"So this time, our mission is to escort a film crew to another country for shooting, right?"
Naruto frowned as he looked at the sleeping figure sprawled across a reclining chair—Yukie Fujikaze, a well-known actress who had clearly passed out from exhaustion or stubbornness.
Shigure had carried the celebrity back like she was a sack of rice.
Luckily, she hadn't left Konoha yet, or dragging her back would've been a lot more troublesome.
"This is an A-rank mission. We're to escort the entire film crew to the Land of Snow for their shoot," Kakashi announced formally.
Naruto and Sasuke were stunned.
"A-rank? They actually gave us an A-rank mission?" Naruto exclaimed.
After all, A-rank missions were the highest difficulty assignments a Genin could hope to receive.
S-rank missions were practically legendary—only taken by elite Jōnin or above. The last time, their supposed C-rank mission had been upgraded to A-rank after the unexpected appearance of Zabuza Momochi.
And now? This one was marked as A-rank from the very beginning!
"Ha! Looks like that old geezer—the Third Hokage—finally realizes how amazing we are! That's why he's giving us real missions now!" Naruto beamed with pride.
But Sasuke, calm as ever, spoke up next to him.
"You really think the Hokage gave us this mission because he thinks we're powerful?"
His gaze drifted toward Shigure, making it obvious what he meant.
From Sasuke's point of view, the only people the Hokage truly trusted to handle this mission were Kakashi and Shigure.
One was a long-established elite Jōnin.
The other—a rising monster who had already defeated enemy Jōnin with ease.
Naruto and Sasuke? Just backup.
No. He couldn't allow Shigure to pull further ahead like this.
Even if he couldn't surpass him yet, he had to catch up—he would catch up.
"This is the overall situation. I'll leave the rest in Konoha's hands!" said the overly enthusiastic director, rambling nearby.
"We've increased the budget for this sequel, and we're scouting even more spectacular locations—"
The man went on and on, clearly obsessed with the film project.
Shigure, meanwhile, couldn't help but wonder why all artists seemed to have such erratic temperaments.
"Shigure! You promised to teach me swordsmanship!"
Sasuke approached him suddenly while the crew was still preparing to depart.
"We've got some time before the journey starts. Can we begin?"
At that moment, Shigure had been preparing to check the latest ninjutsu formula calculated by the Great Sage system.
But Sasuke's sudden appearance—and more importantly, what he brought with him—caught him off guard.
He pulled out a ninja sword that looked very similar to the Kusanagi sword Orochimaru would one day give him.
Shigure blinked in surprise.
"Where did you get that sword?"
Sasuke raised a brow. "Why does it matter? I just bought it from the Ninja Tool Shop."
As he drew the blade, Shigure examined it carefully. It was no Kusanagi, but still a fine-quality ninja sword—one of the better ones available through legal means.
That's right. At this point in time, there was no way Sasuke had made contact with Orochimaru yet.
"Alright," Shigure nodded. "Let's spar."
"Shigure, can I... can I watch too?" Naruto asked eagerly.
He wasn't interested in learning kenjutsu himself, but watching would help him prepare to counter sword users in the future.
"Sure," Shigure said with a smile.
Watching the three young ninjas spar so earnestly, Kakashi couldn't help but sigh.
This generation... they might be working even harder than ours did.
Sure, during wartime, such effort was expected. But in these peaceful times, the fact that they were still so diligent said a lot about their potential.
"Dr. Third, please pack up your things. When you're ready to leave, just give us a signal and we'll move out," said one of the Konoha handlers to the producer.
…
When traveling from Konoha to the Land of Snow, the fastest path isn't over land—it's across water.
The route from Konoha Village to the Land of Snow passed through the Hidden Waterfall Village (Takigakure). From there, they would board a ship at the port and travel across the sea to their destination.
All in all, it would take around six or seven days to get there—mostly because they were moving at the pace of the film crew. Naturally, it was much slower than a typical shinobi's travel speed.
During this time, Shigure would take advantage of the journey to train Sasuke in swordsmanship, giving him lessons along the road. Naruto often tagged along to watch, even if he had no interest in wielding a sword himself.
When he had free time, Shigure would train on his own as well. But he never trained aimlessly—his sessions always had a clear purpose.
Right now, Shigure's main focus was further developing his Kekkei Genkai to accelerate the repair of the Great Sage system.
His current elemental nature transformations—Fire Release and Wind Release—had grown considerably more powerful thanks to this bloodline enhancement.
Logically, the fastest way to continue advancing his Kekkei Genkai would be to keep pushing those same elements.
But since Shigure had already mastered all five basic elemental releases, he couldn't afford to neglect Earth Release and Lightning Release.
The mission was long enough that he had the time, and sooner or later, he'd need to strengthen these elements anyway. So during breaks in the journey, Shigure began training their nature transformations as well.
Shigure's passive skill panel had also undergone further adjustments:
Passive Skills 1–3:
Chakra Refinement Technique – Increasing chakra reserves had become more vital than ever.
Shigure's ninjutsu was becoming stronger and more chakra-intensive. Now he truly understood why the great shinobi villages had fought so hard over the Tailed Beasts—their chakra was priceless.
But chakra wasn't the only area that needed work.
Passive Skills 4–5:
Advanced Taijutsu and Basic Genjutsu Resistance – Physical prowess and resistance to illusions couldn't be overlooked either.
As for Skills 6–7, Shigure decided not to allocate them to Cloud Release for now. While Cloud Release had some potential, most of its techniques still felt underdeveloped—certainly not worthy of boosting with limited passive slots.
Instead, thanks to new breakthroughs in Cloud Release techniques and synergy with his dual bloodline limits, Shigure believed it was more critical to boost those aspects directly.
Thus:
Passive Skill 6: Dual Kekkei Genkai Enhancement
Passive Skill 7: Ice Release – Freezing Moment
This skill setup would remain in place during travel unless combat broke out.
If a battle occurred, Shigure could quickly switch to his combat-focused skill page, prompted automatically by the Great Sage.
Passive Skills 1–2: Breath Control – Allowed him to execute ninjutsu without consuming stamina.
Passive Skills 3–4: Ice Release – Using Ice Release without chakra cost drastically increased its combat potential, making it a reliable technique.
Passive Skills 5–6: After much deliberation, Shigure selected Cloud Release for these slots. Its AoE capabilities and support techniques had become respectable tools in his arsenal—useful for crowd control and combining with other jutsu.
Passive Skill 7: Chakra Refinement (Auto-Regen) – Restores chakra every five minutes, ensuring Shigure wouldn't run out of power even when using high-cost techniques.
This layout was the ideal configuration for battle—high efficiency, sustainability, and offensive power.
The moment combat erupted, the Great Sage would notify Shigure and switch the page automatically.
Meanwhile, throughout the mission, Shigure continued asking the Great Sage to calculate and refine Cloud Release techniques in the background, searching for new applications and optimizations that might unlock the style's true potential.
...
TN:
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