Linbei formed the seals once more.
Tiger—Ox—Monkey—Rabbit—Rat—Boar.
This time, he lingered on the compression step for two extra seconds, forcing the chakra in his chest even tighter.
Then he accelerated the rotation, pushing the speed to the limit.
Finally—
Split.
He divided the compressed, rotating chakra in two, forming two independent chakra cores in his chest.
Release.
“Fire Style: Fire Dragon Jutsu—!”
Two fire dragons erupted from his mouth.
They were slightly smaller than the first one, and the brightness of the flames was a bit dimmer, but there were definitely two of them.
The two dragons flew side by side, one on the left and one on the right, each trailing a long tail of fire as they slammed into the ground ten meters away.
*BOOM!
BOOM!*
The two explosions rang out almost simultaneously, making the ground shake twice.
Two craters appeared, roughly equal in size and depth. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Linbei bent over, hands on his knees, panting.
The chakra consumption was significant.
Two dragons required more than double the chakra of one.
Given his current reserves, he could probably only cast this three times before running dry.
But he smiled.
“Two of them.”
He straightened up and turned to Tom.
“Tom, did you see that?
Two.”
Tom sat under the parasol, a hot drink in his paws, his expression clearly saying “it’s alright, I guess.” He set down the cup, pulled a small blackboard from behind him, and wrote a line:
[Keep practicing.
You can split it into five.]
Linbei’s smile stiffened for a moment.
Five?
He looked down at his hands, then at the two craters in the distance, and took a deep breath.
“Fine.
Five it is.”
He formed the seals again.
This time, he focused entirely on the splitting step.
The scroll mentioned that the number of splits depended on the density of the compression and the speed of the rotation—the tighter the compression and faster the rotation, the more chakra cores one could create.
Tiger—Ox—Monkey—Rabbit—Rat—Boar.
Compress.
Compress further.
Compress until the chakra in his chest felt as thick as lava.
Rotate.
Accelerate the spin.
Rotate until the chakra in his chest emitted a low, vibrating hum.
Split.
One into two.
Two into three.
Three into four.
Four chakra cores rotated within his chest, each independent yet not interfering with the others.
Linbei opened his mouth and released all four cores at once—
“Fire Style: Fire Dragon Jutsu—!”
Four fire dragons burst from his mouth.
They were smaller than the previous two, and the flames were dimmer.
But four dragons were neatly arranged before him, each with its own form and its own trajectory.
The four dragons flew seven or eight meters before crashing into the earth.
*BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!*
Four explosions detonated almost at once, the ground shaking in a continuous tremor.
Four craters, similar in size and depth.
Linbei stood his ground, his legs trembling slightly, his breath as ragged as if he had just finished a hundred-meter sprint.
Most of his chakra was spent, and his chest felt hollow, as if he had been emptied out.
But as he looked at those four craters, he smiled.
Four.
In a single day, starting from scratch, he had learned a B-rank Ninjutsu and managed to split it into four dragons.
Linbei turned around, facing Tom, and spread his arms.
“How about that?”
Tom set down his drink, hopped off the rock, and walked over to him.
He looked up at Linbei, tilted his head, and then pulled out the blackboard to write a single word:
[Good.]
Just one word.
But Linbei knew there weren’t many things that could earn a “Good” from Tom.
He crouched down and reached out to rub Tom’s head.
“We’ll keep practicing tomorrow.
The goal is five.”
“Meow.” Tom nodded.
Linbei stood up and zipped his jacket to the top, shielding his neck from the cold wind.
The sun was dipping toward the west, and the wind on the wasteland was picking up, blowing fine sand against his face with a slight sting.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
Tom jumped onto his shoulder, wrapping his tail around Linbei’s neck like a furry scarf.
Man and cat stepped through the snow, heading back toward the Uchiha clan district.
Behind them, the four craters on the wasteland were still emitting thin trails of blue smoke.
After a few steps, Linbei suddenly stopped and glanced back.
The four craters were neatly aligned, similar in size and depth.
“If Izumi knew I learned her Ninjutsu, she’d probably be very happy,” Linbei murmured to himself.
Tom patted the back of his head with his tail.
“Meow.” The sound seemed to say: Of course she would.
Linbei smiled, turned back, and continued walking.