After returning home and eating her fill, Karin actually volunteered to study in the basement. This caught Aoba's attention.
Soon, the two of them went down to the basement. This was a place Aoba had sealed off with various barrier techniques. Neither the Telescope Technique nor the White Zetsu's spying could penetrate here.
"Brother Aoba, I noticed something very strange. One of those monsters you mentioned has been lurking near our house recently."
"Near us?"
Aoba's heart skipped a beat. He realized he had overlooked something. Before, he hadn't worried about White Zetsu's surveillance because he was just a nobody. The active White Zetsu at this stage were limited and wouldn't waste their time on him.
But now that he had 'defeated' the Raikage, his reputation as the wielder of the Wind Chasing Sword had made him a prominent figure in the Shinobi World. Naturally, this could attract the White Zetsu's attention.
Fortunately, Aoba's important experiments were all conducted in the isolated lab. The White Zetsu couldn't detect them—otherwise, who knew how many complications might arise.
"Where is it now?"
"I can't see it right now. But when we just got back, it was right beneath our house, only about ten meters down."
Aoba understood. The White Zetsu must have noticed his secret lab. A place blocked by barrier techniques, invisible to them, would inevitably pique their curiosity. So now, it was very close to the surface, trying to figure out what this rising star of a ninja was secretly up to.
"Good job, Karin. Remember, don't focus too much on this. Other than confirming its location, don't pay too much attention to that thing. And when it gets close to right beneath our floor, let me know."
"Got it." Karin was a little excited. Children always loved ninja games. Those who hadn't graduated still dreamed of becoming great ninjas after graduation, galloping across battlefields. But in reality, no ninja who had been to the battlefield didn't miss their school days.
Ninja games were never child's play. They were deadly games woven with iron and blood.
After the New Year, during the last few days of the holiday, Aoba remembered he still had an unfulfilled promise.
By the river outside the village, Uchiha Sasuke had been waiting impatiently, even starting to wonder if he had been tricked.Years ago, he had met Aoba. Aoba had made a very peculiar request of him—to host a banquet at the Uchiha clan compound during the New Year and invite all his classmates he got along with.
Sasuke had never encountered such an absurd demand in his life. He even wondered if the other party was deliberately trying to make things difficult for him. After all, the entire Konoha knew he wasn't the sociable type. Yet that guy insisted on making him do something like this.
But the jutsu capable of killing Itachi Uchiha was far too tempting. Though Sasuke was prideful, after sparring with Aoba a few times, he became painfully aware of one thing—he was still very, very weak.
At this rate, there was no way he could kill Itachi Uchiha. Driven by vengeance and another indescribable emotion, he ultimately agreed, leading to that New Year's gathering at the Uchiha mansion.
The entire event had left Sasuke feeling like he was sitting on pins and needles, unbearably awkward. But looking back on it now, surprisingly, it hadn't been all that bad.
Since then, his relationships with those classmates had noticeably improved. During the New Year, quite a few of them even sent gifts to his home. All in all, in this first New Year after the Uchiha clan's disappearance, Sasuke found himself unexpectedly… doing alright.
He also discovered a rather "terrifying" truth—he didn't actually dislike the feeling of being at that gathering.
Shaking his head, he dismissed those messy thoughts. What was he thinking? He was the last Uchiha, a man burdened with a blood-soaked vengeance. How could he indulge in such childish pastimes?
"What's on your mind, Sasuke?" A voice suddenly came from behind.
"Thinking about when the next gathering should be," Sasuke blurted out before immediately regretting it. He whipped his head around to see Aoba standing there, grinning at him.
"Oh? Seems the last gathering worked out pretty well. Keep it up."
"Enough. I've fulfilled your request. Now it's time for you to honor your promise." Sasuke tried his best to maintain his usual aloof demeanor, but in Aoba's eyes, it was just another childish act.
"Relax, I never go back on my word. That's why I'm here today—to fulfill my promise. As I recall, you have both Lightning and Fire affinities, right?"
"Correct."
"Good. The jutsu I'm about to teach you is a Lightning Release technique."
"Lightning Release?" A flicker of doubt crossed Sasuke's eyes. According to his intel, Aoba was a Wind Release shinobi, specializing in wind-based taijutsu.
"Heh. We're shinobi, Sasuke. Always remember—you must keep a trump card hidden. One that can turn the tables in a life-or-death situation. That's what makes a true shinobi."
"A trump card… I see."
"Good. Now, let's begin properly. Before learning this jutsu, there's one prerequisite—you must master the transformation of Lightning Release chakra."
"Chakra transformation?" The Konoha Ninja Academy would never teach such advanced knowledge. In fact, for someone Sasuke's age, this was still a bit early.
If it were anyone else, Aoba wouldn't teach this way. But Sasuke was different. As the reincarnation of Indra, he was one of the two biggest anomalies in this world. So, pushing him a little harder wouldn't hurt.Sasuke had always considered himself a genius. In the ninja academy, he ranked first in all practical combat courses. To him, those things were incredibly simple and easy to grasp.
But after beginning to learn Aoba's ninjutsu, he experienced what true difficulty felt like for the first time. Difficulty beyond imagination. For three consecutive days, he practiced desperately, yet he hadn't even completed the so-called Chakra nature transformation.
In other words, he currently didn't even have the qualifications to learn that technique. This left Sasuke somewhat disheartened. Yet at the same time, he felt a bit relieved. Because in his view, the more difficult the technique, the greater the possibility of defeating Itachi Uchiha. He now believed that Aoba hadn't deceived him.
In reality, from Aoba's perspective, Sasuke Uchiha's progress was already astonishing. Conventional ninjutsu required gathering Chakra and then performing hand seals.
The process of forming hand seals was essentially transforming Chakra into ninjutsu.
But Aoba's techniques didn't require seals. In fact, all the ninjutsu Aoba developed himself were seal-less. Because developing hand seals was extremely dangerous. Even if you could discern the effect of every single seal, once combined, they might not achieve the desired result. They might even cause backlash.
Thus, developing sealed ninjutsu was an extremely risky endeavor. This brings us to the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju. That guy kept churning out forbidden techniques left and right. The fact that he didn't die in the process was something Aoba found hard to comprehend.
But Aoba himself wouldn't take such risks. Apart from already established techniques, any he developed himself would avoid hand seals whenever possible. In fact, Aoba's limit was one seal.
Meaning, any technique he developed himself would use at most one hand seal.
Currently, what he was teaching Sasuke was his trump card technique: Lightning Release: Flash. Or in other words, the Shinobi World version of the Electromagnetic Cannon.
The principle of this technique was using lightning to create an electromagnetic acceleration track, then launching an iron sphere. As everyone knew, electromagnetic acceleration consumed tremendous energy. Therefore, this technique also consumed massive amounts of Chakra.
Most crucially, Aoba realized there was no way he could use the hand seals from the Hokage series to complete both the electromagnetic conversion and acceleration transformations. Even if it were possible, he estimated it would require at least twenty seals.
Such a complex technique would be utterly impractical in real combat.
So Aoba adopted a clumsier but more straightforward method. By leveraging his extraordinary Chakra control, he forcibly completed this series of transformations directly in his hand before launching the metal sphere.
Completing the lightning nature Chakra transformation while simultaneously achieving electromagnetic conversion and the launching sequence—all without hand seals—wasn't just difficult. It was fucking ridiculously hard.
Even for someone like Aoba, whose spiritual energy was abnormally powerful and whose Chakra control was practically cheating, it still took several months to barely complete the entire process.
It wasn't until a year later that it became usable in actual combat.
And even then, Aoba still considered it too slow. Only when he could execute this move as effortlessly as Railgun (Misaka Mikoto) would it count as true mastery. Moreover, this technique consumed an enormous amount of Chakra. He couldn't use it more than a few times. For now, it could only serve as his hidden trump card.While Sasuke was training, Aoba was also practicing. He was working on the Spiraling Sphere. He wasn't afraid of the Third Hokage seeing it—in fact, he was deliberately showing it off to him.
The Spiraling Sphere was an S-rank ninjutsu. Not because the technique itself was particularly difficult. In reality, the principle behind it was extremely simple. It was countless times easier than Aoba's Flash.
What made this technique challenging was the level of Chakra control required. By that measure, Aoba's Flash was likely at least twice as difficult as the Spiraling Sphere.
Because the original Spiraling Sphere didn't involve Chakra nature transformation. It was merely a highly compressed Chakra ball. But Aoba's Flash required Chakra nature transformation just to begin learning, making its difficulty truly sky-high.
However, once this technique was unleashed, its power was beyond imagination. An iron sphere accelerated to ten times the speed of sound or even higher in an extremely short time. Its penetrating power was simply indescribable.
Aoba developed this move specifically to counter the Uchiha clan's Susanoo. After all, that thing was practically absolute defense. Once activated, conventional ninjutsu couldn't even scratch it.
But Susanoo was enormous and relatively slow-moving, making it the perfect target for an Electromagnetic Cannon. In this regard, the technique was extremely suitable for dealing with Itachi Uchiha. The only prerequisite was making Itachi use Susanoo first.
Of course, the same logic applied to Tailed Beasts. Their massive size made it nearly impossible for them to dodge such high-speed ninjutsu, so the effect should be quite good.
Actually, this technique had another application: sniping.
The Shinobi World had many long-range ninjutsu, but Aoba hadn't encountered any ultra-long-range sniping types. Minato Namikaze from back then was somewhat similar, but he essentially flew over to ambush people.
Aoba's Electromagnetic Cannon could perform ultra-long-range sniping from several kilometers away. But this created an awkward problem.
Ultra-long-range sniping required visual assistance. Otherwise, accuracy would suffer. And this was something Aoba couldn't achieve.
This world had telescopes, but telescopes were completely different from sniper scopes. Moreover, Aoba used his own arm to execute this technique, making scopes useless anyway.
This problem had an easy solution in the Shinobi World. The Byakugan was one of the perfect solutions. Imagine a Byakugan user spotting an enemy from kilometers away.
Then, without moving an inch, they fire an ultra-long-range Electromagnetic Cannon, blowing the head off an enemy hiding in a tree hollow. How thrilling would that be?
But reality was that Aoba didn't possess the Byakugan. And the Hyuga clan was extremely insular. Without any connections, if Aoba suddenly showed up asking to take a Hyuga as his disciple, they would never accept.
From another perspective, Lightning Release Flash was an extremely dangerous technique. If it fell into the wrong hands, Aoba wouldn't be able to sleep well at night. He couldn't just teach it to anyone.
Sasuke was this world's chosen one, so Aoba could make an exception. For others who wanted to learn, Aoba wouldn't teach them casually.
"Alright Sasuke, let's end today's training here."
"But Aoba-sensei, I can still..." Sasuke wanted to continue, but Aoba interrupted him.
"Sasuke, have you forgotten what I said? More haste, less speed. This isn't a technique you can master through sheer effort alone. During training, you need to constantly identify your shortcomings and adjust accordingly.
Carefully feel every subtle change in your Chakra. When your body is utterly exhausted, you can't do any of this. So listen to me now—go home and rest. We'll continue tomorrow.""Alright." Sasuke was somewhat disappointed, but his mood was still stable for now. As long as Itachi Uchiha didn't provoke him from time to time, he was actually a good kid.
In the original storyline, both Itachi Uchiha and Sasuke were far too fixated on the Sharingan. Itachi would frequently drag Sasuke into the Tsukuyomi Dimension, forcing him to relive the night of the Uchiha massacre for three days and nights. That was downright absurd.
In Aoba's view, awakening the Sharingan too early wasn't necessarily a good thing. Sure, it made them stronger, but beyond that, it only proved that the Uchiha in question had even more extreme emotions. On top of that, the strain it placed on the body was immense.
Aoba even suspected that Itachi Uchiha's poor physical condition was related to him awakening the Mangekyo too early.
Without the Eternal Mangekyo or Hashirama's cells, the side effects of the Mangekyo were simply too severe.