Chapter 15: Millstone

Shin wanted to stay another day or two in the village before heading back, but after fighting Emiko, she wasn't so sure. She settled on one more day in Uzushiogakure before returning. The appearance of an enemy missing-nin already raised the mission difficulty to A class, and Shin was not wanting to wait around and let it rise again.

They found another relatively undamaged house to make camp, and they set up a perimeter. While the kids were relaxing or, in Kannin and Warai's case, trying to learn about their new techniques, Shin started thinking about the second hidden aim of this mission: the masks.

The proper temple to the Uzumaki Sealing Masks was in Konoha, but Danzo was certain more of their secrets were hidden somewhere in the rubble of Uzushiogakure, so he put an addendum to the mission to have Shin collect any and all evidence of them and report back.

Shin was a lot more certain that this side-mission would be a lot less deadly than the previous one.

Watching the kids practice their techniques, she split into four with shadow clones and sent three of them out to collect info, while her main body went up to Warai and sat down.

"Whatcha doin', kid?"

Warai responded with a determined look on her face, "Well, I developed the Sharingan. You should know what that means. I'm trying to test my limits."

Shin put her hand on Warai's shoulder and asked, "What are your limits?"

Warai sighed and said, "I'm not entirely clear, but what I do know is my vision is clearer and I have slight precognition."

"That's more than enough to make you stronger. Plus your jutsu skills, your already nearing Chunin levels of power."

Warai looked Shin in the eye, and said "I don't feel powerful. I was basically useless for the fight. If Kannin hadn't done what he did, I would still be asleep."

Shin looked down to her, and sighed "Kannin aside, you were of tremendous help in the fight. Without you spotting Emiko in the darkness, we would never have won! And once you master your Sharingan, you'll be even more powerful!"

"More powerful than Kannin?"

Shin paused for a moment, scratching her chin, and said "I suppose that depends on how hard Kannin trains." They both glanced over at Kannin, who sat by himself with his eyes closed.

-

Within Kannin's consciousness.

To learn the Adamantine Chain technique, you needed to fill 2 requirements: 1) Be an Uzumaki, 2) Have especially vital life force, even for an Uzumaki. Kannin knew he met the first requirement, he wasn't so sure about the second. The first reason to doubt was that he wasn't a full blooded Uzumaki. Whatever his father's clan was, it wasn't Uzumaki, given his light grey hair.

The actual process for learning the technique involved going into your consciousness plane, the place where, had Kannin been a jinchuriki, it's consciousness would be housed, just like with Naruto in the manga. While Naruto's had a whole prison for the Kyuubi, Kannin's was a clear plane of nothing. All he could tell was that his chakra was emanating throughout. His vision was painted an eggshell white.

In order to form the chains, one had to solidify them from their own chakra, slowly but surely. Over time, each link you made would connect to the next--and, if you were of average skill, in a few months you might have a full chain to work with.

Kannin had managed to make 3 so far. He didn't know what the actual average pace was for creating each link, but his slow progress frustrated him, which unbalanced his focus, which made the process even harder.

Kannin remembered that in the manga, Kushina had created enormous chains, capable of restraining the Kyuubi in its full form, and even forming a barrier net which spanned what seemed like a few football fields. That either meant she already knew this technique by now, and had been cultivating it for her whole life by the events of the Kyuubi attack, or, perhaps more terrifyingly, only learned it around this point in time, and made that many in just a few years.

For now, Kannin would need to spend at least an hour each day dedicated to developing his chains for them to be of any use in the near future. He was in for a pretty difficult grind, it seemed. But he knew the payoffs would be huge. The scroll he had said that these chains should have a chakra repressing effect on an opponent, which makes sense if they were able to suppress even the Kyuubi. But Kannin was convinced that they had a much wider range of applications.

Firstly, each chain was tipped with a sharp spearhead, which meant they could just be pure weapons. He should be able to adjust their length, which made Kannin think he could maybe propel himself with them, and he had even more ideas.

But no matter how hard he thought about their applications, it didn't make creating them any easier, in fact, it was probably making it more difficult.

-

In the outside world, Kannin had perhaps gotten a little too into it, and was sweating bullets on the outside, with a grimace adorning his face.

Warai and Tetsu had squatted down in front of him and began stacking leaves on his head to see if he'd snap out of it. He didn't. Eventually even Shin came around as well and put an entire rock on his head, and nothing happened. After that, they sat down, gawking at him like he was a painting in an art gallery.

When he did snap out of it, a pile of leaves and rocks three feet tall toppled over and fell on top of him in a loud crash.

"What the hell was that?"

The only response he got was a chorus of laughter from his teammates, including his oh-so-very mature team leader.

"Oh you are so paying for that!"

With that, he summoned a wave of water that rushed out in all directions from himself, which promptly began a small jutsu war among the 4 of them, with Harakaze-sensei eventually getting her eyebrows fried by a stray fireball.