CHAPTER 7
Chapter Summary: Despite the dangers that he found himself in, Suzuki Hiroshi continues on with life. He thinks up on new jutsu, finally starts on fuinjutsu, and gets more knowledge on medical ninjutsu.
HOKAGE's OFFICE
"…we reached here back at the village. End of report.", Tashiro-taichou narrated what had happened on our mission. Of course since he didn't know about the Vault of Scrolls, it was naturally not mentioned. Thank Kami I didn't need to speak. I didn't really want to lie to a superior officer.
The Hokage took in smoke from his pipe and blew it out. "We'll have to make sure to get rid of these enemies within our lands. It would be bad if they get any information about us with the war going on. Yashiro-san, I'll have to trouble you in helping a team of trackers to find traces of where they might have gone to."
Yashiro-taichou nodded and accepted the command.
"That's that then. Your C-rank mission has turned into an A-rank mission. Your pay would be directly deposited to your bank accounts by this week. Now if you'll excuse me, I have paperwork to do.", the Hokage let us out of his office.
Before I fully turned away though, I saw him give me an approving nod and satisfied smile. He's probably commending me for a job well done. I nodded back and completely went out of his office.
The subsequent weeks were as quiet as they can be. I was continuing on with my training by following the new regimen prepared for me by the Cranes. It's just a shame that I can't summon Tsurutatsu to watch and guide me. Danzo probably knows Senju Naomi, who snuck into his base and stole his plans, was contracted to the Cranes and it would be bad for me if he sees me contracted to them as well. Well, even if he doesn't know, there's no need to tell anybody about the Cranes just yet; I'll keep them a secret for now.
Again, the training regimen I was following right now was very tiring. It pushed my body to its limit all the while still considerate of my age. I was still growing and anything that was excessive would only be detrimental to me in the long run. I could really feel the improvement by the end of the first week.
I started reading on the Crane's unique kenjutsu style called 'Flowing Torrent' and there was only one word for it – beautiful. It was quite striking and distinct to other styles as its nature was that of water, prone to change and true to the flow. It didn't consist of rigid stances but with rather ever-changing movements. It allowed the user to deflect when necessary and strike when needed. As of now, visualization was the only thing I could do since I couldn't train with the Cranes yet.
The Cranes emphasized the importance of speed and flexibility; exactly the things that I also was going to solidify my fighting style with. My past life's memories showed just how powerful speed-type shinobi are. And together with a perfect basic foundation and a powerful signature move, you could survive a battle while causing devastating damage to the enemy. It was ideal for me.
Team Minato, who by the way were furious at me for just sending them a message through my [Origami Messenger Jutsu], wondered how I arranged for my current training.
"Would you believe it if I said that a couple of birds gave it to me?". They just rolled their eyes at my excuse, clearly not accepting it. I guess I could get away with telling the truth by making it seem like an impossible lie. I'll have to remember that.
Hey… This could be my thing.
There was one thing that I regret not having now that I know I was a Senju – the Wood Release.
In my past life's memories, there was something about reincarnations of the sons of the Sage of Six Paths – another thing to think about later. There were only a few Senju in our history that awakened the Wood Release. Why was that? From the information in my head, I could only theorize that every Senju had the genetic potential to gain access to the Wood Release. However, it takes something much more special to have the bloodline limit. I was thinking that maybe those who awaken it have higher latent yang energy within their bodies than any normal Senju. I surmise that Hashirama Senju, as a reincarnation of Ashura, had very high latent yang energy that he had awakened a much more powerful version of Wood Release.
On another note, I also thought on how yin energy was related to developing dojutsus seeing as how the Uchiha and Hyuga have higher yin energy than most while yang energy was most related to body enhancement like the Akimichi, Senju, and Uzumaki. I theorized that accessing powerful dojutsu, like how the Uchiha awaken their Mangekyo Sharingan, needed extreme levels of yin energy. The Mangekyo forms due to a form of loss in the life of an Uchiha. This loss would be some sort of spiritual enlightenment which would spike up their yin energy and cause the Sharingan to evolve. I don't know about the Hyuga but the Byakugan was already very powerful as is and they do need the eyes of another Byakugan user to unlock the Tenseigan just like how the Uchiha unlock the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan so it all checks out.
If the awakening and evolution of dojutsu is the highest form of yin energy accumulation, what happens to a person when they possess a very high level of yang energy?
Senju Hashirama was probably an example of the pinnacle of yang energy, being the reincarnation of Ashura, and aside from his Wood Release, there was one other achievement he had when dealing with the shinobi arts; he created his own Sage Mode.
I theorize that having high latent yang energy is a requirement to learning Sage Mode. It could explain why Jiraiya of the Sannin has only an imperfect version of the Toad Sage Mode.
I'm not dreaming of creating my own Sage Mode but if what I theorize is correct, the Senju's natural talent of having high latent yang energy could help me learn the Crane Sage Mode. I would definitely try it.
A straying thought passed by my mind as I thought of all these, 'What if all the Senju were able to master their summons' Sage Mode, if they had any?'
The thought was a little terrifying.
One day, while Team Minato was out doing a simple C-rank mission outside the village, I was at Training Ground 3 thinking about how regretful it was that I don't have Wood Release. I sighed every time I pondered on how amazing it would have been to suddenly grow trees.
I looked towards the trees swaying along with the wind, seeing the leaves fly as they were blown away.
A thought suddenly occurred to me. "So what if I couldn't throw trees at my enemies? Why not use leaves?"
My brain was motivated into thinking hard on it. 'It works out. Fresh leaves have water in them so I could control them like how I control mist. Unlike mist though, I could make leaves sharp like kunai and shuriken. It's perfect since I usually act like a support combatant with my ninjutsu!"
I immediately started on it, grabbing the leaf and feeling the water. It was easy taking hold of the water in the leaf but hard to control the whole leaf through the water. It might take some time to learn it.
I'm not one to give up when it comes to jutsu.
And so, I did.
By the time they came back after a week, Team Minato saw me at the training grounds being swirled around by hundreds of leaves. Minato-sensei was horrified by me testing out jutsu unsupervised.
"Didn't I tell you to have someone with you when you try out new jutsu?"
I shrugged. "Would you believe me if I told you that the leaves just like me so they're gathering around me?"
The whole team just rolled their eyes.
Obito quickly got over my lame excuse as he passionately asked me questions. "How did you do that?! Can I learn it too?! Can you collect every leaf around the village and control them?!"
"I controlled the water within the leaves to control the leaf itself. I can throw them like weapons, or use them as shields and vision deterrents. No, you can't learn it, Obito. It requires my perfect chakra control and water nature affinity, both of which you don't have. And yes, theoretically I could control every leaf on every tree around the village and weaponize them, especially so because I have sensing abilities."
That fact frightened Minato-sensei. "Hiro-kun, please don't go around plucking leaves out of trees around the village."
"Of course, Minato-sensei. It's an important part of the village as it helps in acting like some sort of natural barrier for us. It would be stupid of me to just leave the trees bare.", I reassured sensei although he still seems unsure.
"Can you try using them as if you were in battle?", Kakashi asked.
"And why do you want to know how it exactly works?". I asked back but he just shrugged.
I sighed and maneuvered the leaves as I wanted it to do, my hands and arms moving to guide them through the air. Manipulating the leaves was actually nice and calming. I then manipulated a small number of leaves that broke off from the main group. I willed them to sharpen their edges and aimed them at the wooden posts. I still had very terrible aim when shooting out the leaves so most of them didn't hit the target. Some of them did and they stuck there even after I stopped my hold on them, making them limp.
Kakashi analyzed what I had done. "Hmm… If you had better accuracy with the leaves, you'd give enemies trouble. And if you learned how to hide them in places and use them strategically, you'd be a real threat."
Rin said something that deflated me though, "What if they were hit by fire? They burn right?"
Seeing that my face darkened with sadness and shame, she tried to cheer me up and while it worked, it was only by a little.
"I'm sure you'll work it out soon enough. You never give up when it comes to jutsu, right?"
She's right. I can find a solution to it. My face came back to normal as I thanked her for the encouraging words.
The day after they came back, Minato-sensei finally cleared me on starting the basics of fuinjutsu. Because of my clear and accurate calligraphy, he had me started with explosion tags and storage scrolls.
For a whole week, I grinded my brains off replicating explosion tags and storage scrolls. Minato-sensei was satisfied with my progress for the week and so, he had me create my own versions by the next week. I created explosion tags of varying intensities and effects and storage scrolls of all kinds of assortment.
And then the day came to test my seals.
"It's very important to have supervision when trying out seals since you're still starting out. Now, what will we test first?", Minato-sensei started.
We tested the exploding tags and he was very happy as all of them didn't have any issues.
Minato-sensei saw tags that I had personally designed. "What are these, Hiro-kun?", he asked as he studied them.
"Oh. Those are my original designs. I made them from scratch.", I said with pride.
Minato-sensei nodded. "Should we try them out as well?"
"Yes! Please! I think they'd also work just as well as the exploding tags."
The first thing I pulled out was my Flashbang Tag. It just blinded enemies. Simple as that. Minato-sensei seemed okay with it so we moved on.
The next was my Frost Tag. It created ice from the water in the immediate surroundings. It was quite complicated as the tag had its own modifiable configurations that you would need to set as you push in chakra into it. This allows me to use it according any situation given that I had enough time to set the configurations of the tag. Minato-sensei was surprised with this. Saying that designing a seal of this level is easily that of Level 6 or 7. My current skills were about at Level 4.
The last one was something I called the Imploding Tag. This one seemed to have baffled, Minato-sensei.
"What do you mean it sucks in people?!", he exclaimed. I may have not worded that properly.
"I meant that… Uhm… Oh! It gathers people forcefully? The exploding tag scatters everything in the surroundings into bits, right? The imploding tag, here, creates a reverse reaction that instead of scattering things around, it gathers them to a single point. It's useful since the enemies caught in the implosion would be bumping with others that were affected. It would also be easier to use an explosion tag on enemies that were together, right?"
"No no no. That's not the exact issue here. I understood that the first time you explained it." It wasn't my words. That's not very reassuring. "Your imploding tag doesn't have the same principles as that of an exploding tag. Exploding tags burst out kinetic energy but from what you've explained and from what I gathered from this seal, your imploding tag doesn't even deal with kinetic energy that way. No. The actual problem is that you're currently dabbling in space-time techniques here, and even without realizing it judging from your reaction."
"What?", I was about to complain when everything suddenly clicked. "Is that why my seal didn't even have the smallest similarity to the exploding tag? Oh! I guess it also explains why it was so complicated to make. It also supports how I needed five nonstop hours to make just one tag."
Minato-sensei just sighed and shook his head dejectedly.
HOKAGE's OFFICE
"Hiro-kun, I hear you've been dabbling in space-time fuinjutsu this time around.", the Hokage said. Will they take my Imploding Tag away from me?!
"I swear, Hokage-sama, I didn't know I was doing it. Is it my fault that I'm so creative and brilliant?!", I spiralled out and became shameless when I was desperate to defend myself.
Thankfully, the Hokage good-naturedly chuckled which lessened my dilemma. "Of course, it's not. People like yourself are what drives progress in this world and I would never be mad at you for being able to do better than what you were supposed to do. But please do understand that space-time techniques of any sort just have to be regulated. I will allow you to continue to make your Imploding Tags but you are not to share its creation methods to anybody else. You are also to stop peeking into space-time techniques until you are of the level of a Fuinjutsu Master."
I sighed with relief. "Yes, Hokage-sama. I'll be more mindful and careful from now on."
Thank Kami. I thought they were going to confiscate my things.
"Every time we think that we're almost there, it just goes down the drain. Ugh. Why is this so hard?!", Rin was complaining about our current progress with the new medical ninjutsu we planned on making.
"Awee… Rin don't be like that. Failure is still progress, after all."
Rin calmed down and sighed. "I guess, you're right. It's just with how useful this is supposed to be, it's development is vital to the survival of a lot of shinobi."
"You are very passionate about this, huh. If only you could see how passionate Obito has been to grab your attention, it would give me less trouble as well.
Rin's face turned bright red at that. It turns out that Rin wasn't very oblivious to what Obito was feeling for her. She just reasons that they were still kids and feeling may still change. It also doesn't help that the war is going to be messy soon. She didn't want to risk any ridge that emotions might cause. Apparently, she's been crushing on Kakashi for a while now and if Obito knew that, the team would be in disarray.
She's more mature than what I thought her to be. It's quite nice.
"Please stop saying that! I don't want to deal with that yet!", Rin complained out loud.
"Yeah. And it's me that deals with it instead. Just the other day, Obito was going to burn my jutsu notes just because we were talking about your progress in medical ninjutsu."
"Ughhh!", she groaned. Seeing that she really didn't want to think about it. I pulled out something I was working on to distract her.
"I'm actually working on another application of medical ninjutsu and I think you could use it.", with my words, she immediately sat right up and at the ready. I laughed at that. She was just a nerd for medical ninjutsu as I was for creating jutsu.
There was this episode of 'Naruto' my past life's memories showed that dealt with medical ninjutsu and water release ninjutsu. I weaved through the signs and molded my chakra while water started to gather on my arm which had a very small cut.
"[Medical Art, Water Release: Water Jellyfish]!", a small blob of glowing water that looked very much like a jellyfish formed on the cut. The cut, evidently, was healing. When the jellyfish finished its job, it turned back into ordinary water.
I looked to Rin and she was expectantly waiting for an explanation. I sighed. "My [Medical Art, Water Release: Water Jellyfish] creates a jellyfish from a water. It functions independently from you so while you attend to other things, the jellyfish continues on with its job. I was hoping it could be used to simultaneously attend to one or more patients. And yes, before you ask, I will teach it to you since you should be able to do it.", she hugged me for a while and said her thank yous and we got to work.
She didn't get it on our training sessions so I left her with a scroll detailing the jutsu so that she could work on it at her own pace.
A/N: It's kind of tiring writing the same note that's without substance. So I changed it.