The Price For Strength
From the North to the South Border, Hi no Kuni's environment alternated grass-covered plains, occasionally cut by this road or that river, and lumps of forests so old that they probably were there when chakra still wasn't a thing.
In the past months with the Toad Summoner, during which we roamed from south of Konoha up to near the Capital of the country in a wide circle that allowed the white-haired shinobi to touch base where he was needed in his network of more or less civilian spies. And for all of our wandering, the forests were more or less the same.
The plains were... boring, if not for the occasional village in the handle of a river or a much larger settlement that fell just short of the definition of a city.
And while the routine of my life outside of Konoha was never mind-numbing, it wasn't particularly exciting. Back when I was at the Academy, it had taken me two years to figure out my Katon Affinity and to hone it to a level that I deemed adequate. Learning Raiton hadn't been difficult, not when I had observed Kakashi perform a variety of lightning-based jutsu.
A way to train that affinity could have been to simply perform any of those techniques until I got used to the change in my chakra that they caused, and only then I could have started to try and replicate it without the jutsu to provide the structure and purpose to my life-force.
Maybe out of pride, I preferred to first figure out the affinity, and then learn ways to apply it. Having seen Kakashi change his chakra nature, I had a very clear idea of what I'd need to do, the only thing I needed was time.
And time I had been given during my travels with Jiraya. Several months we spent together, and aside from fuinjutsu and half an hour each day to maintain my Katon-related skills where I wanted them to be, most of my mental focus had gone into Raiton. When I didn't actively practice the change in chakra nature, aiming at making it as effortless as turning my life-force into fire-natured, I practiced making it flow through my body, letting myself grow accustomed to it.
As it often happened, while Jiraya had disappeared for one of his many errands, leaving me to my devices: I was spending my time training.
After performing a single Bird hand seal, I changed my chakra, and I felt it run at a staggering, if broken, pace across my body. At the same time, I smiled while ignoring with the ease born of practice the faint feel of pinpricks and needles running over my skin.
With a surety that I spent a long time building up, I prepared the pattern for my chakra to follow. Running back and forth so fast that it felt like vibrating, and for maybe the first time I truly realized what 'frequency' meant in relation to the life-energy that allowed shinobi to perform jutsu, Raiton Chakra skittered along my pathways, almost as fast as lightning, it went from my belly to my sternum, running back and forth as I stopped it from going further.
After an instant, that same discharge of lightning jumped from the tenketsu near my heart to the cluster that surrounded my right shoulder, making me outright grin as I knew that success was finally in my grasp: from the tract between my sternum and shoulder, it shifted to the segment between my shoulder and elbow, after that, it went from elbow to my wrist.
Still, as I went ahead with this self-imposed and devised exercise, I knew that there was no outside sign of what I was doing: Raiton was running beneath my skin, invisible to any but a skillful sensor.
Finally, I completed the last piece of the puzzle: with a sharp exhale, the little chakra I had in my right hand left its tenketsu while I manipulated its shape, forcing it to flow in a manner not dissimilar from the chakra cutter that medics made use of.
Splitting my focus, I finally let go of the mental pressure I was enforcing on my wrist. In a negligible fraction of a second, my free hand clamped down hard on my right wrist, chakra clamping on the joint as I kept the Raiton I had built up from running back along my arm.
And my hand lit up with the power of lightning, screeching like a thousand of chirping birds as my version of the Chidori came alive, bluish-white sparks darting over the surface of my hand in an uncontrolled manner before they returned into the shape I had built, keeping in mind the erratic nature of electricity.
While the whole of my right hand was lit so brightly it hurt to look at, from just beneath my thumb to the opposite side of the wrist, and all the way over the edge of my straight fingers, there was a screeching blade of pure Raiton Chakra, kept together by a seal-less shape manipulation that put Kakashi's original Chidori to shame.
The more obvious difference, besides the vastly more annoying sound, was that there were no sudden bursts of lightning running from my hand to the ground, breaking it apart. All the energy that would have escaped from the original Chidori was instead forced to run back and forth, almost as a buzzing saw, along the edge of my knife-like hand.
With a satisfied smirk, I slashed at my side, and the dirt I hit parted like water.
Immediately, I clenched my jaw as I forced the chakra in my hand to move faster, feeling the speed of the Raiton being slowed down by its natural tendency towards dispersion into the ground. Lightning obviously attempted to run from the circuit I built with chakra manipulation into the dirt, which was obviously an area with less potential.
I kept my hand buried into the ground for three long seconds, slowly cutting deeper as I kept manipulating the energy construct that I had built with sheer will.
The original Chidori discharged constantly into the ground: that was a smart way to sidestep entirely the need for shape manipulation. As long as you fed chakra to the technique in an opportune way, your hand would remain alit with Raiton, building up potential until a single discharge broke through the dielectric properties of the air, balancing the shape of the jutsu as a side-effect.
Once I realized that I had reached a balance of sorts, the Sharingan came alive, and I memorized exactly the frequency at which I needed my chakra to run in order to keep my technique from fizzling out and unraveling itself, I rose to my feet.
The free hand that I had clamped over my right wrist slowly let go, and I compensated for the lack of pressure needed to keep the concentrated Raiton in my right hand with sheer chakra control. My forearm built up enough chakra to oppose the metaphorical pressure that the Chidori in my hand was generating.
Almost but not quite, lightning kept moving in my right hand almost like a flat circle, a circle with a spiky and everchanging edge.
With a frown, I extended my hand towards an empty side of the clearing, struggling slightly against the pull it casually exercised towards the ground: barely, I tentatively relaxed my control over my middle finger, which was the tip of the spear, so to speak. A single arc of lightning immediately escaped, only to be cut off as I reinforced my control over the technique once more.
"That is no longer a Chidori." I smiled to myself: my adaptation was undoubtedly born from Kakashi's technique, but it didn't require a constant supply of chakra to be kept active anymore. Not only that, but relaxing my control in a single point of the circuit that I had my Raiton run into in order to form the lightning-edge, all of the built-up energy could be released with no forewarning whatsoever.
The downside was that I had to separately run Raiton chakra across my body to gain the Chidori's induced speed that had allowed canon-Sasuke to match Lee's speed at the Chunin Exams that were years ahead of me now.
I need to keep Raiton running across my chakra pathways to gain speed, but this is looking more and more like a separate technique. I grimaced at the thought b only to focus once more on my experiment.
With a sharp exhale, I once again let go of my control of the technique, only over the tip of my middle finger.
Under my blood-red Sharingan, I observed as all the chakra that I had built up to perform the Raiton: Nokogiri was released in a single arc of bright white lightning, which thundered across the distance between me and where the first tentative spark had landed when I first relaxed my control.
Unstoppable lightning exploded through the air with the rumble of thunder, crackling against the ground with minor discharges while all my built-up and accelerated chakra exploded the base of a tree.
I eyed the cracked ground and the half exploded trunk with a faint grimace. My aim could use some work. I admitted to myself, But I only need to aim the first, weak discharge, the second one follows the same path.
"Raiton: Nokogiri." Lightning Saw. I named the first technique, turning my attention to my right hand, which was almost cherry red while there was an angry burn at the top of my middle finger. I need to get my body used to this kind of strain.
It was mentally exhausting instead of chakra-costly, while the second technique, which used the first as a build-up, could easily become devastating: it wasn't the exact lightning blade that I recalled the original Sasuke make use of in Shippuden, but I was far more explosive in its execution and result.
"And Raiton: Yari no Saki." Tip of the Spear. I nodded to myself: "I wonder if this is the starting point for the Kirin."
Since my newly minted Nokogiri didn't constantly discharge into the ground, to gain the Chidori's proverbial speed I'd likely need to treat my own body as a circuit instead of the simple conduit that it was for Kakashi's original technique.
Very much like I formed a single buzzing saw of lightning on my hand, I'd need to force Raiton to follow in my chakra pathways if I wanted that kind of speed.
"Something to think about." I could only imagine the kind of stress that it would put my body under, and suddenly I was reminded of the Raikage's Lightning Chakra Armor: a technique that only those hulks had been able to use because of just how resilient their bodies were.
Despite the obviously impossible task of recreating a similar technique to the one that allowed a hothead like A the title of Kage, I felt myself grin with excitement: I had brought my Lightning Manipulation to a level I was comfortable with, I had created not one but two techniques that involved Raiton, and I had ideas as to how to go forward in my pursuit of mastering over the element of lightning.
More than that, finally, I felt like I was comfortable enough to use Raiton in my spars against Jiraya. At dawn, I'll deep-fry him.
"Well, nobody's ever accused you of being unremarkable, I suppose." Jiraya walked in the clearing from among the trunks that had kept him hidden up to that point, "You didn't even try and almost threw at me that jutsu."
"I did?" I asked blandly as my Sharingan took in the Sannin's form.
As always, he didn't have a single hair out of place. I still needed to figure out exactly what he did when he disappeared so far from an onsen or a brothel, since I strongly doubted that he met spies in random stretches of forest.
Then again, with the speed I suspected he was capable of moving at, he could have met someone in Kumo and jumped back on Gamabunta's back.
The Toad Summoner frowned distastefully at me, before narrowing his eyes at both the narrow cut that my newly minted Nokogiri had made in the ground next to me, and the exploded trunk caused by my Yari no Saki.
"Do those mean that you're going to use Raiton to fight?" his 'finally' went unsaid, but it was clearly present in the tone of his voice.
"I guess I'm not going to surprise you with them tomorrow."
"No," he agreed, "you aren't." then he tilted his head, completely changing topic: "But you need to develop some rudimentary sensing of your own, I wasn't masking myself completely, and I've been around for the past twenty minutes."
I frowned: "I thought that sensing was almost like a bloodline."
Jiraya simply shook his head as he eyed once more the damage caused by my last two ninjutsu: "Some form of sensing are, most of them are simply easily obtained either through a bloodline, or a personalized jutsu of sorts. There is a reason why big names ninja are rarely caught unaware: once someone gets close enough, there is always something to tip you off."
"What method do you use?" I asked as I started stretching, working out the few kinks that sitting while I practiced my Raiton had left in my back.
A slap, barely faster than what I could see, made my head jut forward: "Did you not listen? It's a thing that you have to develop for yourself for it to be truly effective."
That made me narrow my eyes in suspicion as I exhaled explosively: "Is this a skill that someone at my level would be able to casually develop?"
"I didn't think you'd be able to get used to Raiton so fast, nevermind that you'd be able to adapt two ninjutsu out of nowhere." the Toad Summoner shrugged uncaringly as he turned his back on me, walking on the opposite side of the clearing before widening his feet on the ground, "And yet here we are."
"You never said that you thought I wouldn't succeed." I objected, picking up on his quiet request about a spar and placing myself in a defensive stance of my own.
"You haven't killed yourself with the Kage Bunshin method you're using to enhance your training, which was my main worry, so I thought it better to leave you to bang your head against the problem until you figured it out on your own."
I scoffed disdainfully as I tilted minutely forward, inhaling and exhaling consciously as I regulated the flow of chakra in my body, preparing myself for the fight: "And since I've succeeded, you want to spar before dinner? That's unusual."
It had been several weeks since I first learned the kage bunshin, and after the first almost lethal headache induced by the memories, I had spent several days figuring out the ratio at which I could absorb information from my clones. After all it wouldn't do for my own training to become detrimental to my growth. So I had figured out that my Kage Bunshin had to operate with 3 hours of work for every hour of sleep or mindless meditation. It had the effect of diluting the mass of memories that would otherwise flood my mind with a headache so strong it turned me blind.
Luckily, either because of the outrageous properties of the Uchiha bloodline or simply because I was barely ten years old, my body was adapting, and I could squeeze out of my clone a few more minutes every few days.
"I'm abusing the technique as best as I can without killing myself," I shrugged at Jiraya's annoyed frown, "I'm mostly using a single clone to refine chakra control or nature transformation, so that it lasts more, while I focus on my body, I have the clone go in what passes for sleep, so that the memories don't hit so hard."
"Are you sure?" Jiraya rose a challenging eyebrow, "The hassle of training with half of your reserves can come back to bite you in the ass if you get used to it, it could cripple your actual fighting skills: there is a reason why most people with large chakra reserves don't just spam clones to learn, you know."
"I can do it only before night: the faint headache is because I'm slowly increasing the amount of time spent training, but after a big dinner, most of my blood is redirected towards digesting, and I sleep it over." I defended myself, knowing that the last piece of information would have been useful to know weeks before, when I got started on my Naruto-Esque chase for more power, "It stings a bit in the morning, but by the time the sun is completely up I'm at peak form."
"Ah, that's what has been happening." Jiraya seemed relieved by my words, "I was worried I would have needed to beat your masochism out of you."
Grinning despite myself at the contradictory threat, I tilted my head, Sharingan slowly spinning as I hopelessly tried to ensnare the Toad Summoner in an illusion.
Then something clicked in my mind: "Wouldn't your very personal method of sensing have anything to do with your apparent immunity to my genjutsu?"
Jiraya grinned openly as an answer, deciding to finally charge instead of letting me talk while I thought of a plan of attack.
I leaned minutely to my right both my forearms describing a half-circle as I used one of the most common movements of the Gentle Fist to parry the heavy blow, I exhaled with the movement, pushing chakra in my body as I used Jiraya's momentum to aid my own.
My arms completed their half-circle while my knees bent, the Toad Summoner's free hand coming in a backhanded slap that sailed past my head. My hands went through the ram and bird seal almost faster than I could see them, and a buzzing saw of lightning appeared over the edge of my right hand.
"Raiton: Nokogiri!" I exhaled sharply as my new technique slashed at Jiraya, passing through him as a warm knife into butter.
The Earth-Clone that I hit fell apart, revealing that Jiraya had yer to move from his starting position: "Uh, so that's your new trick. I hate to say it to you, but the Chidori's better."
I frowned, realizing that the spar was on hold as he shamed my new technique, and let go of the Raiton that I had built up in my hand at record speeds: a bolt of lightning snapped sideways, cracking open another tree trunk with the boom of thunder. I forgot to aim that with the leading discharge.
"And why is that?" I asked impassively, pretending that destroying that tree in annoyance was exactly what I had wanted to do.
"Fire is good for burning, Lightning for piercing." he crossed his arms with something akin to dissatisfaction on his face, "I thought you knew that much: Wind is for cutting."
I frowned, with clear memories of lightning channeled along a blade running in my mind: "I know that elemental chakra can be charged into weapons."
"Read about Kumo in your 'clan's stuff', have you?" Jiraya signaled me to follow him as he walked where I had set up camp, a few dozen meters from the clearing in which I had been practicing Raiton.
I smiled innocently at the mention of the blatant excuse I made use of every time I explained a thought that was born only thanks to my foreknowledge.
The Toad Summoner snorted disdainfully at my cagey attitude as he sat at the side of a circle of stones that surrounded the firepit: "Well, it's an advanced application of both Nature and Shape Manipulation, the so-called 'Chakra Flow'. Lightning works well with blades when it is used against other weapons because iron and steel are somewhat good conductors, while Wind cuts everything in its path and who cares about the rest."
"So you've never seen Lightning coat something random like... let's say, a pencil?" I casually inquired after the memorable fight that had yet to happen between Killer B and Hoshigaki Kisame, my ears peeled to hear the Toad Summoner answer while I busied myself as always to ready. Hopefully, it would be a meal that would allow me to go to sleep with some satisfaction that didn't stem from my increasing ability to end lives.
"I haven't, no." Jiraya frowned: "It would be insanely difficult, I recon. Metal, let alone properly treated steel like the one from the better swords or custom-made orders, makes the Chakra-Flow much easier than it would otherwise be. To do so with a pencil... Uh."
He leaned back on his elbows to look at the pieces of sky barely visible through the thick canopy as he speculated about the technique that I knew Killer B was capable of: "My best guess," he started, only to shoot a penetrating gaze at me, as if to see if his thoughts confirmed something, "but take it with a pinch of salt since I really don't bother much with weapons, and surely I don't use the Chakra-Flow, would be that... To use Raiton, or even Futon, on a random object, you'd need to flood it somehow with chakra that hadn't been changed in Nature, maintaining the shape over the 'pencil', and only after that you'd need to use the Chakra-Flow, otherwise, you would simply explode the pencil."
"So it is possible." I commented idly.
The Toad Summoner actually laughed out loud at my words: "Ha! With chakra anything is possible, the point is if what you try to accomplish is also effective, or at least convenient." he straightened up from his almost sprawled position as he accepted the bowl of stew that I passed him, "Your Nokogiri worked well on my Tsuchi Bunshin, but that's because Raiton is a winning affinity against the Earth Element, don't think that your lightning trick would be able to hold back or even cut through an actual weapon."
That shot down one of the ideas I had: "I'll simply have to rework the shape-manipulation into something that works with the affinity instead of in spite of it."
"Just like that uh?" the white-haired shinobi smiled sardonically at my quick decision, but he left me to think in silence for several moments even if he had, with no doubt whatsoever on my part, a couple of jokes ready about what I could do with my flawed ninjutsu.
I had shrugged while I accepted Jiraya's counsel, but that smarted: I had been fucking proud of figuring out the ins and outs of the Chidori, up to the point in which I had been able to reframe it completely, to be explained that the technique was useful as I had thought it only against Doton techniques... it was fucking annoying. At least the Yari no Saki is still workable.
"Don't be so quick to disdain your... what was it? Nokogiri?" my teacher engaged me once he realized that I wasn't going to fill the silence that had grown off my disappointment.
At my nod, the Toad Summoner continued, slurping down his bowl of still steaming stew so fast that I almost missed him going for seconds: "By making that stuff up you learned a lot, it will come useful later, you already realized that you have to shape the way in which you want your Raiton to move in. Besides, with your eyes, you'll be able to recognize Doton techniques easily sooner rather than later, and using a tool useful only against those instead of a single, blanket-like technique will likely be an optimal solution for you.".
"Isn't it better to have a single tool that can be applied to every situation?" I frowned, the example of the Rasengan clear in my mind while I finally got started on eating my own dinner.
"There are two possible approaches when it comes down to jutsu." Jiraya started as he looked at me, "One: mastery so absolute of a single jutsu that allows for a wide variety of applications, or to have a wide variety of jutsu under your belt. The first case tends to work only if the user can set up a situation in which said jutsu is a viable choice, the second method has to be accompanied by the ability to switch from one to another with the same ease you breathe."
"Which method is better?" from what I knew, what Jiraya just said was true: Kakashi had a lot of techniques, but he relied on the Chidori, the Sandaime instead made use of a lot of different stuff in his fight against Orochimaru.
The Toad Summoner shrugged, uncaring about my plight: "Eh, each option has its good and bad sides: if your arsenal is limited, it is up to you to manipulate a conflict so that you can optimize the effects of what you know, if you have a wider bag of tricks, you simply need to be capable of combing through them fast enough for it to be useful."
"How do you fight?" I asked between a gulp of the rather great stew I made and another.
"Haven't you observed me?" the white-haired shinobi taunted me.
I rolled my eyes, placing down my bowl as I reached for seconds: "As if I've ever managed to make you use something more than the basics."
"Quite right, because I'm the Great Jiraya-sama! And..."
"Yeah, Yeah," I cut him off, "Answer my question please."
"Since you said please..." he grinned tauntingly at me, before returning somewhat serious: "The truth is... there isn't a single answer." Jiraya scratched his head as he looked for the right words t express what he was thinking. "It depends on the situation I guess, but something that is true for any shinobi of a decent caliber is a solid close-quarters-combat skill and an almost sure way to dispel genjutsu."
"That is simply because those unable to break through illusions, or without good taijutsu, end up dead before they can become truly strong." I rolled my eyes, "Such a glaring weakness will always end up exploited."
"Well... that's morbid, but true." the Toad Summoner sighed, "Personally, I have several jutsu that I often use, but while I can perform many, in the heat of battle it is better, for me, to rely on unconventional use of stuff I'm very comfortable with."
"So I should focus only on the Chidori." I baited the S-rank ninja, already disliking the option: canon-Sasuke had managed to build up to the Kirin which had looked like the pinnacle of Raiton manipulation at the time, the idea of not being able to do the same was... unsettling, for some reason.
"That is better for me," the Toad Summoner shook his head, "it may not be the same for you... frankly, I have the Rasengan for close combat: there is a wall in the way? Rasengan. Someone charges at me? Rasengan. I use my Hari Jizō for defense against large-scale ninjutsu, for the middle range, and to restrain an opponent. Nomi Yuma to control the battlefield... anything more than that we go on the truly massive scale of the battlefield, and for that, I have collaboration techniques with the toads..." A soft smile spread on his face at the mention of his summon animals.
I blinked in surprise at how he had described, even if the vaguest of terms, the way in which he categorized his fighting tools. I was aware that the genin teams were somewhat built so that each genin could take over one aspect of the fight, but somehow I had never truly stopped to think about how I would become able to fight at any given range.
My bloodline made me dangerous in close quarters even without considering my recently made Raiton nunjutsu, my illusions weren't extraordinary, but I could throw many of them at an enemy, which, unless he or she had a very specific counter, would be slowed down at least partially. Shurikenjutsu for the middle range, as well as my Katon ninjutsu.
The truly massive ninjutsu had to wait until my chakra reserves turned from 'big for one his age' to simply 'big', and that kept me from being capable at long range. Unless...
"Frankly, they also provide support when needed..." Jiraya was smiling as he thought about his precious Toads, "I fell over backward in my contract with them, and I've never been luckier."
"Can you teach me how to get myself a Summon Contract?" I asked openly, "I know that you only need the hand seals to get thrown to the animals you're most attuned to."
"No way." the Toad Summoner crossed his arms in an exaggerated motion, shaking his head at the same time.
"Why?" I frowned, I might not have the truly insane chakra reserves of a jinchuriki, but I was far from hopeless, "How old were you when you..."
"Kid, it's not about age, it's about risk vs potential gain, I did the correct hand signs by mistake, I had no idea what I was about to fall in." Jiraya uncrossed his arms and leaned forward a bit: "Your personality really isn't the one that the Toads would like, you're too secretive by half, and that rules out the only safe method available to you to be able to summon. And only because you'd meet animals 'like you', it doesn't mean that you wouldn't be killed: think about it. How open would you be to work with someone that thinks like you, knowing that his personality resembles yours?"
I'd expect to be used unless there was a common, long-term purpose. I grimaced at the thought, but I insisted nevertheless: "And you're not secretive?"
"Only when needed, lying to a Summon in its realm is a very messy way to die." the Toad Summoner actually laughed at that, revealing a piece of information I wasn't aware of.
This could be a problem. I grimaced: "Are they able to tell truth from lie? Just like that?"
"You think they speak with only words?" the Sannin rose a taunting eyebrow, as if he was questioning my sanity: "You reach a determined place because your nature is similar, you can't cheat those that are soo much like you."
"All the better for me to do the same now, that I have the correct idea about what's going to happen, and you to..."
"What? you think I could save you if you got yourself tangled with a Summon Contract?" Jiraya simply shook his head as he looked at me like I was insane, "Kid, the Boss Summons aren't creatures that a single shinobi can simply mess with."
"I'll only do it on my own after I manage to copy the technique from you." I tried to convince my reticent teacher, "Once I perform the correct signs, I end up in the realm of the creature closest to me, don't I?"
"I don't know if you have enough chakra for it kid just yet, kid." the white-haired shinobi shot me down as he sighed tiredly at my nagging, "It is a very demanding thing, and even if you manage to obtain a contract, it will be useless if you only have enough reserves to summon a tadpole."
"I really hope I don't get a tadpole, I'm not one for frogs..." I didn't hide the grimace that appeared on my face at the thought of being similar to the slimy amphibians. Jiraya isn't ashamed at all about his similarity with those things? That's some hardcore self-confidence, good for you, old man.
"Toads! Disrespectful brat!"
I ducked the thrown geta sandal with the ease born from practice.
"At which level would you rate my skills?" I changed topic, knowing that he wouldn't be moved about teaching me Summoning, not right now.
"I don't really bother with any of that," Jiraya shrugged, "you're learning incredibly quick, your chakra manipulation is innovative, and you adapt well in our spars, even if you tend to not impose your own pace to the battle, preferring to be reactive, but that's something sensible to do against me: an error while attacking will get you skewered."
I rolled my eyes at the obvious assessment of things I already knew: "So, how do I get better? I prefer to wait for a safe strike, it's obvious, it doesn't have to be the one to finish the fight, but with enough safe 'hits', so to speak, I'm assured to win."
"You don't have the stamina for a drawn-out fight, kid." the Toad Summoner laughed: "Wait a few years, once you'll actually get started with puberty, you'll see."
"Time, and practice." I repeated dully, "But you mean actual experience when you say that." I knew that it was the truth, there was only so much I could learn in a completely safe environment, and from the way the Sannin's eyes tightened, he knew that too: "Are we going to fight anyone anytime soon?"
"I didn't peg you for someone thirsty for battle." he openly frowned at me.
"I'm not, but I want to know where I'm at." I hesitated, unsure about how to explain myself. There was a lot of shit going down in a few years and I needed to be at the top of my game, "I want to... actually see if I'm good enough."
"Why?" he hunched forward a bit, his uncharacteristically serious expression studying me for several seconds.
"Wouldn't you?" I retorted sharply.
Jiraya hummed thoughtfully as I stared back, hoping that he would manage to use his S-class bullshit skills to see my determination. It wasn't like I wanted to kill randomly, but while I knew that I was slowly widening my arsenal, and that each of my skills was being adequately honed, I had no idea how those would apply when I actually feared for my life. It had been a long time since my first C-rank, but I would never forget how I stopped thinking while I cut through my opponents.
"Fine, keep your secrets." Jiraya snorted, likely guessing something of my thoughts but keeping quiet about it. "Well, you're capable enough..." the Sannin sighed once more, "There is only actual fighting to truly hammer in place what your style lacks."
"So?" I prodded him, earning myself a quick slap on the back of my head.
"Let me think!" he snapped at me, "Ungrateful brat... Well, you've shown that you've got no issues surviving in the wilderness and that you can blend in with civilians now that you've used your bullshit eyes to do so. The only thing left to be sure that you'd be able to virtually move in any given environment would be moving relatively big sums of money without leaving a trail, and you need an actual fight."
"We're going bounty hunting?" my eyebrows rose in surprise. To be frank, I hadn't thought about it.
"There are scumbags everywhere," Jiraya shrugged, "and we might as well use this occasion to teach you how to handle bank accounts outside the village."
"That's something I was curious about," I stretched a bit, relaxing now that I had obtained what I wanted. "Why doesn't anyone steal from a bank? I'd guess that capable enough shinobi would earn money faster and more easily that way. And wouldn't making use of a particular account give away your position?"
The idea of being able to make use of the Uchiha fortune even if I abandoned Konoha was obviously tempting.
The Sannin rose an eyebrow at me, but answered without questioning my sudden interest: "Banks are convenient to move truly massive amounts of money, and the ninja, even missing-nin, find the services provided in bounty stations and banks extremely profitable and convenient, so if you mess with one, you get a lot of people after your head. And neither the banks nor their associates want a fight anywhere near them, so security is very tight."
"And nobody ever corrupted a clerk?" I rose my eyebrows disbelievingly, "Besides, the truly strong S-rank missing-nin could steal from a bank, couldn't they?"
"From time to time it happens." the Sannin addressed the first question: "But generally, civilians are justly terrified by what a pissed-off shinobi might do, never mind one that has access to the amount of money we're talking about. Generally, you cannot become rich quickly, and in this line of work, old people are dangerous."
Jiraya laughed suddenly as he focused on my second question: "The amount of money I'd want to obtain to go through the hassle of robbing a place would be available only in truly big bounty stations or banks. And those can be found only in either the capital or the local hidden village, the rest of the establishments work in checks to this or that account."
I nodded thoughtfully, memorizing his answers. If he brings me to one of these big places, I might as well ask him how to quietly move my money away from accounts that the Hokage can have access to. "And the banks are independent one from another?
"What?" he seemed genuinely confused by my question before a lightning bulb lit in his head: "No, the system that deals with the money is only one. Otherwise then said the bank would start hiring shinobi to erase the competition, and ultimately, money is organized by the Feudal Court."
With that last nugget of information, I let the conversation die, and I started to mentally revise my ninjutsu and genhìjutsu, not knowing how I would end up using them in an actual fight for my life.
With the sun hidden beneath a thick cover of lead-like clouds, which turned the afternoon into something darker than what it should have been, the rain fell loudly over the small base that had been taken over by the missing-nin. I was still among the branches, almost perfectly still as the light breeze was not enough to divert the straight falling of the drops of water, while my Sharingan spun slowly, taking in the layout of the place.
It had been a border post, abandoned soon after the last shinobi war since the border had been reestablished a few kilometers to the west, making the current location all but useless.
The no longer abandoned for had been placed into an artificial clearing, and the underbrush had been cut off, with salt spread over the immediate surroundings of the structure in order to avoid someone sneaking under the thick walls, likely realized with Doton, that surrounded the somewhat square structure.
Over the wall, hidden against the small bulwark, there was a shinobi disguised as another piece of rock: a minute shift that only my eyes could pick up through the distance and the rain, however, confirmed that his head moved methodically from one side of the empty stretch of ground he was overseeing to the other.
I had no doubt that there were countless mines buried underground, ready to blow to smithereens anyone foolish enough to approach with the Hiding Like a Mole ninjutsu.
If one were to believe Jiraya's info, and I had little reason to doubt him, this particular group of ninja had decided to organize themselves on their own to provide reserved information to the enemies of Hi no Kuni. They weren't the first to try something along those lines, the Sannin had explained to me, but they were one of the rare groups with a personal dynamic that didn't make them collapse from within.
Meaning, while the information these people disposed of wasn't extremely sensitive per se, the fact that they survived for several months as a single group meant that there was a net supporting them.
Normally, missing-nin lived very short lives, either bounty hunting or being paid less than what a Hidden Village would ask to complete a certain mission. A mission that likely wouldn't have been accepted by Hokage Tower, which would have sent an ANBU squad to eliminate those offering money for something that went against the official policy of Konoha.
The entire point of the mission, besides allowing me to 'stretch my legs', as it were, in order to truly test my actual fighting ability, was to subvert the net supporting this group of missing-nin, using it to spread misinformation, and then use a selected choice of lies in order to track down those responsible for the existence of said support-net in the first place.
"Whenever you're ready, kid." the Sannin spoke softly at my side, his expression uncharacteristically serious under the hair that was defying the weight of the water by remaining an untameable mess, "Are you sure you don't prefer doing this during the night? With the cover of the dark and all that stuff..."
I glanced in his direction briefly, immediately returning my attention to the base. The Sannin had told me that the ninja we were about to clash against were around chunin level, and they were less than seven. Even if I were to attack at night, I would easily meet two guards at least, and the advantage of a night ambush meant very little when any missing-nin expected it.
He also told me that trusting that information as absolute was a good way to die, and not only because no plan ever survived the first contact with the enemy. Maybe the group had recently recruited another member, or maybe one of them was a genius at a single skill that was a bad matchup for me.
The only more or less certain thing was that this group didn't have a reliable sensor, otherwise, I wouldn't be able to complete my stakeout without being spotted. And the target was a certain Asahi, the only one needed alive to easily ferret out the rest of the support network that Jiraya wanted to use.
Black haired, in his thirties, confirmed as a veteran chunin, he was a Doton user, and the only one needed alive.
I breathed consciously, keeping my heartbeat from going out of control even if it felt it should have been running a mile at a minute.
The thought of killing strangers hadn't truly bothered me since my first C-rank, which likely had been engineered exactly for that reason, but it had been necessary for survival, nothing more. The idea of attacking a bunch of people that did nothing to me personally was... weird.
On one hand, I couldn't care less about what they did: even in a world without chakra, spies operated for the interests of their governments, hurting others in the process. At least they have 'patriotism' to shield them from the weight of their actions.
On the other hand, I knew that I couldn't live my whole life under the protection of Jiraya, I knew that one day I would want to fuck off and truly discover what I wanted to do, and I couldn't forget that I would need to become capable enough to stop the end of the fucking world.
It should be enough to make a few Biju disappear with nobody being able to track them down, as well as vanishing Black Zetsu before he figures out a new way to fuck over the planet. I failed to reassure myself, before I evened out my breathing once more.
In the end, even with my bullshit bloodline and metaknowledge, blood was still the price I needed to pay for strength. The choice was between being a shinobi or remaining a civilian, this is only a consequence.
I took one last, fortifying breath, and jumped off the tree: the fall seemed to last an eternity as I focused on my task, each drop of water close enough to me was perfectly visible, I could pick out the form of each leaf as they passed me at a speed that should have made them blurry.
I exhaled when my feet touched the ground and my body inched forward, as I completed a somersault over my right shoulder, almost all of my vertical momentum converted in a horizontal vector that made me rocked through the sparse underbrush.
There was no need to compensate too much with chakra when one worked along with the possibilities of their body, not when whatever minute sounds my feet made as they met the ground was easily covered by the heavy rain.
With chakra moving languidly in my body as I ghosted through the trunks, I weaved and sidestepped the numerous traps that had been placed to alert the missing-nin of any assault coming from the forest.
My eyes made it look like my targets had all but prepared me a series of paths that I could take in order to sneak in without alerting anyone.
From branch to root, from the side of a trunk to a rock barely jutting out of the dirt, I entered the stretch of empty, dead ground within three seconds.
I ran, covering fifty meters in the time it took to the sentinel to bring his attention back to where I had started moving from.
With the chakra control needed to perform my Raiton manipulation, it was almost a joke to focus the Water Walking exercise only on the tenketsu in the upper half of the sole of my foot. Vibrations were contained, the earth where I placed my weight strengthening momentarily and not activating the minefield under me.
In less than four seconds, I was under the wall, and once more, my momentum was turned from horizontal into vertical as I started scaling it with offending ease: avoiding the handholds that hosted only another trap, I jutted over the bulwark in front of the sentinel, which got a kunai in one eye before he could scream to alert his companions.
My Sharingan memorized his features aven as I stabilized it, the blade that had killed him as soon as it had reached his brain was left in position: I didn't want blood on my person. The smell could alert someone after all.
With a sharp exhale and a ram hand seal, a henge changed my features, and I started moving as if I was 1,60 m tall. Thank fuck my eyes can measure someone even when they're crouched.
I moved quietly over the wall while I ignored the heavy rain hitting my form, I hadn't been discovered, that was good, but I needed to exploit the advantage as long as it lasted.
I passed the door that led into the fort with a brisk pace, my eyes scanning the surroundings almost faster than I could process. Seated at a wooden table, with a trashy romance book held in his hands, and two cups of fuming tea waiting to be drunk, there was a burly man just shy of two meters tall, who snapped his head in my direction with a surprised and enraged expression.
"Toshiro-san, why are you already back in?" he dropped his book on the table as he rose from his seat, taking a threatening step towards me, "Nobody likes to stay in the rain, but you still have half an hour to... *gurk*."
Once he was close enough, the flat of my hand had collapsed his trachea, faster than he could hope to react to.
My left hand jutted forward and stopped him from grabbing a kunai. At the same time, I took another step forward and leveraged bim on my hip to lower him on the floor, lightly enough so that nobody would be alerted by my presence.
Keeping a hand over his mouth to stop his dying gasps from echoing in the room, I dragged him outside the door that still had to close, and I placed him against the bulwark, burning through 30 seconds in order to make sure that he would remain in position before the rigor mortis settled in.
Focused as I never had been before, I walked back inside, my heart steady even if I felt the need to start running in a random direction, and I froze momentarily when I kunoichi walked in from another door, her eyes landing briefly on the empty seat that the burly man had occupied not a minute before.
"Toshiro-teme!" she sneered at me, "Why you're inside? And where's Nobutada-kun?"
Obviously, I've interrupted the seducing game of these two. I wanted to sigh in exasperation.
Among the many civilians that I had observed since I discovered of pitiful I was at pretending to not look like a shinobi, there had been an old man with a chronic cough that forced him to bend over and scrunch his face in a rictus in order to hold back the pain.
Not knowing how to buy time, and aware that I knew not how the guy I was posing as talked, I started coughing heavily, bending slightly forward with a barely restrained grimace on my face.
The kunoichi that was narrowing her eyes at me hesitated, likely imagining why the burly man wasn't there while I was coughing my lungs out: "Only because you're a wimp..."
I took a couple of slow steps forward, making a visible effort to control my fake cough while I reached my next victim, once I was close enough, I acted.
Her eyes widened in the exact moment my cough disappeared, and she took a step backward, her chakra already swirling in anticipation. But there was confusion in her eyes: while her body had started preparing itself for a fight, her conscious mind still hadn't realized that I was the threat.
Her instinct told her that there was something wrong, likely putting together the absence of her possible paramour with Toshiro's cough. It wasn't an error on my part, there wasn't a blaring sign telling her that I wasn't who I looked like.
With an exhale of chakra, my kunai plunged in her heart, slipping between her ribs with the precision enhanced by my bloodline.
And then she died, a wet gurgle accompanying her last breaths as my hands clamped around her arms, steering her towards the sturdy table and a wooden chair over which I lightly eased her.
Toshiro and Nobutada. I blinked, the names of the two meaningless shinobi I already killed coming up on their own in my mind. I wonder if I'll learn her name too?
It was then that the floor imploded, dragging me down to the lower level of the building, where the remaining missing-nin had somehow discovered my presence.
Immediately I threw a hail of shuriken with my left hand, while my right sent a kunai against the nearest wall. Following instinct more than conscious thought, I pulled on the wire that tied me to the projectile embedded in the concrete, and my straight fall was turned into an oblique descent.
Enough for the fireball and the stone spear aimed at me to miss their target.
I brought my arms up in a cross-block to stop a hand carrying a kunai to my eye, transitioning quickly into a grapple, I leveraged my core muscles, bringing my legs up with the intent of using them to snap the neck of my attacker. I aborted my counter, pushing myself away from the fool that had engaged me in close quarters in order to avoid a blade that came dangerously close to my neck.
I inhaled after kicking a dark shape that I barely caught in the corner of my eye, and exhaled explosively: three fireballs the size of my head burning white as they signed the missing-nin closest to me and forced the other two to fall back, almost tripping one over another as they clearly weren't used to work together.
Sharingan blazing, I immediately identified the Asahi character that I needed alive, and the three remaining missing-nin that had almost killed me.
A moment later, I landed on the wall, my breath even while I studied my opponents in the lull of the fight. Thank fuck he hasn't recruited more people.
"I wondered how much time it would pass before someone tried to attack us." a kunoichi spoke idly as she dangerously twirled a katana in the dim light of the room.
"That's the Sharingan, isn't it?" a small shinobi added, the twin kunai he was wielding confirming that I would have been able to kill him were it not for the bladed attack of the woman, "He's the Uchiha from Konoha."
Nobody pointed out the fact that if I were my brother, they would likely be already dead.
But it still annoyed me
"He has no useful info, but we can sell him to Kumo." Asahi spoke as he took a step forward, and I caught the occasion to shamelessly observe him.
He was just shy of 30, with dark hair and a beard that covered his jawline, his shoulders were wide and supported powerful-looking arms, at the end of which I could see heavily scarred hands.
When his eyes met mine, however, I was already winning.
My chakra slipped into his system, and he was still staring at my position when I darted to my left, my hands running through ram and bird while I manipulated Raiton with a speed never seen before and sparks started to dance over my right hand.
"Raiton: Nokogiri!" I whispered as I exhaled, the buzzing saw of lightning searing a deep gash in the gut of the shinobi holding two kunai.
Thanks to the Sharingan, I dodged backward by doing a somersault while I brought forth my right hand.
The first discharge of lightning was nothing more than a harmless spark: it went from my hand to the tip of the katana that had almost bisected me faster than the kunoichi could process.
Then I let go: "Raiton: Yari no Saki!" I almost shouted, the exhaling involved in the process of crying out the name of the technique powering it up minutely.
And lightning struck the sword-wielding kunoichi, throwing her clear off her feet while she went into cardiac arrest, ugly burns quickly developing on her once fair skin.
As I turned my attention to the third and last missing-nin who wasn't needed alive, I jerked sideways, barely avoiding having my head ripped off by an insanely powerful punch.
The blow still clipped me, and I rag-dolled over the floor for three long seconds before I managed to regain my balance: my eyes found Asahi then, who was smirking while his hands flew through hand signs.
Boar, monkey, dragon, ram, boar: "Doryūdan no jutsu!"
As the dragon-shaped bulk of stone rocketed towards me, I darted to my left, running in a circle on the edge of the large room while my eyes met the nameless shinobi that I was about to face when Asahi had joined the fray.
The genjutsu ell over him with ease, and I grabbed out of the air one of the kunai he threw by chance in my direction.
Shuriken left my fingers while I diverted their route, forcing Asahi, who was still directing the Earth Dragon in my direction, to abandon his attempt in order to avoid getting skewered.
He backflipped to avoid my attack, but he could do nothing for his companion, whose jugular let out a spurt of blood when it got kut by one of my projectiles.
Then Asahi did something I had never seen before: with a ram seal, his chakra washed over the Doryūdan's technique had been unraveling with his loss of focus, and he brought it once more to bear against me.
"Raiton: Nokogiri!" I quickly brought forward my technique, transitioning immediately into the following step: "Raiton: Saki no Yari!"
The bolt of concentrated lightning tore through the Earth Construct, the elemental advantage too much for Asahi to be able to counter it through sheer manipulation, and as the Dragon he was using against me fell apart, I brought my hands in a single tiger seal.
Fire Natured chakra rushed through my body like an old friend, fitting in my pathways like an old favorite shirt only to build up as it desperately sought to burn.
Air, earth, people, me. It didn't matter, the potency of my flame wouldn't be denied and I couldn't reroute it: "Katon: Gōkakyū!"
The fireball left my mouth and quickly grew to the size of a horse, it met the hastily risen earth wall and exploded, shattering it. A third of my chakra went into the technique, and the room in which we were was turned into an oven. Or a slice of Hell. I corrected myself as I kept up the flow of chakra.
The wall of flames rushed forth after having broken the defensive technique of my opponent and flowed like water against the wall opposite from me, spreading both to the right and left while it caught the two shapes that had darted away from behind the Earth Wall.
I cut off the flow of my technique and jumped lightly, a kunai throw directly beneath me impacted a vambrace while Asahi emerged from the ground after his failed ambush.
My kick landed on his shoulder, and I used it to backflip, throwing shuriken without looking as I inhaled.
I landed with half ram hand seal ready, and exhaled: "Katon: Ryūka!"
A single dragon's head the size of my torso exploded out of my mouth, impacting against my opponent: the flames engulfed him, but as I heard no screams, I darted to my left, my eyes flashing through the room as I looked for the true Asahi.
Thanks to Jiraya, I was familiar enough with earth clones, but that Asahi would use three of them in the few seconds during which he was hidden from sight spoke of a capable shinobi. I can see why he's the boss of this little group.
I ducked under a swing that came from nowhere and I sought the eyes of my opponent, attempting to ensnare him in an illusion long enough for me to knock him out.
Asahi blew at me, but instead of air, a thick lump of ground dirt slammed over my face, cutting slightly my skin and blinding me while it threw me off my feet.
The pain broke my breath, while I instinctively scrunched my eyes close, undoubtedly making my situation worse, I felt the rough edges of the small particles of dirt dragging between my eyelid and my eye.
Panic came faster than I could acknowledge it, and I formed a single bird hand seal: pushed forward by my urgency, lightning surged through my pathways while I threw all my chakra behind it.
Still training directed my actions, and I screamed: "Raiton: Chidori Nagashi!"
Lightning exploded out of my body with all the potency of my remaining reserves being dumped into the tachnique, I hear a choked scream and then my head hit something hard when I finally met a wall, my body falling bonelessly at its base.
While I lost consciousness, I felt the familiar presence of Jiraya appear next to me.
AN
Finally, a proper Raiton Lore! I couldn't help but throw in a small amount of scientific jargon. In any way, the explanation makes sense enough without being particularly heavy. I don't look forward to designing the Lore for the other Elements.
In any case, I'm working under the principle that chakra is bullshit, but that otherwise, physics works like normal.
Having said that, I'd like to point out that the chats between the MC and Jiraya start in order to solve, address, or discover a particular topic: for example fuinjutsu, or as an analysis of the new Nokogiri (which is a meh attempt at making something better than the Chidori).
After or while the main point of a conversation is being solved, the chat evolves into a sequence of topics that explores both the characters and their relationship with the rest of the world.
For all intent and purposes, the Nokogiri that Sasuke spends so much effort in isn't better than the Chidori: at the beginning of the chapter, I tried to make it clear how proud the MC is of his results.
It takes the chat with Jiraya to point out the truth from the Point of View of someone that has seen some shit (if inventing jutsu was easy, everyone would do so).
From then the chat involved the 'method': if it is better to have only a few jutsu that you can use everywhere, or if it is better to have a wide arsenal.
It is a casual chat, but it then passes to the MC's request for an evaluation from Jiraya, who, as you've seen up to this point, isn't one for straightforward answers: I've done my best to keep alive the kind of original and unpredictable mentality that made Jiraya such a memorable character.
As for the naming of the techniques: the shouting of the technique isn't very 'ninja'. But everyone does it, and it is cool to read. So I tied it together with the breathing technique that the MC started discovering back in Suna.
For the names themselves: I prefer how they sound in japanese, but I get annoyed when I cannot immediately translate them, so in this chapter I made sure to describe everything, while being sure of giving a translation for the original techniques of the MC.
The first alternative I can offer is to write the translations for the techniques at the end of the chapter in the author's note.
The second alternative I can offer is to write each technique like this:
...he let go of the control over his chakra, and lightning exploded out of him as he shouted: "Raiton: Yari no Saki!" Tip of the Spear.
Opinions?
And we have the fight to give actual context to Sasuke's skills. I tried to maintain the level of tactical planning that I want to see in a Naruto-fight, trying to keep it fast-paced. I've also tried to be sneaky when I added elements to showcase just how much experience truly matters when you're fighting for your life.
To be clear, Asahi was a veteran chunin, and Sasuke has no fucking idea of what happened at the end.
Generally speaking, instincts are bad when you're fighting, the whole point of training is to prepare yourself to a set of standard reactions when confronted, and in the heat of a battle, when your prepared reactions are executed almost without thinking, it has the effect of calming you down, enough to keep a cool mind, which is necessary for the realization of any tactic.
So, we have the Sharingan used for something different than copying jutsu and genjutsu at the beginning, showcasing just what an Uchiha is capable of when carrying out infiltration.
We have the MC using both Katon and Raiton, and the usual quick close-quarter fighting.
How did the fight go?