After the meeting, I made my way back to my quarters, where Yahiko and Konan were still waiting. They were still absorbing everything, and it was clear they were both struggling with the weight of everything that had happened. Their entire world had practically just been upended a second time. When I entered the room, I found them sitting near the small window, their backs to me. I could see the exhaustion in their posture, the quiet sadness that clung to them like a second skin. Konan got excited to see me while Yahiko still acted distant. I got them some rations to eat for dinner and spent a while with them, telling them I'd do everything in my power to get them out of this war zone as soon as possible so that they can get used to what will become their new home. An actual safe place for them to grow up.
I let them rest afterwards, and they both fell asleep in my bed. I'm sure they needed that more than they let on.
With them settled for the night, I went to check on Yukino.
I knew she'd still be asleep. She hadn't had a proper rest since... since we set out. After everything she'd been through, her body finally gave in to the exhaustion. Her breathing was actually steady and honestly I couldn't help but feel relieved by that. Considering what happened, I doubt she'd wake up anytime soon.
With that thought in mind, I left her room, careful not to disturb her.
I needed to get out of here.
I couldn't just sit around.
There was a gnawing feeling in me that refused to subside, the sense that I wasn't doing enough. That I was powerless to change the past, but somehow still responsible for the aftermath. It was a burden I couldn't shake, no matter how many people assured me I'd done the best I could.
I didn't understand why my body recovered so fast after all of this. After everything I'd been through, it felt like I'd come back from the brink of death twice without even a single aftereffect. Honestly, I didn't care why at the moment. Whatever the case may be, I wasn't going to waste the opportunity.
I'll abuse it.
I slipped out into the forest, letting the cool night air bite at my skin. The canopy above was thick, but there was enough starlight to guide my way as I ran to a rocky clearing a ways away from our outpost. It was far enough that my allies wouldn't notice what I'd be doing here. I couldn't relax. Not now. Not with everything hanging over me.
I needed to train. To move. To feel like I wasn't just standing still while the world around me kept turning.
I needed to be better.
I will be better.
So that nothing like what I let happen to Shinichi happens again.
It was Shinichi then, and almost Yukino... Can I really live with myself if I actually let her perish? Can the current me honestly hope to prevent Minato and Kushina from dying?
What the hell can Shirokumo as he is now do?
Fucking nothing.
I continued my training to master the Rasengan in the rocky clearing. My mind burned with frustration because I needed to get this right. I needed to prove to myself that I could accomplish something, anything, to make up for my failures.
With a deep breath, I created three shadow clones, each one mimicking my movements as we stood in a loose circle.
"Focus," I muttered to myself, watching my clones manipulate their chakra. "Focus on the air balloon."
The third and final step in Rasengan training, where the goal was to create a stable, contained sphere of chakra inside the air balloon. I had done the first two steps, shaping and rotation, fairly well, but the trick now was perfecting the final balance, where the air balloon would stay intact without bursting prematurely.
My clones and I all channeled chakra into our hands, swirling it, spinning it, directing it toward the center. The pressure in my palm grew, the familiar pulse of energy moving in erratic, wild spirals. For a brief moment, the air balloon hovered above my hand, trembling and unstable. But that moment quickly fizzled away, and the energy burst the balloon, all four of them, leaving me and my clones standing there, frustrated.
"Dammit," I muttered under my breath.
I didn't give up. I couldn't.
We tried again, and again, and again. Hour after hour, I repeated the steps, constantly adjusting, feeling the chakra in my palms twist and churn, but never holding the right balance. My clones struggled too, their faces twisted in concentration, the effort wearing on them just as it was on me. But no matter how hard we focused, the Rasengan wouldn't take the shape I needed. The air balloon kept popping, collapsing, imploding in on itself.
The sun was beginning to rise when, in a burst of frustration, I finally snapped. My hand, already worn from the countless attempts, shot forward to complete the motion one more time, but it was no use. The air balloon simply popped again. A surge of anger and disappointment twisted inside me like a storm.
"Enough!"
I punched the ground with my fist, my chakra-laced hand cracking the earth beneath me and sending dirt and dust flying everywhere as debris flew above the canopy. My clones disappeared in puffs of smoke.
I needed to break something. I needed to see something fall apart in the wake of my failure.
With the Rasengan still incomplete in my hand, I hurled it with my hand forward at a nearby tree. The incomplete sphere tore through the trunk, sending splinters of bark flying in every direction, and the massive tree collapsed with a thunderous crash.
I didn't stop.
I charged at another tree, the Rasengan roaring in my palm, only now I wasn't trying to shape it. I didn't care about control anymore. I let the raw chakra flood through my arm, twisting and spiraling wildly. The moment it connected with the trunk of the second tree, it shattered on impact, sending the entire tree toppling over like a matchstick.
The earth shook with the force of it, and I felt the heat of my anger rising, pulsing through my blood. I still wasn't done venting. I pivoted and slammed the incomplete Rasengan into a large boulder, shattering it into jagged pieces. The impact sent a shockwave through the rocky terrain, scattering chunks of stone everywhere. The destruction felt good, like something was finally breaking. But it wasn't enough.
Over and over, I hurled my incomplete Rasengan at whatever I could find; trees, boulders, even the rocky ground itself. The entire clearing became a jumbled mess of crumbled wood and shattered stone.
The frustration, the anger, the helplessness of it all, it all poured into each strike. But no matter how many times I hit the ground or tore apart the landscape, the facts remained the same: This was all useless. I was just throwing a tantrum.
Minutes turned into half an hour, and the clearing lay in ruins, littered with crumbled trees and shattered boulders as my chakra reserves ran dry. Finally, exhausted and desperate, I dropped to my knees, my hands still raw and bleeding from the repeated attacks I hurled everywhere. I stood in a small spiral of a crater and just started hitting it with my fists. Scraping away the skin off of my knuckles as I cracked the ground beneath me.
"Why?" I whispered, my voice barely a rasp. "Why can't I just do it faster? Why can't I succeed?"
I slammed my fist into the ground again, the skin on my knuckles tearing open. The pain didn't register. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was that I wasn't where I needed to be. Not fast enough. Not strong enough.
My breath came in ragged gasps as blood mixed with dirt, my body begging for rest. But I wouldn't stop. I couldn't. I wasn't allowed to.
"Why can't I grow stronger faster?" I punched the ground again, the earth cracking beneath my hand. My voice was hoarse now, desperate. "I'm even using shadow clones to progress four times faster... So why? Why? This progress...! it's not enough! Why... why...?"
I gritted my teeth, trembling, my hands slick with blood and dirt. But nothing changed. No answers came. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much effort I poured into this, I was still so far from what I needed to be.
The rage in me was fading now, leaving only emptiness. Exhaustion. Frustration. The void of knowing that, despite everything, I hadn't come close to the strength I sought.
I barely noticed the shift in the air before he appeared at the edge of the clearing, stepping through the trees as silently as a shadow.
Minato.
For a moment, I simply stared at him, chest heaving, blood and dirt caking my knuckles.
"What in the world are you doing?" he called out softly, stepping into the circle of destruction I'd unleashed.
I snarled, without thinking. "What does it look like I'm doing? Training!"
Minato's eyes flicked down at the cratered ground and the shattered trees. "This isn't training, Shiro. This is-" he gestured at the wreckage, "-rage."
"Don't lecture me." I shook my head, wiping a bloody palm across my forehead. "I'm fine."
He stepped closer, concern in every line of his posture. "You're not fine. You're… unstable. You haven't stopped since you got back."
"Shut up," I spat, voice cracking. I balled my fist and hit it into the hard earth again. The pain I'd inflicted on myself turned my rage inward.
"Shiro, stop."
"Shut up, I won't. Not until I get this right."
"I understand that you're-"
"No! You don't understand, Minato!" I yelled, standing up and going up to him as I glared into his eyes. "Everything you do happens in an instant! Like you were born fast-forwarded. You learn a new jutsu in five days that I'd need five years to just wrap my head around."
My voice broke on the last word. "It's not fair. You...you vault ahead every time, and I'm stuck here clawing at the same damn wall."
I could feel tears stinging behind my eyes. "I curse my own inadequacy!" I yelled, chest heaving. "I curse that no matter how hard I train...how badly I need to be strong...it never comes fast enough! Why can't I be like you? Maybe then Shinichi would be alive! And Yukino wouldn't have ever had to face such a life or death experience in the first place!"
"Just why am I like this? Why am I me!?"
Silence fell, broken only by the drip of blood and the distant sigh of the forest. I glared at Minato, but the fire in me was dying out, drained by years of watching him outpace me at every step. In that hollow moment, I understood just how deep my envy and desperation ran...how badly I needed to close the gap, even if it meant tearing myself apart to do it.
Was I really such an ugly person? Was this who I always was...?
"Shirokumo, I do understand," he said quietly. "You think I learn everything in a flash, but you don't see the nights I spent staring at the ceiling, replaying every failed jutsu in my head until I could do it in my sleep. You don't see the times I broke just as hard as you have, or the weight I carry every time I lose a comrade I cared about. Just because I can pick up a jutsu quickly doesn't mean it doesn't cost me. Everyone has their own path...and yours isn't wrong because it's different. You've come miles farther than you realize."
He placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'm not asking you to stop pushing. But you don't have to do it all at once, or alone. You don't have to curse yourself for being human. Strength isn't measured by speed alone. It's measured by will, and yours is unbreakable."
I shook my head, trying to shove back the heat of anger, but it was like trying to hold back a dam with nothing but my hands. Minato's words gnawed at me, and even as I felt the weight of them, they weren't enough to dull the raw, churning frustration that kept clawing at my insides.
"You don't get it," I muttered, voice thick, "You don't know what it's like. To be constantly chasing something that feels just out of reach. I'm always playing catch-up. I'm never good enough. Always running, always... always stuck."
Minato's eyes softened, but the calm in his expression only made the pit in my stomach grow deeper. He could stand there, speak his wisdom, and all I could feel was the gap between us, the suffocating distance that no amount of effort would ever shrink. "You don't have to compare yourself to me, Shiro."
I wiped at my face, feeling something like shame creep into the edges of my anger. But the shame only made the frustration worse.
"I'm not you, Minato. I'll never be you," I said, fists trembling at my sides. "I'll never be able to do the things you do. So don't pretend you understand."
He exhaled slowly, his voice steady despite the tension in the air. "Shiro, I don't expect you to be me. But right now, you're not even acting like yourself."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm ordering you to withdraw from the front lines."
I laughed—hollow, bitter laughter. "You can't be serious."
"I am." His voice didn't waver. "You're unstable. You fought with the Sixth Gate, faced Hanzo and lost Shinichi... and now you're tearing yourself apart out here. You need rest, not ruin. I'm worried you're not entirely you after what happened."
I shook my head. "You think I should just sit back? Let everyone else fight?"
"Exactly." Minato took a step closer. "Yukino needs you at full strength when she wakes. Yahiko and Konan need someone who's whole, not a wreck, and you need to help them adjust to life in the village. You can't do that from the front lines. As a Jonin, your superior officer, and acting leader of our team while Jiraiya-sensei is away, I order you to step back, recover, and help them adjust. You'll return together with Yukino once she recovers fully and you're ready."
His words landed like a kunai to my gut. I opened my mouth to argue, but there was no fire left in me, only the hollow ache of defeat.
So I nodded, hoarsely. "…Understood."
Minato gave me a firm nod, "Come on, let's head back to the outpost. I'll teleport the four of you to Konoha after Lady Tsunade tends to Yukino."
After saying so, he turned and strode away into the shadows. I followed him, head hanging low as I stared at my feet. All I could think about were my fractured convictions—and the promise I'd made to become stronger, no matter the cost.
I still need to do it. Do more.
I'll keep training.
I'll keep training...
...
Author Note: This chapter was the last written from over a year ago... Honestly, given what happened after with the Hiatus... Appropriate content.
Seeing that lots of people jumped to read the new chapter earlier I decided I'm updating this chapter immediately! Everything from here on will be new content I'll start writing again :)