After Gaara looked at the sketch for a long time, he handed the notebook back to me reluctantly. There was a faint sadness in his expression, like he already believed this was the part where it would be taken away, and that thought alone made my chest tighten. I carefully tore the page out and held it up in front of him.
"It's yours," I said, shaking it slightly. "Take it."
He froze, disbelief written all over his face. Then his smile grew, slow and real, and he took the drawing with both hands, pressing it to his chest. Happiness radiated from him so openly it almost hurt to see. He finally looked up from the sketch and met my eyes.
"Thank you."
I nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently in what little encouragement I could offer. "Hang in there. Things will get better."
His eyes widened, but before he could reply, the chunin monitoring him appeared, shouting, "Stay away from him."
The man was clearly afraid of Gaara, his body language stiff and tense. "That is the Kazekage's son. Who are you?"
I met his glare with a flat look. "Noa. From Konoha. I'm here for the Chunin Exams."
That made him hesitate. Not enough to apologize, but enough to back off. He redirected his frustration toward Gaara, snapping harshly, "You. Come here. Time to go home. Stop wasting time outside with strangers."
Gaara nodded absently, sadness creeping back into his expression. Still, a tiny smile remained as he clutched the sketch tighter. The chunin dragged him away, and Gaara kept looking back at me. I smiled and waved, and that small gesture seemed to cheer him just a little before he disappeared from sight.
I let out a long breath.
"This world is full of tragedies," I muttered. "Maybe the Infinite Tsukuyomi wasn't such a bad idea after all."
I shook my head. "No. I know myself. I would rather live in reality, even if it's miserable, than exist in a perfect dream."
I opened my notebook again, staring at the pages filled with my impressions of the One Tail's seal. An excited smile slowly crept onto my face.
Shisui POV
Noa came back late, but for some reason he was almost giddy, which I took as a good attitude to have toward the Chunin Exams. I was confident he would not let his emotions control him, so there was no real harm there. I tried to ask him where he had gone or what he had done, but he just disappeared into his room with a quick, "Nothing important." I shrugged it off and went to sleep.
I woke up to Kaen already doing his morning stretches. He was becoming a powerful shinobi very quickly. He was hard working and talented, no doubt about it. Not like Itachi, but then again, no one really compared well to Itachi. Well… maybe I could. I chuckled to myself.
I knocked on Noa's door, but there was no response. After a moment, I opened it slowly, speaking as I did. "Noa, it's me. Is everything okay?"
And then I saw it. For a second, my brain refused to process what I was looking at.
Every wall in the room was covered. Not decorated. Covered. Sheets of paper were pinned, taped, and outright nailed into place, layered over one another in chaotic clusters. Seal formulas. Half written arrays. Flow diagrams sketched in frantic strokes. Some were neat and careful, others rushed, lines overlapping where he must have redrawn the same structure again and again. Red ink and strings connected sections together in looping paths, arrows branching off into the margins, packed with cramped notes and crossed out assumptions.
The floor was no better. Loose pages were scattered everywhere, some weighed down by kunai, others crumpled and discarded, complex circles intersecting at odd angles, pressure points marked and remarked over the same central region again and again.
I stepped inside slowly, my eyes tracking the web of connections stretching from one side of the room to the other. Seal stabilization theories. Containment flow redirection. Feedback suppression loops. I was not a seal expert, but like all ANBU, we were trained to understand their functions and recognize the dangerous ones. What I was seeing, however, was far too advanced, even for me. Judging by its complexity, it clearly involved sealing something terrifyingly powerful.
At the center of it all, pinned higher than the rest like the heart of the madness, was a rough anatomical sketch, chakra pathways highlighted, pressure radiating outward from the core. Someone's core.
Noa was sitting on the floor amid the chaos, cross legged. The huge sealing scroll he had been given by his master was open beside him, and he was focused on it while constantly looking between it and his own papers. His eyes were bloodshot, and it looked like he had not slept and did not care.
Kaen was intrigued by my silence and walked in, only to freeze. "What the…" There was a knock at the door. "Are you all awake?" Sena's voice asked. Kaen stayed in the room, mouth hanging open, slowly backing away as if he did not want to miss the scene, before suddenly running to the door, opening it, and coming back in. Sena stepped closer, one eyebrow raised. "What's going on? Why are you and sensei standing in Noa's room?" Then she saw it as well. Her face almost cracked, which was something I had never seen before. She narrowed her eyes as she looked around. "Is he okay, sensei?"
I sighed, and Kaen asked, his voice a bit terrified, "Is he trying to summon a demon or something?" I looked at Kaen in disbelief, but judging by his face, he was already halfway convinced that Noa was about to summon something ancient and angry.
I rolled my eyes and answered, "I've seen this happen before with seal masters. When they get an idea or work on a complicated seal, they become craz… I mean obsessed. To them, it's a challenge. A puzzle they enjoy trying to solve, but their attention becomes directional. They care about nothing else but trying to conquer the challenge." Sena was relieved, though she did a good job hiding it.
I infused some chakra into my voice. "Noa, are you okay? What is happening here?" He finally snapped out of his trance and stood up slowly, eyes wide. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair disheveled. He raised both hands and pointed at the sheets scattered all around the room and said a single word. "Seals."
He did not blink, which made his red eyes look unsettling. Kaen beside me was basically convinced we were in the presence of a demon and started muttering what sounded like religious prayers under his breath. Sena found that amusing and laughed softly, covering her mouth, which Kaen noticed as his face reddened.
"My students are a mess," I muttered, shaking my head, then sighed and walked over to Noa. "You know the second stage of the Chunin Exams starts tomorrow, right? You haven't slept or rested, and that will without a doubt affect your performance. Given how the first stage was, I think the second will be very brutal." Noa nodded absentmindedly, his focus still drifting toward the seal formulas, his attention already slipping back toward the seals. I flicked his forehead with my finger, and he winced, holding it in pain. "Sensei, why did you do that?" I sighed and replied, "Because you were not listening. Get some rest. You haven't slept all night, did you?" He scratched his head. "I am honestly not sure." I shook my head. "Then get some rest." He hesitated, looking back at his papers with longing. That irritated me.
I activated my Sharingan, which grabbed his attention instantly. "Get some sleep," I said, "or I will put you to sleep." That did it. He jumped onto his bed in one impressively smooth motion and wrapped himself in the light blanket like an overstuffed cylindrical onigiri.