Ebisu and Konohamaru

"Your foundation is unstable."

Ringo stopped moving. The steam had yet to disperse, and heat still rose from his right hand. A man in sunglasses stood at the edge of the training ground, arms folded, wearing the expression of someone reviewing a failed test.

"I'm Ebisu. A Special Jonin. Lord Third sent me." He adjusted his sunglasses. "He said that child's upper limit depends on his foundation, not his ceiling. So I'm here to help reinforce that foundation."

Ringo withdrew the steam. Wind-Pressure Sound Wave and Boil Release still glowed faintly in the card slots, but Ebisu did not even glance at them.

"Your chakra control is crude. The problem isn't the amount of chakra. It's precision. You can blast steam out, but can you use it to draw a circle on a fingernail?"

"No."

"That's the problem."

Ebisu pulled out a stack of paper from his pocket. Not ninjutsu scrolls. Plain white paper, cut into palm-sized sheets.

"Chakra control training. First lesson: stick this sheet to your forehead with chakra and keep it there. Walk, run, jump. The paper cannot fall."

Ringo took the paper.

"What does this have to do with steam?"

"Steam is a product of Boil Release. Boil Release is a fusion of ice and fire. Ice and fire are two chakra natures that are completely opposed. When you fuse them, the ratio is wrong. It isn't fifty-fifty—it's forty-sixty. There's a little too much ice and too little fire. That's why your steam has unstable temperatures. Sometimes it's scalding, sometimes it's merely warm. On the battlefield, unstable temperature means unstable power."

Ringo said nothing. He pressed the paper to his forehead and drew chakra upward from his core. The paper stuck. He took one step forward.

The paper fell.

Ebisu did not laugh. Not because he did not want to. He was holding it in.

"You can't keep it stuck just by using more force. It has to be continuous. Even. Like breathing. You can't take one deep breath and hold it for ten minutes. You have to breathe out one breath at a time. Chakra control is the same. It isn't an explosion. It's a flow."

Ringo put the paper back on. This time, he tried slowing the chakra's ascent from his core. Instead of surging upward all at once, it flowed like a thin stream.

The paper stayed on. He took three steps without it falling. On the fourth, it dropped.

"Keep going."

For an entire morning, the paper went on and fell, fell and went back on. The edges of the paper left a faint red mark on Ringo's forehead. The wooden posts on the training ground were struck by steam countless times, but he still had not managed a single full lap with the paper attached.

"You're too impatient," Ebisu finally said. "It's not your hands that are impatient. It's your mind. You keep thinking about one month from now. Neji. Gaara. The finals. But you treat chakra control as a waste of time instead of the basis for all your fusions. If the ratio of ice and fire is unstable, then no matter how many new cards you fuse, they'll explode. Not your enemies. You."

Ringo took a deep breath.

He pressed the paper to his forehead. This time, he did not think about one month from now. He did not think about Neji. He did not think about Gaara. He thought only about the paper. The paper on his forehead. Chakra rose from his core, thin and even, like a faucet turned to its lowest setting, flowing drop by drop.

One step. Two steps. Three steps. Ten steps. Halfway around the field.

The paper did not fall.

"That'll do." Ebisu adjusted his sunglasses. "First lesson: passed. Tomorrow, the second lesson: hand seals. Your hand seal speed is two beats too slow. Not because your hands are slow, but because your mind is slow. Fusion has made you accustomed to using the system instead of hand seals, but the system isn't omnipotent. Sometimes, you'll need to use your own hands."

He turned to leave, but a child suddenly burst out of the bushes beside the training ground.

"Big bro! You're that steam big bro!!"

Konohamaru. Goggles perched on his head, a kunai in his hand. Not a real kunai, but a wooden one, with a crooked face drawn on it. He rushed up to Ringo, pushed his goggles onto his forehead, and stared at him with huge, round eyes.

"I saw it! The preliminaries! You punched that bandage guy from the Sound Ninja flying! Steam! Golden steam! Let me see! Let me see!!"

Ringo looked at Ebisu. Ebisu coughed.

"This is Konohamaru. Lord Third's grandson. He's been pestering me lately, saying he wants to learn steam. I told him I don't teach steam, and he said, 'Then take me to the steam big bro.'"

"Your grandfather is Lord Third?"

Konohamaru's expression immediately fell. "Hmph! I don't need his protection! I want to learn your steam. It's better than anything he teaches me. Those basic Fire Release lessons he teaches are boring to death. I want steam."

Ringo looked at him. Not as a noisy child, but as someone a little like himself. Not because their backgrounds were alike, but because they shared the feeling of not wanting to be crushed under the label of being someone's grandson.

"Then you need to run ten laps first."

"Ten laps?! Around the training ground?!"

"Yeah. Run ten laps, and I'll teach you a small steam technique. Not golden steam. White steam. But it's still steam."

Konohamaru froze for a second, then turned and ran. He clutched the wooden kunai in his hand, his running posture crooked and clumsy. His goggles slipped from his forehead to cover his eyes, but he did not bother fixing them.

Ebisu watched Konohamaru's back in silence for a while.

"Lord Third rarely lets others teach his grandson. It isn't because he doesn't trust them. It's because he spoils him too much. But he said you were different. You and Konohamaru have the same thing."

"What?"

"Neither of you wants to be defined by where you came from."

Ringo said nothing. Konohamaru ran along the edge of the training ground. By the third lap, he was panting. By the fifth, his legs had begun to wobble, but he did not stop. He fell once, got up, and kept running. On the seventh lap, he shouted at Ringo, "Big bro—you—don't—leave—wait for me—to finish—"

The tenth lap.

Konohamaru collapsed onto the ground. His face pointed upward, his goggles crooked beneath his chin, mouth hanging open as he panted like a dried-out fish.

"I—finished—give me—steam—steam—"

Ringo crouched down. He raised his right hand, and chakra surged from his palm. Not golden steam, but white. Pure water vapor, without the heating of Boil Release—just ordinary steam. He gently pushed it outward, and the mist circled Konohamaru's face, cool and beaded with droplets.

"This is steam?"

"The lowest grade. But it's yours now. Not my fusion. I taught it to you. Practice it yourself. Control it yourself. One day, when you can make it hot, then make it golden, it'll become your steam."

Konohamaru stretched out his hand. The white mist curled around his fingertips, then dispersed. He tried again, and it dispersed again. The third time, the mist lingered in his palm for a second.

"It stopped! Big bro! It stopped!!"

His voice echoed across the training ground. In the distance, Ebisu's eyes behind his sunglasses seemed to be looking somewhere else, but the corners of his mouth curled up.

Evening.

Before leaving, Ebisu stopped at the entrance to the training ground.

"Lord Third asked me to tell you this. One month from now, whether you win or lose, you're no longer the person you were a month ago. That's enough."

Ringo looked at his back.

"Why does Lord Third... care about me?"

"Because you remind him of himself when he was young." Ebisu did not turn around. "Not your strength. Your eyes. There's something in your eyes called direction. Lord Third had it too, many years ago. Later, he became Hokage, and direction became responsibility. But you're still on the road. He said that watching you was like watching himself start over."

Ebisu left. His sunglasses reflected a small glint in the sunset, flashing once before vanishing.

Ringo stood in the middle of the training ground.

Konohamaru was still practicing steam nearby. White mist curled around his fingertips. Sometimes it stayed, sometimes it dispersed, but his eyes never left it. He was not looking at steam. He was looking at a direction.

Ringo lowered his head to look at the card slots.

The system displayed a line of text.

"Detected—teaching-type drop—Ebisu—chakra control fragment—white—collected consecutively—×3—from—high-quality teaching feedback—triggered—teaching drop mechanism—currently active."

Three white fragments. They had not come from battle. They had come from learning. So the system did not only produce drops from enemies. It could produce them from teachers as well. When the teacher taught with care and the student learned with focus, drops occurred naturally.

Ringo placed the three white fragments into the card slots. They automatically arranged themselves, gathering with the previous basic chakra control fragments and gradually forming a new formula. Not a new ninjutsu, but a new foundation.

The thicker the foundation, the steadier the fusion.

That was what Ebisu had taught him. Not with words, but with that stack of white paper.