9 An unexpected training partner
Waking up early, the sun hadn't even appeared in the sky yet; it was almost 5 o'clock in the morning, and Ryo was already finishing getting ready to go to the most remote training area, surrounded by trees and obstacles. It didn't take long for him to get there as he ran, taking the opportunity to train along the way.
In the forest area, Ryo sat on the ground as he began to recall the jutsus he had read about in the library, and one of them stood out more than the others.
"If I don't learn this jutsu soon, I can't call myself a Ninja!"
He thought, then got up, referring to the Shunshin no jutsu, the Body Flicker technique. Ryo knew that every ninja could use it at least at a decent level. He had read in the scroll that it wasn't really teleportation, but rather a very fast movement jutsu that created the illusion of teleportation.
"Of course, for an experienced ninja or sensor, they can keep up with someone flickering in front of them, but the more experienced, the harder it is to keep up with the rapid movements."
Taking a deep breath, he began to perform some hand seals that aided in the flow of chakra to use the technique. He saw that there were few hand signs, but still, to learn it, it was best to follow them, as the hand signs helped shape the chakra in the right way for the jutsu.
"I've never done anything like this before, so I have to be able to feel the movement of chakra within my body with the help of the hand signs, and that will eventually allow me to use it without making any hand signs."
Finishing the signs, Ryo aimed at a spot in front of him where there was no interference from any trees or obstacles, and a second later, he moved in that same direction, appearing on the other side. Not quite right, though; he had appeared only a few meters from where he was, not covering even half the distance stated in the scroll.
"The scroll says that 10 meters is the minimum to know that you've mastered the technique to a decent level, but I only managed to move about a meter and a half..."
He also felt that a portion of chakra had been used; Ryo had used 5% of his total chakra on this jutsu, giving him a small base of how much chakra he had. Since he used 5% for just one attempt.
"If I master the Shunshin, I'll be able to significantly reduce the chakra expenditure, but my own chakra will still grow much more, in the near future, maybe I'll be able to use the Shunshin countless times in a row, but actually, I think I'll eventually have to look for the one that Gaara used, dissolving into sand... Can I do that with metal maybe?"
He then continued to practice for some more time, making some mistakes and occasionally hitting the tree branches when he tried to appear on top of one of the branches. This continued for another hour or two until Ryo heard footsteps nearby, along with a familiar voice.
- Are you practicing the Shunshin, Ryo-san? -
It was a female voice, new to him. Ryo looked at this girl and thought, "Damn, why didn't I learn any observation techniques? If I knew, I would have been able to stop before she saw this."
-- Ah, haha... Yes, Iruka-sensei allowed us to use the library, so I'm training the Shunshin. --
She listened to the response and noticed that Ryo's shirt had some holes, and there were some leaves in his dark hair.
I can help you with that if you want. -
As soon as she spoke, Uchiha Sae appeared behind Ryo, executing the Shunshin perfectly without any hand seals or anything. Ryo swallowed hard at this.
-- Sure? But why do you want to help me with this? -- "She's talking a lot more here than in the academy, why?"
Analyzing the past month, Sae had always been silent, and when she wasn't silent, they were practicing taijutsu together, but it was because Iruka decided to keep the same pairs from the first day of training. By the way, Naruto wasn't liking this at all, since he had to train with Sasuke all the time.
- You train with me in the academy, and also on the first day of the practical class, I hit you hard, but still, you continued to train with me. - She looked to the side with an enigmatic and neutral look.
- From my clan, few other children can compare to me in physical terms, maybe Sasuke, but still, he is better in ninjutsu, not in taijutsu. With that, I liked that you can train with me without any problems. - He raised an eyebrow listening to that.
"What do you mean? Sae is better than even Sasuke at this? Do they have another hidden gem in this same generation then? It's not just Sasuke who is a genius, but she too; unfortunately, Itachi will kill them all except his brother."
Ryo felt a little bad thinking about that, but it's not like he could stop the massacre.
-- I understand, my body is more resistant than normal for some reason that I don't know either, I hope we can train more together then! --
Sae nodded her head and then began to talk to Ryo, asking him to perform the Shunshin again. Since it was still early in the morning, the two spent a few more hours together training. Ryo was already learning how to use the Shunshin without the hand seals; now he only had to perform one.
As the morning came to an end, Ryo and Sae looked at each other. Ryo had a lot of dust on his body from the mistakes he had made until he managed to master most of the jutsu, and Sae was calm and neutral as always, but Ryo realized that she hadn't found the morning boring. Organizing their things, Ryo spoke.
-- It's almost noon, I have to go back now, Sae. Thanks for the training. If you want to come here more often, I come almost every morning; we can train taijutsu together before the academy. --
She looked to the side quickly and then nodded, saying goodbye and disappearing from the place after using the Shunshin. After a few minutes, she appeared in front of a large house; she had already entered the Uchihas' territory and was entering her house. She was soon greeted by a man with a serious face, tall stature, and short hair.
- Where were you, Miss Sae?! You can't disappear like that during a training session; you have to train your Sharingan. Tensions with Konoha are increasing, and we don't know when everything will explode! - The man was Uchiha Kenji, an instructor for the Uchihas to train the most promising new generation. Sae sighed heavily and then went inside the house to train and eventually go to the academy.
On the other side of the city, Ryo was in his room, after receiving the ryous for this month from a chunin who had been tasked with distributing them to the academy students. Once again, he received 1000 ryous and some ninja ration bars. But now Ryo was prepared for this, even though he had been eating ration bars for the past few days since he had run out of money.
"With this, I can start what I had in mind! With access to the first two levels, I can get the fuinjutsu scrolls and sell them to merchants."
With the plan already outlined, Ryo began to head to the academy once again, and another day passed quickly. Soon, Ryo was in the ninja academy library, where he picked up the scrolls containing basic information about fuuinjutsu, with only a few written seals. And so he discovered that this worked like a jutsu, but everything was done at the time of inscription.
"The way the letters are placed on the scroll, they program the inscription to perform a certain action. This is much more interesting than I imagined. In the manga, Jiraiya used it a few times, but he made everything seem very easy and fast."
Ryo then transcribed the symbols onto a regular sheet of paper, and with the instructions, he knew that no one would complain, but he did it discreetly, not wanting anyone to see it. With the symbols transcribed on the paper, he returned home, as the next day was going to be a long one for him.
