"Eh?"
Nohara Rin froze for a moment and blinked. "I just did it without thinking…"
"Hmph! Yuu is the 'White Reaper' who defeated the Kazekage! With a title that big, don't tell me he can't even wipe his own mouth! Seriously…"
Obito stiffened his neck and grumbled angrily, then bit hard into the roasted meat in his hand, as if he were gnawing on Yuu's flesh. His cheeks puffed up like a hamster's.
Seeing this,
Yuu almost wanted to laugh.
No matter how one put it, Obito's existence really did fully explain what people meant by "simple-minded kids have more fun."
At first, Yuu had occasionally worried that this guy might get emotional, awaken the Mangekyō, enter his darkened state, and give him a little taste of "Kamui can't hide tears." But now… he was used to it. He even looked forward a little to what new tricks Obito might come up with.
On the other side,
Kakashi hastily ate a few bites to solve his lunch problem, then walked alone to the waterside a little farther away. With his back to them, he drew the White Fang short blade and repeated basic chopping and thrusting motions again and again. Each swing gathered his full strength and cut a sharp hiss through the air.
Ever since witnessing Yuu's "external blade energy," Kakashi had become somewhat anxious.
His own family's swordsmanship had bloomed in the hands of an outsider with brilliance even he had never imagined. This placed heavy pressure on him.
Moreover, because of the Lightning Stone, Yuu could even use Lightning Release without having trained in it, which happened to be the type of ninjutsu Kakashi excelled in. That made him even more uneasy.
So during this period, Kakashi had even read less of his beloved Icha Icha Paradise. He poured almost all his free time into practicing swordsmanship, though he seemed to have hit a bottleneck and made only limited progress.
Seeing this,
Yuu stood up, walked a couple of steps in that direction, and called out softly, "Hey, Kakashi. Let me offer you an idea."
"Hm?"
"Have you ever considered incorporating Chidori into your swordsmanship?"
Hearing Yuu's words, Kakashi froze slightly, then narrowed his eye. "What do you mean?"
The Chidori he had developed was a ninjutsu with very obvious strengths and weaknesses.
Its strength lay in its destructive power and piercing force. It could bring Lightning Release's power to the extreme. Ordinary people could not take a second hit from it. If it landed, the result was most likely death.
Its weakness was its low hit rate. Because the user could not adjust vision and direction in time during the high-speed charge, if the enemy was prepared or had teammates assisting, it was very easy to suffer a counterattack or even be killed.
Up until now, Kakashi had not been able to solve this problem, so he had not yet thought about further derivative development of this technique.
And now…
"I have an idea."
Yuu took a few steps toward Kakashi and said, "Your Chidori is a close-range thrusting ninjutsu. Its focus is killing in one strike, but if it misses, you put yourself in danger. Then… what if you let Chidori disperse outward and form a Chidori Current?
"Going a step further, you could try injecting Lightning-nature chakra into your blade, so that anyone stabbed by it would be instantly paralyzed and lose the ability to move. Or you could turn Chidori into senbon, or a spear… Although the power would be reduced, the hit rate would increase greatly.
"Your foundation in Hatake Swordsmanship is good. If you can perfectly combine it with Lightning Release, wouldn't that be like creating a man-made Sword of the Thunder God?"
"?"
Kakashi's eye widened.
How should one put it…
The things Yuu mentioned were not his original ideas.
They were Sasuke's various developments and applications of Chidori in the original storyline.
Sasuke's Chidori had been learned from Kakashi. Since he could play with this move in so many ways… then Kakashi, as the original creator, should be able to do it too, right?
In Yuu's view, Obito's Sharingan was actually a debuff for Kakashi.
The so-called "Copy Ninja"—any ninjutsu-type jōnin from the Uchiha clan could basically be given that title.
Although Kamui had a powerful mechanism, before the start of Shippuden and before Kakashi turned thirty, it was basically nonexistent. Later, it also had problems like only being usable twice a day and having low accuracy. It did not truly become a killer move until the Fourth War, when he received Naruto's Nine-Tails chakra.
The only purely positive boost was dynamic vision, but even that had something worth saying:
If he hadn't received Obito's Sharingan, would Kakashi have used a flawed Chidori for the rest of his life? Would he really never have thought of changing it?
Across from him,
Kakashi seemed to have been awakened by Yuu's words. His entire spirit shook, and he began murmuring to himself:
"Lightning Release… swordsmanship…"
"I understand… Chidori!"
Along with a piercing, sharp screech, dazzling blue lightning erupted in Kakashi's right hand.
Then he controlled this mass of electricity, slowly gripped the hilt of the short blade stuck in the nearby mud, and tried to wrap the violent lightning around the blade before lifting it and slashing at a nearby rock.
Sizzle—!!
Shattered stone flew everywhere, and dust filled the air.
The rock was blasted open by the violent Lightning Release chakra, leaving a shallow pit. The edges were scorched black, and tiny arcs of electricity crackled along the pit wall.
"…No good."
"The lightning disperses too severely. Most of the destructive power is consumed before the slash lands, and the final damage is very limited… Also, forcibly controlling violent Lightning-nature chakra places a heavy burden on the body, especially the hand."
"Looks like I need further practice…"
Kakashi looked at his slightly burned palm and frowned.
Beside him, Yuu smiled faintly. "Well, failing when you first try is normal. Who succeeds perfectly the first time?"
"I heard Kumogakure has a secret nin-taijutsu called the Lightning Release Chakra Mode. Its principle is using Lightning Release chakra to activate all the cells in the body, thereby obtaining terrifying speed, defense, and reaction ability. If you can figure out something similar, Kakashi…
"Even if you only use Lightning Release to slightly stimulate the nerves in your body and improve your reaction speed and dynamic vision, perhaps you can solve Chidori's blind spot problem during high-speed thrusts. Besides, this doesn't conflict with developing Chidori Current. Both are training your chakra control."
This time,
Kakashi's eye brightened even more, and his whole body became excited.
"Yuu… you really are a genius!"
"That line of thinking just now was like clearing away the clouds and seeing the sun. It opened my mind completely… Thank you! I'm going to carefully think this through!"
"…"
Yuu wanted to say something, then stopped.
Kakashi's phrase "opened my mind completely" had startled him for a moment. He had almost thought this guy was about to continue with "I have wandered half my life and never met a worthy lord." Fortunately, this was the Naruto world, not the Three Kingdoms world, so that did not happen.
"Hey! What are you two secretly talking about over there? The roasted meat is going cold!"
Obito's dissatisfied shout came from behind.
He was still brooding over having seen Rin wipe Yuu's mouth earlier, so his tone was not pleasant.
Kakashi ignored Obito's fussing. He simply stared silently at the short blade in his hand, his gaze unfocused. Clearly, his mind had already sunk into the subject of "Chidori Current," and his brain was rapidly thinking through all kinds of possibilities.
Yuu returned to the fire and sat down. He ate another half a roasted rabbit, then took advantage of digestion time after the meal to interact a little with the ninjutsu in the galgame system.
The Three Basic Techniques and Fire Release, whose affection had already reached max, needed no further mention.
At the current stage, Yuu began placing his main energy on the ninjutsu with relatively low affection.
[Monster Strength: Yo~ little Yuu, you finally remembered me? Hehe, come on, let's gamble!]
Monster Strength's lively voice, carrying a gambler's excitement, rang out in his consciousness.
Ever since the fight against Rasa, when Yuu relied on the Mad Gamble trait and rolled a "Double" to turn the tide, Monster Strength's enthusiasm for gambling had clearly risen. Especially since that "Double" had been rolled by her herself, which made her even more excited.
Yuu also smiled slightly. "Sure, let's play a few rounds."
[Monster Strength: Yay! Come, come. Same old rules. Bet big or small?]
"Small."
[Monster Strength: Hehe, then I bet big! Watch me—open!]
[The blond girl in a furisode sits beside the gambling table with one leg crossed. With her fair arm not covered by her sleeve, she vigorously shakes the dice cup. When she lifts it, the dice show 2, 2, and 3—small.]
[Monster Strength: …That's not right. I clearly rolled a Double that day. Why is my luck so bad today? Hey, little white-hair, you aren't cheating, are you? If I catch you, I'll squeeze you dry!]
Yuu: "…"
Alright. He had thought Monster Strength's luck had turned around, but it seemed the "Double" from when they fought Rasa had only been a fleeting miracle.
[Monster Strength: Again!]
After three or four rolls in a row,
Monster Strength finally won once, her voice revealing excitement. At that moment, the galgame system notification also rang out:
[Monster Strength affection +3. Current affection: 51/100 (Intimate)]
[Stage reward obtained: Constitution +1. Trait · Mad Gamble: When using Monster Strength, you may additionally inject 5–7% of your own chakra as the wager for a dice roll. Based on the result, different enhancement effects will trigger: ① Empty Spin · 40% chance (no enhancement); ② Small Win · 30% chance (destructive power receives an additional 75–120% increase); ③ Double · 20% chance (destructive power receives an additional 125–175% increase, with critical effect); ④ Sweep · 10% chance (destructive power receives an additional 225–300% increase, with critical, piercing, and splash effects).]
"Mm…"
The advanced Mad Gamble was not very different from the first stage. The main change was that the wager had become subjectively selectable, ranging from 5% to 7%, while the upper limit of "Sweep" had reached 300%, meaning four times the damage.
In other words…
Did this thing have to gamble?
Wouldn't a stable enhancement be better?
Yuu complained inwardly, but at the same time, he knew that expecting Monster Strength to change nature was about as unrealistic as expecting Tsunade to quit gambling completely. Fortunately, Monster Strength could be used without the trait. Mad Gamble only needed to be used as a bonus at critical moments.
Additionally…
there was another thing worth mentioning: over the past few days, Yuu had secretly used ninja beasts in this forest to test Seed of Vitality.
Judging from the test results,
the "recording" mechanism of Seed of Vitality operated in units of hours.
After being planted, about every six hours, it recorded the injured person's physiological state and saved it. When a new record was generated, it chose the better state between the two records as the "best state."
When the injured person then suffered a fatal injury, the "rollback" mechanism would trigger, extracting that "best state" and directly overwriting the injured person's body with it, thereby creating the effect of a second life.
The "overwrite" time depended on the development level of the Seed of Vitality.
In other words, the longer the seed stayed inside the human body, and the more times it recorded, the better the seed's development became. This shortened the "overwrite" time, with the minimum being compressed to about three or four seconds.
However…
if the target continuously received fatal injuries during the rollback process—for example, when Yuu slit a wild rabbit's throat twice in a row—the rabbit would still die. It just got to enjoy the process of death one extra time compared to its peers.
"…Not bad."
It seemed this thing could be used as a low-end version of Izanagi.
Although the effect was not as strong as Izanagi, the price was not as high either. After all, a "seed" could be generated as long as there was chakra. It just had the limit of a maximum of five existing at the same time.
"Yuu, what are you smiling about? Did you think of something happy?"
Rin looked curiously at the smile on Yuu's lips.
"Nothing."
Yuu withdrew his mind and took a sip from his water flask.
"Let's go, Rin. Kakashi, Obito too. We've rested enough. It's time to continue patrolling the next area.
"Stay alert. Although the Suna ninja are now turtling up inside Wildfire City, there's no guarantee small units won't infiltrate out. Prioritize capturing them alive."
"Okay, okay~ got it!"
Although Obito still felt a little awkward, he knew the mission was important. He patted his backside and stood up.
Kakashi also returned from his thoughts, his gaze recovering its usual calm.
"Mm."
The four quickly extinguished the fire, erased their traces, and once again disappeared into the lush yet danger-filled mountains and forests outside Wildfire City…
…
Several days passed in the blink of an eye.
During this period, Konoha and Sunagakure had several more small-scale clashes, with both sides taking losses.
However, Sunagakure's logistical supply lines had indeed been severely disrupted. Although their forces could barely maintain Wildfire City's defense, the food stores inside the city had been decreasing day by day and were almost about to hit bottom.
Therefore,
around one week later,
Sunagakure finally could not withstand the pressure and responded to Konoha's request for negotiations.
~~~
Patreon(.)com/Bleam
— Currently You can Read 70 Chapters Ahead of Others!