Training Field 11 didn't smell like a forest anymore. It smelled like a lumber mill that had exploded inside an iron foundry.
The scent of fresh, sap-heavy pine sawdust hung thick in the humid afternoon air, mixing sharply with the metallic tang of polished steel warming in the sun. It was an aggressive, industrial perfume that tickled the back of my nose before I even cleared the tree line.
"You came!"
Tenten was standing in the center of the clearing, surrounded by chaos.
Or, more accurately, she was surrounded by an army.
Dozens—no, scores—of wooden training dummies were scattered across the field. They were everywhere: perched on tree branches, hiding behind rocks, clustered in groups of three in the open grass. Some were standard-issue Konoha logs; others were intricate, articulated wooden mannequins that looked expensive.
"Whoa," I said, stepping over a stray caltrop. "Did you rob a puppet theater?"
Tenten grinned. She looked exhausted but electric. Her buns were slightly askew, and there was a smudge of grease on her cheek, but her brown eyes were vibrating with an intensity I usually only saw in Rock Lee.
"Shōseki," she said, gesturing grandly to the wooden legion. "I told him I needed target practice that simulated a 'rich target environment.' He apparently took that as a challenge. He had these delivered this morning from the Research Facility."
"He likes you," I noted, nudging a dummy that had a bullseye painted on its forehead.
"He likes data," Tenten corrected, though she adjusted her gloves with a pleased snap. "He wants to see how the prototypes hold up against stress."
She walked to the center of the field. The grass here was flattened, beaten down by hours of pacing.
"I've been thinking about what you said," Tenten started, her voice dropping an octave, becoming serious. "Back during the training month. About finding my own path. About not just throwing things, but placing them."
She reached behind her back.
Snk.
The sound of the giant scroll unlatching from its harness was crisp, cutting through the droning buzz of the cicadas.
"I realized something," she said, holding the scroll closed for a second longer. "I've been treating weapons like ammo. Use them, lose them, buy more. But that's wrong."
She threw the scroll into the air.
It unrolled like a dragon's tongue, a long ribbon of white paper spiraling upward, defying gravity with a surge of chakra. The ink kanji written on the paper seemed to shimmer, wet and black.
"Weapons aren't ammo, Sylvie," Tenten whispered. "They're limbs."
The air pressure in the clearing dropped.
It wasn't the heavy, crushing weight of the Tailed Beast Bombs I had seen yesterday. This was sharper. It felt like walking into a room filled with static electricity. The hair on my arms stood up.
Tenten didn't weave a long string of signs. She slammed her palm onto the unrolling scroll.
"Rising Twin Dragons: Weapon Control!"
She didn't summon a dragon made of smoke. She summoned an armory.
POOF.
White smoke exploded outward, smelling of gunpowder and oil. But before it could clear, the metal came.
It wasn't just kunai and shuriken. It was everything.
Heavy iron maces. Slender rapiers. Jagged saws. Curved scimitars. They materialized in the air around her, suspended in a halo of blue chakra, hovering for a split second like a suspended explosion.
Then, she moved.
She didn't throw them. She conducted them.
Tenten spun, her arms sweeping out in a wide arc. The weapons obeyed.
KACHOW.
A massive war hammer launched itself at a armored dummy twenty feet away. It didn't arc; it flew straight and true, propelled by invisible force.
CRASH.
The dummy disintegrated. Splinters of wood exploded outward like shrapnel, raining down on the grass.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Three kunai buried themselves up to the hilt in the "necks" of three dummies hiding in the trees. The impact was simultaneous—a triplet beat of destruction.
Tenten pivoted, her foot sliding in the dirt. She gestured with two fingers.
SHING.
A broadsword spun like a buzzsaw, shearing through a row of targets with a wet, heavy thunk-thunk-thunk before burying itself in a boulder.
CRACK. CRACK.
Two arrows, launched without a bow, pinned a moving target to a tree trunk.
She was dancing in the center of a steel hurricane. Every movement of her body corresponded to a lethal impact. She wasn't aiming with her eyes; she was aiming with her intent.
CRACK. CRASH.
The final target—a reinforced dummy plated in iron—stood at the far end of the field.
Tenten brought her hands together. A massive, spiked iron ball materialized above her head.
"Drop," she commanded.
BOOM.
The ball slammed into the dummy, driving it into the earth, kicking up a cloud of dust that tasted of pulverized soil and victory.
Silence rushed back into the clearing.
The scroll fluttered harmlessly to the ground, empty of ink.
I stared at the devastation.
Every single target was dead. Not just hit—destroyed.
Tenten stood in the center, chest heaving, sweat dripping from her nose. She looked like the god of war's favorite daughter.
"How the hell did you do that?" I breathed, walking over to inspect the wreckage of the iron-plated dummy. "That wasn't just throwing. That was... telekinesis."
Tenten wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, grinning.
"Connection," she panted.
She walked over to a kunai lodged in a tree. She didn't yank it out; she touched the handle, and it seemed to loosen on its own, sliding into her grip.
"For my jutsu to work properly," she explained, her breathing slowing, "my weapons need to be extensions of myself. I realized... I can't just use weapons that are given to me. Those are the weakest. They're cold. I have no connection to them."
She pulled a standard-issue shuriken from her pouch and tossed it. It landed with a dull thud.
"Store-bought," she dismissed. "They work, but they're dead weight."
Then, she picked up a strange, hand-carved wooden kunai from the ground. It was rough, unfinished, but the balance looked perfect.
"But this?" She held it up. "I carved this. I picked the wood. I sat up all night sanding the edges."
Her eyes glowed.
"As long as I am the one putting the effort into the weapon, I can form a connection. If I create it—or even just help forge it—I imbue it with my chakra during the process. It remembers me."
She threw the wooden kunai. It curved in mid-air—an impossible arc—and struck a falling leaf, pinning it to the tree bark.
"I can control the angle. The momentum. And..."
She closed her eyes.
"Pick up the hammer, Sylvie. Run with it."
I blinked. "What?"
"Just do it."
I grabbed the war hammer from the debris. It was heavy. I sprinted toward the tree line, ducking behind a large oak. I hid, holding my breath.
"I can see you," Tenten called out, not opening her eyes. "You're behind the oak at two o'clock. The hammer is pulsing. I know exactly where it is."
I stepped out, dragging the hammer. "You can track them?"
"If someone steals a sword I made," Tenten said, opening her eyes, a fierce satisfaction in her gaze, "they aren't disarming me. They're just putting a tracking beacon in their pocket."
I dropped the hammer. It hit the ground with a heavy thud that vibrated through my boots.
I looked at Tenten—really looked at her. She wasn't just the girl with the buns who threw stuff anymore. She was an arsenal. She was a blacksmith and a soldier and a guided missile system all wrapped in one.
I whistled, low and long.
"Brawn, brains, beauty," I said, shaking my head. "What do you need boys for?"
Tenten froze. Her face turned a bright, violent shade of red that clashed horribly with her pink shirt.
"I—I mean—well—" she stammered, losing all her cool warrior composure in a nanosecond.
I laughed, the sound mingling with the cicadas. Tenten joined in a second later, the tension of the training dissolving into the warm, easy rhythm of friendship.