Training taijutsu with Boruto Uzumaki turned out to be not quite as enjoyable as I had imagined.
From the perspective of Kenji Matsuda, who had spent countless nights watching Boruto move across a television screen, this should have been an extraordinary experience. Learning directly from the son of Naruto Uzumaki — a shinobi who had faced Otsutsuki with his own hands. Who wouldn't want that?
As it turned out, the answer was: my five-year-old body.
"Again." Boruto stood in front of me in the backyard with his arms folded, his expression flat but his eyes tracking my every movement.
I repeated the basic stance for what had to be the fortieth-something time that morning. Feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, fists raised before my chest. Simple in theory. But a five-year-old body has its own opinions about what "balanced" means.
My legs trembled slightly.
"Don't look at your feet." Boruto's voice was calm but direct. "Look straight ahead. Balance isn't about watching where your feet go. It's about feeling the ground beneath you."
I lifted my gaze. Immediately more stable.
Eighty-three years of life experience and I still need to be taught how to stand, I thought, somewhere between amused and genuinely annoyed.
"Good." Boruto gave a small nod. "Hold it."
I held the stance. One minute. Two minutes. My thighs and calves began lodging a loud and very vocal protest in the form of spreading soreness.
Three minutes.
"Rest."
I sat down on the grass and took a long breath. Boruto sat beside me and handed over a water bottle without a word.
"How old were you when you started training, Dad?" I asked after a few sips.
"Five, same as you." The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "But I was harder to manage than you back then. Grandpa Naruto excused himself to the bathroom three separate times pretending not to hear me complain."
I laughed quietly. The image of Naruto pretending not to hear his son grumbling was something I could picture with absolute ease.
"You don't complain much," Boruto continued, his tone shifting slightly — more careful, more observant. "For a five-year-old, you're pretty... patient."
I was quiet for a moment. "Saruto likes training."
"Is that true, or are you saying it because you know it's what I want to hear?"
A sharp question for a morning conversation between a father and a five-year-old.
I glanced at him. He glanced back.
"Both," I answered honestly.
Boruto laughed — a genuine, unguarded laugh, the kind that didn't come out often but always seemed to warm the air around it when it did. He rubbed my head roughly until my blond hair went in every direction at once.
"At least you're honest," he said.
That afternoon, Boruto was called to the Hokage's office for an emergency briefing.
He said goodbye quickly, reminded me not to train alone, then disappeared with a shunshin that left behind a brief gust of wind and the faint smell of cut grass.
I stood alone in the backyard.
Sarada was inside the house, working through a stack of mission reports that had been piling up on her desk for three days. I could hear the occasional scratch of her pen through the open window.
Don't train alone.
I looked out at the wide open yard.
But he didn't say anything about standing in the yard.
Highly debatable logic, but satisfying enough for now.
I walked to the center of the yard and repeated the stance from earlier. Feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, gaze level. This time, steadier — maybe because no one was watching, or maybe because these small muscles of mine were finally beginning to understand what was being asked of them.
I held it for one minute, two minutes, three minutes.
Then four. Then five.
At the sixth minute, something shifted inside my chest.
Not pain. More like a gentle pressure from within — as though something that had been sleeping all this time had just opened one eye. Warm. Deeply warm. It moved from the center of my chest up to my shoulders, down through my arms, all the way to the tips of the fingers on my right hand.
I looked at my right hand.
A small flame burned in my palm.
Not large. No bigger than a birthday candle. But clear, real, and moving with a rhythm that felt like breathing — shrinking and expanding, shrinking and expanding, following the beat of my heart.
I didn't move for several seconds.
The old soul of Kenji Matsuda processed this situation with the kind of calm that only belongs to someone who has died once and been reborn inside an anime world.
So here it is.
Crimson Fang is starting to show itself.
"SARUTO."
I hadn't heard the back door open. Hadn't heard any footsteps. The first thing I heard was Sarada's voice, sharp as a kunai, and when I turned, my mother was already standing five steps away with the Sharingan active in both eyes.
Three tomoe. Spinning.
Her expression wasn't panic — Uchiha don't panic, they analyze — but beneath her composure something was unmistakably readable as what is happening to my child.
The flame in my hand went out immediately. Not intentionally — more out of shock.
"Mom—"
"Don't move yet." Sarada approached with quick but controlled steps. She knelt in front of me, took my right hand in both of hers, and examined my palm carefully. No burns. No marks. My skin was cool as usual.
Her Sharingan kept spinning, reading something I couldn't see myself.
"What did you feel?" she asked at last, her voice dropping into the register she used for interrogation — calm, precise, leaving no room for half-answers.
"Warm," I said. "From my chest. Then into my hand."
"Did it hurt?"
"No."
"Were you scared?"
I shook my head.
Sarada looked at me for a long time. A very long time. I didn't know exactly what her Sharingan was reading, but from the way her expression slowly shifted from guarded to deeply thoughtful, the answer wasn't simple.
"This isn't ordinary chakra," she said at last, more to herself than to me. "Not standard ninjutsu. And not an Uchiha kekkei genkai."
"Saruto didn't do it on purpose," I said.
"I know." She released my hand and stood up. Her Sharingan faded, returning to the sharp, ordinary black eyes beneath. "But from now on, if this happens again, you call for me or your father immediately. You don't stay quiet and handle it alone in the yard."
Her tone wasn't angry. It was better described as worry wearing the clothes of firmness.
"Yes, Mom."
She looked at me one more second. Then, very briefly, her hand passed over the top of my head — a gentle motion that felt like something she had learned from someone, maybe her own mother, maybe Naruto who famously couldn't stop himself from rubbing people's heads.
"Come inside. Lunch is almost ready."
That night, Boruto and Sarada talked in the living room in low voices.
I lay in my room with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling, listening to a conversation they assumed I couldn't reach.
"A small flame in the palm of her hand," said Sarada. "Not standard Katon chakra. Completely different in texture. My Sharingan read it as an energy that — Boruto, I have no reference for this. I've never seen anything like it before."
"So it's not from the Uchiha line."
"No. And not from the Uzumaki line either. I've compared. This is something else entirely."
A brief silence.
"Does your father know?" Boruto asked.
"Not yet. But I'll tell him tomorrow." A short pause. "And Naruto probably needs to know as well."
Footsteps. Boruto had apparently stood and walked toward the window.
"Is he okay?" His voice dropped, meant only for Sarada.
"Physically, nothing is wrong. No burns, no signs of chakra overload." Sarada answered quickly, as though she had already prepared this answer. "What concerns me more is his expression when I got there. He wasn't startled, Boruto. A five-year-old seeing fire come out of his own hand for the first time — he should have been startled. He should have cried."
"But he didn't."
"He was looking at his own hand like someone confirming something he had already suspected."
A longer silence.
I let out a very quiet breath in my room.
My mother is far too perceptive.
The Uchiha bloodline was truly not something to be taken lightly.
Lanjut Bab 4?