"I… can't go on…"
"You idiot. You've been jumping all over the place this whole time—of course you ran dry."
By midday, Naruto had nearly emptied his stamina reserves entirely. Sasuke was quietly baffled.
After entering the forest, Naruto had been bouncing up trees, swinging from branches, gawking left and right—his activity level had to be at least three times Sasuke's.
"Let's rest here."
They'd come across a small forest warden's cabin right on cue. Sasuke pulled a logbook from his pack, dug the checkpoint stamp out of the cabin, pressed it into the book, then ticked the patrol item off the list.
Patrols weren't a chance to slack off. At every checkpoint you had to clock in. And you couldn't skip around freely either—if an incident occurred at a location you'd already logged as clear, the responsibility fell back on you.
Naruto had been all over the place, but at least he'd actually been thorough during the inspections.
"I'm dead." Naruto sprawled flat on the ground, limbs out in all directions.
Sasuke, meanwhile, moved through some stretches.
"That's the cruelty of weighted training—it doesn't feel like much at first. But after you've been walking for hours, those things become unbearable."
Sasuke fell into thought.
At the Academy, he and Hanabi had never actually sparred. Boys and girls were generally separated for combat. As one of the few girls who'd never bothered him, Sasuke had always thought reasonably well of Hanabi—but never in terms of strength.
And yet yesterday, Hanabi had led both him and Naruto to pull off taking the bells from Kakashi, a jōnin.
"I'm still not strong enough…"
They ate their field rations, rested a while, then Naruto bounced back to life: "Sasuke! Sasuke! Time to move!"
"Take it easy, idiot."
Sasuke was baffled. Naruto had burned through several times his own energy, and yet here he was, springing back up like nothing had happened. Absurd.
"Hey, psst—I'll let you in on something." Naruto gave Sasuke an exaggerated wink—the face of someone who'd say 'I only tell this to special people.'
"This place? I've been here loads of times. I used to fish right around here, ran into the Third Hokage a few times too. I know this area really well!"
Now Sasuke understood why Naruto was so worked up.
This was the Monkey King back at Flower-Fruit Mountain.
"Nothing dangerous around here, trust me—just follow my lead and—"
Naruto's words cut off mid-sentence.
Because at that moment, the brush directly ahead of them began to rustle.
"Naruto, fall back." Sasuke drew a kunai, his own posture tightening. "Who's there—show yourself!"
"Snort—"
A wild boar piglet nosed out of the undergrowth.
"Ha, is that all?"
Naruto relaxed. But then he felt it—a tremor rising through the soles of his feet.
"Is that an earthquake?"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. He felt it too, and felt it immediately for what it was.
"Get back—idiot!"
Sasuke yanked Naruto away from the piglet.
And in almost the same instant, an enormous wild boar—the size of a small hillock—came crashing through the undergrowth.
Its eyes were crimson. It bellowed, and with every thundering stride, the forest seemed to shudder.
"WAAAH!" The sheer scale of the beast ripped a scream out of Naruto.
"RUN!"
Sasuke grabbed Naruto and they bolted.
"Damn it—these weights—"
Sasuke's hands went for the clasps, but he found the things came off nothing like they went on.
If they wouldn't come off, then they'd just have to run like hell.
Somehow, impossibly, two kids who'd already burned through most of their stamina were still moving surprisingly fast.
"Don't you think this might be a bit much?" From up in the canopy, Kakashi watched the two being chased by the "boar-truck" below and wondered if Hanabi had gone slightly too far.
"Just about right."
Hanabi's smile was serene—but combined with the half-fox mask over her face, it looked thoroughly delighted.
"Both Naruto and Sasuke have exceptional physical baselines. They're just completely wasting their potential," Hanabi said. "They're twelve now, right on the edge of adolescence. Pushing them harder is exactly what they need."
"Chakra originates from the hundred trillion cells of the human body."
In the Naruto world, human cells numbered considerably more than in the 'real' one.
"But children haven't fully developed yet. Many kids their age can't even produce enough chakra to cast elemental ninjutsu."
The fact that Sasuke could perform the Great Fireball Jutsu—Kakashi had always found that remarkable. A twenty-kilogram dumbbell: an adult lifts it without issue, a child struggles. Smaller frames, fewer cells; producing combat-grade chakra at that age isn't easy.
But Naruto and Sasuke were exceptions.
"The Academy's curriculum is designed for general education. But exceptional students require an exceptional approach." Hanabi said.
"I hadn't realized you rated those two so highly." Kakashi sounded surprised.
"I rate Kakashi-sensei very highly too. If you actually buckled down, I believe a fifty-fifty split against any of the Sannin would be… not unreasonable." Hanabi smiled pleasantly.
"Don't joke around. I'd be doing well to hold my own against the Sannin, let alone go toe-to-toe." He paused, then glanced at Hanabi sidelong. "I've been curious, actually—what's your training like?"
"Swordsmanship," Hanabi said. "That's where I'm strongest."
Unexpected.
She extended her right hand, left hand forming a seal.
"Ephemeral Bloom and Demise—"
An ice sword materialized in her grip.
"Secret Sword: Ephemeral Bloom."
"Ice Release?!" Kakashi startled, then caught himself. "Wait, no—is that… a Summoning Jutsu?"
Hanabi reached back into her memory—the sensation of resonating with Jingliu—and let her body follow the sword. Graceful. Beautiful. But threaded through that beauty was something dangerous.
"Is it alright showing me this?" Kakashi asked.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
This was one of her trump cards. But not a complete one.
Having someone reliable 'vouch' for its existence now was the best strategy going forward. Kakashi was far from dependable in other ways, but for this specific purpose, he was exactly right—he wouldn't dig deeper.
With Kakashi's endorsement in place, using this technique openly in Konoha later wouldn't raise as many questions.
"If you're willing, I'd actually like to see your swordsmanship, Kakashi-sensei. Since you have time—shall we spar?"
"Ahem—I've rather lost myself on the road of life. Swordsmanship is… probably best left aside."
He hadn't entirely abandoned it, but the family kenjutsu tradition had drifted somewhere out of reach. And more importantly, Kakashi knew he couldn't press the point—push too hard, and Hanabi might very well give another live demonstration right in front of him.
Meanwhile, across the way, Naruto and Sasuke had cleared a river and arrived at the base of a waterfall.
"Jump! Sasuke, jump!" Naruto was already preparing to leap, but Sasuke had stopped dead.
"You moron—we're wearing weights. We hit that water, we sink." Sasuke tried to cut the weight harness off with a kunai. Nothing.
"Then we fight it here—we take this thing down!"
Naruto gritted his teeth. There was nowhere left to run. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
A swarm of clones threw themselves at the enraged boar—and all of them burst into smoke. The mountain of a beast barreled on like an unstoppable force, committed to letting both Naruto and Sasuke experience the greatness of this "transmigration power" firsthand.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!" Animals fear fire—Sasuke launched one immediately, hoping to drive it off.
The boar took the fireball head-on. It didn't retreat. It got angrier.
"Sasuke—use rope! As much as you have!" Naruto had a sudden flash of inspiration.
What use is rope going to be? Sasuke didn't think either of them could physically restrain a boar of this size with a lasso.
But the moment Naruto said it, Sasuke's hands moved faster than his brain. As the boar came charging in, loop after loop of rope flew out and found its mark. Predictably, it didn't slow the animal at all.
"Give it here!" Naruto snatched the rope and leaped over the waterfall's edge.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
"…Of course. Using clones as deadweight!"
Hundreds of Naruto clones dangled on the far side of the rope, hundreds more materialized on the boar's flank.
"One, two! CHARGE!"
A mass of clones slammed in from the side. The cliff face—already fragile—crumbled in a section, sending the boar lurching. Somehow it caught itself at the last instant, those massive legs finding purchase where there seemed to be none.
"Ha!"
At the critical moment, Sasuke drove in and delivered a single kick to the boar's side—the last straw.
"GRUUUNT—!"
The boar, eyes clearing mid-fall as if suddenly waking from its rage, found it made no difference. It plummeted into the waterfall with a crash.
"Naruto!"
Sasuke rushed to the edge and looked down. Naruto was dangling upside down below, one foot caught in a red rope—the other end held by Hanabi, standing calmly to one side.
A short distance away, Kakashi stood holding his copy of Icha Icha.
"…I see."
Sasuke lay down on the ground.
It was all perfectly clear now.