Capítulo 40: Setting Up The Stage.
As they finished dining with everyone on Team Seven satisfied with the amount of food they'd stuffed into their stomachs, Yamato looked at them all with a little bit of annoyance.
'There goes my monthly paycheck…'
'How can a human being eat so much food?'
'Why does each one of them eat so much!?'
"Thanks Yamato-sensei!" Naruto shouted as Sakura and Tachibana politely bowed and Sasuke nodded.
While the trio of Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke left, Tachibana stayed behind to talk to Yamato.
"Need help cleaning the dishes Yamato-sensei?" Tachibana asked with a good-natured smile.
"Ha.Ha. Very funny kiddo. Tell me why are you here? Do you want me to buy you more food? I'm sorry I don't got money for that. Unless you're ready to wash the dishes?"
"No way!" Tachibana shook his head and then with a little seriousness in his tone spoke calmly, "I have this weird feeling each time I'm around fire. I don't really know how to put it into words but I feel like I can almost touch it."
"Huh?" Yamato was surprised at the topic Tachibana brought out of nowhere. "Seriously?"
"Yep. I constantly feel like there's something I can do with fire ever since I've returned from our last mission. But I haven't tried it since it might be dangerous."
"Hmm…" Yamato nodded as he considered the matter a little before speaking, "You want to try it out in my presence?"
"Hm~m. I don't know if it'll be dangerous or not, so I need your help sensei."
Yamato nodded as he spoke, "Let's go to Traning Ground Seven."
"Ok."
Tachibana was doing this because the problem with hiding a flashy ability like fire teleportation was that once someone saw him doing it they'd think he could be hiding other things too.
Which would make them even more curious about his abilities. They might treat him like a yarn ball, trying to pull more string out of him because of their curiosity and leave him with nothing to hide.
So Tachibana decided he would reveal a part of his abilities so that he could use some of them freely in front of the others to digest his potion faster.
After all, the stronger he got, the more freedom he would get because the Fool's powers were unlike any abilities the shinobi world had ever seen. The only thing that required his attention was the schemes other people might cook up to use him before he became truly strong.
Tachibana followed Yamato to training ground seven and once there, Yamato pulled out a lighter that he flicked open to light a flame and placed on a random stump.
"Go ahead and do whatever you feel like doing. If something goes wrong I'll take you to the Konoha hospital immediately."
Tachibana nodded and concentrated on the tiny flame of the lighter.
Having never done this before, Tachibana instinctively used his Flame teleportation ability as he flickered out of existence.
Yamato's eyes widened since for a second he couldn't sense Tachibana anywhere around himself, at least not until the flame of the lighter flared up to be about two meters tall, out of which Tachibana walked out completely unharmed.
'Teleportation!?' Yamato thought as his eyes grew wide.
But true to his role as a sensei, Yamato quickly arrived by Tachibana's side and observed him carefully.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
Tachibana quickly shook his head. "No sensei. I feel fine. I think I have an immunity to fire for some time as long as I walk out of it?"
"I see…" Yamato nodded.
Then they tested several other things about the ability like his range and speed before they came to a combined conclusion.
Tachibana's current range was about thirty meters and he could teleport in under a second, but possibly through more practice he could increase the range and shorten the time it took him to activate and use the ability.
Tachibana couldn't take a second person along with him using the ability but perhaps that could also change later down the line.
But Yamato was puzzled.
'I can't sense him using any chakra when he activates the ability…'
'Is this some sort of special Kekkei Genkai like the Sharingan or the Kurama clan who could use their spirituality to create genjutsu that could affect reality?'
After their tests, Yamato pulled out a special paper and handed it over to Tachibana.
"Tachibana-kun, try pouring your chakra into this paper. It is called a chakra paper and will show the elements your chakra has a strong affinity for."
Tachibana nodded and poured his chakra into the paper.
Unexpectedly the paper had two reactions, one part of it burned to ashes while the other wrinkled.
"What does it mean Sensei? Do I have an affinity to fire?" Tachibana asked pretending to be clueless.
"Yes, you are right. You have a strong affinity to fire, but not just that, you also have a very strong affinity to lightning. Fire causes the paper to burn away while lightning causes it to wrinkle."
"I see." Tachibana nodded. "Can I use the flame teleportation technique during missions?"
"Don't worry about the technique Tachibana-kun, it can't seem to harm you during our tests. You are allowed to use it on our missions."
"Thank you sensei." Tachibana nodded before parting ways with Yamato.
Yamato quickly visited the Hokage office and explained everything he'd just seen to Hiruzen.
"Is that so…" Hiruzen thought as he took a puff of smoke from his pipe. "I see. Tachibana-kun truly represents the Fire Nation. Perhaps the nobility of the fire nation used to have a Kekkei Genkai related to fire which was what made them the rules of this land.-"
"-Yamato, make sure you help Tachibana-kun master this ability to its best possible degree."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
"Good. I have a mission to delegate to your team. It is a very important mission and is one that will help Konoha immensely in the future. In fact if not for trying to keep it a secret from the other nations, the mission is being ranked only as an A-ranked mission."
Yamato's eyes widened as he heard that.
"But Hokage-sama…"
"Don't worry Yamato. The difficulty comes not from the shinobi you will have to fight, but from the secrecy."
Yamato *gulped* and then nodded as he asked, "What is the task Hokage-sama?"
"It is to restore the royal line of the Land Of Snow. The regent of the Land of Snow has contacted Konoha with this mission. And has offered us full access to the advanced technological chakra armour that the current tyrant in the Land of Snow has developed."
"Arming our shinobi with such a machine would save the lives of a lot of our shinobi and would help weaken our strength which has been on a decline since the sacrifice of the Fourth Hokage."
"I also want to help Naruto develop and understand connections so that he can walk on the path of his dream to become the Hokage someday, such a bright child is one fit to lead the village that upholds the qualities of the will of fire."
Yamato's gaze held a kind admiration for Hiruzen as he said those words and he quickly nodded, "Yes Hokage-sama, I will do my best to help Team Seven solve this mission."
On the other side of the village, Tachibana inside his Senju home looked at the storage seal in front of him.
He'd drawn the storage seal himself and after a couple of tests had determined that it worked just fine like any other storage seal on the market but was just a little inefficient since his calligraphy skills still weren't excellent yet.
But that wasn't what had drawn Tachibana to learn how to draw storage seals in the first place.
"What would happen if a storage seal stored a jutsu?"
"Could someone store several fireballs over their lifetime and then release it all at once to bombard the enemy with a few several thousand of them?"
"Why has no one tried this before?"
"Is it not possible?"
"Why?"
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A/N : The stage for the new arc is set. What do you think will happen in this arc?
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