Months later
The desert of Sunagakure. The sun, relentless, scorched the sand as if trying to melt it into glass. The wind, capricious, whipped up storms that blinded and choked. But for Daigo, those months had become a ritual of endurance and willpower. Every dawn was a battle; every dusk, a small but accumulated victory. His father, Haru, hadn't lied: the training would be brutal, but necessary. And Daigo, at only six years old, embraced it as if his life depended on it. Because he knew it did.
The first month was pure hell. Haru woke him before dawn with the same clang of the pot that had become his hated yet beloved alarm. The dune runs now stretched to fifteen kilometers, with weight bags increased to fifteen kilos each.
Daigo ran until his legs turned to jelly, until the air burned in his lungs like cold lava. "Inhale eight, hold eight, exhale twelve," Haru repeated like a mantra. And Daigo did it, even when he fell to his knees from exhaustion, sand sticking to his sweat-soaked skin.
"Dad, how much longer?" Daigo gasped at the end of one session, the sun already high and burning his back.
Haru, arms crossed, always gave the same answer: "Until your body cant do it anymore. Remember: Grandpa survived because he had to do this over and over. You'll do the same—but better."
And Daigo got up. He always got up.
Push-ups went from one hundred to three hundred. Sit-ups to five hundred. Rock climbing turned into an infernal circuit: climbing a steep dune with a backpack full of stones, rolling down controlled to train balance, and repeating until the midday sun forced a stop.
Haru added variations—runs with blindfolds to sharpen instinct, or push-ups while holding the breath under shifting sand, quite dangerous, simulating drowning in the ocean.
Little by little, the change became noticeable. Daigo's body, once slender and not very muscular, hardened. Muscles defined themselves in his arms and legs—not bulky like an adult's, but dense and resilient like compacted adobe. His lungs expanded; now he could run ten kilometers without breaking rhythm, inhaling deeply without his chest rebelling. And his chakra... oh, his chakra grew like a storm in the desert when the wind was strong.
Every nightly meditation session, sitting in the sand with his hands on the hardening box, made it flow stronger. Chiyo had measured it during a surprise visit: "Almost low jōnin level, Daigo. At your age... that's very impressive."
Though Daigo didn't show it during his meditations, he was thrilled to have such chakra reserves. It would help him a lot in the future and prevent him from becoming a Kakashi 2.0.
The months progressed, and with them, the Breathing of the Seven Heavens began to manifest. At the end of the second month, during a sunset run, Daigo felt that subtle warmth in his chest again. He didn't force it; he let it come. Inhaled deeply, held, exhaled.
Suddenly, his eyes stung, his vision sharpened, and a faint pink aura enveloped his body for ten seconds. His steps became faster, lighter, as if the desert was pushing him instead of holding him back.
But it didn't last. He collapsed to the ground, coughing up thin blood, his lungs burning along with pain in his head and eyes.
Haru carefully lifted him, checking that it wasn't something serious or life-threatening.
"Good. That was the First Breath. But your body is still a child's; it can't sustain it for long. Ten seconds is your limit right now. If you force it more, you'll break yourself—and by my age, you'd be a useless old man."
Daigo, panting, smiled despite the pain.
"Ten seconds... it's a start. I'll make it last a minute when my body gets stronger in the future."
Haru laughed, proud.
"That's Grandpa's spirit. Tomorrow we'll keep trying it—though more carefully, just five seconds so you get used to its effects."
And so, month by month, Daigo pushed his limits. By the third, he could hold the First Breath for ten seconds as he'd said, but he hit the one wall that stopped him: his age and young body.
If I remember correctly, something like this happened to young Itachi. He was strong, but using his Sharingan along with excessive chakra gradually broke his young body, and by Shippuden, in his twenties, he was nearly dead, kept alive by pills.
Experimenting with the First Breath during exercises, in the middle of push-ups, he felt his strength multiply. His physique hardened further: now he could lift rocks that an untrained adult would struggle with, his fists struck sandbags without breaking, and his resistance to the desert heat was almost supernatural.
Haru tested him in simulated combats: Daigo attacking with basic taijutsu, using the breath to dodge and counterattack. He won some, lost others, but each time he was faster, stronger.
"Your chakra is nearing low jōnin level," Haru told him one night after a session where Daigo had hardened the sand under his feet to propel himself into an impossible jump and snatch victory by surprise.
He knew these months were his foundation—for when his shinobi career truly began and he could focus more on ninjutsu.
While Daigo forged himself in the desert, Sasori observed the world from his workshop in Chiyo's house. The months had passed, and something had changed in him.
Something subtle, but undeniable. Daigo. That annoying kid who always talked, always smiled, always dragged him into training. At first, Sasori ignored him. But now... now it was different.
Sasori remembered that afternoon at the academy when Daigo arrived wrecked. "Training with my dad," he'd said. And then: "I won't be able to for a while." Sasori wouldn't admit it, but that had stung. Daigo was the only one who treated him like an equal—not like a puppet prodigy or a weird kid.
He challenged him, forced him to bring out his puppets, and though Sasori won most of the time, Daigo always came back with something new. A new jutsu. A faster strike. And now... training something "familiar" that left him destroyed?
No. Sasori wouldn't be left behind.
That night, after the academy, Sasori appeared in Chiyo's workshop with cold determination in his eyes.
"Grandma, I want to train more," he said without preamble.
Chiyo looked up from a half-assembled puppet, surprised. Sasori trained a lot, but always at his own pace, obsessed with perfecting his creations. He never asked for "more," especially not for her help since he'd learned the basics.
"More? Why now?" she asked, though she already suspected the answer—and it was exactly what she hoped for.
Sasori looked at the floor, fists clenched.
"Daigo... is training something. He says he'll get stronger. I don't want... to fall behind."
Chiyo smiled inwardly. Daigo, that kid with earth affinity, was changing her grandson. Making Sasori, the loner, feel rivalry. Friendship—what he'd lacked in his life as a child who lost his parents.
"Good," Chiyo said. "Tomorrow we start. But not just puppets. I'll teach you to combine them with movement. With speed. If you want to match Daigo, you'll need to know how close-combat fighters fight and how to counter them."
Sasori nodded, and for the first time in months, he felt a fire in his chest that wasn't just ambition for puppets.
The months for Sasori became a whirlwind of threads and wood. Chiyo pushed him beyond his usual limits.
Not just building puppets, but using them in constant motion. Running through the dessert while controlling threads, attacking moving targets, defending against simulated attacks that Chiyo launched with her own puppets.
"Sasori, enemies won't wait for you to back off and pull out more puppets. The mistake every puppeteer makes is showing their real body. Use the puppets to stay out of sight and deny them the advantage," Chiyo said, drawing on all her years of experience to give Sasori no chance to escape her attacks.
Sasori, with his five-year-old body, could only clench his hands and control his puppets to block the attacks while using his other hand to move and clear space to hide.
Little by little, he changed. His movements became more fluid, less rigid. He began experimenting with puppets that didn't just attack from afar but could engage in taijutsu. One with reinforced arms for close strikes, another with strong legs and poisoned spikes to weaken any nearby fighter.
If Daigo were beside Sasori and could read his thoughts, he'd notice how Sasori's original goal—to create a living puppet, like in canon—was transforming into something entirely different.
Maybe he'd still pursue his original goal, but in a less cold way. Maybe he'd experiment to change the form. But for now, he lacked the necessary knowledge, and it wasn't on his mind.
"Grandma," he said one night after an exhausting session, "I want to make puppets that can fight people as strong as jounin or even Kage. Make ones that can fight with him together"
Chiyo blinked, then smiled.
"That's a good idea. Maybe you and Daigo will become a great unit—he draws all the attention, and you manipulate your puppets from the shadows, giving him support and battlefield control," Chiyo said, thinking of the great things these two kids could achieve in the future.
And she wasn't far wrong.
Sasori wouldn't admit it, but Daigo was his first friend. And he wouldn't let him surpass him alone.
Ebizo noticed the change during his visits. "The boy moves more. Thinks more about others." And Chiyo replied: "Daigo is changing him. For the better."
One day, after three months, Sasori ran into Daigo at the academy. Daigo had changed—taller, more muscular for his age, with a presence that commanded respect. Sasori stared at him intently.
"We train today," Sasori said, no question in his voice.
Daigo smiled.
"Sure. But fair warning—I won't hold back. I'm stronger than before."
"You're not the only one who's gotten stronger," Sasori said with his expressionless face, but Daigo noticed the excitement in his eyes.
"As you say. How about we go to a training field? That way we'll have the freedom to use all our moves," Daigo said to Sasori, who simply nodded.
With that, both continued their day in classes until the end-of-day bell rang, heading to the training field for their long-awaited battle.
End of Chapter 6