"Hah... hah..."
"For Dad... I can do this..."
Guy had been running since noon and he was completely cooked. His breathing had turned ragged, legs barely cooperating, but he kept going on pure stubbornness.
A crowd had gathered to watch. Some of the kids who'd made it in on the first round weren't being subtle about it.
"Five hundred laps? He can't even hit a hundred!"
"What an idiot — all talk."
"If you didn't pass, just go home already..."
Guy didn't react. He just picked himself up off the ground and kept running — and somehow, impossibly, he was faster than before he'd fallen. Like hitting the wall had unlocked something.
The crowd wanted a spectacle. This wasn't it. One by one, they drifted away. Nobody actually wanted to be there when he finished.
By the time the sun started going down, Might Duy — who'd been watching quietly from behind the fence the whole time — was crying again.
He knew this wasn't the right approach. But he couldn't help thinking: Keep going, Guy. Even if it's the wrong way.
Over in the treeline beside the field, the kick-the-can game had finally ended. Everyone was dead.
Bodies sprawled across the grass. A solid afternoon though. Once they'd caught their breath, the group said their goodbyes with the usual laughing and shoving.
Shiranui Genma lay flat on his back, staring blankly at the sky with the eyes of a man who had seen too much. He grabbed the drink Ebisu held out, took a long pull, and exhaled dramatically.
"I'm alive again."
"Why does Osamu always catch everyone so easily? And would someone explain why his stamina is inhuman?"
Kakashi, expression as flat as ever, glanced at his own sad, empty wallet, then slid a look over toward Osamu, who was handing out drinks on the other side.
"Because he can sense our positions."
"That's cheating."
Ebisu straightened his little sunglasses and looked entirely too pleased with himself.
"Ninja are supposed to cheat. That's basically what being talented is."
"You're the one who needed rescuing every round — you don't get to say that!"
Genma hauled himself upright and the two of them immediately started bickering.
Kakashi tuned them out and drifted over to Osamu. Both of them watched Guy still running out on the field. Kakashi kept his voice low.
"You could sense my chakra the whole time, couldn't you."
"You always hide in the nearest treetop. It's not exactly a mystery."
Osamu said it without thinking. The silver-haired menace's competitive streak had dragged the game out way longer than it needed to go — by the end it was basically just the two of them.
"Next time I'll rescue more teammates than you. I mean it."
Osamu barely kept a straight face. Two months ago, when they'd first met, Kakashi wouldn't have been caught dead playing something this "childish."
Nearby, Ebisu spotted Guy collapsing on the field and shook his head.
"Didn't he fail both ninjutsu and genjutsu? I think his only real score was physical fitness."
"There's pushing yourself and then there's that," Genma muttered.
Kakashi watched Guy go down, then get back up, then go down again. He thought back to meeting the Might family at the school gates after the exam. His father had said something about Guy being a rival worth watching.
This guy? Still nothing to show for it.
After a while Kakashi lost interest. Among everyone their age, Osamu was the only one he actually counted as real competition. He'd done his research before the Academy even started — he trusted his own read on people. He put his father's words on the back burner and waved.
"It's getting late. See you."
"Later!"
Genma and Ebisu waved back, still grinning. Osamu started to follow — then noticed Guy hadn't gotten up this time. He walked over and held out a drink.
"That was seriously impressive. And someone's buying today, so don't worry about it."
Guy took the drink. When he stood up, his voice came out quieter than usual.
"I'm five years old and I can't even run five hundred laps... I let Dad down after everything he did..."
Osamu opened his mouth to say something — and then a shadow shot out from nowhere behind him.
"Guy, you idiot!"
Duy's fist connected with the back of his son's head hard enough to send him skidding. Osamu sidestepped it on instinct and watched the whole thing with a look he couldn't quite control.
"Don't you dare cry over your own effort! You just picked the wrong way to push yourself!"
Tears streaming down his face, Duy launched into what could only be described as an impromptu father-son life lesson. There were battle cries. There was more crying. It ended with them clutching each other and sobbing into each other's shoulders.
Osamu quietly attempted to slip away. He made it two steps before both of them materialized at his side, bowed in perfect unison, and hit him with the double thumbs-up.
"THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THE SUPPORT!"
"Guy — you made a friend through your own effort today! That's what youth is all about!"
They embraced again. The tears had soaked visibly into the spandex at this point. Osamu pretended not to notice, nodded politely, exchanged a few words, and finally made his escape.
He walked home slowly, waving to a few shopkeepers he knew along the way. Thinking about the afternoon. Thinking about his complete inability to get a single inspiring word in edgewise.
No Naruto-style speech talent whatsoever. None.
Late that night, Guy lay awake worrying about the waitlist. When he glanced over, his father was awake too. He stared at the ceiling for a while, then asked quietly:
"Dad... is it really true that you can't be a great ninja without ninjutsu talent?"
"Guy, your youth is just getting started. Youth doesn't quit. Effort always pays off in the end."
Guy didn't say anything after that. Outside the house he always acted like nothing got to him — but he knew his father's situation. The tears came back without warning, and he made a quiet, private wish.
If only I had real ninjutsu talent.
The last day of March, Konoha Year 42.
"Osamu... I want to see you grow up healthy..."
"I don't want to die, Osamu... I want to see you again..."
He woke up gasping, hand pressed to his forehead. The two of them, collapsed in blood in the dream, wouldn't leave him. He breathed until it passed.
It wasn't even six yet. Osamu looked at the picture frame on his nightstand.
In the photo, the young man and woman called Ichiro and Aoi were twenty-two years old, arms around a little kid, smiling like nothing in the world could go wrong. Embarrassingly happy.
Since they died on a mission in early January, Osamu had triggered his ability the hard way, through something he didn't like thinking about — and completed his first [Extraction].
"Aoi, Sakumo-sama's going to recommend me for Jonin right after this mission wraps up. We'll have more money coming in."
"Check it out, Osamu — Shadow Clone Jutsu! Ha! Usually only Jonin can handle a B-rank technique like this!"
"That's my kid — already loves reading at that age. The Furukawa name is going places."
"Once we've saved up a little more, I want to transfer to the medical unit. Settle down and actually watch Osamu grow up."
"Look at him go red — he's embarrassed in his own house! Too cute."
The nightmare had stirred everything back up. The warmth of it followed him out of bed and into the kitchen, only fading once he sat down in front of breakfast.
Milk, fried egg, sandwich. He ate alone and let his mind drift. The parallel hit him somewhere between bites — Tsukuyomi. A version of it, anyway. Uchiha Sasuke's deal, reskinned.
He cleaned up and opened his notebook for the daily log. Three months in, the ability's basic shape was clear enough:
Confirmed: only Extraction carried over from the idle game. Everything else stayed in the other world.
Cannot Extraction living people under normal conditions. Results include partial ninjutsu insights and training experience — fast-tracks self-improvement.
Confirmed: spiritual energy increases post-Extraction. Sensory range expanding. Side effects are real and noticeable.
Plants can be Extracted. [Essence] component unconfirmed — needs more testing.
Extracting Kekkei Genkai?
Fundamental nature of Extraction?
He wrote in Chinese characters, the way he always did, then sat back and tried again to pull up everything he'd actually watched. Xingyong Satellite, Youku, years of barely paying attention.
Should've stopped skipping the recap episodes.
Back then it was all Naruto and Sasuke. After work, he aged out of it. By thirty he'd given up on everything except idle games.
Nothing useful for this exact point in the timeline. He burned the page the way he always did, then went back to the scrolls and records his parents had left behind.
B-rank — Earth Style: Earth-Style Wall.
B-rank — Water Style: Water Formation Wall.
C-rank — Earth Style: Underground Projection Fish.
C-rank — Water Style: Wild Water Wave.
D-rank — Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu.
Plus notes on Lightning Style: False Darkness, Shadow Clone Jutsu, nature transformation, and form manipulation.
He had the C-ranks mostly down. The D-ranks were nothing.
It was a little different from what the anime suggested about regular ninja. Ichiro hadn't had a huge arsenal — his reputation came from taijutsu, shuriken accuracy, and mission performance. His nature transformations were only water and earth, and most of what he'd mastered was defensive and support-oriented.
Chakra really is something else.
Ordinary ninja couldn't store it — but once it became muscle memory, even a kid could walk up walls without thinking about it. Some of that had to be the Extraction results settling in. Osamu could feel himself changing, the absorbed experience slowly becoming instinct.
School started tomorrow. He pulled out the notebook again and started thinking through the actual plan.
Three affinities — water, earth, lightning. If I can get medical ninjutsu working, a placement at the Konoha hospital might save years of training time.
He got dressed, buckled on his gear, and looked at the picture frame one more time before heading out.
"I'm going to live something worth living." A quiet exhale. "Life shouldn't be this fragile."
Cherry blossoms lined the path to the Academy.
The green spandex pair had been at the notice board since early morning. The moment Guy spotted his name on the waitlist, they crashed into each other and cried.
The parents nearby took a collective step back. Duy crouched down, both hands on his son's shoulders, and said it at full volume:
"Guy — you have no ninjutsu talent. Personally? I think that's something to be glad about."
"Knowing your weakness means knowing where to shine. And your taijutsu is already starting to shine!"
Guy nodded hard, looking at his father's confident smile and the thumbs-up, feeling it. He'd made it in. That meant something. He pulled himself up straight and announced it to no one in particular:
"I'm going to work harder than anyone. Once I can run five hundred laps, I'm challenging Osamu and Kakashi!"
"Now that's youth, Guy!"