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"So, why are you using shadow clones while training the Rasengan? The greatest advantage of this technique is that it requires no hand seals. After going in a circle and using shadow clones, you've directly caused more than half the meaning of this technique to disappear."
Mirai glanced at Naruto with a gaze somewhere between "Are you an idiot?" and "I have lost the will to live," while lecturing him without much politeness.
"But Big Sis, Uncle Jiraiya didn't teach me the specific method. He only gave me a simple demonstration. I have to figure out the training method entirely by myself…" Naruto narrowed his eyes as he argued, but the more he explained, the weaker his voice became.
After all, with the same teaching method, someone else had already learned it, while he was still in the exploration stage.
"…In short, keep slowly rubbing that rubber ball for now. One day, you'll have to reach the point where you can use it instantly without hand seals."
In terms of chakra strength and density, Naruto had no problem with the foundation needed to use the Rasengan. However, his control ability still could not be considered excellent even now, so he could only continue training step by step.
"…"
Naruto was also very helpless. Why had no one told him, in more specific terms, exactly how he should train the Rasengan?
"Oh right, don't forget there's the graduation exam this afternoon." Mirai had already turned around to leave, but she immediately stopped and reminded him.
It had to be said that the role of "older sister" was still very easy to get into. One just had to wonder whether, one day, when Mirai understood that she had always been a "younger sister cosplaying as an older sister," she would still be so confidently bossy when ordering Naruto around.
"Got it!"
This reminder was still extremely important, because Naruto had almost really forgotten about it. Once he started training, he was still very prone to forgetting food and sleep.
"Oh right, where did Yagoromo go?" he immediately asked again.
"He went to see Uncle Jiraiya off," Mirai answered. "According to Yagoromo, it seems Uncle Jiraiya still hasn't managed to win Big Sister Tsunade over, so he has to leave Konoha again."
This was another one of Yagoromo's habitual nonsense claims. Was this really a matter of whether he had won her over or not?
"How could an uncle possibly win over a girl on big-sister level…" Naruto muttered to himself, then threw the matter to the back of his mind. Rather than wasting brain cells on that kind of thing, he might as well put more effort into this rubber ball.
This child was too naive. Just because Mirai called Tsunade "Big Sister," and because she did indeed look very much like a big sister, did not mean he should really treat that grandma as a big sister.
However, from shortly after Naruto and Mirai entered school and returned to Konoha, all the way until the time when the two of them were about to graduate, nearly six years had already passed. Forget Jiraiya being an uncle—even Yagoromo had finally, officially stepped into the ranks of uncles.
Using Kakashi-equivalent units as the standard of measurement, the Copy Ninja was currently twenty-six years old, while Yagoromo was two years older than the Copy Ninja.
As for Jiraiya, because of the Third Hokage's expectations and Yagoromo's influence, he had stayed in Konoha all these years. Aside from carrying out certain missions, he had not continued his travels.
And with Jiraiya unwilling to take over the position of Hokage, his most important task was to bring Tsunade back to the village. However, this task was sufficiently difficult. After all, to a certain extent, the Slug Princess had already grown tired of Konoha.
So this was already Jiraiya's third time carrying out this mission.
With his intelligence-gathering ability, the first two times naturally did not reach the point where he could not even find Tsunade's whereabouts. In fact, both times, he had successfully met Tsunade as he wished. Unfortunately, the first time, as soon as he finished talking about the matter, Tsunade decisively refused him. The second time, it seemed he had not even opened his mouth before taking several punches from Tsunade… The more it was an old friend like Jiraiya, the less Tsunade would show mercy.
"I have a feeling I might be beaten even worse this time." At Konoha's gate, Jiraiya spoke to Yagoromo in a rather depressed tone.
"Surely not. Lady Tsunade is already fifty years old. There's no way she still hasn't changed that violent temper of hers," Yagoromo said, though even he himself did not believe this consolation.
"It's precisely because she's fifty that she's even more violent. Menopau—"
Jiraiya stopped speaking at exactly the right moment. Starting now, he had to pay attention to taboo words related to age. If he dared say those three words in front of Tsunade, he was guaranteed to get beaten until crap came out.
"Uncle Jiraiya, can't you change methods? Since the normal method can't bring her back, wouldn't it be fine to take a shortcut?"
"A shortcut?" Jiraiya asked subconsciously. But as soon as the words left his mouth, he sensed the smell of a rotten idea.
"For example… propose to her or something."
"Cough!"
All right, it really was a rotten idea. If Jiraiya dared say that, what he would face would not be a situation where he was beaten until crap came out, but a situation where he was beaten into crap directly.
Leaving aside whether it was possible, did this guy Yagoromo not feel that he had skipped N steps before the proposal?
For an old man like Jiraiya, logically speaking, after hearing Yagoromo's words, he should laugh with a bold appearance while feeling secretly pleased inside. Yet the expression he revealed contained a bitterness that only those at uncle level or above could understand.
Could it be that Yagoromo did not know? The difficulty of pursuing Tsunade was actually the same as the difficulty of pursuing Orochimaru.
"In short, may you… cough, have a safe journey. I hope you can successfully bring her back to Konoha this time. This is also the Third Hokage's intention."
Jiraiya understood very clearly. What Yagoromo wanted to say was "may fortune be with you"… Fine, he should hurry up and set off.
After he turned and left, he heard Yagoromo speak again from behind him.
"Uncle Jiraiya, don't worry. This time, if you get beaten up again, next time I'll step in."
Annoying. You're already an uncle too, so can you stop calling me uncle… Jiraiya became even more depressed. Why had this guy insisted on coming to see him off? Was his goal to ruin Jiraiya's mood before a pleasant trip?
Jiraiya's main point of depression was that twenty-eight-year-old Yagoromo was not the slightest bit different from twenty-year-old Yagoromo. He looked so young that one could not help suspecting this brat had spent a few years learning makeup techniques from Tsunade.
…
Even Jiraiya, the childhood friend who had been NTR'd, could not persuade Tsunade to return. Could Yagoromo do it if he went? In truth, he actually had a certain degree of confidence. But before that, he still hoped Uncle Jiraiya would succeed this time… After three visits to Tsunade, there really ought to be a result.
As for Yagoromo running over to Konoha's main gate, it was not entirely to see Jiraiya off on his journey to the execution ground. In truth, he was also waiting for another uncle to return to Konoha.
If one asked what the headline in the Land of Fire had been recently, it would definitely be the internal conflict among the daimyo's private armed force, the "Twelve Guardian Ninja," which ended with the whole group faceplanting together.
And a certain Hokage's son was one of them.
The Twelve Guardian Ninja were a daimyo's guard unit composed of twelve elite jōnin. To put what happened earlier simply, someone among the daimyo's guards had plotted an assassination against the daimyo… and this assassination "received a hundred responses to one call." Among the Twelve Guardian Ninja, it was not merely one person who defected. Half of them were traitors.
One could imagine how the Land of Fire daimyo felt. Faced with employees who wanted to kill their boss, he simply felt as if he had been screwed by a dog.
Although the incident ended with the faction represented by Asuma turning the tide and successfully foiling the assassination plot, after such a thing happened, whether from the perspective of trust or in practical terms, the Twelve Guardian Ninja no longer needed to exist.
So Sarutobi Asuma, as the Hokage's son… had become unemployed.
But that was fine. After all, he was the Hokage's son, a genuine second-generation power holder. If he lost his job, he could simply go home. His old man would help solve all work-related problems.
And so, at this moment, Yagoromo saw Sarutobi Asuma's old face appear.
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