The training field was quiet, a thin veil of mist still clinging to the treetops as Soji stood at its center. He inhaled deeply, the morning chill doing little to cool the heat that coiled within his chest.
Before anything else—before planning, before ambition—he needed answers. The last time he'd tried to release his chakra, just one Tiger Seal had summoned something dangerously close to a Fireball Jutsu. That shouldn't have been possible.
Today, he would find out what happened—and what he could do with it.
He stepped into the middle of a scarred clearing, its grass still scorched from his last visit. He shut his eyes and focused inward.
The chakra was there—dense, hot, and impatient. Not like a slow-building current, but more like a compressed furnace waiting for an outlet.He guided it carefully, shaping the flame in his lungs, just as his father had taught him. This was legacy. Every child of the clan was expected to master it—an Uchiha rite of passage. Born in the chest and loosed through the mouth.
As he moved through the six required hand seals—Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger—Each motion felt heavy with tradition. Familiar. Practiced. He remembered standing by the lake with Sasuke, both of them repeating the seals until their fingers ached. Their father's voice steady behind them: Again. Faster. Until you can do them in your sleep. Now, those lessons flowed through his hands like second nature.
On the final Tiger seal, he exhaled.
「Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu」
What erupted from his mouth was not a standard Fireball.
It was smaller—tighter—maybe a third the size of what Sasuke could produce with the same amount of chakra. But it burned yellow at its core, a smoldering heart of focused heat, surrounded by a rolling edge of deep, bloody red.
As it tore forward, the temperature warped the air itself. Grass shriveled, then ignited, and the path beneath it cracked, veins of heat webbing across the surface like lightning frozen in dirt.
The roar was a drawn-out hiss, like a metal plate left too long in a furnace.
When it struck the training post, the wood didn't explode — it collapsed inward, blackening to charcoal before crumbling into powder. The earth directly beneath the post glowed a dull red, as if threatening to melt. Thin cracks spread outward from the impact point, bleeding heat.
Soji stood still, pulse hammering. The fire receded, but the air around him still shimmered. Every breath burned going in.
Soji stared, wide-eyed, chest heaving.
"That was…"
It should have drained him considerably. It didn't.
Compared to what he'd read, a C-rank jutsu like the Great Fireball should have nearly emptied his reserves. At his age, even a single successful cast was supposed to leave a young shinobi winded—shaky on their feet. But his version hadn't even used two-thirds.
He didn't understand why. Not yet.
As the fire dwindled, Soji approached the ruined training post, cautious. The wood was scorched straight through, the earth around it split and glowing faintly. Tongues of flame still danced across the blackened ground.
He crouched, reaching out a hand—not to touch, just to feel the heat. But before he made contact, the flames near his fingers flickered, twisted—
—and leapt.
They coiled toward him like smoke drawn by wind, wrapping around his palm and vanishing into his skin with a silent hiss.
His breath hitched.
His chakra stirred.
He straightened slowly, eyes wide. Not only was he not exhausted… he felt almost refreshed. The fire hadn't drained him.
It had come back.
"What… was that?"
He tried again. This time, he intentionally minimized the amount of chakra he used. A half-measure—something barely above a flicker. The resulting flame was still potent, still brighter than it had any right to be. And again, as the heat dissipated, some of it trickled back into him. Not much. But enough to notice.
It wasn't a full refund. But it was a return.
He sat down, wiping sweat from his forehead—not from exertion, but from the ambient heat. "So… my chakra doesn't just burn hotter. It's cheaper. And I can reclaim part of it."
He flexed his fingers again, feeling the hum beneath his skin. The idea was staggering.
Soji gathered chakra slowly, carefully compressing it in his chest before releasing it into a small, tight flame — no larger than a candle's glow, but far hotter. The air shimmered around it, and even at that size, the heat licked at the grass and made his skin prickle.
He extended his other hand and angled the flame toward his bare forearm. It kissed his skin—
—and vanished.
Not snuffed out. Absorbed.
There was no pain. No mark. Just a faint pulse of warmth and the unmistakable sensation of chakra returning to him.
He stared for a moment, then molded the chakra again. Another small fireball flickered to life in his palm.
This time, he kept it there. Focused.
It didn't lash out or return on its own. It held, dancing in his hand, restless but contained.
He closed his fingers slowly around it, forcing it to stay instead of being reabsorbed. The chakra trembled, fighting the hold — but it didn't burn. It didn't flare. It simply waited.
Then he opened his hand again, and with a soft flicker, it rejoined him — smooth, seamless, and whole.
Soji exhaled, eyes narrowing.
"It's not just mine to command," he murmured. "It wants to come back to me."
His fire couldn't hurt him. That was his path. While other shinobi learned to channel fire outward, he could bring it inward. Let it course through his muscles. Cloak his body. Burn in his veins and forge new forms of combat.
Nintaijutsu. Fire-body techniques. Fire-drenched taijutsu. Not ranged assault. Close-range devastation.
He could fight within the blaze.
---
Soji sat on the broken post his fire had destroyed, watching the horizon warm.
Fire wouldn't be his weapon—it would be his armor, his shield, his partner. He wouldn't dance around its edge. He would walk into it.
And no one else could follow.