Chapter 32: Teaching

The great waterfall shook the air.

"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet."

Iruka's dragon tore itself from the pool and climbed toward Tonbo. A Fūma shuriken came behind it, Wind chakra singing along its edges, while the stone beneath Tonbo's feet collapsed into a deep bed of sucking sand.

Water from the dragon struck first.

A log vanished beneath it.

"Substitution," Iruka groaned.

The shuriken split the wood an instant later. All three genin searched the waterfall, panting from the chakra they had spent.

"Is that everything?"

Tonbo stood sideways against the falling water as though the cliff were level ground. His hands blurred through seals and pressed flat against the stone.

"Earth Release: Small Rock Rods."

Earthen stakes burst beneath the three genin in a spreading wave. Tonbo blunted their tips and stopped them after the first impact, but the result was enough to throw all three into the air.

They landed clutching their backsides.

On the third day of specialized training, none found the joke as funny as their captain did.

Chakra paper had revealed Iruka's affinities for Water and Fire, Tessen Togekei's affinity for Wind, and Mibu Shinobu's affinity for Earth. Tonbo had given each of them one B-rank technique—not because he expected mastery in three days, but because difficult ninjutsu exposed weaknesses that simpler exercises allowed them to hide.

Instead, all three had managed complete releases. Their control remained crude, their power uneven, and their chakra consumption dreadful, but Tonbo had underestimated his own ability to teach.

"You said you only knew a little outside genjutsu," Mibu complained.

Iruka and Tessen nodded. They had challenged him to a three-on-one match and forbidden both genjutsu and taijutsu, confident that this would leave their captain helpless before their new techniques.

Tonbo had used ninjutsu as naturally as moving a hand. Worse, he seemed to know where every attack would land before they released it.

"I do know only a little," he said. "Your proficiency is simply lower than you imagined."

Three hostile stares met that answer.

"Enough for today. We review. Iruka—your shape transformation is poor. The dragon is large, slow, and half hollow. Improve its structure and both speed and striking force will follow."

Iruka forced himself upright and listened.

"Mibu, the same problem delays your Quicksand Swamp. You spread chakra before defining its shape, so the ground changes unevenly. Genjutsu training waits until your fundamentals are stable."

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Mibu's shoulders fell.

"You also watched Iruka instead of the target when you began your seals. Cooperation means trusting him to complete his part. The moment you checked, you delayed your own technique and showed me where the trap would form."

Mibu glanced at Iruka, who looked pleased that someone else's mistake had drawn attention away from his dragon.

"Tessen, your formation speed and reactions are ahead of theirs. Your next task is nature transformation. Make the Wind chakra sharper instead of merely coating the shuriken with more of it."

"How?"

Tonbo took a leaf and held it between two fingers. Wind chakra passed through its center, dividing it so cleanly that both halves remained balanced in his hand. "First do this without fraying the edges. Then repeat it with thicker material. The weapon is the final step, not the first."

Tessen accepted the leaf with the seriousness of receiving a mission scroll.

Tonbo gave each criticism without restraint and each correction with equal care. Shape transformation and nature transformation were foundations for any shinobi who hoped to reach jōnin. A Konoha jōnin was expected to master one nature, learn others, and carry enough variety to answer enemies whose affinities countered his own.

Might Guy was an exception. Building a curriculum around exceptions was foolish.

Tonbo intended to see all three of his students reach jōnin before the generation that dominated the future he remembered had even graduated. Kakashi's future team could boast whatever prodigies it pleased; Tonbo refused to lose on the quality of his teaching.

He was still a worker who went where Konoha sent him. A worker was allowed pride.

In two years he would be married. Children might follow. A man needed achievements worth exaggerating when his sons and daughters became old enough to doubt him.

"That's enough suffering," he said. "There's a hot-spring inn in the next town."

The three recovered at once.

"We're going?"

"Training without rest only teaches the body how to perform while exhausted. Useful sometimes, damaging always. Today, you rest."

"Does soaking count as Water Release practice?" Iruka asked.

"Only if you plan to drown yourself."

"Then Mibu can practice Earth Release by sitting in the mud bath."

Mibu shoved him toward the pool. The argument dissolved into splashing before Tonbo ordered them to save their remaining chakra for the journey.

He opened a dragonfly-shaped purse and counted the bills Ayame had pressed upon him before the mission. Enough remained for the inn, dinner, and the road home.

Having a generous fiancée was a blessing.

Their days settled into a rhythm. They ate breakfast in whichever town they had reached, trained until midday, and returned for food and intelligence gathering. In the evening they traveled toward the next stop under darkness, learning to move quietly and maintain formation when the road could barely be seen.

The three improved quickly, though not impossibly so. Talent did not replace repetition. Even the most gifted shinobi needed months and years to turn principles into instinct.

Tonbo taught no second high-rank technique. One was enough. He returned instead to chakra control, shape and nature transformation, shuriken work, taijutsu, field drills, observation, and the small decisions that kept a shinobi alive. He built scenarios from memories taken from dozens of enemy minds and asked his students what they would do, then showed them every mistake their answers concealed.

Sometimes the scenario was an ambush on a narrow bridge. Sometimes it was a civilian hiding a weapon, a teammate caught in genjutsu, or an enemy retreat designed to draw pursuit into a seal array. Tonbo changed one fact at a time and made them reconsider. A correct answer in one situation could kill them in the next, and he wanted them comfortable with that uncertainty.

A strong foundation would remain useful after they no longer needed him.

To Tonbo's surprise, teaching strengthened his own foundation as well. Explaining a technique forced him to understand why it worked; correcting three different failures showed him details he had previously used only by instinct. His ninjutsu became cleaner. His transitions sharpened. Knowledge he had stolen or inherited became properly his.

Leaving genjutsu aside, few shinobi could match the breadth of his fundamentals now. Perhaps even Jiraiya would struggle to surpass him in chakra theory and general instruction.

Intelligence work was another matter. Tonbo read spies; he had never been one.

Still, he thought as the three genin argued over who had performed worst that morning, learning by teaching might be the most efficient training he had ever found.