Early the next morning, knocking at the door gave Shuo a splitting headache.
He squinted out the window. Dawn had barely broken; even the sun had yet to wake up.
"Who is it..."
His voice was as muffled as if his mouth were stuffed with cotton, his face buried in his pillow as he refused to move.
"Shuo, it's me, Rin!"
The voice outside sounded a little urgent. "Minato-sensei called a last-minute training session. Hurry and get up!"
Training?
Shuo rolled over and pulled the covers over his head, cursing Minato eight hundred times in his mind. Why train instead of enjoying a perfectly good lie-in? What a pain.
"Shuo? Did you hear me?"
"Yeah, yeah, I heard you..."
He answered in a muffled voice and dragged himself out of bed, his hair a bird's nest. He threw on his jacket, even getting the buttons wrong, his whole being radiating a gloomy "leave me alone and let me die."
The training ground at the East End of the Village stood near the outskirts of the Forest of Death, and even the breeze carried a hint of leaves.
By the time Shuo ambled over, Minato, Kakashi, Obito, and Rin were already there. Obito waved energetically. "Shuo! You finally made it! Any later and Minato-sensei would've made you run laps!"
"Let him. I couldn't run them anyway."
Shuo yawned and leaned against a nearby rock, nearly falling asleep again.
Minato walked over with a smile. "Sorry for disturbing your sleep, but today's training is a little special-I want to test the limits of your ability in sustained combat."
"Limits?"
Shuo blinked, looking thoroughly reluctant. "Can't we do it another day? I haven't even had breakfast."
"I'll treat you to Ichiraku afterward. A large bowl with extra chashu."
Minato dangled the bait.
Shuo's eyes brightened a little. After considering it for two seconds, he said, "Fine. For the ramen."
The training started out fairly gently.
Minato only threw kunai and shuriken, their speed no more than that of an ordinary jonin, without making things too difficult for him.
Shuo stood where he was, barely moving his feet. Occasionally, he raised a hand and gathered a glimmer at his fingertips, deflecting the kunai and shuriken aside.
His movements were languid, like scratching an itch, yet every one was absurdly precise-all the attacks struck the ground in a neat ring around his feet, never getting within a meter of him.
Obito sidled up to Kakashi and muttered, "Is Shuo training seriously, or is he slacking off?"
"Look at the angles of his deflections."
Kakashi watched the field, his tone serious. "Every one is calculated perfectly. He's deflecting every attack with the least effort possible."
Half an hour later, Minato finally picked up the pace.
He doubled the frequency of his attacks, mixing in low-consumption ninjutsu such as Wind Release: Vacuum Wave.
Shuo could no longer stand still. Every so often, his figure turned into a streak of golden light, flickering over short distances to evade-but even when he moved, he was languid, slipping specifically into Minato's blind spots without a single unnecessary motion.
"Those movement paths are so strange..."
One recorder scratched his head as he wrote. "Left one moment, right the next. There doesn't seem to be a pattern, but he dodges every time, always moving through the light's blind spots!"
"Forget the pattern. Just write it down first!"
The other recorder looked miserable, his pen barely keeping up.
After slogging through another hour, Shuo's breathing finally grew a little heavier.
Keeping Light Perception active for so long while frequently moving at high speed consumed more than he had expected.
Minato did not go easy on him either, adding shadow clone feints to deliberately disrupt his judgment.
In a moment of inattention, a kunai grazed his arm, leaving a bloody scratch. It was not deep, but a little blood seeped out.
"Shuo!"
Rin immediately stood up and tried to rush over, but Minato stopped her.
Shuo glanced down at the wound and frowned. He was not angry; his gaze merely grew the tiniest bit more serious-not because he wanted to win, but because it was a hassle. Getting scratched all the time meant treating the wounds, which wasted even more time.
When the next wave of attacks came, he did not dodge. He raised a hand and made a grasping motion toward Minato.
Four small light mirrors appeared out of thin air, forming a simple array.
The Vacuum Wave Minato had just fired struck the array and refracted back and forth, finally taking a bizarre turn and exploding against his own shadow clone.
With a pop, the shadow clone dispersed.
Minato paused, then smiled. "Finally willing to fight back? Good, very good."
He formed hand seals even faster, increasing the density of his attacks another notch.
Shuo could not be bothered to keep simply dodging either. Instead, he used the Light Mirror Array to turn Minato's strength against him-refracting his wind blades into kunai and deflecting kunai to block Rasengan. Shuo himself stood in place, occasionally moving his hands to adjust the mirrors' angles, saving himself considerable effort.
The training ground was utter chaos, yet a strange pattern ran through it: Minato's attacks were always canceled out by his own moves or missed altogether, leaving him drenched in sweat; Shuo remained composed, taking a couple of steps at most, his breathing barely disturbed.
Obito stared, wide-eyed. "Oh my god... Is Shuo playing with Minato-sensei's attacks like toys?"
Kakashi said nothing, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the hilt of his blade-he was wondering whether he could dodge that bizarre refraction of light if he faced such an ability himself.
At two hours and forty minutes, sweat finally appeared on Shuo's forehead, and his face grew a little pale.
Controlling light with such precision for so long had severely drained his mental energy, and his light energy reserves were running dry.
Minato's attacks slowed a little too, not because his stamina was failing, but because predicting Shuo's actions took thought. The kid's moves were becoming increasingly tricky, and several times he had nearly fallen victim to his own side.
For the final round, Minato simply created four shadow clones. Together with his original body, they attacked from five directions at once-wind blades, kunai, and fist-sized, reduced-power Rasengan blanketed the area, leaving nowhere to dodge.
Shuo took a deep breath and finally shed his lazy demeanor. Holding his palms facing each other, he brought his hands gently together without forming any hand seals.
Humm-
With him at the center, the light within ten meters suddenly "slowed."
It had not truly slowed; the light particles had been forcibly held in place, forming a viscous zone of light fog.
Every attack that entered, whether a wind blade or a Rasengan, seemed to sink into mud. Its speed plummeted, its trajectory becoming perfectly clear.
Amid that slow-motion rain of attacks, Shuo dawdled forward a couple of steps and easily walked out of the encirclement. Once he stepped out of the light fog zone, he relaxed his hands. The light instantly returned to normal, and the attacks accelerated with a whoosh, colliding with each other and blasting dust across the training ground.
When the dust settled, Shuo stood panting, sweat dripping from his chin, but he was still thinking about food. "...Done? Can we go get ramen now? I'm about to pass out from hunger."
Minato dismissed his shadow clones, walked over, and patted his shoulder, his eyes full of amusement. "Done, done. We'll go right now. All you can eat!"
A chunin from the medical team hurried over to treat the shallow wound on Shuo's arm, asking as he applied medicine, "That last move of yours-Light Density Manipulation? Could you demonstrate it again? It was incredible!"
"No."
Shuo refused without a second thought. "Too much energy. Can't be bothered."
Looking disappointed, the chunin could only hurriedly note down the data.
The two recorders came over as well, handing over their chaotic notes, looking embarrassed themselves. "Jonin Minato, we really couldn't record everything. His moves were too flexible..."
"That's all right. Thanks for your hard work."
Minato accepted them with a smile.
Obito and Rin crowded around. Obito bounced with excitement. "Shuo, that last move was so cool! How did you slow the attacks down? Teach me!"
"Just make the light a little slower."
Shuo answered perfunctorily, taking the water bottle Rin handed him and gulping down a couple of mouthfuls.
On the way to Ichiraku Ramen, Kakashi suddenly spoke. "During training just now, there were several times you could've dodged directly, but you insisted on refracting the attacks so they canceled each other out. Why?"
"It saves effort."
Shuo shrugged, speaking as though it were obvious. "Dodging means running a long way. That takes effort. If I let them crash into each other, I can just stand still. Much less trouble."
Kakashi fell silent, then quietly nodded after a while-that did seem to make sense. It was just that no one else could be as absurd as Shuo, taking "saving effort" to the absolute limit.
There were not many people at Ichiraku. After everyone ordered their noodles, Shuo leaned against the wall and rested with his eyes closed. The system interface popped up in his mind: imitation points at 44.4%, Light Density Manipulation unlocked, with an additional note that it had great potential.
Shuo pursed his lips and grumbled inwardly. No matter how much potential it has, it's still a pain. Using it once nearly exhausts me to death. From now on, I won't use it if I can help it.
The steaming ramen arrived. He had just picked up his chopsticks when his perception suddenly flickered-that feeling of being watched had returned.
It came from behind a second-floor window across the street, exactly the same presence as the one in the alley yesterday.
Shuo did not move. He lowered his head and dug into his ramen, quietly extending Light Perception like a fine needle pressed against the window.
Behind the window, the figure turned to leave. In that instant, Shuo "saw" the accessory at his waist clearly-a modified Konoha forehead protector. The scratches on it were a code unique to Root.
One of Danzo's men, huh.
Chewing his ramen, Shuo sighed inwardly, his face expressionless.
Tsk. I just finished that troublesome training, and now there's more trouble. Couldn't they let me eat a bowl of ramen in peace?
Before you continue