And for now, that was enough.
The next week
The grass was damp from the morning dew.
Otis had just finished stacking stones into a shoulder-high pillar..
Hinata stood nearby, stretching nervously.
“You sure?” Otis asked, cracking his neck slowly.
“Yes!” she said quickly — too quickly. “I-I mean… yes. I want to test what I’ve learned.”
Otis looked at her —
She was nervous. But determined. Her stance had improved. Her feet were planted better now. Hands steadier. Eyes — well, they still flicked away when he stared too long, but they held more focus than they used to. She was improving at an alarming rate.
“Alright,” he said, stepping away from the stones. “We’ll go light.”
“No!” she blurted. “Don’t go easy!”
Otis tilted his head. “You want me to throw you into a tree?”
“N-no! But… just… treat me like I’m serious.”
He paused. Then smirked faintly.
“Okay, serious girl. Come at me.”
Hinata took a breath — then moved.
She dashed forward with sharp footwork, fingers glowing faintly with chakra. Otis blocked the first strike with a casual raise of his forearm. Her hand hit him dead-on — but it felt like hitting a wall of warm iron.
Her eyes widened. “That didn’t—!”
“Try harder.”
She spun, striking low, then high — her palms moved with precision, her chakra control impressive. Otis didn’t counter. Just shifted, letting each hit glance off him with near perfect accuracy.
“You're fast,” he said, stepping back once. “More than I expected.”
“Stop talking and hit me back!” she puffed.
He raised a brow.
He flicked her forehead.
She yelped and fell straight onto her butt, grass sticking to her sleeves
“Owww!”
“That counts,” he said.
She sat up, rubbing her head. “That wasn’t a real hit!”
“Wasn’t a real spar either.”
Hinata stood, brushed herself off, and charged again. This time with more chakra. Her fingers nearly grazed his ribs — he stepped sideways, grabbed her wrist mid-strike, and gently lifted her up off the ground with one hand.
She kicked the air. “Put me down!”
“No.”
“P-Please…” Hinata stammered, steam rising from her head. She was just seconds away from fainting.
He chuckled and lowered her.
Hinata stumbled and caught herself, breathing hard.
She looked up — flushed, sweaty, but serious.
“You’re like… a mountain.”
“You’re like a bird trying to punch a mountain.”
“Birds can be dangerous!”
She laughed.
And then…She bowed, hands at her sides.
“Thank you, Otis.”
“What for?”
“Taking me seriously.”
He paused. Then returned the bow — slow and firm.
“Anytime, serious girl.”
High above them —
Sayuri crouched on a thick branch. The breeze played with strands of her dark hair as her eyes remained fixed on the clearing below.
She had been there since before they started.
She watched Otis — massive, calm, and completely unmoved — as he stood still, letting Hinata attack him.
But nothing she did even made him blink.
Sayuri tilted her head.
“That body…” she muttered under her breath. “What is he made of? Stone?”
She watched as Hinata backed off, frustration showing in her small shoulders. Her movements were neat and trained — she wasn’t bad at all.
Otis didn’t mock her. He didn’t laugh.
Sayuri narrowed her eyes.
“He doesn’t teach. He… lets her learn.”
There was something to that.
Something rare.
She shifted her weight silently as Hinata bowed and Otis turned back to his basket of fish.
“He cooks by the river… trains like a monk… ignores the village…”
Her lips curled slightly in amusement.
“A giant hermit.”
Still… he intrigued her.
Not like the boys in the Academy. Not like her brother Itachi either — whose talents were terrifying but expected.
Otis was different. He was not born powerful or insanely talented but he trained harder than anyone else
“And yet,” she murmured, watching Hinata smile faintly as she gathered her things, “he makes her better.”
Sayuri stood slowly on the branch, unseen.
Her cloak fluttered as she turned.
“Hmph.”
“Interesting.”
A few days earlier...
Sayuri first noticed him at the market.
A towering figure in a plain gray shirt, arms the size of logs, buying rice, spices, and… cabbage?
She recognized him immediately.
Otis.
She had seen him at her house a few times now — her mother had invited him for lunch more than once. He never said much. Just bowed politely and ate quietly. But he was impossible to forget.
She had also seen him once or twice at the Academy — walking quietly, barely speaking, always keeping to himself. Some whispered he was “a failed experiment,” others said “he just got too big.”
Sayuri had a different theory: he didn’t care enough to explain himself.
“You can tell a lot about someone by how they walk,” she muttered, trailing him casually.
Otis didn’t walk like a shinobi.
No tension. No hiding. No fear.
She followed at a safe distance, curious — just… curious.
To her surprise, he didn’t return to the Academy district or head to an apartment block.
He kept walking — past the main roads, into a narrower forest path, down toward the far edge of the village. A quiet place where only sounds of the river can be heard.
He crossed an old wooden bridge and entered a clearing, there was a hut there, it was in a bad condition even though it seemed someone was taking care of it.
“This is where he trains?” Sayuri crouched behind a tree, intrigued.
There was no one else here.
Until the Hyūga girl arrived.
Sayuri blinked in surprise.
Hinata Hyūga, she was her classmate, a soft-spoken, quiet, always last to answer in class — yet here she was,gloves on, back straight, clearly ready to train.
And Otis?
He just nodded at her presence like it was routine.
They didn’t speak much. He practiced with stones. She practiced her Gentle Fist. Sometimes they spar. She attacked him — he barely reacted.
Sayuri watched the spar, amused and slightly impressed.
“She’s talented. Not strong… but clean. Efficient.”
She watched Hinata hit Otis three, four, five times with perfect tenketsu strikes.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Nothing.
Otis didn’t even flinch.
“Unbelievable,” Sayuri muttered, arms crossed on the branch. “He might be immune to taijutsu…”
Then he said something that made Hinata smile.
And that made Sayuri stop chewing her gum.
“So the gentle little Hyūga trains with the walking boulder… and smiles like a fangirl.”
She stood up quietly.
Otis turned —
Not directly at her — but toward her side. Exactly where she was.
Their eyes didn’t meet — not directly — but she knew he sensed her.
He didn’t react.
Just went back to collecting his fish basket.
Sayuri narrowed her eyes.
“...You knew.”
She smirked and stepped away through the trees without a sound
“You’re weirder than I thought.”
...
(A/N)
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