Chapter 2: The Mercenary's Gambit
POV: Kole
The Civilian Services Bureau squatted in Konoha's commercial district like an afterthought—three stories of weathered wood and bureaucratic indifference where the village processed paperwork for anyone lacking the chakra to matter. Morning light slanted through grimy windows as Kole approached the front desk, where a young woman with ink-stained fingers was sorting through a mountain of forms.
"Next," she called without looking up.
"I'd like to register a service business," Kole said, setting his hastily prepared documentation on her desk.
The clerk—Hana, according to her nameplate—glanced at the papers with the enthusiasm of someone counting grains of rice. "What kind of service?"
"Kole's Peculiar Problem Solutions. Handyman work, repairs, jobs that are... beneath ninja attention."
That got him a look. Hana was maybe twenty, with brown hair pulled back in a practical bun and eyes that suggested she'd heard every ridiculous civilian pipe dream. "Handyman work." Her tone could have frozen tea. "Do you have any special qualifications? Training certificates? References?"
"I'm good with my hands," Kole said, which was technically true if you counted accidental alchemy. "And I work cheap."
"Everyone works cheap." Hana flipped through his forms with practiced efficiency. "Birth certificate... employment history... medical records showing zero chakra development." She paused at that last one. "You know most repair work requires at least basic earth release techniques, right? Structure reinforcement, material shaping—"
"I have my own methods."
"Your own methods." She set the papers down and really looked at him for the first time. "Look, kid, I process maybe fifty applications like this every month. Civilians who think they can compete with ninja services. You know how many actually succeed?"
"How many?"
"None. Because why would anyone hire a powerless handyman when they can get a genin to do the job better, faster, and with actual jutsu?"
Kole leaned forward, meeting her eyes. "Because sometimes the job isn't about power. Sometimes it's about understanding what needs to be fixed."
Hana's desk was a perfect example—beautiful hardwood marred by a crack running diagonally across the surface, deep enough to catch papers and spill ink. The kind of damage that would require replacement, not just a quick earth-style patch.
"Like that," Kole said, nodding at the crack.
"What about it?"
"May I?" He gestured to the damaged area.
Hana shrugged. "Knock yourself out. But when you can't fix it, I'm stamping your application 'DENIED' and moving on."
Kole placed his palm flat against the crack, letting his understanding flow through the contact. Wood grain patterns. Cellular structure. The stress fracture that had split the fiber along its weakest point. In his mind, he traced the atomic bonds that needed reconnecting, the molecular realignment that would restore the wood's integrity.
The desk rippled under his touch like disturbed water. The crack flowed closed, grain patterns merging seamlessly, surface smoothing to mirror perfection. In thirty seconds, the damage vanished completely.
Hana's jaw dropped.
"The application?" Kole asked mildly.
She stamped it without looking, still staring at her now-perfect desk. "Training Ground 3," she said numbly. "They need the terrain restored after yesterday's training incident. Payment is... payment is three thousand ryō."
Kole gathered his papers and headed for the door. "Thank you for your business."
Behind him, Hana was running her fingers across the desk's surface, searching for any trace of the crack that had annoyed her for months.
Training Ground 3 looked like a war zone.
What had once been a flat practice area now resembled the surface of the moon—craters overlapping craters, massive furrows carved by jutsu gone wild, chunks of earth scattered like a giant's abandoned toys. Kole stood at the edge of the devastation, notebook in hand, trying to decide where to start.
Understanding, then application. That was alchemy's first rule. He needed to comprehend the structure he was trying to restore, the atomic composition of dirt and stone, the geological layers beneath the surface.
He knelt and pressed both palms to the ground, closing his eyes and letting his awareness expand. Soil composition—mostly clay with scattered minerals. Compaction levels varying by depth. The underlying bedrock twelve feet down, solid and unchanging.
Now.
He pictured the transmutation circle in his mind, the geometric pattern that would guide the earth's restructuring. The arrays from his studies last night blazed in his memory as he began to channel his intent through his hands.
The ground bucked like a living thing.
Kole flew backward, crashing into a training post hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. His palms were on fire, skin red and blistered from alchemical rebound. Where he'd touched the earth, the dirt had turned to glass—a perfect circle of fused silica that reflected the sky like a mirror.
"Shit." He sat up, cradling his burned hands. "Okay. Too much, too fast."
The theory was solid. The execution needed work.
Second attempt: smaller scale, single handful of displaced soil. This time he focused on simple reorganization rather than massive restructuring. The dirt responded better, flowing like thick liquid as it resumed its proper density and composition.
The resulting patch was maybe six inches across. Perfect, but pathetically small.
Hour two: Kole had restored approximately two square feet of training ground and acquired second-degree burns on three fingers.
Hour four: Progress had improved to maybe ten square feet, and he'd learned to recognize the warning signs of imminent rebound.
Hour six: His hands were hamburger, but he'd successfully created one small plateau of properly leveled ground. It was maybe fifteen feet across—a tiny island of success in an ocean of destruction.
Sunset painted the sky orange by the time Kole collapsed against the single boulder he'd managed to reshape. One boulder. After eight hours of work that should have taken a competent earth-release user maybe twenty minutes.
Roy Mustang made it look easy because Roy Mustang was a trained soldier, he thought bitterly. I'm an idiot with magical powers and no idea how to use them.
But at least they were his powers. The Entity hadn't lied about that.
Frustrated beyond rational thought, Kole pulled the Ignition Gloves from his pack. Red cloth, golden arrays, the promise of flame at his fingertips. Maybe fire alchemy would be more intuitive than earth transmutation.
He slipped them on, feeling the arrays tingle against his skin like mild electric shocks. The knowledge flowed easier this time—oxygen concentration, combustion ratios, the delicate balance between fuel and flame.
Kole raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
The world exploded.
A fireball the size of a small building erupted from his hand, washing over the training ground in a wave of superheated air. Three trees burst into flame instantly. The grass crackled and died. Smoke billowed skyward in a column visible from across the village.
Kole stared in horror as the fires spread, eating through dry vegetation with terrifying hunger. In seconds, what had been a controlled test became a disaster.
Water. I need water.
But there was no water source nearby, and the flames were growing faster than he could think. Panic clawed at his throat as he imagined explaining to the Hokage why he'd burned down a training ground on his first day of business.
Dirt to water. The transmutation blazed in his mind—hydrogen, oxygen, basic molecular reconstruction. He slammed his hands to the ground and pushed, pouring every scrap of understanding into the arrays blazing behind his eyes.
The earth became liquid, bubbling up in muddy geysers that splashed across the burning trees. Steam hissed and roiled as fire met improvised water, the two elements warring until exhaustion claimed them both.
When the smoke cleared, Kole sat in the center of a scorched, muddy wasteland that looked somehow worse than when he'd started. His clothes were singed, his hair was smoking, and his hands felt like they'd been dipped in acid.
But the fires were out.
"Note to self," he croaked. "Roy Mustang was a soldier, not a lunatic."
The walk home was a parade of shame. Villagers stared at his smoke-stained appearance and gave him wide berth. A chunin patrol asked pointed questions about the smoke column, which Kole deflected with carefully vague answers about "training accidents" and "overenthusiastic techniques."
By the time he reached his apartment, exhaustion weighed on him like a physical thing. But as he climbed the stairs, a familiar pressure built behind his eyes—the feeling of something watching, evaluating, judging his progress.
Inside, the mysterious box sat open on his table. Empty now, but somehow expectant.
Kole collapsed into his chair and surveyed his notes. Day one of Kole's Peculiar Problem Solutions: one satisfied customer, one half-destroyed training ground, and a growing understanding that power without skill was just a creative way to make things worse.
Two days until Gaara's kidnapping. He was nowhere near strong enough to matter in that fight. But maybe—just maybe—he could be ready for whatever came after.
Tomorrow, he'd practice smaller. Safer. Like a man who understood that equivalent exchange wasn't just alchemy's principle—it was life's.
The box remained empty, waiting for his next lesson.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
Can't wait for the next chapter of [ In Naruto I Have 3 Wishes ]?
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them (20+ chapters ahead!). No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1