Chapter 8: Bonds - Asami
Asami left early afer preparing breakfast for him. She had to take a test to show that she is fit to be a Genin. For the past two years, she was never idle in her training and considering the improvement in her Sharingan's prowess, she was much stronger than before.
Early in the morning, Rayzen kept both his eye powers active and started training. He practiced his throwing skills with and without soul force, Uchiha taijutsu and seal-less casting of fireball jutsu. After exhausting his chakra, upto a safe limit, he took a brief rest.
After breakfast he again started training. But this time, he was throwing weapons without using eye powers. He then began hitting and kicking a hard wooden stump that was setup in the backyard.
Takeshi had helped him in renovating the backyard into an ideal place for both training and rest. And the wooden stump in particular was perfect for tempering his body, as it was specially hard and could not be broken easily without chakra.
Rayzen felt that Might Guy maybe able to break it with a lot of effort given that he doesn't use the Eight Hidden Gates Technique. This satisfied his requirement for training, as he set a long term goal to break it with just his body strength.
Meanwhile, Rayzen found out that all his expenses were covered by Takeshi. When he found that through Asami, he decided that once he becomes a Genin, he would confront Takeshi about this matter.
Done with his morning routine, Rayzen started meditating in his room, practicing both True Primal Chaos Formula and Overbearing Soul Tactic, thereby improving both his physique and spiritual energy or soul.
He also constructed a scene of battle in his mind relying on spiritual energy. Since Takeshi was the only one he fought with, he could only emulate a battle with him. Using this, he could sharpen his fighting skills, but the drawback was that the less he understood his opponent, the less useful it is. This was his routine, which he followed 2 to 4 times a day.
In half a year after he started practicing True Primal Chaos Formula, he already achieved minor comprehension of the First Layer. As a result, there was a significant passive increase in his strength, which he held back whenever he fought. Otherwise his body strength was comparable to a Jonin. But, he had not used true essence or the natural energy yet, as he didn't want to leap before he had spent enough time to think.
He figured that once the two energies true essence and chakra reaches an equilibrium, he might be able to bring out an unparalleled force. As of now, the true essence was passively increasing his body strength.
He had been stuck at the minor succes of the first layer of True Primal Chaos Formula for one and half years, since he couldn't think of anything to accelerate the process.
Finished with his routine, he was about to go to Takeshi's house, but stopped on seeing Asami who came back from the test.
"How was it?" asked Rayzen happily, since he could see the smile on her face from a mile away.
" I passed. A team is being arranged. I will have to report tomorrow."
Rayzen was worried thinking about all the bad things that may happen on her missions, but the only thing he could do now was make her strong. So he said after thinking for a moment:
"Did you report unlocking two tomoed Sharingan to the clan?"
She replied : " No."
Asami felt warmth in her heart seeing him worrying about her although he himself encouraged her to get back into service.
" Why? Are you planning to keep it as a trump card?" asked Rayzen
" Yes." she replied.
"Since you are going to report tomorrow, I need to let you know something. Let's have a battle." said Rayzen with a smile that said 'sorry'.
Asami didn't know why Rayzen had such an apologetic expression, but she was curious what Rayzen wanted her to know and even more curious about his battle prowess. She thought smiling to herself:
' I will go easy on him.'
They then moved to the backyard and ten minutes later, Rayzen went back to his room as he sighed in sadness.
An hour later, a pale faced Asami with her mind somewhere else, dragged herself back to her room.
There was lunch in the house.
At dinner, the two met again and ate without talking, creating a weirdly silent atmosphere. Rayzen could not handle it longer, as he came to Asami's side and said: "M-Mom... forgive me. I had to be like that and say all that stuff, so I won't lose you when you go out for missions."
Tears came to Rayzen's eyes, when he thought of losing Asami and with time it dripped on to the ground, which woke up Asami from her thoughts.
Although she sensed the artificiality when Rayzen called her 'Mom', she conveniently ignored it following his sincere apology that got to her. She hurriedly pulled him up and hugged him. She started sobbing on his shoulders as she complained:
"You are too cruel Ray. You were breaking my heart today. I don't want to see you like that anymore. Promise me!"
Rayzen hugged her tightly and said: " Outside of training, you won't ever see me like that. I promise... M-Mom!"
Asami knew he added a loophole, only to motivate her and strengthen her mind. But, she still couldn't tolerate his cheeky behaviour. As she pinched his butt in irritation.
Rayzen lightly screamed out in pain and broke the hug as he looked resentfully at Asami. But seeing her hands crossed under breasts, accentuating them and above everything, her pouting expression made her seem irresistible to him. It evoked in him the memories of the person he had loved in his previous life.
Seeing him in a trance, Asami thought of something else and blushed as she said shyly:
"Since you know that I am not your Mom, you don't have to call me like that anymore."
Rayzen had basically confessed to her what he learnt from Takeshi, except for details of his real parents and his awakening of Byakugan and Sharingan. He lied to her that his left eye had a defect with his vision growing increasingly blurry and hence he had to cover it up to ensure that he would never be distracted.
He also left out the part about him awakening Sharingan since he assumed that letting her know early would pull her into the faction wars of the clan and make her a target to those in the clan that needs him gone.
He told part of the truth in order to use it as a tool to temper her mentality and let her know that she didn't need to pretend to be his mother any longer, while he hid the rest so as to not drag her into his troubles. Troubles that he believed he could take care of by himself given he had enough time to grow.
"Then what should I call you?" asked Rayzen.
"Sister Asami, since I am older than you. And you have to sleep in your room starting from today!"
Rayzen felt like he had 'kicked the godess who brought blessings upon him, out of his home'. He said while shedding fake tears and trying to hug her:
" No! I will continue calling you *sob* M-Mom *sob* and I am afraid *sob* of sleeping alone. *sob* Please..*sob* Please don't...*sob*.. leave me."
Asami sighed on seeing his antics.
Asami was not an idiot to believe him, but nevertheless accepted his hug and silently agreed to his demands not out of respect to the relationship between them that was a bit more than 5 years old, but something else, something that only she herself knew and felt.
The night was normal, and Rayzen didn't do anything forbidden. Nevertheless, the two couldn't sleep peacefully, being a bit nervous about each other.
But with passing time, they felt sleepy and lost their guard.
Asami woke up early next day like she used to and saw herself hugging Rayzen who was doing the same to her. She blushed, but didn't rashly broke the hug. She looked at his cute sleeping face and stroked his dark blue toned black hair as she thought about how the fighting her like that must have hurt him yesterday.
She remembered the last thing Rayzen said after the fight, before leaving her in the backyard.
" In this world, the chances a ninja dies of old age is very few. And those who died the fastest were Genins. See the difference in power between us, I could kill you in a few minutes and it took that much time only because I don't have as much experience as even a normal Genin. If you couldn't even win against me, how would you face the enemies that are stronger than you? Never get complacent in your strength. We rely on Sharingan too much and our arrogance and pride in our bloodline has prevented us from ever growing stronger than our bloodline or the Sharingan. I hope you can learn from this experience, and survive in this world to fulfill your promise to me Asami, that we could go strong together. Don't leave me alone in this world. If you ever do that and think that I will be in peace with it, you will be proved wrong. What you will leave behind will not be the 'little Ray' you know! But, a monster that destroys everything in its path."
His words were further reaffirmed as he defeated her and on seeing that he was not even close to exhaustion after defeating her.
...
An intense desire and a new resolution born of it, started growing in her mind slowly.
She gave a kiss on the forehead of the 'little monster' and without waking him up left the room to prepare for the morning and her reporting time.
Rayzen who was asleep, slowly opened his eyes with a smile as he held his forehead in reminisce, after Asami left the room.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone