CHAPTER 39

- There you are, Yuske-kun. Take Ayane-chan, she misses you and wants to play with her brother. – Calling to her son, Yoshida Hana went out into the backyard, holding a curious creature in her arms, who was exploring all around her. Apparently, the young man was too caught up in thinking again, since his parents had already returned.

- Something tells me it's not her who wants to play with me, it's you who wants to get rid of her while you make dinner. – Though Yuske said the words tiredly, with a languid note of displeasure, he still accepted the little one from his mother, cradling her against him.

- Honey, there's no need to hold her like that, she's not that little anymore and she's capable of holding her head up on her own. – Yuske had made a habit of cradling her to be able to support the infant's head with one hand, forgetting that she had been able to handle her own weight for months now.

- Could it still be harmful to her and better to help her?

- Don't worry and trust mom, she'll be fine. Alright, keep an eye on her, she just ate so she'll be quiet, if anything bring her to me. - With those words, the unofficial head of the family walked into the house, leaving Yuske with his own thoughts.

He would have to delay the development of ninjutsu again, and for another half an hour, and that was the minimum figure, he must not give in to the distracting thoughts that popped in now and then trying to bring him back to the delightful world of chakra exploration.

Yuske didn't even realize that his mother, by constantly dumping Ayane on him, was trying to stir up his interest in something. It was not uncommon for older children to take on some of the responsibility of raising their younger ones, but so far no such tendencies had been noticed about Yuske, and as a mother she wanted to create a nice vibe within the family.

All her thoughts constantly revolved around the lonely figure of her son, and the atypical behavior of a child's mind. She wondered how he didn't get all bored alone, what he was doing and thinking about. Attempts to question him, or to try to get him to talk, each time ended with a few exhaustive sentences without much room for further conservation, with words about him being all right, and how he liked it that way.

Granted, the shinobi world has slightly different standards, but even there, overly shy and quiet children cause concern for parents who want to see nothing but smiles on their children's faces.

For a long time, Yoshida Hana kept herself thinking that in the academy he would make friends and become more sociable, but after learning about the sparring between children, she was reluctant to send him there, and Yuske himself gave sufficient arguments to persuade her to believe in her son and not to rush.

A full hour of waiting turned out to be another excruciating series of irretrievably wasted time spent walking around the backyard and giving a tour of all the venues, with Ayane in his arms. At times he even had to put her on the lawn next to the pond and goof around, doing whatever he could to keep the little thing interested and keep her from finding reasons to start bawling.

At one point, Yuske was failing so badly that he even had to show her his new technique, before making sure there was no extra observer around. By this time some chakra had managed to recover, and he himself had done an incomplete meditation session before his parents returned.

Ayane, all in ignorance of the difficulty of the jutsu being performed, only looked around in awe at the pillar of water surrounding her, which danced and circled around the toddler like a serpent. She didn't realize how much effort it took for Yuske not to accidentally soak her with a light touch of the technique, but each time the practice paid off and it became easier and easier to do manipulations with the jutsu.

He was clearly aware that this demonstration for the small one was another training session for him, for now he was learning to manipulate the shape of the created technique, which admittedly was not that difficult to accomplish, given the use of a single source for all of this - imagination.

Yuske even wondered sometimes if this was how people with robotic prosthetics felt right after a successful surgery, improving their control each passing moment. As hypocritical as it may sound, he couldn't think of a closer example for comparison, as learning ninjutsu was new to him.

There were no fears about showing his sister his secrets either; a six-month-old was unlikely to remember such a thing. He enjoyed seeing her laughter and delight at what his first and perhaps last technique produced, as he found it hard to stop coming up with more and more uses and tactics for it.

She may be the only one, other than himself, who realizes how majestic and extraordinary of a factor the chakra is. From which you can mold unprecedented wonders and alter the very fabric of reality.

Perhaps only children are capable of understanding and treating this magical energy as the miracle that it really is. Yuske couldn't comprehend how the others could be so callous to something so perfect and unimaginable, taking it for granted, becoming indifferent to such a marvelous phenomenon.

A child's mind is such a simple thing that if you show a baby a machine gun with a wide smile on your face, he'll smile too, but give him a toy with a sour face, he will cry. Yuske had to start the demonstration laughing and smiling too, so as not to frighten her with the small pillar of water created, whose crying might attract the rest of the Yoshida family in the house, but the goals were accomplished and for the next twenty minutes the little girl forgot about her mother.

Eventually, it ended with a completed babysitting assignment and a quiet dinner, followed by another session of training and figuring out the next aspects of the jutsu that had been created.