Testing Each Other
The sun rose over the distant horizon, gradually waking all of Konoha.
At the residence of the Land of Water delegation, Tsunade pulled open the door and stepped outside. Sōji stood beneath the corridor eaves.
Morning light poured through the open doorway, making her golden hair glow for an instant.
Shizune bowed to Sōji with Tonton in her arms, then hurried after Tsunade.
The two crossed the dry landscape garden and receded into the morning mist, finally disappearing around a street corner beyond the main gate.
Sōji watched them go for a moment, then returned to his room. He sat cross-legged before the low table and opened the Wood Release Manual to its first page.
The title page bore a handwritten passage by Hashirama Senju. Its ink strokes sprawled like the gnarled roots of a giant tree; each character was as large as a thumb, its force seeming to pierce the paper.
Wood Release is not the art of commanding wood, but the art of life. Make yourself the seed and heaven and earth the soil. Only when life grows without end does it become Wood Release.
He turned page after page. His Six Eyes imprinted every line, every chakra-flow diagram, and every note Tobirama had squeezed into the margins precisely into his mind.
As he neared the last page, a slip of paper folded into a tiny square slid from the book's spine.
He unfolded it. Tsunade's handwriting covered the slip, the ink fresh enough that she had clearly written it only recently: Next time we meet, I want to see you bloom. Don't disgrace my grandfather.
"I won't let you down!"
Sōji couldn't help laughing. He folded the slip, tucked it back where he had found it, and closed the manual.
Ugly Treasure poked his