Shinra stood in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection, or more specifically, the remains of his jacket.
Several large holes had been burned through the fabric while the left sleeve had almost completely vanished. Honestly, it had more empty space than fabric it this point, so the verdict was obvious.
It was unsalvageable.
For several moments he continued staring at it before finally sighing and throwing it in the bin.
The spar against Yogi had taught him many valuable lessons. Unfortunately, it had also cost him a jacket.
'At least the explosive tags did their job.'
The thought did little to improve his mood. After all, he had made those explosion tags himself.
It's unfortunate that the process of creating explosive tags was extremely delicate due to the risk of them exploding during production. This naturally increased the cost of each tag, but if he had a high success rate with every attempt, he would've been filthy rich by now.
'How the hell did Konan manage to accumulate six hundred billion explosive tags? Could it be that her unique paper jutsu allowed her to replicate the explosive tag directly? Or did she use Kakuzu's funds after his death?'
Shinra found himself walking through Konoha's market district. The streets were already crowded with civilians beginning their day while merchants loudly advertised their goods from both sides of the road.
Normally he would have ignored the noise.
But today he needed to buy himself a new jacket. He could get away with wearing a simple shirt but he preferred being able to hide weapons and his weights under his clothes.
'I wouldn't mind wearing a cloak, but I'd probably end up looking edgy.'
The replacement jacket didn't cost much.
That didn't stop him from feeling slightly irritated as he handed over the money.
His savings currently sat at a little over one hundred thousand ryō.
A respectable amount for a genin.
A disappointingly small amount for someone who had recently begun purchasing large amounts of paper and fuinjutsu supplies to train himself.
'Being a shinobi is expensive.'
The realization wasn't exactly new.
It was simply becoming more apparent.
By the time he arrived outside Kurosawa's residence, his mood had improved slightly.
The familiar scent of alcohol greeted him before he even reached the door.
Shinra knocked once.
No response.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
The third knock was immediately followed by the sound of something shattering inside.
"…Enter."
Shinra pushed open the door.
The sight waiting inside was exactly what he expected.
Kurosawa was unsurprisingly drinking early in the morning, and was surrounded by a large number of scrolls.
The elderly seal master glanced up from his bottle.
"You're here early."
"I finished training early today."
"That explains why you're bothering me."
Shinra ignored the comment and placed one of his weights on the table.
The old man looked at it.
Then at Shinra.
Then back at the weight.
"…What do you want?"
"They're not useful anymore."
"Congratulations."
"I need a heavier set."
Kurosawa stared at him for several moments before snorting.
"And you came to me because?"
Shinra frowned.
"You make seals."
"I can also make doors. Doesn't mean I'm giving you one."
Kurosawa reached for the weight and turned it over in his hand.
"How much resistance are these holding?"
"Each of them is fifty kilograms," Shinra told him.
The old man immediately looked disappointed.
"No wonder they're useless."
He tossed the weight back.
"You should've replaced them months ago."
"They're expensive."
"So is sake. I still manage."
Shinra chose not to answer and remained quiet.
Instead, he watched as Kurosawa opened a nearby drawer and pulled out a scroll.
The old man tossed it toward him.
Shinra caught it.
"…What's this?"
"What does it look like?"
He opened the scroll.
At first, his attention settled on the seal formula itself. He carefully read through the seals before moving down to the theory which explained the basis of the seal.
Then his eyes moved further down.
His expression changed.
"…Two tons?"
Kurosawa took another drink.
"Yeah, that's the maximum setting."
Shinra looked back down at the formula.
Two tons.
Even most chūnin would never require that much resistance. He doubted even many Jounins trained with such extreme weights.
The amount seemed absurd.
"You expect me to make this?"
The old man looked genuinely confused.
"Who else is going to?"
For several moments Shinra simply stared at the scroll. Although he didn't get the training weights handed to him on a silver platter, it was still better than spending eighty percent of his savings to purchase a new set.
He carefully rolled the scroll back up and asked, "…How long did it take you to create this?"
"A few weeks."
The answer arrived immediately.
Shinra paused.
"A few weeks?"
"Around 20 Years ago."
That was somehow worse.
The old man had casually handed him something that represented weeks of work.
'For him to hand me this formula is surprising. If I mass-produced these, they could become a decent source of income. From what I've read there isn't a huge risk involved with failure.'
Kurosawa either trusted him an absurd amount or simply didn't care.
Possibly both.
The thought stayed with him for a while.
Eventually he stood.
"Thank you."
Kurosawa waved a hand dismissively.
"Just don't embarrass me."
Shinra nodded before leaving.
As he stepped back into the street, his gaze briefly dropped toward the scroll in his hand.
The formula was significantly more complicated than anything he had worked on before.
It would take a lot of time.
For some reason, that only made him more interested.
Elsewhere in the village, Yogi stopped outside a familiar compound.
The Yamanaka Clan.
The guards immediately recognized him and allowed him entry without issue.
Several minutes later he found himself seated across from a blond man.
Yamanaka Inoichi.
The clan head placed his brush aside and looked up from the document he had been reading.
"Yogi-san."
"Clan head."
The two men regarded each other quietly.
Eventually, Yogi broke the silence.
"I need a favor."
"This is unusual."
One of Inoichi's eyebrows rose.
That wasn't something he heard often.
"What kind of favour?"
Yogi remained silent for a moment then said, "I need a list of the C and D rank elemental jutsus available within the clan."
His expression immediately shifted.
"…For your student?"
"Yes."
The Yamanaka clan head remained silent for a long while.
Every clan had its own archive of history and jutsus, which allows them to train their members easily.
Naturally this begs the question of why there is no such a thing like a library where every ninja can learn jutsus from, wouldn't that make Konoha stronger and the answer is both yes and no.
The reason being that spies from other nations will be able to easily steal the jutsu that Konoha uses, since it is very hard to implant spies into clans and way easier to plant them among civilians who can later become ninjas. It is also one of the reason why Kakashi is so feared among the elemental nations, since he could steal your jutsu and hand it back to Konoha boosting their military prowess.
But the village would never block the path of their ninjas entirely and hence it left civilian ninjas with three paths, learn ninjutsu from an experienced ninja, submit a request to learn a jutsu and the hokage would assess your merits and lastly create your own jutsu.
Yogi was essentially bending the rules a bit for his student, although C-rank jutsu and below aren't clan specific they were still useful tools.
But considering his contribution to the clan even during the times of war, his request wasn't particularly unreasonable.
What surprised him was the fact that Yogi had personally come here to ask.
Eventually Inoichi made up his mind and replied.
"You're taking this seriously."
Yogi frowned.
"I'm his instructor."
"You've had other students before."
"And?"
"You never came to ask for jutsu for them."
The room fell silent.
Unfortunately, that was difficult to argue against.
Several moments passed.
Then Yogi clicked his tongue.
"He has the potential to become a Jounin and may even surpass me. I want to see how far he can go."
Inoichi's eyes widened slightly, "He must've made quite an impression for you to praise him as such."
Yogi remained silent.
A faint smile appeared on Inoichi's face.
"I'll see what I can find."
Yogi nodded and replied, "Thank you."
That was all he needed.