Chapter 56: The Gift.

Tsunade cleared Nawaki six days after the festival, with a list of conditions as long as her arm. He ignored all of them by the second exchange.

They hit Mikoto harder than they ever had before.

Nawaki came in fast from the left with Kusanagi low, feinting toward her knee before redirecting upward at the last second, the blade extending mid-swing to catch her at a range she shouldn't have had to worry about.

Behind him, Yoshino threw four shuriken in a fan spread, cutting off her backward step, herding her toward the angle Tsume and Kuromaru were already closing from.

Tsume came in on all fours, Kuromaru mirroring her from the opposite side, both of them low and fast with their claws digging into the dirt for traction.

Mikoto blocked Kusanagi with Shark Skin, sidestepped the shuriken line, and caught Tsume's lunging claw-strike on her forearm. Kuromaru went for her ankle. She lifted her foot and the puppy sailed under it, skidding in the dirt.

"Yoshino, now!" Nawaki shouted.

Yoshino was already moving. She'd circled during the exchange, staying out of the melee, waiting for the half-second where all three attacks would occupy Mikoto's attention at once. She came in from directly behind, kunai in each hand, aiming for the gap between Mikoto's shoulder blades.

Mikoto spun, caught one kunai on Shark Skin's flat, deflected the other with her free hand, and swept Yoshino's legs out from under her with a low kick that dumped the girl on her back.

Then she put Nawaki on the ground with a fist to his sternum that he didn't see coming because his eyes were on her sword hand, not her free one. Tsume went down to a kick that sent her tumbling into Kuromaru. Both of them rolled in a heap of girl and dog.

Three genin and a dog on the ground. Twelve seconds.

"You guys seem really fired up." Mikoto said.

They groaned before continuing despite the aches and pains.

The sun climbed. The training ground filled with the sounds of impact and heavy breathing and the occasional yelp from Kuromaru and the constant thud of young bodies hitting dirt. Nobody complained. Nobody asked for a break. Nobody said "this is enough."

That was different from usual. The festival had been six days ago. The C-rank had been nearly three weeks ago. Mikoto had put it down that night, walking home under the lanterns. Her genin, it turned out, hadn’t. 

Before the ambush, training had been normal. Tsume was excited to grow stronger. Yoshino was happy to grow under a proper sensei. Nawaki usually had to hold himself back because he was above Yoshino and Tsume. They trained because their sensei told them to, and they were good genin, so they did what they were told.

This morning nobody was doing what they were told. They were doing what they needed.

Nawaki fought like someone who'd watched a masked stranger run toward the people he was supposed to protect and hadn't been strong enough to stop it without burning through his body's limits. Every swing of Kusanagi had resolve in it. He wasn't trying to beat Mikoto. He was trying to close the gap between what he was yesterday and what the next fight would need him to be.

Yoshino fought like someone who refused to be held hostage again. Every strike was filled with focused anger that had everything to do with herself. She fought at a hundred percent, failed, got put on the ground, and got up faster with a hundred and one percent effort after. When Mikoto swept her legs, she turned the fall into a roll and came up swinging without a pause.

Tsume fought like someone who never wanted to be thrown aside like nothing again. She was louder than usual, fiercer, throwing herself into every exchange with a ferocity that bordered on desperate. Kuromaru matched her energy, the young dog snarling and snapping with a conviction that said the puppy who'd trembled under killing intent was working very hard to never be that puppy again.

Mikoto put them all down sixteen times before she called it.

"Alright, let’s stop for a break everyone."

They sat. Four bodies in the grass, breathing hard, sweating through their clothes, covered in the small bruises and grass stains of a morning spent losing to someone who loved them enough to make losing hurt.

"Sensei," Nawaki said, after catching his breath. "Can we keep going? Chakra nature work. Or chakra control exercises. Anything."

"We want to get even stronger." Yoshino said.

"What she said," Tsume added, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "I want to be stronger too." Kuromaru barked in agreement.

Mikoto looked at the three of them. Beaten, bruised, soaked in sweat, and asking for more.

"I'll give you more," she said. "But listen to me carefully. Enthusiasm is one thing. Overworking yourself is another. If you train until you collapse every day this week, you will be weaker by the end of it, not stronger. The body needs time to heal and grow stronger."

She looked at each of them.

"We train hard in the morning. We rest in the afternoon. We eat well. We sleep. And we do it again tomorrow. That's how you get stronger. Not by burning yourselves out in three days."

Three reluctant nods.

"Good. Nawaki, chakra nature. I’ll create a small pool of water for you to practice with. Yoshino and Tsume, tree-climbing until you can do it without thinking, then later on when you get that down, we’ll work on water-walking for you. Chakra control is one of the greatest tools for a shinobi."

They split to their drills. Mikoto watched them work while giving a few tips here and there. Doing the thing she felt she was best at: making people better.

During the break, Tsume planted herself next to Nawaki on the grass.

"Hey. How long did it take you to get to the Third Activation?"

"Months," Nawaki said. "And it still hurts."

"Does the Second Activation hurt?"

"Less. But yeah."

"What does it feel like? The Third, I mean. When your skin went red."

"Like being on fire from the inside. But also like being the strongest person in the world for about five seconds."

"That's so cool."

"The torn muscles afterward aren’t. And the Fourth nearly broke my legs."

"Does it really hurt that much?!"

"That technique is only supposed to be used in emergencies."

"I’m scared to learn it now..."

"Well, it would fit you more than it fits me now that I think about it. Inuzuka mainly utilize taijutsu. I’m spread between taijutsu, ninjutsu, and kenjutsu, and whatever else I wanna learn."

"Do you wanna teach me some ninjutsu sometime?" Tsume offered while averting her eyes.

"Teach you? Why would I teach you ninjutsu? Shouldn’t you be asking Mikoto-sensei that? I’m sure by now she’s learned hundreds of jutsu with her Sharingan. You know they can copy any jutsu they see?"

Tsume pouted. “Dummy, when a girl asks you for something you should just do it…” She walked off.

“But it doesn’t make sense! She’s literally right over there!” Nawaki gestured over to Mikoto.

Kuromaru barked at Nawaki for his stupidity.

Nawaki, oblivious, shrugged and went back to his water-shaping exercises.

…

Kushina was exactly where Mikoto expected to find her: at Training Ground Seven, beating a log into submission with her bare fists.

The log was losing.

"KUSHINA!"

The redhead's head whipped around. Her face split into a grin so wide it could have been seen from the Hokage Monument.

"MIKOTO!" She abandoned the log mid-punch and came at full speed, which for Kushina meant Mikoto had about one second to brace before a missile of red hair and enthusiasm hit her in the chest. "Did you finally ask your mom if I can sleep over? I already have everything packed."

"Uh, no… I haven’t asked yet. I have something for you."

"What? What is it? Is it food? Did you cook something? Oh my god, did you make homemade salt ramen with the-" Drool leaked from the side of her lips.

"It's not food." Mikoto quickly shut her down.

Mikoto pulled the scroll from her pouch and unsealed it. The Dragon Blade appeared in her palm first: the broad kunai-shaped blade with the gold zigzag cutouts, the ringed guard, the green scaled cord, the long orange tassel. Then, one by one, she set the five orbs on the grass between them. Red. Green. Yellow. Orange. Blue. Each one the size of a plum, with a faint shimmer inside like light through dragon scales.

On her back, Shark Skin was not happy to see that thing again. It didn’t want to share its owner. Not with that shiny kunai. Never ever. Only it got to be in charge of this owner.

Kushina stared.

Her mouth was open. Her hands were frozen mid-gesture. Her eyes moved from the blade to the orbs to Mikoto to the blade to the orbs.

"What is this…?" She asked with a tilt of her head.

"The blade accepts one orb at a time," Mikoto said. "Red is fire. Green is wind. Yellow is lightning. Orange is earth. Blue is water. Slot one in and you can use that nature through the sword, shape any technique through it, even natures you haven't trained. The blade also cuts and absorbs chakra on contact."

"...What."

"There's a catch. The blade demands enormous chakra. In the hands of an ordinary shinobi, it would drain them dry trying to feed itself. To wield it properly, you need reserves that most jonin will never have."

"Mikoto…"

"I only know one person with that kind of chakra."

"MIKOTO!"

"It's yours." On her back, Shark Skin went limp with relief. 

Kushina didn't move for two full seconds. This was the longest Mikoto had ever seen Kushina Uzumaki hold still.

Then the scream came.

"A LEGENDARY SWORD?! FOR ME?! ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?! YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS! YOU'RE MESSING WITH ME! THERE'S NO WAY! MIKOTO! MIKOTO UCHIHA! IF THIS IS A PRANK I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU! I WILL HOLD A GRUDGE FOR SEVEN GENERATIONS! I WILL-"

"It's real. Pick it up." Mikoto picked at her aching ear.

Kushina's hands were shaking as she lifted the Dragon Blade. The moment her fingers wrapped around the scaled cord, she felt it. The blade reached for her chakra, and her chakra, massive and ridiculous and jinchūriki-grade, poured into it without effort.

"Oh, it likes me." Kushina said softly. "Where did you get this?" She asked, turning it in the light, watching the gold zigzag pattern catch the sun.

"You find all sorts of things in the middle of a war." Mikoto said easily.

Kushina grinned.

"That's the coolest thing I ever heard."

"It happens when you’re a super cool ninja gal like me." Mikoto grinned back.

"Mikoto Uchiha, legendary treasure hunter." Kushina was already swinging the blade at the air, testing the weight, the balance. She held it in a reverse grip with the ring guard braced against her forearm and threw a punch with her free hand, then a slash with the blade, then another punch. The fighting style was already forming itself around her body: taijutsu with the blade, punches and cuts in the same breath, the Dragon Blade cutting while her fists did the talking. "Wait. WAIT! The orbs."

She snatched the blue orb off the grass, examined it for a moment, then slotted it into the center of the blade. Water chakra flowed through her body and the blade. Kushina's eyes went wide.

"I can feel it. The water chakra. It just converted my regular chakra straight into water!" She swung the blade at the abused training log and a crescent of pressurized water followed the arc, carving a deep gouge into the wood. "WHOA!"

She pulled the blue orb out, slotted the red one in. Fire. She swung again and the arc was flame this time, scorching a black line across the log's surface. The yellow orb, lightning. Sparks crawled along the blade's edge and the next swing sent a crackling line through the air that split the top of the log right off.

"GREEN! GIVE ME GREEN!" Kushina was vibrating.

"You're holding the green one."

"RIGHT!" Wind. She swung once and the wind-arc hit the log so hard it exploded into splinters. The stump rocked in the ground.

"...I think you killed the log." Mikoto laughed.

"THE LOG HAD IT COMING!" Kushina screamed, holding the Dragon Blade over her head with both hands, surrounded by splinters and scorch marks and a flattened circle of grass. "MIKOTO! SPAR WITH ME! RIGHT NOW! I NEED TO FIGHT SOMEONE WITH THIS! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!"

Mikoto drew Shark Skin. She couldn't say no to that face.

They fought for an hour.

It was the most fun Kushina had ever had with a weapon in her hands.

Kushina took to the blade like it was always meant to be. She was a natural with everything physical: rough, wild, instinctive, wrong in all the ways that most shinobi cared about and right in all the ways that mattered. She held the Dragon Blade in a reverse grip and fought like the weapon was an extension of her fist, punching with her left hand and slashing with her right in ways that shouldn't have worked and did anyway, because Kushina's body didn't know the meaning of the word "shouldn't."

Mikoto taught her as they fought. By exploiting every flaw until Kushina's body figured out why it was a flaw.

"You can’t look away from me when you swap orbs," Mikoto said, smashing Shark Skin into Kushina's exposed ribs with the flat of Shark Skin.

"OW!" Kushina was sent rolling across the field.

"An enemy won't hold back like I did." An actual strike could’ve cleaved her in two.

Kushina snarled, slotted the fire orb in without looking this time, and came back with a blazing horizontal slash that Mikoto ducked under. The orb-swapping was getting faster, with less obvious openings, Kushina's fingers learning the feel of each orb so she could select by touch instead of sight.

"Your reverse grip gives you speed but costs you reach," Mikoto said, batting aside a lightning-enhanced stab. "If you need distance, extend with wind chakra and keep notice of the range." She knew exactly how that felt now.

"I thought wind was only good for cutting things!"

"Each element has its advantages and disadvantages."

They kept going. Mikoto pressed her harder, faster, making Kushina swap orbs mid-exchange, defending against fire and counterattacking with wind, switching to lightning when Mikoto closed in and the sparks on the blade made close contact dangerous. By the end of the hour, Kushina could swap orbs in under a second without breaking eye contact. Her reverse-grip combinations had tightened from wild haymakers into something approaching actual kenjutsu.

She also couldn't stop grinning. Not once. Not for a single second of the entire fight.

"What are you going to name it?" Mikoto asked, sitting on the ruined stump of what had been a training log, drinking water.

Kushina held the Dragon Blade up to the late afternoon light. The gold zigzag pattern caught the sun. The orange tassel swayed in the breeze. The five orbs lay in the grass at her feet like a handful of jewels.

"I'm going to name each orb," Kushina said, very seriously. "The red one is Hiro. The blue one is Tsunami. The green one is Kamaitachi. The yellow one is Raiko. And the orange one is..." She squinted at the orange orb. "Dango."

"Dango is cute."

"Dango is a beautiful name and I won't hear criticism."

"I wasn't criticizing. I just said it was cute."

"And the sword itself..." Kushina held it up. She looked at the blade. The blade, through whatever sentience it possessed, seemed to look back. “Uzu,” she decided. “After home.” 

Mikoto smiled. They sat together on the training ground in the late afternoon light, surrounded by splinters and scorch marks and the evidence of an hour of happy violence, and for a few minutes the world was exactly as simple as two best friends and a sword.