Satoru saw the sun set on the horizon. He let out a sigh of relief as his training was finally over.
The cold winds had gotten colder these days and days were getting shorter. Satoru took in a deep breath and wiped off his sweat. 'Winter is coming...hehe.'
"Where are you going? We aren't done yet?" Shinichi said as if it was obvious. Satoru's stomach dropped, he slowly turned around and looked at Shinichi in disbelief.
"Wh-what did you say?" Satoru couldn't believe the words that came out his foster mother's boyfriend's mouth.
"We are not done yet. You're unemployed. I'm unemployed and we don't have anyone waiting at home. We are training at least twelve hours everyday—excluding rest, of course."
"I hope Mitsuki Sensei cheats on you with a loser." Satoru spat out with hate.
"Don't worry, I'll still train you." Shinichi said with a smile. He was determined to make Satoru a Chunin level fighter within these two months.
Satoru slumped and walked back to Shinichi, sitting back down in front of him. "Which torture method does your mind fancy now? You demon."
"When did I torture you? I gave you plenty of rest and tasty snacks!" Shinichi was amused to say the least.
"During the taijutsu training you started hitting me with a belt. Nawaki and Dai came to watch that time. They laughed at me." Satoru said caressing his stomach.
"They laughed and then I beat them too...sharing your pain is important when you deal with grief." Shinichi said, his face still had an amused smile.
"You made me heal them and gave them coupons to yakiniku." Satoru complained, anger bubbled up in him the more he looked at Shinichi.
"So?"
"THOSE WERE MY COUPONS!!!" Satoru snapped at him, the loss of his coupon hurt his soul.
"I didn't know they were yours." Shinichi shrugged.
"You opened my treasure chest in my room with the password and took my coupons without knowing it was mine?"
"Ding ding ding! Let's get back to training." Shinichi said, standing and preparing for another tort—training session.
Shinichi's eyes lingered on Satoru who had resigned himself to his fate. 'His chakra flared up for grilled chicken but not killing the animals in the forests? What do they puting in their chicken?'.
---
Satoru was laying on his bed like a log. He could hear Mitsuki Sensei talking outside, probably to that jerk Shinichi Sensei.
He had to force himself to take a bath and eat his food instead of just dropping to the floor from exhaustion. Maybe he did but didn't know it.
As his mind slowly drifted off to sleep, he thought of the things Shinichi had told him.
'You need to stop using your homemade jutsus like the once you used in chunin exams.'
'Why? They are pretty good, if I say so myself.'
'There are better alternatives and I will teach you how to create actual proper jutsus. Change your habits from now on.'
Satoru fell asleep.
---
It was raining the next day. The cold drops of rain fell on Satoru every second he fought Shinichi. The wet mud made it difficult to stand, the splash of water made it worse to see and the fifty kg bag strapped to his back was the cherry on top.
He went for a jab at Shinichi's leg, but the taller man side stepped him and swept him of the ground, creating a big splash of mud everywhere.
Satoru stood up from the puddle, the clay-ish soil was getting stuck in his toes, he wiped his dirty face with his even dirtier hand. Shinichi wasn't giving him any chance to rest today.
Just as Satoru got ready to attack, he got spartan kicked in the face, sending him flying.
"Heal yourself." Shinichi said, "take a break for fifteen minutes. We'll go again after the break."
Satoru wished that he had water style affinity. He wanted to wash himself so badly that he used the rainwater to wash himself... He tried to wash himself.
"The hell are you doing?" Hajime said. The police officer was confused to see and a registered criminal freely bathing in rain. He was the one who informed lord Hokage about Satoru's crimes afterall.
"Not everyone has access to clean water like you rich clan people. There are still children in The Land of Wind that suffer from scarcity of water." Satoru told the Uchiha who happened to be Hiten's elder brother.
"I meant prison. Why aren't you in prison?" Hajime asked, already taking out his handcuffs, ready to take him with him.
"No don't!" Satoru backed off defensively, "They will rape me in the showers!"
"I know. That is exactly why we send people like you to prison." Haijime grabbed a hold of Satoru's wrist. He placed a handcuff on him and tried to drag him away.
"Let go of me, you corrupt cop! You helped in those crimes—your clan conspirated it." Satoru protested, trying to escape the hands of justice.
"Easier to convict a child than convict the strongest clan of the village." Hajime said in an almost sympathetic way. His resolve wavered seeing the boy who was around his brother's age struggle so hard.
Hajime saw someone in the corner of his eye. A man who was older than him, slightly more muscular and most importantly—the ANBU tattoo on his arm.
"Ah...I see, someone important got you out, huh?" Hajime said flaring his three tomoe sharingan at the man.
That man, Shinichi just body flickered with a speed that Hajime couldn't perceive. He appeared in front of him, placing his hand on his shoulder.
"Let him go. Take your concerns to the hokage if you want, but let him go." Shinichi said with a 'disarming' smile.
The police always have hated the ANBU, they always clashed everywhere. And now, the police officer felt like he would literally be 'disarmed' by the man in front of him.
"Fine then."
---
"Your progression with the body flicker is getting better. Your experience with substitution jutsu is snowballing into it. You might be able to pull it off by the end of this week."
Those were the words of a man that was so proficient with it that a three tomoe sharingan couldn't perceive him. Even if it was a distracted three tomoe sharingan.
"Will you stop torturing me if I learn this? I feel like we have been grinding this level for too long now." Satoru said words that flew over Shinichi's head.
Shinichi tapped his chin thoughtfully before agreeing. Satoru created one shadow clone and Shinichi immediately understood what he was trying to do.
"Shadow clones can only transfer memories at face value if they are dispersed." Shinichi then pointed at the shadow clone practicing body flicker, "You will have to learn to add yin release to it to achieve that."
"What do you mean? It has always worked well so far, and doesn't shadow clones already use yin release?" Satoru looked at his shadow clone with confusion.
"You have to add more. Like dipping a biscuit in tea...Okay, that's way too simplified." Shinichi thought about some other analogy to explain it.
Satoru dispelled the shadow clone and tried to use yin release, before using that chakra to form a shadow clone. It wasn't that different, but there was a tiny distinction. Shinichi noticed it all too well.
"Satoru, mind telling me something? What are you talented in?" Shinichi said, inspecting the clone, "Is this your first time attempting to infuse yin release to shadow clone?"
"Everyone has told me that I'm pretty mediocre at everything." Satoru said thoughtfully, "No, it's not my first attempt. I tried it some time back, but it didn't work that well."
"I have some good news for you. Your talent is Yin and Yang release. Your medical ninjutsu is better than some experienced healers. If you want to become the next tsunade then the door is open for you." Shinichi said before impaling the clone with his fist.
The clone dispersed and Satoru received the memories. "Did it feel like you died or you watched someone die from first-person perspective?" Shinichi asked.
"...both?"
"You are not that far from learning how to abuse shadow clones." Shinichi already began thinking about all the lessons he will drill into Satoru in all the time saved from using these clones.
---
Satoru's training for the day was over. A truly amazing thing that totally deserved a celebration. Satoru walked through the streets, watching people go along with their lives.
"All that hype over keeping me contained, to keep me from killing ...were they overdoing it? Am I really that bad? I really screwed over Keiko, didn't I?" Satoru thought out loud, but not loud enough for people to hear.
"Peak-a-boo!" Someone said from behind.
Satoru immediately turned around with a kunai in hand. He stopped himself when he saw... Reiko. Hinanoya, as Keiko didn't want to be near a girl whose name sounded like hers.
"Ah, my bad." He put the kunai back into his pocket while she watched, "Sup!"
"Hi Satoru! I'm doing good. How are you doing?" She asked, pretending to not notice that Satoru had pulled a kunai on her.
'You know what? They were right.' Satoru thought.
"Trying to survive my training. There's not much to do ever since I moved out." Satoru said, thinking about Keiko.
"You moved out? You don't live with Keiko anymore?" Reiko didn't know why, but she was happy to know that. Very happy.
"Stuff happened. Nothing serious. Is your cousin's restaurant still open? I'm hungry." Satoru said making Reiko raise an eyebrow.
"Still open? You thought they went out of business? Did you not like our cooking?"
"Weren't you guys understaffed? Didn't a guy who ate in your restaurant get murdered a few minutes later?" the killer of that man said, making her shrug her shoulders.
"It was actually good for us. That man was a criminal who was once charged with domestic abuse. It's good that we have less of people like him around." Reiko said as they walked together.
"I see." There was a smile on his face.
"If only there were less people like him around..." She said almost helplessly.
Satoru saw something subtle on her neck, near the collar. It looked like bruises. Something within Satoru began changing. It was as if a container was filled to the brim... And then suddenly, it burst open, letting everything spill out.
"Ugh, tell me about it. There's too many assholes living among us!"
That made Reiko chuckle.