Chapter 94: Add It Up, Pt. 2

Kannin watched his genin team corner the fuzzy little rascal in a back alleyway. This would be their fourth attempt at the demonic feline. At first the three kids took a haughty attitude and tried to bum-rush it at first glance, but the slippery creature evaded them without issue. By the third time the kids were dead serious. They had begun silently communicating through hand signals and sign language with darkened expressions.

By the fourth attempt, it was war. Miura had taken lead with a plan to force the cat into a pit of mud so that they could finally catch it. They had Akari create a small and covert mudbank, trapping the feline between a looming wall and a mud pit. Miura themself was to sprinkle the cat with water, making it jump away into the mudpit. If the cat jumped over, Ozu would either grab it herself or blow it back down with a gust of wind.

When Miura judged the time was right, they signaled the plan and created a small downpour of water on the evil being. The cat let out a horrific shriek as it suddenly became doused and sopping wet. It quickly bounced up and jumped off of the nearby wall to try and escape, but the hidden Ozu blasted it down with a smaller version of the Great Breakthrough. The cat ended up landing in the mud pit with a satisfying thwap, as the previously wet creature became thoroughly stuck in the quagmire.

Araki then quickly leapt in with an earth clone by his side and firmly grasped the now literally and figuratively slippery cat by the scruff of the neck, and proudly waved it like a standard at Kannin, who sat on a nearby roof watching the whole endeavor, and gave them all smile and a thumbs-up when he saw it.

"The cat is caught!" he exclaimed down to the team, "Well done everyone! Let's go return it to its owner before it escapes again."

Kannin flickered down to them and made sure to seal the cat in a scroll before proceeding on with the mission. He brought his team to the mission center to return the cat, where they found its aging and worried owner, who was wearing even by Konoha standards old lady attire. 

Kannin produced the feline from the scroll, and she erupted from her seat and shouted, "Oh my! Mittens! Where have you been?" in a grating, sing-songy voice. She turned to Kannin and the genin trio and took the creature into her hands. 

Miura almost felt sorry for the little thing, almost. It was writhing and squealing in her hands, which held on with a vice-grip that rivaled the power of a number of shinobi they knew. Miura watched Kannin accept the reward, which was rather nice given how they had simply captured a cat. 

'The lady must really like her little pet', they supposed.

-

Kannin waved as they left the nice office lobby, and handed each kid their share of the reward money. It wasn't even though, Kannin only took 1/7 of the money, leaving each kid about 2/7 each, which amounted to a little less than 2 thousand ryo. The kids accepted the reward money with their own style of glee: Araki and Ozu were rather outward in their pride of their first earnings as a real shinobi, and smiled as they greedily stuffed the money in their pockets. Miura, on the other hand, took a much more sober attitude, but Kannin could still see the gleam in their eyes when he handed them the money.

'None of them are from the big clans,' Kannin mused, 'My team all had war stipends and clan money to support them in our days, but they all probably see shinobi life as a career more than anything, and it makes sense.'

As they were walking down the street, Kannin suddenly asked them all, "How did you three become such skilled shinobi when you aren't from any of the big clans? You're about as good as Team 4 was at your age, and we were all from the Village's main clans."

Miura peeped up and replied to Kannin while glancing at their two teammates, "I don't know about you two, but I did a lot of extracurriculars. I was always in the library or the practice fields. I'd even spar with my own clones if I had to."

"Yeah," Araki interrupted, "that's about what it was like for me. Though I was in the medical wing a lot too."

Ozu nodded as if to say the same, before Kannin muttered out loud, "It's a shame you don't have the chakra capacity for Shadow Clones yet."

"What do you mean, sensei?" Ozu asked, overhearing Kannin.

Kannin looked over a little embarrassed since he didn't intend of saying that audibly, before replying, "Well, Shadow Clones are a special Jutsu that the Lord Second developed that are different to Water Clones or Earth Clones. They create a real body with chakra, so they're more believable in combat, but more importantly, since there's a real brain and body, everything your clone experiences is transferred to the main body's memory when it's dispelled."

"That way," Miura began, piecing it together themself, "theoretically you could double your rate of learning in any one thing, or even learn another jutsu in the same amount of time. That's totally cheating, though. How come everyone doesn't do it, then?"

"Well," Kannin continued, scratching his head, "like I said, for most people, Shadow Clones have to evenly split your chakra reserves among them, so the more you make, the less chakra each has. Most Jonin I know can only make a handful or so before exhausting themselves. It's a highly restricted jutsu, and the Multiple Shadow Clone version is even forbidden by the village since people can easily drain their chakra and kill themselves using it." Kannin paused and looked at their faces, which were all contorted as they imagined the scenario. "Like I said, you need lots of chakra, since even if you do successfully make a Shadow Clone, there's no guarantee that with the chakra it has it could even perform jutsu. Again, that's why most Jonin make no more than a handful."

"Well you have lots of chakra, sensei," Araki quizzically joined in, "can you do the Multiple Shadow Clone jutsu?"

Kannin chuckled a little at the question before honestly answering, "Well, I am an Uzumaki, so I've got lots of chakra, but I'm not a tailed beast or anything. I could probably make a hundred of so, but they'd be useless for ninjutsu. Plus, even if I did perform it, I'm not cleared by the Village to perform it so I'd probably get arrested or something. Even if Minato is a friend of mine, the Village does not take kindly to shinobi using Forbidden Jutsu."

"So why do you use it?" Ozu asked

Kannin shook his head a little before he said, "At a certain point as a shinobi, you come to understand that not only does every jutsu have its own risk, but everything you do has risk. Being a good shinobi is therefore not a matter of avoiding danger, but managing it. The best way is by neurotic preparation, the next best is sheer magnitude of force. So yeah, I use the Shadow Clones a lot. They're simply too useful. Once you three are able to create your own reasonably, you should too."

The genin nodded their heads as they envisioned the utility of the Shadow Clone jutsu, which promised to at least double their learning capacity. Miura in particular vowed to one day be able to perform it.

"Enough talk of jutsu," Kannin sighed as the group continued down the road, "as a reward for your first successful mission, why don't I treat you three to some ramen?"

"Yes please!" Ozu shouted 

Kannin chuckled as he turned the corner towards Ichiraku, content that his team was satisfied with their work.