11 Dog Versus Dolphin 1

As a Tailed Beast who was stuffed inside a person's soul, Kokuo had a front-row seat to its Jinchuuriki's daily antics.

Honestly, it was just getting more and more absurd...

Hey, you would snap too if you have to watch someone clawing at the sky for hours on end!

"Lord Kokuo, stop jumping around so much, you're distracting me."

Hikari, who was clawing at the sky as if she was trying to grope the heavens, complained.

"Whose fault do you think it is?!"

The Tailed Beast roared.

Aside from what she'd called Twelve Movements, there was also Six Specially Mastered Skills, as well as the study of thirty-six points in a human's body that could induce the Touch of Death.

Their names were majestic, but in reality, the training process were more akin to dances conducted by drunken monkeys.

To make things worse, those weird movements, they actually... worked? The kid's chakra veins did develop in a faster rate, at least compared to what it had seen so far during its tenure as Iwagakure's hidden weapon.

It didn't want to accept. It definitely didn't want to accept!

Thus, it jumped around some more while making random dolphin noises.

"Lord Kokuo..."

She was about to complain again when she noticed a shadow standing on the edge of the Inuzuka's backyard.

"Eh? Kiba?"

That messy spiky hair, those feline-like eyes, that should be the Inuzuka boy.

Talking about Kiba, lately he had managed to return back from the training ground in a semi-conscious state. At the very least, he didn't immediately lose his soul the moment he stepped back into the house. It seemed that whatever Tsume made him do, he was getting the hang of it.

The boy started walking over to her spot, so she stopped performing 'xuan nan gong' to see what he wanted.

Kiba was harmlessly innocent, like a small puppy, so she usually had her guard down around him. She didn't expect that he would suddenly jumped forward and tackled her to the ground!

"Huh?!"

While her thought process was in shambles, the boy leaned closer until the tip of their noses almost touched each other.

And then...

... he licked her cheek.

"..."

Ah, when she observed more closely, there was a white tail jutting out of his pants...

"Akamaru! What are you doing?!"

Kiba's voice rang above her as the weight pinning her down finally got lifted off.

"What the..."

She couldn't believe her eyes. In front of her stood two Kiba, their appearance mostly identical down to the dust and creases of their clothing.

Well, mostly, since one of the twins got an obvious tail...

With a poof, the Kiba on the left disappeared. On its wake was left the white-furred partner of the real Kiba, Akamaru.

"Hehe, surprised?" Kiba gloated with a smug look. "This is the prized jutsu of our clan, the Beast-Human Clone!"

"Whoa..."

That technique... to be able to change physical appearance, qi manipulation must be involved, right?

She was genuinely impressed.

Animals capable of using qi was not a rarity in her old world. However, said animals had undergone years of meditative training that changed their composition to something resembling magical beasts, lengthening their natural age as a result.

Akamaru, however, was a normal dog. A ninja dog, perhaps, but still a normal dog. For him to perform that feat was nothing sort of miraculous.

"Why are you so shocked? All the ninja dogs in this house can do it, you know. Kuromaru's really good at it."

Kuromaru... that dog with an eyepatch?

Hmm, could it be that animals in this world was even more blessed by heavens? Maybe she should raise one too, it could be her disciple...

Ah, wrong, she got distracted.

"So, all the times you disappeared with Lady Boss, it's for this?"

"Not really... somehow mom's really insistent in teaching me Inuzuka hiden jutsu all of the sudden. I have no idea why. Thanks to that, I have to go through hell everyday!"

He was still nine years old, damnit! Wasn't it a few years too early? Aah, he really wished that his mother would go out on a mission instead of dragging him around every single day!

Suddenly, a hand landed on top of his head, and then proceeded to squeeze it. Kiba winced in pain from the sudden attack.

"Hoo, so you think it's hell, huh? I guess I wasn't strict enough. Fine, I'll show you real hell next time."

"G-guh! M-mom?! I was just kidding! Just kidding! Aaagh!"

"..."

Aah, what a loving family scene... she would never get bored watching it.

If Kiba could hear her inner thoughts, he might had puked out blood. What loving family scene? More like slow torture!

"Girl, I heard from my son that you're the one who taught him that method of circulating chakra."

"Ah? Y-yeah."

She didn't know whether admitting it would be a wise move or not, but in the end, she could only nod.

Tsume's pressure... it was too intense, alright? It reminded her of her old master!

"You guys, have your lunch, and then meet me in the training ground."

She let go of Kiba's head, and then walked back into the house.

"She said 'you guys'... am I included?" Hikari murmured.

"I guess," the boy shrugged. "Let's just hurry up. Mom's scary when she's pissed."

The two quickly finished their portion before scurrying toward the training ground.

---

The Inuzuka clan's training ground was separated into two parts, the smaller outer yard and the bigger inner yard.

The outer yard was open to everyone, including visitors of the clan. The inner yard, however, was reserved only for clan members.

Hikari had only managed to enter this area twice. The first time was when Tsume showed her around the compound, and the second was when she was asked to help cleaning up after a clan event.

On the far end of the training ground were practice targets for shurikenjutsu. There were also racks of dummy weapons made out of woods for each respective bukijutsu. Judging from how worn-out they were, the place was certainly well-utilized, as expected of a clan whose livelihood depended on martial expertise.

"For today's training, I want you to spar with this girl."

Tsume suddenly declared out of nowhere, rewarding her with blank looks from the kids.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I'm not playing around."

"Mom?! But... she's not even a shinobi like us! How's that fair?"

"Silence, pup!"

She glanced at the girl. If it was half a year ago, then she might agree with Kiba's evaluation. However, too many things had surprised her that she was forced to change her stance.

The most noticeable point was Kiba's sudden improvement.

Even though he kept on skipping class, her son still managed to progress quite well, thanks to the Inuzuka clan's natural prowess in the physical department. She'd thought that she would let him play around for a while before starting the drill.

When the girl suddenly showed up in their house, the plan changed.

Kiba's physique and chakra capacity had leaped up all of the sudden, surpassing the average nine-years-old. When she investigated a bit deeper, she noticed that her son had been doing this weird thing with his chakra. Instead of bursting them out through tenketsu to perform jutsu, he had been forcefully circulating them around his chakra veins in a closed circuit.

It was a rather pointless move, since chakra would naturally circulates in his body even without him willing it. In a real fight, it would just distract him when he had to properly use his chakra. The academy wouldn't teach their students to do that.

So what gives? It turned out that the strange girl was the culprit.

She was about to snap him out of it when she noticed that this 'pointless' move had indeed played a part in her son's improvements.

Since then, instead of getting angry, she had gotten interested with what the girl would do next. At the same time, she had a thought of passing down their hiden jutsu to Kiba now that he had passed the initial requirement.

As for today's match, she would use it to measure the girl's potential.

"The format is best two out of three. You lose if you got tackled down or you give up. You can use anything that you have, weapon or jutsu, as long as you don't permanently injure your opponents. Kiba, as an additional restriction, you're forbidden from using Akamaru. For the loser... let's see..."

Tsume revealed a sadistic grin.

"The loser won't get dinner tonight!"

""Ugh.""

Kiba quickly ran toward the sparring area. With dinner on the line, he had to give it his all!

"Listen, twerp! I'm not going easy on you just because you're a girl!"

He suddenly crouched down on all four, as if imitating a beast.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say."

Hikari was fine without dinner, but under Tsume's glare, she had no choice but to comply. Anyway, it was just a spar, right? It shouldn't be too bad. She could let Kiba win as well just to make him hap-

"Ueh?!"

While she was distracted by her own thoughts, a gust of wind suddenly flashed right in front of her eyes, followed by a strong force that pounced her down in an instant.

One hit, and she was down.

"I told you, it's not fair, mom!"

That gust of wind was none other than Kiba. In a single leap, he returned back to his initial position.

As quick as lightning, as explosive as a burning flame.

Bluish mist enveloped the crouching figure, a sign of chakra being released and used to enhance his physical abilities to the extreme.

"What was that?!"

"Heh! Revel in the magnificence of our clan's Four Legs Technique! Guheh!"

His yapping had earned him a fist on his head.

"What kind of idiot blabbered his jutsu to the opponent?!" Tsume yelled. "Anyway, that's one down. If you got knocked out once again, you'll lose."

She was disappointed that the girl would topple down in just one hit. Perhaps her expectation was too high?

"Hey, they're looking down at you! Let This One at them!"

Kokuo roared, feeling wronged for its Jinchuuriki.

However, Hikari couldn't hear it. She was drowning in her own thoughts.

Truth be told, she had also been looking down at the people in this new world. Thousands of years living as peak cultivators had ingrained her with a degree of arrogance. She'd thought that her world's ways were the best, and thus didn't give this world's inhabitants a single glance.

But... look at that.

Enclosing oneself in chakra, a move with swift and decisive strike... was this really inferior to her world's techniques? If it was, then why would she got knocked down so easily? Just because she hadn't cultivate long enough?

What a pitiful excuse.

She wanted to find out. She had to find out!

Her old blood was boiling from the excitement that she thought she had lost for so long!

"Forgive me, I've been a fool."

Her gaze turned sharp. For but a brief second, it sent shiver down Kiba's spine.

Her legs slightly moved apart, adopting the stance of Emei's unarmed combat techniques. One hand kept behind her back, while the other hand was extended toward her opponent, the palm facing toward the sky.

With a flick of her wrist, she made an inviting gesture.

"Come."

Chakra flared out of her body, enveloping her in the same way as Kiba.

'The heck happened to her?'

The boy was stunned with her sudden change of attitude. It was too serious for a sparring match, as if her life depended on it.

'Ah, whatever, I'll just get it done quickly!'

"Haah!"

He lunged forward once again, reaching her position with a speed that could rival the Body Flicker Technique.

'Right claw.'

Slightly lowering her posture, her right hand shot up from below, catching Kiba's wrist and dampening his momentum. At the same time, she used one leg as a pivot, rotating her body to avoid the attack as well as sending a palm strike with her other hand toward his chest.

With her legs firmly planted on the ground, her palm turned into a stiff pillar, causing the boy to get hit by the force of his own attack.

"Gueh!"

When she let go of his wrist, he fell to his knees while clutching his chest.

"It's a down... right?"

She stole a glance to Tsume, whose eyes had widened in surprise.

"One more round. Let's do it."