Chapter 16 - Progress

3 years later, year 28AV

It had been 3 years since Shinjo's first mission. After the tragedy of the first mission, Shinjo, now 10, threw himself into training with renewed vigor.

He got all the earth attribute jutsus up to B rank and a couple of A rank jutsus from Hashirama. The aim was to understand the earth nature better and to develop the ability to freely manipulate it without the constraints of hand seals.

He knew he could master a jutsu up to a point where it would require a few hand seals or none at all. But that would still restrict him to only the available jutsus that had been created till now. Especially with the inspirations that had been gushing out, like water from a dam once he turned 8.

But even then, he would still require a database of all earth release jutsus to familiarise himself with and build upon the known to venture into the unknown. He kind of got how unprecedented the task was from the looks he got from the god of shinobi. After all it was still relatively easier to create a Jutsu for a specific purpose, rather than to develop an ability that would be all-encompassing. Still Hashirama willingly gave him the green signal, once he realized his seriousness and intent.

After that, Shinjo went on to master the earth release jutsus to a point that required no hand seals at all. B rank and lower rank jutsus still employed fewer hand seals than their A rank counter part and what's more, they were earth release jutsus. They didn't require as many hand seals as the water release, because they had a specific form and once cast into that mould, they would stay like that until they achieved their purpose. Unlike the much difficult water release justus.

Since water didn't have a fixed form, but took the form of its container, it required significantly more hand seals to maintain their form at all times and order it to do its caster's bidding. It was still fine at the lower ranks, as there was not much difference between various attribute jutsus. But the difference expanded exponentially once it got to the A rank and S rank.

But even with the apparent easiness, it took quite a while to master and get a feel of the earth release jutsus. And even more to have them combat ready. What with him not having much free time after his missions and all. Their team would take mostly B rank missions, given their competency and above average strength and quite a few A rank mixed in.

On average, it took 15 to 45 days, depending on the mission requirements to complete a B rank mission. And it took 30 to 60 days to complete an A rank mission. The generic missions, in this day and age required more intelligence collection and assasination than any frontal combats. So it took a significantly longer time.

Their team, made for the frontal assault had to revert back to the actual ninja professions. But they did it seamlessly. With Uchiha Kagami as the lead, they had built a rapport among themselves, the teamwork flowing seamlessly.

And with these day to day activities, the children of yesterday were now growing up to be fully fledged Shinobi of today. His clan friends, Kanae, Shin, Souji, Daisuke and Tsuki were all growing up and had become respectable shinobis themselves.

He had also started taking lessons from his sensei on taijutsu and genjutsu. They would spar in their days off, among themselves or with their sensei. He found it surprisingly easy to learn the genjutsus from his sensei. Although he couldn't learn all the doujutsu based genjutsus, he could learn the normal genjutsus fairly easily. His favourite was the one invented by the second hokage.

'Genjutsu - Bringer of darkness' and basically the only one he was willing to master properly among the array of genjutsus, with his high yin chakra affinity, he took it to the next level. His opponent couldn't escape no matter what and how they tried. He had tried it on a few vagabond shinobis, around the strength of chunins.

He was also an excellent sensor. But it was as if god had thrown him a curveball. Despite having a good sensory talent, he couldn't open use them. His job was that of an assassin. And using sensory ninjutsu during a mission basically defeated the purpose of stealth and assasination. Sensory ninjutsu worked by spreading one's chakra thin to one's surrounding. One could judge how the chakra responded in reaction to other sources of chakra, be they plants, flora, fauna or magical animals or shinobis.

But spreading the chakra would also mean one was giving away his real time position to others, as they could also sense the chakra in the air. Hence although he was more than adept at sensory ninjutsu, he barely ever used it. But with the guidance of his sensei, he figured out a way. And that was to use it during a combat.

After thinking for a while, with a little nudge from the second hokage, they figured out a watered down version of sharingan. By spreading the chakra in his immediate environment with much more density, he could theoretically recieve all the information happening within that region. The chakra cost was not high, since he would only be spreading his senses in a radius of 3 to 5 meters. The only downside was that that much information could be hazardous for the shinobi brain.

The first time he tried, he passed out because of sensory overload, his brain shutting itself off automatically. But from then on, he started from the lowest radius of sensory region and gradually increased it, as he became proficient. Now why wasn't anyone else using this novel method in combat? The answer to that was they simply couldn't. The amount of information in a single meter radius was huge.

From how the dust particles moved, to the presence of chakra in air, to the change in airflow, to presence of microscopic biomes present in the air, add to that the necessity of tracking high movement of shinobis attacking, and their bodily response. It was too much. If someone else tried it, their head would explode or they would become brain dead. Only young Shinjo being the outlier. What he didn't lack in the world was his spiritual energy. And it was very robust, even Tobirama didn't find a reason for why that was so. He chalked it to some mutation between Hattori and Senju bloodline.

Coming back to the topic, Shinjo was still young and his brain was very plastic and he could mould it in any way, easier compared to adults. So he practised this way of frontal combat and gradually increased his range. Starting from just 0.5 meters, untangling the bundled up information in his mind while simultaneously ignoring the useless stuffs to now being able to sense around in a 2 meters radius. This had basically granted him a part of both sharingan and byakugan's ability, the eye of insight and the 360° vision. With these, his frontal combat had been upgraded by a notch. He could safely contend with Sakumo now and defeat Ryuga in a contest of taijutsu.

.....

However the war brewing at the backdrop was the only undesirable thing at the present. The sparse and minimal skirmishes at the border had gradually turned into violent ambushes and raids with the objective to collect information and hamper the intelligence transmission and deal maximum damage onto their enemies. All they needed now was a strong enough spark that would ignite the whole world in a shinobi world war.

Pressure was high and there was always a risk of losing one's life while venturing out of the village. Many had lost their lives to treachery and enemy attacks within the borders of fire nation.

Tobirama was doing everything in his power to keep the world powers in check. But even he was reaching his limits. Hashirama was at the end of his road, it was expected he would pass within a year or two. That would really become the spark to ignite the whole world.

.....

In the flower field deep in the forest, behind the hokage mountain.

Giggles and laughters rang out intermittently. Two toddlers of 3 year old, could be seen frolicking in the flower field, picking up flowers, throwing them to the sky and watching in exhilaration as they came down on top of their heads. Each had a flower in their hair and ears. Two cute bundles of joy, untouched by the darkness of the world, full of innocence.

Shinjo took his loving gaze back from his sister Sayuri and Senju Tsunade playing among the flowers and butterflies. Since Tsunade only had Sayuri as the same age and standing, she would often visit their compound with her mother to play. Now-a-days she could come alone, albeit with an anbu guard always in the shadows.

Sayuri had pitch black hair as her brother and the same swirling cloudy eyes. Her face resembled her mother more, an oval shaped cuteness filled with ruddy glow after her recent initiation ceremony. Tsunade sporting silky blonde hair always had a mischievous expression on her face, upto no good. Both playing in the flower field would strike Shinjo with arrows of love from time to time with their cuteness.

Today it was early spring, mid March. His birthday was coming up. He hadn't managed to give the pendant necklace to Kanae that year, despite all the bravado and recklessness he showed, hopefully this year would be different.

.....