Guren [30]

"Guren you should fix your chakra control before trying the academy ninjutsus. Trying to use ninjutsu without control is just inefficient." I tell Guren as she for the 18th time fails the body swap technique.

"But master." Guren responds with the move [Baby-doll Eyes].

Quickly dodging the genjutsu I instruct her to keep on practising the leaf exercise to practise her control. The three of my subordinates have been getting closer to me everyday as they start to talk back a little but not to the point of annoying me.

Of course if I ordered them to do something they would comply without fail, but I won't do that untill in the future when we go on missions or in certain circumstances.

"You need to build up your foundation first. Mastering the basics means being a better overall fighter than the enemy, unless they or you overpower them of course." I say while adjusting her meditating position a little.

I have been training and helping out Guren the most out of my three subordinates for a specific reason.

She will literally do anything I ask of her no matter how morally wrong it is, like slaughtering innocent kids. This might be a stretch now but in the future I can almost assure you she will follow my commands as she is semi-obsessed with me.

I've noticed this throughout our interaction these past months and have decided to dote on her a little.

For Karin and Asashi though they will eventually persue the same thinking as Guren in the future, but this won't be for a while as I don't want them to be mindless soldiers. It's the reason Danzo never had a "kage" level shinobi really.

I will refrain from doing "bad" things in front of Karin and Asashi till they are fully under my grasp.

A person grows in strength better at their own pace with freedom. This can be taken the other way in certain aspects but isn't usually the case when training as a Jounin as hard work isn't really helpful to reach kage level. If you could become a kage level shinobi by pure hard work then there would be many more kage level shinobi alive.

Breaking someone mentally to your will is like restricting their creativity and thinking when trying to get stronger and in battle which is a bad thing and if I did this to Karin and Asashi would be like a limiter and mental block.

I don't think what Danzo has done is wrong as he would probably be able to beat most of the lower powered Kage level threats by himself. But one thing he cant really change is that even Kage level shinobi will be cannon fodder in the future, thus making his plans quite useless in the end.

The problem with raising kage level shinobi is to be able to let them freely grow as people before being able to get them under you. In this case for Konoha a good example was influencing Minato with Jiraya and Hiruzen supplying him with good jutsus like the [Flying Thunder God] and instilling the "Will of Fire" into the guy.

It would be hard for someone to get a person under them fully like a root agent with seals around them without the person trying to fight back or get influenced by others. Danzo is doing this with me right now but is influencing me to help him out when he needs it and limiting the amount of things he controls around me.

A smart play by him but it doesn't really matter as his fate was sealed when the Uchiha died.

Guren ended up doing the leaf chakra exercise for over a minute which impressed me a lot as when I first started I could only do up to 20 seconds when I finally got a leaf to stick to me.

"Master I did it!" Guren shouts in excitement making me chuckle. Her talent with chakra control is better than mine.

"Just keep on practising what ever I've given you ok?" I tell her while giving her a quick hug, Guren receiving the hug starts to get a small red hue on her cheeks while nodding. She ended up taking a small break to redo the leaf exercise again which she repeated several more times.

Everything so far is going pretty well as I've hit a wall in training which wasn't expected but reasonable. I've got around nine more years till shippuden and 13 years till Toneri will be trying to take Hinata which will be troublesome.

I will try my best to take his eyes and hopefully by then I will be strong enough to beat Toneri in a one on one fight. I'm not sure when Boruto starts as the whole thing of Naruto's kids being the ones going to the academy being an indicator not existing now as Hinata is mine.

I'll figure it out after the war though, I still need to get past the first obstacle of a certain Chakra Goddess.

Speaking about preparations though, I planned to go out with Hinata today and get some food. I should probably go over to her compound soon.

"Guren I will be back tonight, I'm going somewhere. Work hard okay." I tell Guren while making my way to my house.

"Okay master!" She responds, smiling.

I still want to catch up with what Asashi and Karin are doing while retrieving my clones knowledge. So far they have reduced the amount of seals I need to use a jutsu like making [Fire Style: Great Fireball] only needing three hand seals instead of six which is pretty amazing.

But for now my strength will stagnate like my taijutsu and kenjutsu which is frustrating. Entering my house I walk pass the living room door which I quickly take a small pit stop to hear what the two are saying.

'Damn this is the most I've seen Karin concentrate on in a while.' I think to myself as I see Karin trying her best to beat Asashi.

"Just give up ketchup, your iq is limited to number of ramen you eat a week." Asashi says snickering.

"Oh shut up! I'm so close to winning I can smell it!" Kain replies looking at the board with a focused expression.

"Sure buddy." I get a grin hearing them argue as Karin proceeds to lose another shogi match to Asashi. She was getting closer everytime to beating him but she made a few mistakes along the way which was pretty sad to see.

It's like one of my buddies used to say.

If it's extremely chaotic that means that they all get along in some way or another.

Silently leaving before they could notice, I made my way to the backyard where two green haired shadow clones could be seen flickering around the place.

'This will not be pleasant but pretty bearable, for more progress.' I encouraged myself that this will all be worth it in the end.

After a few seconds of watching them constantly flicker around I deactivate the shadow clones and start to gain their memories.

"Ugh fuck." I groan retrieving the clone's memories.

I'm definitely not using more than two clones. Half a day's memories from two shadow clones aren't too bad and I could probably go for more, but it's never pleasant to have a lot of mental baggage be given to you at any point in time.

The shadow clones have been practising my efficiency with the [Body Flicker] and earlier on when I was at the academy they were practising how to make normal clones as an after image practically copying Shisui Uchiha.

It's simply just using a single seal while using the [Body Flicker] ninjutsu. This will be used to distract and throw opponents off guard in a fast paced battle if I get caught off guard or if I'm running away if I fail to kill a person stealthily.

'I'm copying from the copy ninjas, how ironic." I chuckled to myself.

Before killing literal "Gods" though, I have to deal with normal humans first as I cant let myself be underhanded in the fourth great shinobi war.

I need to survive after all.