“Don’t worry.” Konohamaru gave them a meaningful look. “He’s pretty strong. Well, that might be an understatement. He’s scary strong.”
“For real?!” Boruto clenched his hands in excitement. “I’m into it!”
“So who is this substitute?” Sarada asked, impatient with the little show Konohamaru was putting on.
A cool, low voice carried from one end of the room, clear as crystal. “Me.”
The students knew who it was even before they turned to the door to see Sasuke, his face as expressionless as usual.
“No way!” Sarada cried. Dad? Our master?! She was over the moon, but quickly pulled herself back together. She cleared her throat. “Huh. So you’re going to be our master, Dad?”
“Mm.” He nodded. “It turns out I have to stay in the village for a while.”
“Seriously? All right!” Boruto threw his arms up in the air with a grin that nearly split his face in two. His eyes glittered, and he didn’t so much as try to hide his delight.
Next to him, Mitsuki smiled faintly, his face full of anticipation.
Old Man Sasuke’s gonna teach me ninjutsu!
Boruto couldn’t control his excitement. His step had a lively bounce as he made his way to the part of the forest outside the village that had been designated as their training ground. He wanted to be a ninja like Sasuke some day, working to support the Hokage. The older ninja was his dream personified, and now he was going to be the team’s master. There was no way Boruto was going to be able to keep his cool about the whole thing.
Boruto had received training from Sasuke before. It had only been for a short time, but he’d learned a lot. That period of training was even the reason why he’d ended up rethinking his relationship with his father. Boruto treasured the time he’d spent with Sasuke.
I’ve gone on a bunch of missions since then, and I mean, I have to have grown a little. I’m definitely gonna show Old Man Sasuke how strong I’ve gotten!
This first day of training was going to be the stuff of his dreams.
Whud krr krr krr krr! Zssshhrrrrrrrk!
Boruto stared speechless as Sasuke’s kunai shot forward, systematically mowing down the trees of the forest before reducing the cliff rising up in the distance to rubble.
“A kunai can produce that much power?” Mitsuki murmured.
“Dad really is amazing,” Sarada said. “Just how it is, you know?”
The cliff face slid off from the rest of the rock, kicking up a cloud of dust.
All that from one kunai?! How is that possible? Boruto was baffled.
Sasuke hadn’t simply thrown the kunai. He’d kneaded his chakra with the kunai on one finger, and then, for an instant, released an electrical current. Boruto didn’t really understand the mechanism, but in the blink of an eye, the kunai had flown off and shattered the distant cliff face.
Sasuke lowered his arm, looking cool and composed, and turned toward his students. “Maybe you’re not yet ready to learn this technique, however.”
A silent rebuttal rose up in all of their hearts—So why’d you show it to us?
Calmly, Sasuke pulled a handful of small dice from his leather bag. He distributed two each to Boruto and his comrades. “Your first task. Use ninjutsu to get doubles with these dice. You must not touch the dice.”
All three looked at one other doubtfully.
“There are any number of ways,” Sasuke said, tossing two dice into the air. He then pulled two shuriken out of his bag and flung them after the dice.
The shuriken flew through the air and grazed the corner of the two falling dice, knocking them down onto the grass. The spinning blades then arced around to boomerang back to Sasuke’s hand.
The members of Team Seven crouched down and checked the faces of the dice: two sixes.
“Wow!” Boruto said, eyes round. Mitsuki also stared at the matched pair, while Sarada turned a smarmy smile on the two of them.
Not that it’s any surprise, Boruto thought. But Old Man Sasuke really is super amazing!
Thus, Boruto and the members of Team Seven applied themselves to the task of aligning the dice. With their dice set up on stumps and rocks, they each considered the best way to actually move the tiny cubes given their own particular talents and personalities.
“I’m going with shuriken,” Sarada decided. She gently tossed a shuriken toward the dice on the stump.
Bam!
The blade slammed into the stump, missing the dice by a few centimeters. The air kicked up by the impact caused the dice to wobble, but not so much that either one rolled over. She decided she was aiming too wide and needed to tighten up a bit. This time, the shuriken hit the dice and split them each in two.
She took a closer look and found that the “dice” were actually sugar cubes marked with candy dots. They weighed almost nothing and would crumble at the slightest shock. She was going to have to move them with just the right amount of force—not too much, not too little—or she’d never be able to roll doubles.
Mitsuki had decided to use Wind Style and move the dice with a light breeze. He meant to nudge the sugar cubes with a gentle puff of air, but instead, the dice shot off into the forest.
“I’m strong with Rasengan!!” Boruto decided to make use of the flow of the Rasengan chakra to set his dice rolling. First, he created a small Rasengan in the palm of his hand. Even the slight pressure from this sent his dice flying, even though he hadn’t so much as touched them yet. “Aaah…”
In order to get the dice to roll and the two faces to line up, he would have to hit both sugar cubes at the same time hard enough to move them, but not so hard that he crushed them or sent them shooting off into space. It seemed like an underwhelming and dull task, but it demanded incredibly fine control.
“Gah!”
“Hyah!”
“Ay!”
“Hah!”
“Aah, they broke again!”
“Dammit! I’m totally gonna do this!”
The three young ninja threw themselves into their training, complaining loudly all the while, as Sasuke stood back and watched them.
He couldn’t help remembering his own training back when he was still a genin, those long days alongside Naruto and Sakura under Kakashi’s tutelage. He’d only been attached to Team Seven briefly, and he’d wanted to become a ninja for different reasons from the rest of them. Even so, that brief period had laid deep roots inside of Sasuke, roots that held fast even now. With a wry smile, he realized he was, of all things, waxing nostalgic, which was very unlike him.
At the same time, however, he keenly felt how much the world—and with it the shinobi way of fighting—had changed since then. Gone was the turbulent era of war and blood spilled in vain, a time that had demanded brute strength of ninja and nothing else. Maintaining peace required not military might but rather diplomacy between a stable society and other countries. Necessary now was not simply a battle-ready ninja but one who could also react with clever statesmanship to whatever the situation demanded.
Through Naruto’s efforts, the village of Konohagakure had changed. With the era of war at an end and trade thriving, the various countries had begun to share their progress and discoveries with each other, leading to remarkable modernization in the Land of Fire. Citizens could now go about their lives without worrying about their future or cowering in fear.
As the villagers of Konoha rejoiced in the peace, their memories of the world at war gradually faded. And they had long forgotten that one man had alone borne the burden of a crime and struck out at his own clan for the sake of peace in the village.
Sasuke had come to feel that it was best this way. He remembered his brother. That was enough. There was no need for the new generation to don mourning clothes as well. And as he watched Sarada, Mitsuki, and Boruto, he felt he could perhaps understand what had been going on his brother’s mind when he’d sacrificed himself for the sake of the village.
This new generation of children had been nourished on the teachings of the village of Konohagakure. Sasuke felt a thrill of satisfaction at the idea that everything his brother had fought to keep safe was now being passed along to the younger citizens of the village. It made him believe that the long, long days and nights of war hadn’t been in vain.
Education. Perhaps this was the most critical element in safeguarding their village and the country itself.
“Old Man Sasuke! You’re the master. Give us a hint here!”
Sasuke abruptly lifted his face to meet a pair of carefree blue eyes, even bluer than the ones he was used to. “What’s wrong, Boruto?”
“We tried Rasengan and shuriken and all kinds of stuff, but nothing’s working. You gotta tell us how you did that with the shuriken!”
“A hint? Hmm…” Sasuke took a shuriken in one hand...and found himself at a loss for words. He performed the movement unconsciously, guided by his senses, the same as breathing. The whole thing was extremely difficult to describe. “You hold it like this…and throw it.”
“That doesn’t tell us anything at all!” Boruto stamped his feet in frustration.
“How do you adjust the force? A snap of the wrist? Or is it in your fingers?” Mitsuki asked.