Chapter 112: Kurama Yakumo

Five days later, Kiba and Akamaru fell through an empty sky with limbs spread wide.

The forest rose toward them. Neither screamed. Kiba rolled once, found the horizon, and pulled Akamaru against his chest before the false updraft slowed their descent.

"That's all?" he shouted. "Open Sky can't frighten me now."

The simulation released. He stood safely on the woven eagle, hands on his hips, while Akamaru imitated the posture as well as four legs allowed. Tenyu and Maki clapped from their seats.

Tonbo checked the monitoring seal attached to Kiba's training vest. It transmitted changes in pulse, breathing, chakra, and distress without entering the child's mind. Kiba's parents had approved it after Tonbo explained Guided Insight and the first exercise. They had not approved actual falls from the sky, which was why Kiba's account sounded too dramatic to believe.

Kiba had attempted to prove the lesson by describing the eagle, the false twins, and the sensation of the ground rushing toward him. His parents saw no bruises, knew Tonbo specialized in illusion, and concluded that their son had embellished a safe exercise. They were correct about safety and wrong about how completely Guided Insight could reproduce terror.

"You have adapted well," Tonbo said. "The next exercise is Deep Water."

He brought them to a protected stretch of coast and created two broad boards. A whale formed through Living Weave beneath the surface, ready to support either student. Barrier markers defined the allowed area, and Tonbo's clones watched from shore and water.

Kiba and Akamaru learned to balance against moving waves. At first every swell overturned them. Salt water stung Kiba's nose, Akamaru shook himself upon each rescue, and both accused the sea of cheating. Gradually they stopped fighting every movement and learned to distribute their weight together.

Tonbo began in shallow water, then moved the barrier farther from shore as their balance improved. The Living Weave whale rose beneath them whenever either disappeared under a wave. Its broad back gave them a place to recover without teaching dependence upon Tonbo's hands. Kiba learned to watch the water beyond his feet instead of reacting only after the board tilted. Akamaru learned that shifting his weight without warning could throw them both.

They also practiced separation. Kiba had to locate Akamaru through scent and sound after a wave blocked sight, while the puppy followed the boy's voice rather than swimming toward the nearest construct. The exercise turned panic into a coordination problem with answers they could rehearse.

Open Sky trained judgment under sudden fear. Deep Water added physical coordination. The Inuzuka secret techniques depended upon two bodies moving as one; a board beneath each partner exposed every failure in balance without requiring combat.

After half a month, Kiba could remain upright for five minutes. His young body reached exhaustion long before his determination did.

"The next exercise is Buried Silence," Tonbo said. "It trains concentration."

He placed Kiba and Akamaru inside a reinforced underground chamber connected to the surface by sealed air shafts and an immediate extraction mark. Darkness removed sight. Thick earth dulled distant sound until each breath seemed too loud. Tonbo remained outside the chamber with his perception fixed upon them.

"We are the bravest pair in Konoha," Kiba whispered. "We can do this."

Akamaru answered from somewhere to his left.

The first session lasted only minutes. Tonbo ended it when their distress rose toward panic, brought them into sunlight, and fed them. Later sessions became longer. Kiba learned to separate the sound of his heartbeat from movement beyond the wall, while Akamaru distinguished Tonbo's scent through the airflow. Guided Insight taught them to notice without inventing threats.

Tonbo never left the extraction mark. Tenyu and Maki slept in a surface shelter beside him while a Shadow Clone maintained the chamber and another continued research. When Kiba signaled to stop, the earth opened immediately. On the next attempt, the boy remained long enough to count one hundred breaths. Akamaru discovered that pressing against Kiba's leg steadied both of them.

Buried Silence produced no dramatic victory. Its progress appeared in smaller changes: Kiba stopped filling every quiet moment with speech, followed multi-step instructions without chasing the first distraction, and could return attention to a task after Akamaru barked.

At home, Kiba's parents saw a boy returning tired, hungry, and eager for the next day. Hana's progress under Tonbo had been obvious, and Iruka described his former teacher as demanding but effective. No one imagined quite how literal the exercises were.

Tsume asked Kiba what he learned. He answered that oceans attacked from the side and that a future Hokage needed stronger legs. His father inspected the monitoring seal, found Tonbo's written readings attached, and accepted that the risk had remained controlled. The Inuzuka valued experience more than sheltered instruction; their concern was whether Kiba understood the danger, not whether he avoided every scrape.

Iruka sneezed while organizing Academy scores and wondered which unfortunate method Tonbo had invented this time.

The training continued until an explosion shook the Kurama compound.

Hiruzen received the first reports before the smoke cleared. Fire had erupted inside a private residence. Kurama Murakumo and his wife were dead. A young daughter named Yakumo survived, physically frail and unable to control the clan's kekkei genkai.

The report contained school plans, medical examinations, household accounts, and statements from relatives who remembered Yakumo's childhood. None of those records had existed in the version of Konoha known to Tonbo a month earlier. To Hiruzen and his staff, they were ordinary evidence surrounding a tragic accident.

Kurama Unkai asked that the child be confined before her power caused further harm. Hiruzen refused.

"Every child in Konoha is part of its future," the Hokage said. "She did not choose this. We will contain the danger without treating her as an enemy."

He assigned protective measures and approved Kurenai as a private instructor. Unkai left dissatisfied, but without authority to overturn the decision.

Tonbo attended Murakumo's funeral beside Kurenai. Barely a month had passed since the man gave him the Kurama record and said that one day the world might believe he had a daughter.

Now a girl knelt before the grave.

Yakumo appeared several years old, not an infant. Everyone around her remembered a sickly child raised in the Kurama compound. Kurenai remembered months of tutoring, conversations with Murakumo about her condition, and the seal she had placed upon the unstable presence called Ido.

Kurama mourners treated the girl with a mixture of pity and apprehension. Some saw the last child of their clan head. Others saw the uncontrolled power that might have caused the flames. Hiruzen's order prevented confinement, but it could not command affection.

Tonbo remembered those things too.

"I cannot believe he is gone," Kurenai said. "The mission with the daimyō's guard ended only weeks ago."

"At least he left someone behind," Tonbo replied. His covered gaze remained upon Yakumo. "Her health and the clan's expectations will be difficult. Do not let either become the whole of her life."

"I won't."

The girl wept with the grief of a daughter who had lost both parents. Tonbo's senses found pulse, breath, chakra, tears, and every other sign of a living person.

Genjutsu Reincarnation had begun its next cycle.