Hand Seals

(Chapter Nine: Hand Seals)

Soon, Mirai was standing on the roughly one-meter-high post, holding a one-legged pose like a golden rooster. Ten minutes passed, and a few children fell off. They had just finished a long run and were already low on energy.

Still, Teacher Nakamura had planned the training very sensibly. Many of them could barely run another step, and this time they didn't have to—but the exercise had still drained them, especially after such an intense run. It was a test of their willpower.

None of the children who wanted to become ninjas wanted to fall behind the others, let alone come in last. Gritting his teeth, Mirai kept going. After half an hour, more than half the students had fallen to the ground, and Teacher Nakamura had recorded everyone's results.

After an hour, only two people were still standing on their posts: Mirai and Uchiha Itachi. Mirai had been struggling for a while, but he wanted to live. What was a little perseverance compared to that?

Nakamura Hino nodded, privately thinking that children from great clans were indeed much stronger than the others. "All right, time's up. You two can come down." Mirai jumped off the post, feeling as though he'd been pardoned, but his legs gave way and he landed on the ground. Uchiha Itachi had worked up a little sweat too and let out a breath.

"Good. It looks like you've all rested enough. Next, you'll do one hundred push-ups."

"Ah! There's more training, Teacher?"

"Of course. What you've done so far doesn't even count as a ninja's warm-up. Every exercise here is designed to push your bodies to their limits. This is only the first step toward becoming excellent ninjas. I'll be increasing the intensity and adding new exercises every day, so prepare yourselves! And your performance will be included in your exam results!" Nakamura rapped his pointer against the ground, making it crack sharply.

(⊙_⊙)? Fuck! Mirai cursed inwardly, then silently began doing push-ups. A hundred wasn't difficult for him—at least, not when he was in good shape. With one training exercise following another, though, even he was starting to struggle.

Still, he knew Teacher Nakamura was right. This didn't even count as a ninja's warm-up. It looked like he really would become an excellent ninja.

Mirai finished first, since he'd started earlier. The other children soon finished too. By the end, they could feel that they'd truly worked every part of their bodies.

"Good. Since you're my students, I'll guide you until you graduate as excellent ninjas. To reward you for working so hard today, I'll teach you a hand seal."

"Teacher, what's a hand seal?" asked a child from a civilian family who hadn't had much contact with ninjas.

"Good question. Ninjas use hand seals when performing ninjutsu. The seals let you convert the chakra you've refined into a 'technique' and release it. You need a calm mind to make sure your seals are correct, and you also need to practice until you can perform them skillfully. Any mistake can cause a technique to fail or lose power, wasting chakra. So if you want to learn ninjutsu, you first need to learn hand seals."

"Then, Teacher, what's chakra?"

"Chakra is an energy created by perfectly combining spiritual and physical energy. Put simply, it's the energy you need to use ninjutsu. The physical energy is drawn, one cell at a time, from the body's ten trillion cells. Through training and experience, you also build up spiritual energy."

"But you're still young. I'll teach you how to refine chakra in future lessons. Don't try it too much yet. You're still growing, and if you use up too much energy from your cells, you won't grow as tall. It's best to wait until you're five or six before using ninjutsu that takes a lot of energy—but even then, don't use it too often..."

"Like Teacher Nakamura? That's really scary!" blurted out a child. A vein suddenly appeared on Teacher Nakamura's forehead.

"Yeah, yeah. I can't end up like Teacher Nakamura, so I'd better not learn any powerful techniques yet."

"Exactly! Teacher Nakamura must have used lots of powerful techniques back in the day..."

Listening to all the students, Nakamura Hino finally snapped and shouted, "Enough! I was born this way!" The students looked at him with even more wordless sympathy, making Teacher Nakamura all the more irritated. Several generations of students he'd taught had teased him about his height.

Listening to the children and Teacher Nakamura, Mirai smiled too. Nakamura Hino was only about 1.6 meters tall, perhaps even shorter, but that made him seem more approachable. It was probably why the students felt comfortable joking with him. Mirai thought he was a good teacher: he taught them the right things and gave them useful reminders that made the lessons easier to remember.

"Are you going to learn or not? If you're not, then we'll do it another—"

"We'll learn!"

"Then watch closely. This is the Rat Seal, one of the twelve basic hand seals. Overlap your thumbs, with your right thumb on top. Like this." Nakamura Hino formed the Rat Seal with both hands. The students gathered around to watch carefully, then began practicing. The Rat Seal looked simple, and they all picked it up quickly.

"Don't underestimate this just because it's simple. You need to practice it often. There are twelve seals in total, but the number and sequence of seals differ for every technique. Some powerful techniques even require more than forty seals. A mistake in the order, the movements, or any other step can make the technique fail or weaken it. You also need to form the seals quickly. If your opponent can finish the same seals one second faster than you, you can imagine how things will turn out."

"So keep practicing your hand seals when you get home. After each training session, I'll teach you a new one. Once you can all perform the seals skillfully, I'll teach you ninjutsu."

"Really, Teacher Nakamura?" All the students were thrilled to hear they'd get to learn ninjutsu. It was as if they'd completely forgotten how tired they were. Mirai couldn't help admiring the children's boundless energy.