Precious Disciple! (Seeking votes! Seeking investment!)

"Master!"

"Brother!"

"Brother Sōken!!"

The moment he pushed open the door to the room, before his front foot had even stepped inside, a barrage of greetings smacked him in the face. Focusing his eyes, he found a bunch of little brats crammed into his newly renovated office, and he immediately understood that today's nap time was a lost cause.

"Tōka, shouldn't you be in class at the Ninja Academy right now?"

Sōken walked over and ruffled his little sister's head, then turned to look at Naruto standing nearby, and... Sasuke. That genuinely puzzled him. Naruto he could forgive—that kid skipping class was normal—but the question was, why was Sasuke skipping too?

"School's so boring! They give us unsharpened shuriken to play with, it's no fun at all."

Tōka pouted, her complaint written all over her small face.

"Tōka swapped the unsharpened shuriken for real ones today. The teacher punished her by making her stand until school let out, so she just ran off." Naruto sidled up and whispered the truth of the matter.

"I see."

Sōken understood and didn't take it to heart much.

Back in the war era, six- or seven-year-old kids would grab blades and head to the battlefield to kill. Nowadays, the Ninja Academy was getting softer and softer, churning out young people who lacked the killing intent and ferocity a shinobi should have. If you threw them onto a battlefield, having even a tenth come back alive would be a decent result.

In Sōken's view, shinobi training

still needed real weapons. Those unsharpened toys were utterly pointless.

Besides, Sōken had personally taught Tōka her shurikenjutsu. He wasn't worried she'd hurt herself. If she were stupid enough to manage that, she might as well give up on being a shinobi and settle for being a proper young lady at home.

"So, Sasuke, what's your story today?"

Sōken turned his gaze to Haruto.

"Well..." Sasuke stammered, his face turning red.

Sōken looked to his little informant at the Ninja Academy. Sure enough, Naruto didn't disappoint. The moment Sōken glanced his way, he immediately spilled Sasuke's glorious achievements at school that day. Because Sasuke had recently learned the Great Fireball Technique under his father's tutelage, he couldn't resist showing off by using it in sparring class...

"...and blew up the school building?"

Sōken's eyes went wide.

"No, no! Don't talk nonsense, Naruto! I just accidentally knocked down a tiny bit of the wall—really, just a tiny bit! The building's still standing fine at school!" Red-faced, Sasuke argued with Naruto. His lively, spirited demeanor made it impossible to imagine the gloomy, cold version of him from the original future.

"Great Fireball? You learned it that fast?"

Sōken was a beat late in reacting.

Learning the Great Fireball at age five—that was...

Well, okay! A five-year-old mastering the Great Fireball wasn't too shocking. He was, after all, the reincarnation of Indra's chakra in this life. Both he and Naruto had top-tier talent; it was just that in the original future, their talents were wasted for different reasons, so they didn't shine until they were fifteen or sixteen.

"Father taught me."

Sasuke said it very seriously.

But mentioning his father, Sasuke couldn't help a smile. He didn't care whether his father was clan head or not. In his eyes, his father—no longer clan head—had more time to stay home. And the father he'd rarely seen smile before had shown him that smile many times lately.

He'd even spent a lot of time teaching him the Great Fireball Technique!

This was something Sasuke had never dared to imagine before!

All of this

had happened only since his father stopped being clan head. So Sasuke genuinely felt it was great that his father was no longer clan head!

"Good work! But next time you use the Great Fireball at school, remember to aim it at an empty field or a pond."

Sasuke agreed, his face still red.

Tōka curled her lip in disdain nearby. Despite skipping class together to come to the Police Force, the truth was their relationship was lukewarm. Honestly, Sasuke and Naruto got along better than he did with Tōka. They were all Uchiha, and Sasuke did admire Sōken...

But that wasn't enough to make kids best friends!

Tōka thought Sasuke was a clingy pest, and Sasuke thought Tōka was way too wild for a girl. They didn't see eye to eye and couldn't play together. Naruto, on the other hand, got along with everyone, playing with anybody!

Oh, right.

Besides Tōka, Naruto, and Sasuke, Sōken's only disciple was also in the room.

As for how they ended up together... well, Kurama Murakumo doted on his daughter. Eager for her to recover her health as soon as possible, he simply packed up her bedding and sent her straight to Sōken's house.

That wasn't anything strange.

Among shinobi, the bond between master and disciple was no less close than that between father and son. Of course, this referred to true personal disciples, not the students jonin led in squads. A true personal disciple would not only live at the master's house to train but, if the master happened to kick the bucket one day, the disciple could take the son's place in handling the master's funeral affairs!

And so, the frail Yakumo Kurama moved into Sōken's home, naturally getting familiar with Tōka. It was too early to call them friends yet; their relationship was still at the acquaintance stage. Probably when Yakumo could start causing trouble alongside Tōka, they'd become real friends.

"Alright, all of you, go play outside! Don't make a racket in here." After greeting each of the little ones one by one, Sōken shooed all the brats out. They were all too rowdy, and he still had real work to do!

"Yakumo, how have you been feeling these past couple of days?"

Sōken dragged a chair over and sat down in front of Yakumo.

He opened his scarlet eyes, carefully examining his disciple's condition, confirming the stability of the seal.

"It's a lot better than before. I tried walking this morning, made several laps around the yard, and didn't feel tired at all."

Yakumo nodded vigorously.

"It's working, then. That means... looks like I'll have to really dig into Fuinjutsu after all!"

Regarding the problem with his disciple, Sōken had turned it over in his mind and come up with only two solutions.

The first was to find a way to strengthen Yakumo's physical energy—for example, transplanting cells from the Senju or Uzumaki clans to balance out her skewed spiritual and physical energies. However, this approach wasn't feasible at the moment; Sōken had no Senju or Uzumaki cells on hand.

What's more, he didn't have the technique for it either.

That said, it wasn't completely hopeless—there was still Samehada to consider.

As for the second option, which was to find a way to weaken Yakumo's overwhelmingly powerful spiritual energy—either seal it away or directly plunder it... After much deliberation, he decided to try and see if he could seal off part of Yakumo's spiritual energy without relying on his dojutsu.

As for using Konohanasakuya to steal his own disciple's talent to make himself stronger—Sōken genuinely scorned such an act. This terrifyingly vast spiritual energy was precisely the capital for his disciple's future rise.

In the end, Sōken chose to attack on both fronts.

On one hand, he used Samehada to slowly help Yakumo build up her physical energy—since he had his own training to do, it really was slow going. On the other hand, he delved into Fuinjutsu, attempting to temporarily seal away Yakumo's excessively powerful spiritual energy.

Sōken raised his hand and formed a seal, summoning Samehada, who had been happily feeding inside Konoha Prison.