After their talk was done, Yohei lingered for a while longer, seated atop the rock as he watched over Konoha. Below him, the village moved in its usual rhythm – distant chatter, the faint clatter of tools, the muted shuffle of countless lives carrying on.
The Hokage had already returned to his duties, leaving him alone with the view – and his thoughts.
A few minutes later, Yohei finally pushed himself up and moved on as well.
He wondered what he should be doing now, mentally going over any tasks he might still need to complete before the day was over… but came up oddly empty. There was nothing particularly pressing beyond getting in contact with his team, and–
His train of thought derailed abruptly when his stomach let out a loud, drawn-out groan, making its displeasure at the lack of sustenance well known.
Yohei chuckled under his breath, glancing around as he considered what he could buy as a sacrifice to appease his belly.
His eyes landed on a stand selling chicken meatballs.
He blinked – and then a gleam entered his eyes as a grin spread across his face.
-~=~-
Each Clan of Konoha did its own thing when it came to their compounds.
The Yamanaka, for example, maintained a lightly walled area on the south-eastern side of the village. It remained open during both day and night for traffic, but still made it clear that this was their territory.
Other people were still able to live there, though that was mostly limited to extended family – those who had married into the clan.
The Hyuuga, on the other hand, went completely in the opposite direction – even more restrictive than the Uchiha had been before their isolation following the Nine-Tails' attack. Their compound, one of the largest in the village, was fully enclosed by tall walls and guarded entrances.
It felt less like a neighborhood and more like a village within the Village.
The Akimichi went in a strange lateral direction compared to both. Their compound was largely open, with walls only in specific sections. People could freely move through it, even open businesses there – but to actually live on those streets, you had to belong to the family in some way.
And the Inuzuka Clan Compound – where Yohei was heading now – could barely be called a compound at all.
It wasn't truly separated from the rest of the village in any meaningful way. Someone could walk in without even realizing they had crossed into clan territory. The only real indicators were the scattered plaques marking where their land began…
…and the sheer number of dogs everywhere, of course.
He had grown very familiar with the area over the past weeks, given how often he came by – almost daily to check up on Mugetsu, and on weekends to train with Hana.
Because of that, he recognized – and was recognized by – plenty of people as he walked the streets.
Which was why he noticed something that made him quietly exasperated.
While some villagers looked at him with surprise or confusion at his new features, plenty of others regarded him with clear recognition.
'Ninja village my ass,' Yohei grumbled internally. 'Bunch of gossipers is what they are.'
"Yo, kid!"
One of the Inuzuka called out to him – a tall, broad-shouldered man accompanied by what looked like a Mexican wolfdog on steroids.
"Smile!" the man said, hooking his thumbs into his cheeks and pulling them into a wide, fanged grin.
Yohei rolled his eyes but complied, baring his own teeth in an exaggerated smile.
"Hahisphied?" he asked, words slurring slightly around his open mouth.
The man barked a laugh, giving Yohei a firm pat on the shoulder.
"Finally got proper fangs on ya! Good for you!"
And just like that he was walking off again, his Ninken padding past Yohei – pausing just long enough to lean into him for scritches before trotting after her partner.
Yohei shook his head with a small smile, continuing his trek toward the big house – more of a manor, really – sitting at the end of the street.
Before he could even raise his hand to knock, the door was already opening, revealing the person he had come to see.
"Oh my, is that the Clan Leader of the Kuroyama?" Hana asked teasingly. She was dressed in matching dark blue shorts and a sleeveless top, casual and comfortable. With exaggerated pomp, she bowed deeply. "It's an honor, Kuroyama-dono."
Yohei wasn't entirely sure what kind of face he made in response, but it was apparently good enough to send the Inuzuka woman into a fit of laughter.
"I just got the papers done this morning – how is it that you already know about it?" Yohei asked, grumbling. "Aren't ninja supposed to hoard secrets or something?"
"It's precisely because there are so many things we do need to keep secret that when something comes up that we don't, we take the opportunity to share it as much as possible," Hana explained, a grin tugging at her lips as her eyes lingered on his new features. "Besides, it's not every day that something as juicy as a new Clan pops up, you know?"
Yohei let out a sigh. "Whatever. Can I come in? I brought an offering."
He raised the hand holding the paper bag filled with meatballs – or at least, he thought he did. The sudden lack of weight made him blink in confusion, his gaze snapping downward to find his hand empty.
He looked up, stupefied.
Hana was holding the bag – already on her third meatball.
"How the hell do you do this?" he asked, incredulous.
She only chuckled in response, offering no explanation as she turned and headed back inside, casually waving him in.
Shaking his head, Yohei sighed and followed after her.
As he stepped into the house, a thought surfaced.
"Thanks for the help," he said as they walked through the spacious halls. "Back during my mission, I mean."
Hana waved it off dismissively. "No need to thank me. We're Konoha shinobi – it's only natural that we help each other."
Yohei grinned teasingly. "Then you don't want the tsukune?"
"What tsukune?" she asked just as teasingly, crumpling the now-empty paper bag and idly tossing it toward a trash can without even looking.
Yohei snorted.
As they walked, his gaze drifted to the side, landing on a framed photo displayed along the wall.
It showed a younger Hana smiling brightly, proudly holding up her forehead protector. Behind her stood her mother, ruffling her hair with one hand while holding up an adorable, much smaller Kiba with the other.
"Where's Kiba?" Yohei asked as they passed the photo.
He hadn't actually seen his former classmate that often during his visits, though they'd crossed paths once or twice.
Kiba, being Kiba, behaved somewhere between an insufferable ass and a friendly asshole – someone who saw Yohei as a sort of ally now that he had a ninja dog too.
He had also challenged Yohei to a fight more than once, but Hana would always tell him to fight her first before going around picking fights with others – which was usually enough to make him drop the idea.
Hana let out an exasperated sigh.
"He's on a 'date'."
"Why the finger quotes?" Yohei asked with clear mirth.
"Because he's the only one who knows this is supposed to be a date," she said dryly, making Yohei snort. "He said something about how nonchalance is attractive, and how it would be better if the girl decided by herself that it was a date… I don't know, I stopped listening when the little bastard had the gall to try and explain to me how the mind of a woman works."
Yohei snickered. "Who's the lucky lady?"
"The Hyuuga girl."
Yohei winced. "Oof. Pretty sure she already has her eyes on someone else."
"Good," Hana said, surprising him. "Maybe the competition will light a fire in his ass and he'll put it to use in the training yard."
Yohei hummed thoughtfully before shaking his head. "I don't get it. Kiba has a whole… thing about strength, and while he's one of the strongest in class, he's not the strongest. I don't see why he wouldn't train."
"It's not that he doesn't train," Hana corrected. "He just doesn't do it nearly as much as he should. A few years back, when he first got Akamaru, he would spend all of his free time in the yard with our mom – either being beaten into the ground or practicing the Clan's jutsu until he couldn't anymore. That drive, combined with his talent made him grow fast. He's well beyond the point I was at when I was his age."
She paused, her mouth flattening slightly.
"The problem is that the praise got to his head, and he got complacent." She drawled the last word dryly.
Hana let out a sigh, scratching at her spiky brown hair. "He thinks that just because he's ahead of the curve that he's hot shit, and that the only reason he wasn't at the top of the class in the Academy is because he couldn't use jutsu to fight."
"He knows that also goes for everyone else, right?" Yohei asked, a sardonic smile tugging at his lips as one eyebrow arched upward.
Hana snorted. "Try explaining that to him. It doesn't help that our mom isn't doing anything to correct his behavior. She thinks no amount of nagging is going to be as effective as him getting his ass whooped by someone else."
"The Chuunin Exams are coming up in a few months – maybe I could help with that," he said with a grin.
"How generous of you," Hana replied sarcastically, making him laugh as she opened the door leading to the area behind the house.
The moment Yohei stepped through, he braced himself as he saw a giant black shape rushing straight toward him.
With a wide smile, he opened his arms, fully expecting either to be bowled over or knocked flat and assaulted with an onslaught of licks.
Instead, Mugetsu stopped abruptly before reaching him – her paws sliding slightly against the ground as her charge halted several meters away.
Her four-headed eyes fixed on him in confusion.
Slowly, cautiously, she lowered her muzzles and leaned forward to sniff him.
Yohei, who had watched the strange scene with growing confusion, tilted his head.
"Mu-chan?"
Then he blinked in realization, turning toward Hana and pointing at himself.
"Do I smell weird?"
She laughed, kneeling down as Ichi, Nii, and San – the Haimaru Brothers – padded up to her for attention.
"I don't know about weird," she said, petting them fondly, "but your smell is certainly a bit different now. More fukai, with a hint of moeta and a certain suiyoseru quality to it."
"I have no idea what any of that means," Yohei said dryly – right as Mugetsu lifted his arm, her nose immediately diving under his armpit to sniff him there.
Hana shrugged with a smile. "While our noses aren't as good as our partners', we still have a better olfactory sense than pretty much anyone else – so we had to come up with names for the smells only we can sense."
"That's really cool," Yohei said, pointing a finger at her, "but I still have no fucking idea what it mea–"
He was cut off when Mugetsu – apparently having decided that Yohei was still her human despite the different smell – shoved her head between his legs and tossed him up over her shoulders.
She bolted across the training grounds excitedly as he laughed, scrambling to keep his grip on her thick fur.
In the end, he gave up trying to stabilize himself and simply hugged her neck, scratching behind her ears and along her scruff while she burned through the excess energy.
It had been three days since he'd last seen her, and back in the village he'd only kept her summoned for a couple of minutes – just long enough to instruct her to deliver his letter to Hana.
"Good girl, Mu-chan," he praised as she bounded around. "Thanks for the help."
She let out a happy sound, the powerful wag of her tail kicking up enough wind to make his hair whip around his face.
Then, suddenly, she stopped.
She sat down so abruptly that Yohei nearly slid off her back.
Looking ahead curiously, he quickly spotted what had caused the shift.
Hana was holding out what looked like an oversized cross between a biscuit and a mooncake – and even from where he stood, Yohei could feel the strong, pungent smell rolling off it.
He glanced down at Mugetsu and burst out laughing at her expression.
All four eyes were wide and locked onto the plate-sized treat in Hana's hand. Her dark tongue lolled out between her fangs, saliva already dripping freely.
Letting go of her neck, Yohei walked over to Hana and watched as she slowly approached the massive ninken.
One hand remained extended in a clear stop gesture while she carefully placed the… whatever-it-was directly onto Mugetsu's mouth.
Mugetsu froze, transfixed.
Only when Hana stepped back and lowered her hand did she bite down.
A loud crack – like bones snapping – echoed as she chewed through the treat.
"What's that?" Yohei asked, intrigued.
"Do you remember what I told you about the adaptations she went through to be able to eat rotten meat?" Hana asked instead, reaching for a bottle filled with alcohol and pouring some into her hands to clean them.
Yohei nodded. "Super-acidic stomach, specialized liver, carrion microbiota, rewired olfactory and taste receptors…"
"Plus a few other things," Hana said. "The thing is, I found out recently that despite all of that, the nutritional value she gets from rotten meat isn't any higher than what she'd get if it were fresh. The problem is that she'll outright refuse to eat fresh meat unless it's mixed with a much greater portion of rotten."
She sighed, resting one hand on her hip as she watched Mugetsu absolutely demolish her treat.
"There are also other dietary requirements she just ignores for the same reasons. Not to mention supplements we give our ninken to help stimulate their growth and development – she spits those out every time I try to give them to her."
Yohei chuckled. "What a picky eater. And that cookie was your solution?"
Hana nodded, then paused and extended her hand, tilting it back and forth in a so-so gesture.
"One of them, anyway. I've been messing around in the lab, and this seems like the one she liked the most. It's too caloric, though, so try to keep it as an occasional treat – or for when she needs a perk-up."
"Got it," Yohei said with a thumbs up. He walked closer to Mugetsu, patting her massive head as she licked her chops. "That reminds me – how's the jutsu research going?"
"As well as it could be," Hana replied with a small smile. "I think we're close to getting something that can copy her digestive system for a time. It's why I've been so focused on it recently."
Yohei blinked, looking at her oddly before a crooked smile formed. "Why would you want that? I mean, besides the obvious of being able to eat rotten food in an emergency."
"Because it opens up the possibility of making pills with ingredients we couldn't use before due to toxicity or other issues," she explained.
"I thought making pills was more in the ballpark of the Akimichi."
"Eh, partially true," Hana conceded. "They're certainly more refined about it than we are, but it's not quite the same thing. Their pills are made to complement their Secret Techniques, while ours are mostly for general use. We're not the only ones either – each Clan does its own thing, even when the subject is the same. Something I'm sure you'll come to understand in time."
She smirked as she flicked a finger against the tip of his ear, making it twitch furiously.
Yohei immediately brought a hand up to cover it protectively, glaring at her with pursed lips while she grinned back, utterly unrepentant.
He huffed, rolling his eyes as he stood and stretched his arms overhead. "Maybe. Anyway – what are we working on today?"
She looked him over, eyes narrowing slightly as she assessed him.
"Have you gotten a chance to test out your body after the… transformation?"
"You wanna spar?" Yohei asked eagerly, a grin spreading across his face and exposing his fang-like teeth. "I have to warn you – I got a lot stronger, but I'm not used to it yet."
Hana laughed. "Unless you're ten times stronger, I don't think it'll be much of a problem."
"Your funeral," Yohei said, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet to get his blood moving as he steadied his breathing. "What are the rules?"
"Same as always," she said easily.
Yohei nodded, bringing his hands together in a hand seal as he kneaded his chakra into Yang Release, channeling it down his arms toward his fingers until clawed extensions formed at the tips.
They both stepped closer as Mugetsu and the Haimaru trio moved away, giving them space.
Raising their hands, they formed the Seal of Confrontation –
– and Yohei barely had time to react before, a fraction of a second later, a fist was already flying toward his face.
He tried to move, but the best he could do was avoid a direct hit. The punch still scraped across his cheek, one clawed nail splitting his skin as he leapt backward to create distance.
"Your reflexes improved," Hana said, sounding impressed. "That was pretty much my full speed. You wouldn't have been able to react before."
"You haven't seen anything," Yohei replied with a grin, wiping the blood from his cheek. "Aren't you going to use the Four-Legged Technique?" he asked, noticing she'd settled into a neutral stance.
"Why, missing the eye candy?" she teased, making him blush.
It was one thing to see a guy like Kiba – dressed in a baggy jacket and pants – fighting on all fours.
It was another thing entirely to see a girl like Hana, dressed in skin-tight clothes, doing the same.
It brought to mind a scene from a manga in his other life – Yoruichi fighting in her Thunder God Battle Form.
He got hit a lot while being distracted… until Hana trained that distraction out of him.
She chuckled when he didn't answer.
"That's best used for a hit-and-run style of Taijutsu, which isn't going to be useful to measure how strong you got. I just need to beat your ass the old-fashioned wa–"
'Talking isn't a free action!' Yohei thought.
He surged chakra into his legs, taking advantage of his body's increased tolerance to saturation, and launched himself forward.
Mid-charge, he spun – converting the forward momentum into a whipping kick aimed at her head.
'Strong Fist: Leaf Great Flash!'
Hana was quick enough to raise her arms in a guard –
– but a moment later she was sent flying straight into the wall.
She twisted in midair, adjusting her center of gravity so that she landed sideways in a crouch against the vertical surface, claws digging in even as the wall cracked from the force of impact.
His eyes went wide, his mouth splitting into an incredulous grin as her forearms rapidly reddened from the blow.
"What the hell kind of strength is that!?" she exclaimed.
Yohei laughed – but honestly, he was just as impressed.
Not only by his own strength, but by how quickly she had adapted to it.
She had started with a block, but the instant the impact connected and she gauged the damage she'd take, she'd abandoned the instinct to root herself with chakra – instead letting the force carry her away to disperse it.
It was the kind of thing that made it clear to Yohei that this world wasn't just made up of Genin, Jōnin, and S-Rank ninja.
The gap in experience – even between someone with strong natural advantages like him and someone with years in the field – wasn't something to ignore.
Of course, she had her own advantages.
Such as being the first daughter of the leader of one of the most martially inclined clans in the village.
"Don't get distracted!" she shouted, launching herself off the wall in a diving dropkick.
He wasn't.
Faster than he could have managed before, he reached up and caught her leg by the ankle, absorbing the impact with only minor difficulty –
Though he did get distracted by a new sensation.
Unfortunately, that brief lapse cost him.
She used the opening to twist her hips and kick off his face with her free leg, flipping backward through the air and landing cleanly on her feet while he was sent skidding away.
Dirt sprayed up into his eyes from her foot – combined with the impact, it made it hard to see.
He didn't even get the chance to wipe his face before he had to react to her renewed charge.
Her hand shot forward like a spear aimed at his shoulder.
He weaved aside to let the strike pass –
Only to realize too late that it had been a feint, meant to draw his attention high while she swept low for his footing.
He had to plant a hand on the ground, kicking up into a handstand to avoid falling helpless on the floor.
From there, he pushed off the ground, flipping himself back onto his feet just before she could follow up.
This time, when she came in again – fingers spread for a clawing slash aimed at his chest–
He chose to defend rather than evade.
Flooding his chest with chakra, what would otherwise have been a pretty ugly injury turned into five faint trails of blood instead – cutting through his shirt and burning a whole lot more than it should for such a small wound.
While their bodies were still in contact, he reached for the strange sensation he had felt earlier – one that connected directly to the tenketsu in his horns, and by consequence, to his Dark Release.
Immediately, he felt her chakra being drained into him.
Much slower than it had been when he absorbed his mom's – but still enough to weaken Hana slightly and, more importantly, shock her.
He used both the opening and their positioning to execute a hip throw.
One leg slid between hers. He shifted his stance, moving the hind leg to the right as he twisted his hips sideways. One clawed hand sank into the back of her arm, the other into her back – and then he leveraged the motion to hurl her to the ground.
The impact was heavy, kicking up a cloud of dust – though he tried to restrain the force enough that it wouldn't injure her too badly… probably.
Taking advantage of her dazed state, he moved one clawed hand to her neck and held it there until she blinked, realizing what had happened with visible incredulity.
That was the method she herself had taught him to incorporate his claws into his taijutsu.
Rather than burden himself trying to learn an entirely new fighting style, it was better to find where they could complement what he already did.
In this case – grappling.
The claws ensured a firmer grip on opponents once he caught them and allowed him to manipulate their balance more easily. Beyond that, simply sinking them into flesh while holding already caused cumulative damage – and depending on the target area, could sever tendons or exploit weak points.
Yohei was smiling widely as the realization of his victory finally sank in.
"That's a point for me."
It wasn't the first time it had happened – but it was the first time he'd managed to do it in their first round of the day.
It was completely understandable.
Hana was stronger and faster than him unless he used Extreme Muscle Assault or Total Concentration Breathing. She was also more skilled and more experienced. Her style favored speed and mobility – wearing enemies down through many smaller attacks or finishing them with a single devastating strike they never saw coming.
Yohei, who didn't have the reaction speed to handle that comfortably, was pushed even further onto the back foot because his own style depended on getting a grip on his opponent – or landing one heavy Strong Fist blow.
Both of which were particularly difficult to pull off against her.
Today, however, he had managed to bridge some of that gap – even at base – and coupled with a few surprises, it had been enough to take her down.
Hana laughed, one hand patting his shoulder.
"Good job," she praised.
But then Yohei felt where her other hand was – claws lightly prickling the back of his neck.
"Now get off me so I can kick your ass before you get a big head."
Yohei complied immediately, jumping back with a nervous chuckle.
Hana stood, brushing the dirt off her clothes before flexing her fingers repeatedly in front of her face, squinting at her hand.
"Did you absorb my chakra?" she asked curiously.
Yohei nodded, looking a bit sheepish. "Yep. That's… something I can do now, I guess. Still figuring out the kinks. How did it feel?"
"Like someone was biting into an artery and sucking out my blood," she said flatly.
"Yikes," Yohei winced. "I won't use it, then."
"Are you kidding me? Keep doing it – that was a shot of adrenaline straight to the brain," she said with a fanged grin, reminding Yohei that even the most mild-mannered of the Inuzuka was still completely insane. "Can you use my chakra now?"
"Kind of," Yohei said.
He closed his eyes and formed the Seal of Confrontation, turning his focus inward.
Delving into the awareness of his own body, he centered on the –
'I really need to figure out a name for those things… Demon Gates? As good as anything else.'
He focused on his Demon Gates and sent his own chakra inside, immediately feeling it being kneaded together with Hana's.
This time, he tried to move a smaller trickle of that potent chakra through his body.
Only to feel it resist him.
Instead of flowing where he guided it, the energy diverted – slipping through the few closed tenketsu it could escape from.
Namely, the ones in his hands.
He opened his eyes, frowning as azure flames flickered to life in his palm.
'Why did it resist being kept inside my body?' he wondered.
The first thing that came to mind was the burning, electrifying sensation of it rushing through his chakra network – coupled with the instinctive understanding of what he could do with that flame.
'This is essentially hyper-potent chakra. It tries to escape my body as a security measure – to avoid damaging it if I tried to use it to enhance myself.'
"Is that it? Doesn't look like much," Hana said as she stepped closer, leaning in to inspect the flame – which soon ran out of fuel and fizzled out.
Yohei snorted. "Really, now?"
Focusing once more on the Demon Gates, he drew out the entirety of the Dark Chakra stored within.
Turning away from Hana and the dogs, he opened his hand and aimed it toward a distant wall.
The Dark Chakra surged from his horns down his arms – painful and energizing all at once – before erupting into a conflagration of blue fire in his palm.
With instinctual ease, he shaped it into a condensed, burning sphere.
"Dark Release: Demon Fire Sphere."
He released it.
The technique shot forward toward the wall.
He expected…
Actually, he wasn't sure what he expected.
This wasn't a Rasengan, so he didn't assume it would behave the same way. He figured it would either explode or punch straight through – since "force" was usually the defining property of pure chakra manifested like that.
He did not expect it to burst like a water balloon on impact.
Blue flames splashed outward, spreading across the surface in a wide "splash zone."
And he most certainly didn't expect those flames to actually burn.
Though burn wasn't quite the right word.
There was no heat.
Instead, it looked as though the chakra was eating straight through matter – consuming it completely. Several holes appeared in the floor where the flames touched before the technique ran out of fuel and dissipated.
Yohei stared, eyes wide.
"If you hit me with that," Hana said seriously, "I'm taking it as a declaration of intent to kill me."
Yohei sputtered, whipping toward her. "I wouldn't–!"
She placed a hand on his head, cutting him off mid-protest.
"I know," she said with a smile. "I'm just kidding, kid. Still, that's a pretty potent weapon you have there, huh? Good. But be careful with it."
Yohei let out a slow sigh. "I will."
She snorted. "I know," she repeated her own words. "You're a responsible one. You can keep using the chakra draining – it's good training for me too – but don't use that fire. Warn me if you need to let it out or something."
"Sure–" Yohei began to agree, only for a kick to his side to send him flying.
"Talking's not a free action, right?" Hana asked with a wild grin as he hurried to stand back up.
"DID YOU READ MY MIND!?" he shouted.
Her only answer was laughter before she launched herself forward again, and they were back to fighting.
They kept it going for hours, taking occasional breaks to drink, eat something quick, or check on the dogs, who watched everything closely while holding themselves back from joining the scuffle – which Yohei knew was part of their training.
At the start, Hana managed to turn things around by, as people from Terra would say, locking in, despite the disadvantages she imposed on herself by not using her favored Taijutsu style and fighting alone.
As time passed, however – and as more scratches and shallow cuts accumulated across their bodies, their clothes (mainly Yohei's) becoming increasingly tattered – he gradually gained the upper hand.
It was only to be expected, considering how much he had going for him.
Even if he couldn't enhance himself directly with Dark Chakra, simply absorbing Hana's reserves was enough to wear her down over time – even after she figured out a trick to lessen the drain by shifting her chakra away from the points of contact between their bodies.
More than that, as the hours slipped by, the sun descended further in the sky, and the fading light filled Yohei with growing strength as night approached.
It got to the point that, hours later, he felt better than he had before they'd even started fighting.
And so here he was – feeling as fresh as ever, mostly healed despite the sorry state of his shredded clothes.
Hana, on the other hand, sported several bleeding wounds and was panting heavily, seated on the ground as she gulped down water, her chakra reserves fully exhausted.
She let out a satisfied sigh after finishing the bottle, setting it beside her before laughing.
"Thirty-two to twenty-four. I can't believe you beat me."
Yohei grinned, pride bubbling up despite knowing he owed more of that victory to the Chaos Gacha than his own effort – an awareness that kept his ego from inflating too much.
"I only won because you're holding back," he said with a shrug.
The water bottle that smacked him in the face cut him off.
"Ow – hey!"
It didn't hurt – there was no chakra reinforcing the throw – but it was the principle of the thing.
Hana rolled her eyes. "You're also holding back, you brat. You didn't use any of your Yang Technique beyond the claws, or did that weird breathing thing you do. It's okay to be humble, but when you take it too far it's only annoying… and insulting."
"Okay, okay, I'll try to be more prideful in the future," Yohei said sarcastically, smiling.
"You should," she said seriously. "A Clan leader needs to be prideful. Your behavior doesn't reflect just on yourself anymore, but on every member of your family… and all your descendants."
Yohei frowned, but let out a sigh. "Alright. I don't suppose there's some kind of guide for Clan Leaders in the library, is there?" he asked hopefully.
Hana's snort was answer enough.
"I figured," he said, disappointed.
She chuckled at the face he made as she pushed herself up from the ground with the help of one of her Ninken, the dogs approaching now that they sensed the fighting was over.
Mugetsu huffed as she walked up to him, carefully inspecting his injuries with her four eyes. When she reached his head, her gaze sharpened, her head tilting slightly.
"Your horns are bigger," Hana informed him, noticing Mugetsu's reaction while he looked on in confusion.
"Oh," Yohei said, mildly surprised. "I thought it would take longer."
He reached up to touch them, relieved when there was no additional pain at the contact. His horns had indeed grown – no longer just small bumps, but now roughly half the length of his pinkie finger.
"It was probably from how much of your chakra I absorbed today," he guessed. "Actually, I should release that before going home."
He really didn't want to find out if it might come out involuntarily while he was sleeping.
Jumping back a few steps to give himself space, Yohei closed his eyes and formed the Seal of Confrontation, focusing on pushing all the accumulated Dark Chakra out of his body.
It didn't take long for him to realize the mistake.
He barely managed to hold it back before he was consumed in a conflagration of blue flames.
He kept most of it contained from the waist up – which resulted in his shirt being completely erased from existence. Even so, stray tongues of chakra slipped downward through his legs and feet, reducing his sandals to nothing and leaving his pants riddled with smoldering holes.
"Fuck," he swore, looking down at himself as the process finished, while Hana doubled over in full-bellied laughter as she walked closer.
Both of them jumped, however, when the door to the house suddenly slammed open with a loud bang.
Out walked Inuzuka Tsume – wild-haired, wild-looking, dressed in black pants and a loose shirt, wearing a look that was equal parts annoyed and curious.
"What's with all this ruckus!?" she demanded – her tone more naturally forceful than truly irritated.
She took in the scene.
Then blinked.
Her expression shifted, twisting into something teasing… mischievous.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yohei saw Hana shiver.
"Oya? Well, would you look at that?"
Before Tsume could say anything else, Yohei felt a hand clamp around his wrist. He glanced sideways to see Hana staring at him with utterly dead eyes.
"I'm not dealing with this," she said.
"Eh?"
"Sorry in advance," she continued, her grip tightening.
"Eh!?"
The next thing he knew, Yohei was being swung around by the arm – faster and faster – before being hurled skyward, launched clean over the compound walls.
Behind him, Tsume's historic laughter and Mugetsu's howling echoed into the air.