Naruto had been made to stand outside as punishment again.
Even though Iruka's heart-to-heart with Naruto had brought them considerably closer, Naruto still often made Iruka jump with anger.
Looking over the students in his class, Iruka's gaze settled on Shinsei. If only Naruto were half as obedient as Shinsei.
The test paper in front of him, with Naruto's score of zero, made Iruka's head throb.
If Naruto really were an idiot, Iruka would not have been so angry. After letting go of his hang-ups and slowly getting to know Naruto, he had discovered that the boy was a good kid: kind, lively, and true to his word. It was just that his brain seemed to have only one track. He never put his mind to studying. If he had to relay intelligence in the future, would he have to draw pictures?
Unable to help himself, he turned to glare at Naruto by the door. The funny face Naruto had just pulled at Shikamaru froze.
"Naruto!" Iruka snapped angrily. "Put your face against the wall!"
The classroom erupted in laughter. Only Hinata watched Naruto with a worried expression.
Sasuke held back the twitch at the corners of his mouth, unwilling to ruin his cool, aloof image.
"Two students did very well on this exam. Shinsei scored one hundred! Everyone should learn from Shinsei." Iruka could only look at Shinsei's test paper to settle his mood. "Sakura Haruno, ninety-nine. Keep working hard. Shikamaru, sixty. Shikamaru, why is your score exactly the same as Choji's?"
Choji stopped chewing, afraid to speak in case the potato chips fell out of his mouth.
Shikamaru stood up, inwardly grumbling about what a drag this was. Smart as he was, he knew he could not let this topic drag on.
"Sir, I'll learn from Shinsei and make sure I do well next time!"
Iruka was satisfied with Shikamaru's attitude.
By their afternoon gathering in the little grove, Naruto had long since forgotten about scoring zero. As long as nobody brought up the dead last, he acted as though it had never happened.
He was off to one side, holding a leaf and straining away as he practiced cutting it.
Shinsei brought up chakra natures with his friends, something they had not been taught in class. Although most of his friends came from ninja clans, some still did not know much about them.
Naruto and Sakura Haruno, for instance.
Sasuke had known about chakra natures for a long time, but nobody had taught him anything beyond that. Shinsei helped by suggesting a direction for his Fire Style training, though it was only a guess on his part. After all, he had no fire-nature chakra.
For fire nature, heat was always a decent choice.
Sakura Haruno also had water-nature chakra, and Shinsei told her about the direction he had chosen for his own training: flow.
As for ninjutsu, she could only rely on the adults in her family. In Konoha, people rarely gave away ninjutsu unless they were master and student or relatives. Konoha's higher-ups were also deliberately controlling the circulation of ninjutsu. Otherwise, the Ninja Academy would not have taught only the Three Basic Techniques by graduation.
He returned home that evening and finished dinner.
He had not seen his grandfather for quite a few days and did not know where he had gone.
He could only return to his room as usual and begin studying lightning nature.
He formed the monkey hand seal with both hands, and electricity emerged from his right index finger. Picking up a dry wooden board with his left hand, he let the sparks crawl slowly across it, burning intricate, dazzling patterns into the wood.
Shinsei trained the heat, paralysis, and penetration aspects of Lightning Release.
As he recalled, natural lightning also had these three properties. Although he had not yet had a chance to encounter advanced Lightning Release Ninjutsu, laying a solid foundation first could never hurt.
As for using Lightning Release to stimulate cells and increase physical speed, as they did in the original story, he was completely in the dark. The little biology he had learned in high school in his previous life was nowhere near enough, and he had forgotten nearly all of it anyway.
When it was about time, he put down the charred board and sat down to meditate and cultivate.
He now had a fair amount of qi. A stream as thick as a finger flowed slowly through his conception and governing vessels. His experience meditating across two lifetimes had given Shinsei a deep level of meditative attainment. But his body was still too young; it was like raising his realm without raising his cultivation. His spiritual energy, however, had been increasing steadily.
But cultivation had to proceed one step at a time. There was no rushing it.
The days passed, and his friends all grew in their own ways.
At Shinsei's current level, passing the Chunin exam would not have been much trouble. Since he had only ever seriously sparred with his grandfather, he could not gauge his true level. His grandfather's combat strength was no use as a reference. After all, he was a veteran Senju who had lived since the Warring States period, so there was little point in using him as a comparison. Besides, he held back enormously.
So Shinsei had no intention whatsoever of graduating early. He would graduate normally in another two or three years, coast along in some team, and wait until Tsunade took charge to hug her thigh.
Today, he went to stop by his grandfather's house as usual.
He pushed open the courtyard gate. The courtyard looked somewhat run-down, with weeds growing in it. His grandfather's courtyard had always been very tidy before.
The main room's door was unlocked. Had his grandfather returned?
He entered the room. The bedroom door stood wide open, and a white-haired old man lay on the bed.
It was his grandfather.
"Grandpa, did you just get back today? Where did you go? I haven't seen you in so long." Shinsei walked into the bedroom, and the old man smiled and beckoned him over.
Shinsei sniffed hard several times. A faint medicinal smell lingered in the room.
"I went on a long trip and caught a bit of a cold." The old man motioned for Shinsei to sit beside him and reached out to stroke his little head.
Something was wrong. Shinsei looked at the old man. Even his thick clothes could not hide the slight hollow in his chest.
Shinsei had a good memory. After sparring with his grandfather for so long, he knew his build very well.
Ignoring the old man's attempts to stop him, he pulled aside the clothes over his chest.
An enormous, hideous scar stretched from the old man's left chest down to his lower abdomen. The area over his heart was sunken, as though a chunk of flesh were missing. The wound clearly had not healed long ago.
"You're hurt?" Shinsei's expression changed drastically. This definitely was not an old injury.
"I'm old. Accidents happen to ninjas." The old man smiled unconcernedly and took a white scroll from beneath his pillow. "There's Storm Release chakra sealed inside this. You can use it as a reference when you develop Storm Release in the future."
Shinsei stared blankly at the scroll in the old man's hand, instantly realizing where his grandfather had gone during this time. His eyes reddened despite himself. He turned away, and tears suddenly burst forth.
He had never imagined that his grandfather would risk his life searching for Storm Release chakra over an idea he had mentioned offhand. Whoever possessed Storm Release was most likely a ninja from Kumogakure. Cloud ninja were hardly easy to deal with, and that enormous scar on his left chest was right over his heart.
"I, you..." Shinsei opened his mouth to say something, but his throat felt blocked, and he could not get the words out.
"Hey!" The old man patted Shinsei's shoulder. "Act like a man!"
Shinsei did not know what to say. He lowered his head and stared at his toes, unable to stop the ache in his heart.
"Don't cry. I'm fine, and there won't be any trouble afterward, either." The old man pulled his grandson's little body closer and reached out to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes.
"Here, this is how you undo the seal. Watch carefully. Release just a little at a time, then seal it back up."
Shinsei did not see the old man's hand seals clearly. He threw himself into the old man's arms, pressing his little face against his chest.
The old man's right hand trembled as he stroked Shinsei's back. He raised his left hand to his face and wiped the corners of his eyes.