Chapter Eleven: Silence of Water

Year of Foundation: Third Year of Konoha's Establishment

Month: August

Kenichi Sato's Age: 7 years and 4 months

During those humid summer days, Konoha was preparing for the Minor Harvest Festival, where students and families joined together to decorate the village. The air was filled with laughter, fluttering flags, and the scent of tea and rice.

But on the edge of the academy courtyard, someone stood apart. A child in training gear, staring at an old wooden dummy with a deep, quiet gaze.

Kenichi Sato, with his usual silence, stood still. His breath moved with precision—each inhale matched a step, each exhale followed by a turn.

He had spent the past month refining his fusion of Water Breathing with basic taijutsu techniques. It had not been easy. His body was that of a child, but his mind carried the weight of decades of memories. Still, he had learned something important: a small body doesn't mean weakness, it means a new beginning.

—

Water Breathing, as he had come to understand it, was not just about synchronizing breath and movement. It was a discipline of calming the heart before the strike. It was built on:

Unifying breath with pulse.

Moving the body fluidly, without resistance.

Using the enemy's motion against them, as water does with stone.

In taijutsu, every movement has weight. But Kenichi had trained his body to hide that weight within the breath. When his blows landed, they weren't powered by muscle, but by the seamless flow of momentum from foot to palm—his body like a wave crashing into its target.

He developed a technique he called "Push and Breathe": a rising kick synchronized with a long inhale, balanced by a palm strike during a focused exhale, followed by a twisting spin paired with broken, distracting breaths.

Every strike, every shift, was silent… and deadly.

—

In one class session, students were asked to strike a wooden target using their acquired techniques.

Kenichi stepped forward. He made no hand signs. No sound. Only breath.

Then he moved.

A rising spinning kick from the ground, followed by a palm strike to the center of the dummy, a bow-like dip with a long exhale, then a swift evasive sidestep.

Silence… then the wood cracked open.

The instructor stood stunned for a moment, then jotted down a note without comment.

One student whispered, "How did he move so quietly? I didn't even see him strike."

Another said, "Did he use chakra? I didn't see a single hand sign!"

But Kenichi didn't respond.

He sat alone under a tree and wrote in his notebook:

> "When breath becomes part of the body, movement becomes part of silence."

"Water does not strike… it passes through."

—

One day, while walking home from the academy, he passed by a small outdoor field where children of various ages gathered. Among them was a boy slightly older than him, wearing a tight green training outfit, with thick black hair styled like a watermelon rind.

He looked like a miniature version of someone Kenichi remembered well from his past life…

"Might Guy?!"

But it wasn't him.

The boy was repeating simple jump techniques—sometimes he lost balance, sometimes he got back up.

A kid nearby shouted, "You'll never get into the academy! You're slower than a turtle!"

But the boy didn't respond. He just closed his eyes and tried again. Full of determination.

Kenichi asked one of the bystanders, "Who is that?"

The man replied, "A kid named Might Duy. He's been trying to get into the academy for two years, but they reject him every time. Not enough chakra. No obvious talent."

Kenichi paused for a moment, then smiled silently.

> "That boy… is like a flame you only see in the dark."

He returned home, but he didn't forget that boy's face.

He wrote in his notebook:

> "When a door closes in your face, you either walk away… or build a new door."

"Might Duy… remember that name."

—

In the days that followed, during one of the open field training sessions, a shadow occasionally passed between the trees.

Kenichi didn't notice it. He didn't know he was being watched.

It was Tobirama Senju, silently observing. Leaving no trace. Showing no desire to intervene.

But he saw.

And he watched.

—

Back at home, his mother was becoming more fatigued as her due date approached.

Kenichi had started waking up before her—sweeping the floors, heating water, cooking rice, tidying the room.

She tried to stop him, but he would simply say, "A true ninja knows how to protect his home."

He read her old stories from Konoha and helped her with breathing exercises when the pain became intense.

One night, as she sat on her bedding, she asked quietly, "What will you do if your sister is weak?"

He looked at her for a long moment, then answered with a gentle smile:

"I wasn't born with talent—I was born with choice. If she isn't given that choice, I'll give it to her."

> "I'll make her believe she can… until she truly can."

—

End of Chapter Eleven.