His Training

It had been a month since they had left. Jiraiya had been pushing Asher as hard as he could. He had begun to wear the clothes Aria made for him. They were able to stand up to anything Jiraiya threw at him. For the month, Jiraiya had been focusing on taijutsu.

They were coming up to Tanzaku Town. Jiraiya had told him that he would teach Asher a new jutsu before they reached the town They stop in a large clearing and Jiraiya removes the large scroll from his back.

"All right," says Jiraiya in a serious tone, "First things first, you need to sign this."

He unfurled the scroll and handed Asher the brush. He stared at the names on the contract. Below each of the names are marks from their hands.

"What's this?" he asks pointing to the marks.

"You have to mark the contract with your blood," says Jiraiya.

Asher signs the contract and bites his finger. He rubbed his fingers together and pressed them down onto the page.

Asher stood up and Jiraiya clapped him on the shoulder.

"Now we can move on. In order to summon a toad, you must do the correct hand signs and plant your hand onto the ground and remember, you must cut a finger, preferrably your thumb, before starting. Now give it a shot. The hand signs are Pig, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram."

Jiraiya then bites his thumb and does the hand signs. He plants his hand on the ground and black markings spread from his hand. White smoke erupts from the ground. As it dissipates, Asher sees an orange toad wearing a vest where Jiraiya's hand was.

"This is Gamakichi," says Jiraiya, "He has volunteered to help in this."

"Yeah sure," says Gamakichi eyeing Jiraiya, "volunteered," turning towards Asher he asks, "So what's your name kid?"

"Asher Haizen," he says, "And don't call me kid."

"Haizen, huh. ," Asher nods, "Haven't heard that name in a while. What? I may just be a toad, but I still know things. So, let's get started."

With that he vanished in another cloud of white smoke. He looked to Jiraiya, who nodded. Asher then bit his thumb and performed the hand signs and attempted to summon Gamakichi. The cloud of white erupts.