"They didn't have to. One of them was reading it at the station."
"It's literature." He leaned back against the pillows. "Literature is supposed to cause scandals. How's the team?"
"Minato's training, Kushina's teaching me sealing, Kenta and Takeshi are on light duty."
"And Sora?"
Tatsuya paused. "I haven't seen her since the debrief."
"Mm." Jiraiya's eyes were sharp, watching. "She's processing. The leak thing hit her harder than she's letting on. She's good at hiding it, but..." He stopped, shrugged. "Not your responsibility. Just keep noticing."
The silence stretched for a moment. Comfortable, or close to it.
"Minato said you'd been asking about the team."
"Minato talks too much." But there was no heat in it. "I was asking about you, specifically. The field stabilization."
"It worked."
"It more than worked. Tsunade's been muttering about it, something about 'reinventing Kato's framework by instinct.'" Jiraiya's gaze was steady. "You kept me alive out there."
"You made it difficult."
"I make everything difficult, it's my charm." A pause, and then, more quietly: "But seriously. Thank you."
The words landed awkwardly. Tatsuya didn't know what to do with gratitude; it felt like debt, like something he'd have to carry.
"You'd have done the same."
"Probably gotten myself killed trying, yeah." Jiraiya's smile was tired but real. "Different skill sets. I hit things until they stop moving." He gestured vaguely at Tatsuya. "You do... whatever it is you did out there. The thing with the chakra. Tsunade tried to explain it and I fell asleep."
"That's one way to put it."
"It's the accurate way." He shifted in the bed, wincing more pronouncedly this time. "Anyway. I'm tired, you're tired, and if I keep you here much longer Tsunade will find an excuse to extend my bed rest. Go train, do whatever it is you do when you're not almost dying."
Tatsuya stood. "Same time tomorrow?"
"If they haven't released me by then, which they won't, because Tsunade is a sadist." But he was already settling back into the pillows, eyes half-closed. "Tell Minato to stop hovering. And tell Kushina that if she steals any more of my snack supply, there will be consequences."
"She's been stealing your snacks?"
"Three times this week. The woman has no shame."
"I'll pass that along."
"Don't—she'll just do it more." Jiraiya waved a hand dismissively. "Go. I need my beauty rest."
Tatsuya went.
---
Evening found him at Training Ground Seven, alone.
The afternoon light was fading into gold, casting long shadows across the familiar terrain.
But tonight wasn't about any of that.
Tonight was about experimentation.
He settled into a ready stance, not Duy's Strong Fist exactly, but something adjacent. The forms he'd learned, the corrections he'd absorbed, the muscle memory he was slowly building.
Then he extended his awareness inward.
Chakra flowed through the network, familiar paths, well-traveled routes. The hands were easiest, most natural. That's where everyone learned to emit. But he'd proven the forearm could work too, back in Grass Country, in moments when his hands weren't available.
What else could work?
He focused on his right elbow. The tenketsu there were smaller, less developed, but they existed. Every point in the network could theoretically emit. The Hyuga proved that with their Gentle Fist. The question was efficiency.
Chakra gathered at his elbow. He pushed.
The emission was weak, maybe ten percent of what he could manage through his palm. But it was there. A thin blade of chakra, ragged at the edges, barely visible.
That's something.
He tried the shoulder. Harder to focus on, further from the central pathways. The emission flickered, died.
Shin. Easier than the shoulder, harder than the elbow. Maybe fifteen percent efficiency.
He spent twenty minutes mapping his body's response to different emission points. The forearm remained the best non-hand option: thirty percent, give or take. Elbow was next at around twenty. Shin at fifteen. Shoulder and back were barely functional.
But functional is functional.
The next step was wind nature.
His scalpel technique was single-point precision, all the chakra focused into one location, shaped with surgical exactness. But what if he split the focus? Multiple emission points, multiple blades?
He tried forearm and opposite shin simultaneously.
The chakra draw was enormous, nearly double what a single scalpel required. And the blades themselves were weak, barely more than enhanced edges. But they formed. Two points of wind-natured chakra, ready to cut.
Add the hands and that's four points. Add the elbows and that's six.
The math was appealing. A close-combat style where every angle was a threat. Strong Fist's power transfer combined with the scalpel's lethality. A punch that was also a cut. A block that severed. A kick that opened arteries.
He practiced the combination. Threw a punch with his right hand, wind scalpel active, while maintaining emission from his left forearm. The coordination was awkward, the chakra flow stuttering. But it worked. Kind of.
Duy's cage concept. Guiding opponents into predetermined techniques through positioning and pressure.
With multi-point emission, the cage had more bars. Every angle became a threat, limiting escape options. An opponent couldn't just guard the hands. They'd have to track six potential cutting surfaces, any of which could activate at any moment.
And when the First Gate opened...
Speed and strength multiplied beyond anything normal physiology allowed. Applied to this framework, it would be overwhelming. A taijutsu style that didn't exist in any scroll, wasn't taught by any master. Something built from pieces he hadn't known would fit together.
Something that's mine.
His.
The sun was setting properly now, the training ground falling into shadow. His chakra reserves were depleted, not dangerously, but enough that he'd feel it tomorrow. The tenketsu he'd been experimenting with ached slightly, the kind of minor burn that came from pushing unfamiliar pathways.
But he was smiling.
He was years away from anything like mastery. The multi-point emission was still inefficient, the coordination still clumsy, the integration with Strong Fist still theoretical.
But he could see where it was going.
And that was enough.
---
The walk home took him through the market district.
Most of the stalls were closing up for the evening, merchants packing away their wares as the last customers drifted toward home. The smells of dinner cooking drifted from second-floor windows: grilled fish, miso, the sharp green scent of fresh vegetables. Ordinary life, continuing regardless of wars and training and surviving.
The Harada textile shop was still open, warm light spilling through the display window.
Tatsuya slowed without meaning to.
Through the glass, he could see Yuki helping arrange bolts of fabric on the shelves. She was taller than he remembered. Months since his last proper visit, though he'd glimpsed her a few times in passing. Her hair was longer now, pulled back in a practical braid, and she moved through the shop like she'd been doing it for years.
Mrs. Harada said something from deeper in the shop. Yuki laughed, a bright, uncomplicated sound, and called back a response Tatsuya couldn't hear through the window. A moment later, a familiar orange shape wove between her ankles. Mochi, the cat. Still there. Still thriving.
All of them, still thriving.
He should go in. Say hello. Ask about her arithmetic lessons, about the business, about all the small details of a normal life he'd never experienced in either world.
But she looked so... settled. Happy in a way that didn't need him to witness it.
As if sensing his attention, Yuki looked up. Found him through the window, silhouetted against the evening street. Her face split into a smile, still that same brightness he remembered from the forest, from the orphanage, from every visit since. She waved.
Tatsuya waved back.
She made a gesture he interpreted as come in, but he shook his head, pointed at his depleted state, sweat-stained training clothes, chakra reserves running on fumes. Another time. She rolled her eyes in a way that was pure kid, then nodded, accepting.
Another wave. He returned it, then kept walking.
Some promises didn't require grand gestures. Sometimes it was enough just to check. Just to see. Just to know that the person you'd dragged out of hell was building something good from the ashes.
---
He gathered his things, stretched the fatigue from his muscles, and finished the walk home. Tomorrow there would be more training with Duy, more sealing practice with Kushina, more wind work with Minato. The war was still coming, Jiraiya was still recovering, and somewhere in Kumo, Gashira Yotsuki was probably planning the next offensive.
But tonight, for the first time in a long time, Tatsuya felt like he was building something. Deliberately, with his own hands.
The breathing room wouldn't last forever.
He intended to use it well.