Sarutobi Clan Compound
Bang!
Sarutobi Asuma stormed home and headed straight for the backyard.
Inside the training ground, a young shinobi was practicing Fire Release, breathing a ball of flame toward a distant target.
It was none other than Sarutobi Hiruzen’s eldest son and Sarutobi Asuma’s older brother, Sarutobi Shinnosuke.
“Big Brother!”
Sarutobi Asuma shouted, interrupting Shinnosuke’s training.
“The ninjutsu you taught me is completely useless!
Teach me something stronger!
I have to beat that arrogant bastard!”
“What happened?”
Sarutobi Shinnosuke stopped training and looked at Asuma in confusion.
“The Wind Release: Gale Palm I taught you is only a C-rank ninjutsu, but against a Ninja Academy student, it should still be enough to win easily.”
“Did he learn some more powerful ninjutsu?”
“No.”
At the mention of this, Asuma’s expression darkened.
“I didn’t even get to use my ninjutsu before he beat me unconscious!”
“Hm?”
Sarutobi Shinnosuke became interested.
“Tell me exactly what happened during the fight.”
“It went like this…”
Sarutobi Asuma immediately recounted the entire battle.
He didn’t leave out even the embarrassing part where he had nearly been knocked unconscious.
He had already embarrassed himself once at the Ninja Academy.
As long as he could defeat Kuroda Ren, he didn’t care about embarrassing himself in front of his older brother again.
“Hahahaha!”
Sarutobi Shinnosuke burst into laughter.
“That response was really interesting!
Your classmate doesn’t act like a student from the Ninja Academy at all.
He fights more like a real shinobi who has experienced countless battles!”
“Big Brother!”
Sarutobi Asuma’s face turned black.
“I asked you to help me get stronger so I can defeat him, not to listen to you praise him!”
“Teach me something stronger right now, or I’ll hide all your cigarettes!”
The corner of Sarutobi Shinnosuke’s mouth twitched.
This kid really deserves a beating.
But he was still his younger brother.
If Asuma kept losing to other people, it was the Sarutobi clan’s reputation that would suffer as well.
“Your problem right now isn’t that your techniques aren’t strong enough.”
“It’s that you can’t properly use the strength you already have in actual combat.”
Sarutobi Shinnosuke thought for a moment before speaking.
“As long as you can last ten minutes against me, defeating the other students will be easy.”
He wasn’t saying this casually.
Sarutobi Shinnosuke was an elite Jōnin in the Anbu, and he even commanded an entire Anbu squad.
Sarutobi Hiruzen was already considering promoting Shinnosuke further and having him take the position of Anbu Commander.
Of course, the Sarutobi clan’s considerable influence played a role in this.
But Shinnosuke’s own strength still had to meet the minimum requirements for him to hold such a position securely.
If Sarutobi Asuma could truly last ten minutes against Shinnosuke—even with Shinnosuke holding back considerably—he would already possess strength approaching that of a Chūnin.
Dealing with Ninja Academy students would naturally be no problem.
Geniuses who possessed Chūnin-level strength before graduating were extremely rare.
Since the founding of Konoha, only a handful had ever achieved such a feat.
The previous example had been Orochimaru, who had already become one of Konoha’s top experts.
“Okay!
Train with me now!”
Sarutobi Asuma became excited.
“Your taijutsu, ninja tools, and ninjutsu are all pretty good for your age.”
Sarutobi Shinnosuke continued,
“Your problem is simply that you can’t bring out their full potential in battle.”
“From now on, I’ll use actual combat to teach you how to effectively utilize the strength you already possess!”
…
Meanwhile.
At a Konoha training ground.
After explaining the fundamentals of Konoha-Style Taijutsu to Yūhi Kurenai, Kuroda Ren let her practice on her own.
Kuroda Ren, meanwhile, broke off a section of a nearby tree branch.
Using chakra in place of a hand, he controlled a kunai and attempted to carve the branch.
This was a technique for training chakra control.
It was an advanced exercise beyond tree climbing and water walking.
Ordinary shinobi generally wouldn’t progress this far.
In fact, for the vast majority of Genin and Chūnin, simply practicing tree climbing was enough.
They didn’t even need to train water walking.
After all, they simply didn’t have many opportunities to encounter high-difficulty ninjutsu.
Rather than wasting time on advanced chakra control, they were better off practicing taijutsu, ninja tools, and other practical skills.
Even studying how to set and dismantle traps would be more useful than spending excessive time refining chakra control.
But Kuroda Ren had extremely high ambitions.
Naturally, he held himself to a much higher standard.
If I couldn’t gain access to these techniques, that would be one thing.
But now that I’ve encountered them, there’s no reason not to master them.
Using chakra instead of a hand to control a kunai and carve wood required extremely precise chakra manipulation.
It wasn’t easy for Kuroda Ren either.
On top of that, he was trying to multitask.
While carving, he also had to keep part of his attention on Yūhi Kurenai’s taijutsu training.
As expected, his first attempt ended in failure.
Kuroda Ren didn’t mind.
He casually tossed the ruined piece of wood aside, grabbed another branch, and continued carving.
After training his chakra control for a while, Kuroda Ren joined Yūhi Kurenai for some taijutsu sparring.
Before they knew it, it was already late at night.
“Alright, that’s enough.
It’s getting late.”
Kuroda Ren called a stop to the training.
He looked at Yūhi Kurenai, who was breathing heavily.
“Rest for a bit, then I’ll take you home.”
“You train at this intensity every day?”
Yūhi Kurenai stared at Kuroda Ren in amazement.
She had displayed an impressive talent for Yin Release from a young age.
Her father, Yūhi Shinku, had also done everything he could to nurture her, providing her with the best possible conditions and helping her build a solid foundation.
As a result, Kurenai’s physical abilities were already much stronger than those of most children her age.
And yet, after a full day of training, even she was struggling to keep going.
By the end, the only thing keeping her moving was her refusal to embarrass herself in front of Kuroda Ren.
She simply couldn’t understand how Kuroda Ren could train at such a high intensity every day without showing much fatigue.
What kind of monstrous physique does he have?
“More or less.”
Kuroda Ren smiled.
“Today’s training was actually a little lighter because I spent quite a bit of time working on chakra control.”
“You don’t need to envy me either.”
“Your advantage is your mental strength.
You’re far stronger than me in that area.”
Although Kuroda Ren couldn’t see Yūhi Kurenai’s actual stats, he could vaguely sense that her mental power was extraordinarily strong.
If it were represented numerically, it might not even be lower than his own Constitution stat.
And that was indeed the case.
The future Yūhi Kurenai would achieve an extremely high level of mastery in genjutsu.
Unfortunately, the moment she entered the wider battlefield, she encountered a cheat on the level of the Mangekyō Sharingan.
In a world where bloodlines ruled everything, the Ōtsutsuki bloodline was simply unfairly powerful.
“My dad also says that my mental strength is very strong.”
Yūhi Kurenai smiled.
“He says I’m suited to inheriting his genjutsu.”
“Once I learn genjutsu, I’ll show you just how strong I am!”
“Alright.
I’ll be waiting.”
Kuroda Ren smiled.
He wasn’t particularly interested in learning genjutsu himself.
Kuroda Ren knew that his talent simply didn’t lie in that area.
But experiencing the power of genjutsu and learning how to resist and break it was absolutely necessary.
If he wanted to become a true powerhouse, he couldn’t have any weaknesses.
He didn’t need to know how to use genjutsu himself.
But he absolutely couldn’t allow an enemy’s genjutsu to become a limitation for him.
◇ Bonus Chapter Goals ◇