Yuji's POV
The grass was cool under my back, a sharp contrast to the restless heat simmering in my chest. Sprawled out, I stared at the night sky, where stars blazed with a clarity my old world could never match. Back there, city smog and neon glare choked the heavens into a dull, gray haze. Here, in this strange new reality, the sky breathed—countless stars piercing the endless black like whispered promises of something vast, something eternal.
I slapped my cheeks, the sting snapping me back. Enough, Yuji. Stop stargazing. The war loomed closer every day, a shadow I could feel but not yet see. I was still too weak, too raw. Talent wasn't enough to survive what was coming. I needed more—discipline, precision, control.
Sitting up, I gripped a kunai in each hand, their cold steel biting into my palms. My fingers tightened, steadying my breath as I began channeling chakra into both blades. This technique—chakra flow—wasn't about raw power. It was about finesse. A thin, invisible layer of chakra had to coat each kunai like a second skin, sharpening their edges, strengthening their steel. Too much chakra, and the energy would flare out, wasted. Too little, and the blades would stay brittle, ordinary. Done right, they could slice through stone like silk.
The challenge was brutal with two kunai. Each demanded perfect balance, a seamless harmony of chakra split between them. One misstep—a flicker, a leak—and the flow would collapse. In battle, shinobi used this technique in close quarters, where a shattered blade meant death. Mastering it meant more than skill; it required absolute focus, a unity of mind and chakra that could hold steady under pressure. The real test would come when I had to maintain this control while dodging jutsu and steel, my life balanced on instinct's edge.
I'd read about the subconscious in my old world—how it could forge actions into reflexes, make the impossible feel like breathing. Here, I was starting to understand. If I could train my body to wield this technique as naturally as my heartbeat, it would become part of me. Muscle memory. A weapon etched into my soul.
My world narrowed to the kunai. The stars faded. The wind dissolved. Only the blades remained, their chakra pulsing in time with my heart.
Haruki Sukomoto's POV
Dawn slipped into my room, soft light filtering through the shoji screen. I opened my eyes but stayed still, my body heavy with thoughts that refused to quiet. Should I have left Yuji to a simpler life? The question cut deeper than any blade. Without me, he might've been a farmer, a merchant—anything but a shinobi caught in the jaws of this brewing war. But that was a lie, and Yuji would've laughed it off. His eyes had burned with this dream long before I found him, a fire I could neither spark nor extinguish.
I sighed, the sound swallowed by the morning's stillness. Adopting him had woven our fates together, an unbreakable thread. He was my family now, my responsibility. Shoving the doubts aside, I rose and glanced out the window. There he was, in the training yard, two kunai glinting under the fading stars. He'd been at it for hours, driven by the same unease that gnawed at me.
Talented, relentless—but would his fire outlast the battles ahead? I pushed the thought away and headed to the washroom.
Cold water shocked my skin, clearing the fog from my mind as I bathed. Dressed and composed, I descended the creaking stairs and stepped into the crisp morning air, thick with the scent of dew and pine. Yuji stood motionless in the yard, a kunai in each hand, his focus absolute.
"Yuji," I called, my voice low but firm. No response. I frowned, wondering if exhaustion had finally claimed him.
Then I saw it—his eyes, wide and unblinking, locked on the twin blades. Chakra shimmered around both kunai, a flawless, translucent veil coating each, steady as a heartbeat. My breath caught. He's in a flow state.
I'd seen it in battle: that rare moment when doubt vanishes, when the world collapses into a single point of clarity. Time slows, and every movement becomes effortless, perfect. But in training? And with two kunai? That was the stuff of legends. Senju Tobirama, they said, could enter this state at will, honing techniques with inhuman precision. Yet here was Yuji, a five-year-old boy, touching that same realm, balancing chakra across two blades with a finesse that defied reason.
I settled under an old cedar tree, its rough bark grounding me, and watched in silence. His progress was staggering. Minute by minute, the chakra grew smoother, sharper, more refined, the twin flows perfectly synchronized. What took seasoned shinobi weeks, he was mastering in hours. The boy was a storm—raw, unstoppable—but storms could burn out too soon.
Hours passed before he blinked, the spell breaking. He stumbled slightly, then caught sight of me, surprise flashing across his sweat-soaked face. "Uncle? How long've you been there?"
"A while," I said, standing to meet him. His clothes clung to him, drenched with effort, yet his eyes blazed with life. "Since when have you been training?"
He scratched the back of his neck, sheepish. "Uh… since last night."
"You haven't slept." My tone was flat, a statement, not a question.
"Yeah, couldn't sleep. Too nervous. So I started training."
I studied him—no slouch in his shoulders, no tremor in his hands. Hours of grueling work, balancing chakra across two kunai, and he stood tall, sustained by what? The flow state? His own unbreakable will? "Rest now," I said, my voice firm but warm. "You've done enough."
As he walked toward the house, his steps light despite the exhaustion that should've crushed him, I couldn't shake the weight of what I'd seen. A five-year-old boy entering a flow state—not in the chaos of battle, but in the stillness of training, wielding two kunai with flawless control—was beyond comprehension. Flow states were fleeting, lasting mere minutes even for elite shinobi, yet Yuji had sustained it for hours. The more I turned it over in my mind, the more it defied logic. Yet I'd witnessed it—a rare, undeniable moment.
What would he become? A prodigy? A legend? Or a spark that burned too bright, too fast? Only time would tell.