Twilight descended upon Konohagakure like a velvet curtain, draping the village in a warm, amber glow. The sun dipped low over the horizon, its last rays slipping through the branches of towering trees that bordered the wide, open Uchiha training grounds. Crickets began to chirp in rhythmic patterns, heralding the approach of night. In this tranquil space, the serenity of dusk was disrupted by the sharp, rhythmic thwack of wood slicing the air.
Renjiro stood in the middle of the field, his lean muscles glistening under the fading sunlight. A simple black tank top hugged his lean, wiry frame, soaked around the chest and back. His long, crimson hair was tied loosely at the base of his neck, though stubborn strands had come undone, clinging to his cheeks and brow as sweat trickled down his temple. His breathing was steady but deep, a testament to the intensity of his training session.
The air shimmered around him with latent chakra as he danced between nine worn wooden training dummies, arranged in a circle around him like silent sentinels. Each dummy was scarred—cracks in the wood, missing chunks where strikes had landed too true and faded paint marking where vital points used to be. Yet they still stood, barely, as tools of relentless practice.
"Clink!"
"Clink!"
Thin metallic bangles on Renjiro's wrists shimmered in the twilight, catching the last light of day as they jingled faintly with every motion. They were more than ornamental. Seals glowed faintly on their surface, pulsating in tandem with the chakra coursing through his body. With a fluid motion, Renjiro spun his bō staff in front of him, the polished wood slicing through the air with an audible whoosh.
"Ugh!" he grunted, lunging forward, planting the end of the bō into the ground. Using it as a pivot, he propelled himself into a forward somersault, landing just outside the circle of dummies. As he landed, the bō extended forward in a piercing strike—swift and precise, as if seeking the heart of the dummy directly ahead.
But—
Fwoosh.
The staff struck empty air, the tip coming just shy of its intended target. A burst of air rippled forward, rustling the dummy's hairline cracks and causing the one next to it to shudder on its stand. Yet, they remained upright.
"Tch."
Renjiro narrowed his brow in frustration. A sharp click echoed through the clearing. "Click!" At the end of the bō, a thin, curved blade snapped out with a metallic snap, but even with this extension, the strike still failed to connect.
His eyes narrowed, frustration dancing across his face. With a small growl, he hurled the staff forward. The weapon spun rapidly before it collided with a resounding crack against the dummy's chest, shattering part of its frame and embedding itself deeply into the splintered wood.
"It's still not working!" Renjiro growled through gritted teeth.
He raised his left hand, fingers slightly curled, and focused. The metallic bangle on his left wrist pulsed with chakra. The seal etched into them—delicate spirals of ink infused with his chakra—began to glow softly, responding to his will. The embedded bō trembled.
"Hnnngh," Renjiro grunted softly. The weapon gave a soft metallic groan, then began to dislodge itself slowly from the dummy, floating unsteadily through the air before it hovered into his outstretched hand. He gripped it tightly, retracting the blade with a short hiss of metal.
The seal at the midpoint of the bō flickered faintly. Renjiro peered at it, his eyes narrowing in scrutiny.
"Was it only by luck that it worked?" he muttered under his breath.
The seal was one of his own designs—inked with painstaking detail, a convergence of chakra flow lines, elemental amplifiers, and anchor points drawn in micro-patterns. He called it Seal Model 3A: "Arashi Return." It was an auto-return function, meant to recall his weapon when it left his grip.
It worked similarly to magnetic release, though more primitive. He had marked the weapon and his bangles with identical chakra seals. When activated by channelling chakra into the bangles, a field of attraction was created, pulling the staff toward him.
It was inspired by one of his favourite myths from his old world—Thor and Mjolnir. But unlike Mjolnir, his bō didn't come flying through the air in an instant; it floated with sluggish reluctance. Only the staff's metallic segments responded quickly. The core, made of chakra-conductive wood, lacked the necessary affinity to resonate with the magnetic field efficiently.
"I need better materials," he mused aloud, spinning the staff slowly. He wasn't satisfied. The return function was sluggish—usable in training, but in real combat, it could cost him his life.
The real headache, though, wasn't the recall function. It was the second ability; size manipulation.
Renjiro had spent hours modifying his seals, testing every combination he could think of—compression seals, chakra-linked spatial expansion arrays, and even modified storage seals that could extend only parts of a weapon. Nothing worked the way he envisioned it.
He wanted the staff to extend on command—to double or even triple its length, giving him unexpected range in battle. It was, in his eyes, the most essential feature of his weapon. A surprise reach advantage could turn the tide in battle in an instant.
"And yet, it just won't work…" he muttered, rubbing the seal on the bō with his thumb.
The final ability he envisioned was weight manipulation—being able to shift the staff's weight at will to crush opponents or allow for lightning-fast movements. But he hadn't even begun to tackle that problem. He needed to succeed with the extension function first.
Maybe the problem wasn't the seals, he thought. Maybe it was the bō itself.
The staff was mostly made of a special chakra-conductive wood. It was light, flexible, and durable enough to survive clashes with blades. Yet it was still wood. And wood cracked. Wood burned. Wood, no matter how treated, remained an organic, limited material.
"Maybe I should change the material of the weapon altogether," he murmured, spinning the bō between his hands in a slow figure-eight.
The idea had merit. If he could find a hybrid material—one that was both chakra-conductive and structurally strong enough to handle seals—then maybe he could bypass the limitations. Chakra-forged alloys? Tempered obsidian with metal inlays? Or perhaps—
He paused, scratching his chin, the gesture feeling rougher than usual. A hint of stubble pricked his fingertips.
"Ugh," he muttered with a soft chuckle. "When did I start growing this?"
The soft wind blew again, brushing through his hair, tugging the loose strands from his damp forehead. The village was quiet, the soft murmurs of nocturnal insects the only soundtrack to his thoughts. Then—
"Ting!"
"Ting!"
"Ting!"
His body reacted before his mind caught up.
Renjiro's eyes sharpened, and his instincts kicked in. A flicker of silver cut through the air toward him.
"KUNAI!" he hissed aloud.
With a whirl, he spun his bō in front of him, intercepting the incoming projectiles with clang-clang-clang!, the kunai ricocheting off the staff in a series of sparks. But as the kunai deflected and began to fall, he caught a glint of something—
"Explosive tags?!"
His eyes widened.
He lunged forward, catching the falling kunai mid-air and flinging them back in the direction they came from with a grunt. "HRAAH!"
"Boom!"
The explosion tore through the far edge of the training field, shaking the ground and illuminating the surroundings in a burst of flame and smoke.
Renjiro landed in a crouch, spinning the bō behind his back, when—
"Whish!"
He felt the air shift above him.
"—!!"
He barely managed to lean back as a foot whooshed just inches past his head. A powerful overhead kick.
"Who the hell—?!"
With a flicker of chakra, he vanished, reappearing five meters back with a brief pop. He held his bō at the ready, breathing lightly, eyes scanning the dissipating smoke.
Then he saw her.
A soft breeze rolled by, and it carried with it a subtle scent—floral, yet sharp. Lavender and iron.
His nose twitched. He blinked once.
"A woman…?"
His grip on the bō tightened.
And the training ground, once peaceful under the twilight sky, now hummed with tension.
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