Time passed like water through open fingers.Three full years vanished in the blink of an eye.
On Mount Myōboku, beneath a roaring waterfall, a black-haired teenage boy sat cross-legged on a smooth stone at its center. He wore nothing but short training pants, letting the crushing torrent hammer directly against his body.
Beneath his sun-darkened skin, power churned quietly. Not explosive, not wild—just contained, compressed, waiting. The kind of strength that didn't shout until it was already too late.
After an unknown stretch of time, the boy opened his eyes.
The waterfall split.
Not slowed. Not diverted. It was cut cleanly in two, the water stopping short as if an invisible blade had severed the flow itself.
The boy yawned.
Then he vanished.
In the next instant, he appeared on the riverbank, calmly pulling on his clothes. Beside them lay an ordinary-looking kunai, unremarkable in every way.
Only after he left did the waterfall crash back into place, surging harder than before, as if angry at being interrupted.
Tōma didn't spare it a glance.
Once dressed, he disappeared again.
This time, he reappeared in Mount Myōboku's training grounds.
Beneath his feet stretched a wide field etched with countless markings. Layered, overlapping, intersecting. Some simple. Some maddeningly complex. All of them Flying Thunder God formulas.
Tōma stared at the ground in silence.
"…I really made this many."
Some seals were absurdly intricate, the kind he had carved early on when he barely understood what he was doing. Others were only slightly more complex than the Fourth Hokage's classic marking.
Together, they represented three years of trial, error, revision, and stubborn persistence.
The problem was… even he couldn't tell them apart anymore.
The formulas had merged into a single network.
And somewhere along the way, something strange had happened.
No matter where Tōma was, as long as he had enough chakra, he could teleport directly to this field. The cost was far lower than jumping to a single marked kunai.
That wasn't supposed to be possible.
If a Flying Thunder God kunai left his perception range, he couldn't jump back to it. But this place?
It always answered.
Tōma frowned.
"So the seals are interacting… overlapping into a composite anchor?"
He didn't understand it yet.
Which meant his sealing knowledge still wasn't deep enough.
Eventually, he'd need to fully analyze this structure and replicate the effect onto individual kunai. That would be the ideal outcome.
For now, though, his limitations were clear. His seals were still more complex than the Fourth Hokage's, and carving them took longer than he liked.
"Little Tōma," Elder Fukasaku said with a smile as he watched the boy appear, "your Flying Thunder God is getting smoother every time."
"Still not something I can spam," Tōma replied calmly, pocketing the kunai. "My chakra's better, but not infinite."
He deliberately kept the kunai plain. With the Third Hokage's support, he could've commissioned special ones, but hiding a Flying Thunder God mark inside an ordinary weapon had its own advantages.
Sometimes subtlety hit harder than flash.
Fukasaku chuckled. "That won't be a problem much longer. Your chakra's been skyrocketing these past few days. Your body's officially entered its growth phase."
He studied Tōma with quiet amazement.
Three years.
The boy hadn't just followed the training plan. He'd outpaced it, forcing constant adjustments and increased doses of Mount Myōboku's secret medicine.
No complaints. No shortcuts. No supervision required.
In fact, Tōma's standards for himself were harsher than Fukasaku's ever had been.
The black ruler hadn't been used once since that first incident.
A shame, really.
"I hope so," Tōma said, smiling faintly as he felt his chakra circulate. Even now, he was already brushing the level of a special jōnin in raw reserves.
He'd always found that title awkward.
Elite chūnin sounded far better than "almost jōnin," but the world didn't ask his opinion.
Flying Thunder God itself had been brutal to learn.
He'd mastered the most complex version of the formula a year ago. From there, simplifying it was just a matter of reverse engineering. That part went faster than expected.
Actually using it was the real nightmare.
Even with praised spatial talent, activating it consistently took months.
The breakthrough hadn't come from Flying Thunder God at all.
It came from reverse summoning.
Summoning techniques were space-time ninjutsu at their core. Reverse summoning even more so. During each transfer, Tōma focused on sensing the spatial distortion itself.
At first, it was nothing but noise.
Until one day, he entered Deep Focus State during a reverse summoning.
The distortion snapped into clarity.
That was the first time he used Flying Thunder God successfully—emptying his chakra in the process.
After that, every reverse summoning became practice. Enter Deep Focus State. Observe the spatial wave. Memorize it.
The result was undeniable.
Now, Tōma could use Flying Thunder God smoothly. And the deeper his understanding grew, the lower the chakra cost became.
No wonder the Fourth Hokage could dominate the battlefield.
Strong reserves plus absolute mastery.
That was the Golden Flash.
And now, Tōma had stepped onto the same path.
As for reaction speed?
He'd worried about that once.
Then he actually used Flying Thunder God.
Turns out… he didn't need to react at all.
The technique moved with his intent.
If anything—
He felt like he was cheating.