Chapter 18: Growth 

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A leaf was held in a fair-skinned hand – and a sudden blue hue shone before half the leaf crumbled into dirt. The brown residue, falling on the floor. 

'Finally… some progress. After two months of constantly trying, I have successfully crumbled half the leaf.'

His eyes gleamed with sudden pride at his progress but the sweat on his forehead dripped down, tasting it on his lip. The salty taste was caught in his mouth, realising he needed a shower. 

'Whew, chakra is hard work.' 

At first, this exercise was quite overwhelming as he had to constantly feed chakra to this leaf. Despite his efforts, no sort of progression was shown – not even a little bit – knowing how far he had gone. He felt like it was blank. 

However, after a month, he felt a crumbly texture come from his chakra; he looked down and saw brown residue on the tip of the leaf which gave him the motivation to try harder, coming to his achievement. 

Soon he'll be able to learn the earth scroll his father gave him. He had been reading the contents of this to gain some insight before he started – planning something before you do it was the best way to learn in his opinion. 

—--

Around the podium stood a lot of children. Just like last time Arima called two names up. To his voice, they stood up and fought in the centre. After their fight, two familiar names were called out. 

"Akio and Tsume," Arima yelled to which two kids walked up to the middle. 

Tsume with her wild look glanced straight into Akio's calm, cool and collected eyes.

Both got into a stance and stood at eye level with each other, waiting for the go.

"Start!" Arima shouted. 

Immediately, Tsume dashed with vigour; her hands raised ready to pounce at him like an animal. It was an unorthodox fighting style but Akio just moved back and avoided her flinging hands at all costs. 

However this time, Akio poured chakra into his feet, using an enhancement to fend off her attacks. This was him overcoming his weakness of a lacking body.

Her hands came close to his face but he tucked in his chin and slanted his neck last minute – barely avoiding the claw-like attack. This time, his eyes turned observant, waiting for the next slash. 

Tsume raised her hands to slash but Akio quickly parried it and raised his leg aiming straight for her stomach. 

Her reflexes were quite good so she quickly moved both her arms, put it in an X and blocked it. She winced, taking the full impact of her attack – Akio – seeing this took full advantage and dashed forward. 

He clenched his fist and aimed it straight at her guard… the punch went through and hit her cheek, squishing them like jelly. Although she never backed down, and took the full blow before sending a punch to him.

Akio blocked this and sent one of his own… 

It was just constant back and forth… That was until Tsume caught him off guard and clenched his arm, sending him over herself with pure strength, landing flat on the floor. 

His vision was now facing the sky; the wild girl looking straight over him… she had her clenched fist next to his face – he just sighed and said, "I give up."

"Now both of you, do the seal of reconciliation," Arima said. 

They both followed his instructions and made a hand gesture before going back to the crowd. 

Behind stood Arima, staring intently at his smartest student… inwardly he was flabbergasted at this guy's improvement. Just a year ago, he had trouble taking down the weakest in the class – now – he gave Tsume a hard fight. 

'The kid definitely has potential, that's for sure. Maybe he's just one of them late bloomers.' 

He was at the bottom last year in physical activity, although he's now top three, just behind the two best in the class. He's even closing the gap quite quickly and as the days go by, he could see Akio contend with them. 

Right now, Akio was in the crowd, conversing with a certain dull-looking kid. 

"See, told you I wouldn't lose to her in less than ten seconds," Akio said – his hands cupped in front of him, signalling him to hand over something. 

"I win the bet."

Arise just begrudgingly accepted. "Fine." He pulled out some cash from his back pocket and put it in his hand.

Akio just counted it with a smile and winked at his begrudged expression. "You snooze, you lose kid. It's the game." 

 

Arise raised a brow. "Kid?" he frowned. "You just got lucky." 

Even though he said this, inwardly he was surprised too; he started sparring with Akio and as time passed by, he got stronger and stronger. However, he never thought it'd be to this point – where even Tsume had trouble taking him down. 

Akio also thought about his strength gain, and it was all thanks to chakra. In the end, only focusing on this paid off finally – his weakness was semi-covered now. 

His chakra control and efficiency with it – Akio could proudly say – he was the best in his class by a mile. 

'Hmm, that brings me to a question. What would my medical prowess be like?'

He had been thinking about this for some time since he had talent in chakra control. But he knew that he had to wait until graduation to learn medical ninjutsu. 

Right now, all he could do was study: anatomy, advanced biology, physiology and basically any other things to the best of his ability. As he had twenty years of experience, he already went through modern teachings and had some basic knowledge.

Also, the academy refreshingly revised all this knowledge, so he was quite proficient. Although not a medical degree… over the past few months, he'd been trying his hardest to digest knowledge in various areas. He wanted his foundation to be deep – and his knowledge adept. 

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Akio had walked inside his empty house… the gloomy atmosphere immediately engulfed him. He came back to this mostly all the time and didn't mind it; he felt at peace.

The house was rather quiet nowadays – no chattering could be heard like it normally did – and Miko held herself up most of the time, worrying like a normal housewife.

As he was about to step into the living room; his senses picked up someone behind him… he turned around to see a kid with a purple tint in his hair. 

Ariza smirked whilst cracking his knuckles. "It's time. I've waited a long time for this."

Akio, who was standing in the frame of the door, saw his step-brother walk closer and closer to him. He slowly took a step back into the room. 

"You can't run. Where are you going to go?" he chuckled. 

Now, he was face to face with Akio and glanced him straight in the eye. Seeing his expression not waver he grew irritated and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. 

"Your boyfriend, Minato, isn't here to save you. Now that he's gone to war." 

Feeling the collar tighten around his neck, he winced a bit and then grasped his hand around Ariza's arm. 

He had quite the strength to him because of his body training. However, Akio had chakra… 

A blue hue flowed through his arm and reached his hand which pushed Ariza away. Tripping over, Ariza was surprised by that strength and then had an enlightened expression. 

"Chakra...You've learnt it at this level, this fast?"

Sending chakra to various body parts, and enhancing them required the skill of tree walking – and this is what his step-brother had achieved. 

He stood up, realising his situation and smirked…

"But you don't think I haven't too?" his eyes widened, almost crazed like an expression was written on his face. His mouth was in a devilish smirk. 

 A sudden blue hue was also sent to his foot – then dashed toward Akio – trying to grab him by his collar again. 

Although for some reason, this speed was not fast for Akio – he sidestepped and evaded the attack – this time, grabbing Ariza by the shoulder. He gave a light shove, sending him into the wall. 

From this encounter, Ariza realised that he was far beneath Akio in strength… he couldn't acknowledge it… no – he couldn't process it.

He kneeled on the ground with a crazed expression. "Wait… how — how are you better." 

He clenched his fists as he gritted his teeth."It's not possible." 

Akio just sighed. He really couldn't be bothered with this guy anymore.

"I have n-" he was about to speak when a purple-haired girl entered the room, standing in front of the door frame. 

Seeing her brother on the floor – in a haggard state – she grew a slight frown, glaring straight at Akio. 

"What do you think you're doing," she exclaimed. 

Akio never answered her and just gave her a deep glance. This was before he simply walked past her indifference, not sparing a glance at the raged Ariza. 

As he walked out of the room, he revised over the encounter. It now showed him where he stood in strength. 

Ariza was two years older than him, having two years on him when it came to the academy and he dismantled him with ease. However, this was just a taijutsu match – it didn't really show who would win in a real match. 

He was basically… well nearly – the strongest in his class. Nearly two and a half years had passed and Aiko finally caught up…

Sparring with Minato, who had now graduated definitely paid off. Also, the many hours of constant training weren't in vain. 

'Finally… I am now stepping into the realm of the strong.' 

In reality, he knew this statement was not true but Akio now had a newfound confidence... 

 Different from when he first came into this world. 

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