Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The sound of his boots beating against the earth echoed around the irregular round walls of the 'cave' he found himself in.
With his every step, earth caved in, and rock was occasionally crushed under the strength of his feet.
He had found it funny when he learned that Ninja used the Surface-Walking Technique even when not trying to do their best impression of spider-man - or Jesus Christ.
Besides defying gravity, the jutsu was also useful to avoid inconveniences such as breaking the floors of buildings when a Shinobi had to operate inside them while using their enhanced strength - or making holes on the ground and breaking trees when they were dashing somewhere.
That's not to mention how much more silent it was to 'walk' on your own chakra rather than the surface it was repulsing.
Usually, that's precisely what he would have been doing - in this instance, however, speed wasn't nearly as much of a concern as thoroughness was, and the noise was actually helpful in attracting his quarry, rather than making him have to seek them all out.
'Speaking of, the next one should be close,' he thought.
Giving a sidelook at the otherwise unassuming wall to his right allowed him to see the glowing blue outline of one of his teammates, who seemed to be calmly walking on the ceiling with one arm held out in front doing a handseal.
'Ren's going for the slow and steady approach.'
Turning his vision to the left, he saw somewhat ahead of him another silhouette, this one moving almost faster than he could follow, one arm holding the sword ready at his hip.
'And Souma's going all out from the start.'
With an eager grin in his face, Yohei went through a quick series of handsigns.
Snake → Bird.
His chakra surged up in the time between one step and another, and as he feet touched the ground once more it poured forward, spreading through the floor, walls and ceiling of the cavern in a pulse, painting it all in a shade of blue that only he could see, rendering normal sight meaningless as he was provided a tridimensional vision of the path ahead of him.
'Not quite the same as Toph's tremorsense, but…' Yohei gave a particularly heavy stomp, launching himself forwards and pulling the oversized weapon from his back, quickly approaching the location of the closest creature he could sense, 'It has its uses!'
It was over in a second.
The monster, which looked like a human-sized bunny with small legs, giant clawed arms and long droopy ears, couldn't even react as Yohei did his best impression of a missile.
In his hand, the Saw Cleaver sang as it slashed through the air.
Yohei didn't have to do much more than swing the gruesome looking weapon down, using the momentum to spin so as to avoid making contact with the body of the chakra beast.
He dropped on the ground with a completely unnecessary three point landing, the hand holding his weapon extended to the side as he lifted his head, staring with something between hunger, disgust, giddyness, and horrified fascination as the creature twitched, as if trying to reassure itself that it was alive.
Both halves of it split in the middle in a somewhat embarrassingly uneven cut.
"Messy. Should have used Water Breathing…" he murmured to himself, "What do you think, sweety?"
He looked to the side, where another monstrous bunny lay limply on the floor, red eyes rolled up in its head and froth dribbling from its mouth. From its shadows, a multitude of azure eyes opened to look at Yohei, a serpentine shape rising from it.
"Messy," Kara agreed solemnly with a nod.
Yohei chuckled.
"Ah, well. It's not like we're lacking targets to practice," He trailed off, looking up with a smirk, "Right?"
Above him, in a hole that was supposed to be hidden and shadowed but which was actually quite the opposite to Yohei, a pair of blood-red eyes glared down at him in unhinged rage. The third bunny-like monster let out something between a chitter and a snarl as it leaped down, mouth opening to reveal two rows of fangs.
It never even got close to him.
Before it was even halfway through its descent, a shape leaped from the corridor Yohei had been on at blinding speeds, slamming into the body of the creature and dragging it along.
"Good girl~" Yohei praised, looking in the direction that the shape and the monster had fallen to see Mugetsu - still giant and monstrous looking, though now only about a fourth her of original size - holding up the bunny by her mouth's grip on its neck.
Mugetsu's tail started wagging at his words with enough strength to make the dust fly up.
Her jaws pressed down, fangs tearing through flesh like it was butter; the crack of bones lasting for less than a moment before her mouth closed fully, severing head from body in one smooth motion.
Yohei cooed as he patted the spot in her head between her upper eyes that made her turn into putty. He then watched as Kara jumped from one shadow to another, absorbing the leftover chakra in the bodies.
Once she was finished she extended fully, and a quick count told Yohei that she had gained one more eye.
"Nice," he commented with a smile, resting his cleaver on his shoulder and waving his hand, "Come on, we still got a lot of work to do."
Kara jumped back in his shadow as Mugetsu let out a huff, and soon they were once more rushing forwards.
-~=~-
Yohei's transformation had shown him that rewards could have several unintended consequences.
His 'dark vision', for example, while very useful in situations such as the one he had found himself in, also made it really hard for him to properly engage in stealth, since he had no fucking idea where there was a 'shadowed' space and where there wasn't unless he payed a lot of attention.
There was also the fact that seeing the world without shadows had severely changed the way he experienced it.
He often found himself missing how it used to look,despite the fact that he wouldn't give up what he had now.
Another unintended consequence, though one he wasn't entirely sure from which Bloodline it came from, was that he had acquired a taste for rare meat.
'Well, more of a taste,' he corrected himself. It was already his favorite before, but sometimes he caught himself considering just eating it raw.
The thought would have made his mouth water if it wasn't already filled with blood and furred hide.
Feeling his prey's chakra reserves dry up, Yohei let go of the mutated animal, allowing it to fall limply on the ground.
With a grimace he rolled his tongue around his mouth, taking care to avoid the tip of his fangs.
"Bleh." He spat, making a face and barely resisting the urge to scrap his tongue with his hand, knowing that would only worsen things.
'Euck. The chakra's appreciated, but from now on I think I'll keep the whole vampire act for the cuties.' He decided, only halfway jokingly. 'I wonder if girls here will be as crazy about it as they were back on Terra…'
Shaking his head to clear off his thoughts, he looked around. The place he was in was something of a wide chamber that apparently served as a communal room for the local giant critters.
It was littered with the corpses of the ones Yohei had just killed - around half a dozen, all in all - the last ones he had found and the greatest concentration until now as well.
He would have felt bad for them if it wasn't for the knowledge that despite not being as insane as Chakra Beasts usually turned out to be, they were still extremely aggressive and territorial, not to mention how quickly they were expanding said territory.
They had quickly dominated a wide part of the surrounding area, and had significantly brought down the animal population.
A hunter from the nearby village who had issued his current mission had even gone missing, and Yohei didn't have great doubts as to what had happened to him.
"Well-" He stopped talking, spitting out fur once more, "That won't be a problem anymore. Now to get out…"
He could just walk back the way he came. It would certainly be quicker now that he didn't need to be careful not to miss anything, but…
'Where's the fun in that?' He asked himself with a grin.
Looking up, he squinted.
"It's… probably going to be okay." He said hesitantly.
A snort to his side drew his attention to Mugetsu, who looked doubtfully-
'How can a pseudo-wolf even look doubtful?'
-at him.
"Oh, come on, girl. Have a little faith in me." He said with a smile.
She tilted his head, seeming to think about it before sitting on her hinges and-
Poof.
Unsummoning herself.
Yohei stared flatly at the empty space, then let out a sigh, looking at his shoulder, where Kara had manifested a head to look at him with smiling eyes.
He chuckled, "Just you and me, luv."
She giggled.
Yohei closed his eyes, one hand raising in the Seal of Confrontation.
In his mind's eye, he visualized the flow of his chakra flowing towards his Kimon - his Demon Gates, the special Tenketsu at the base of his horns. The action had already become familiar by now.
His own chakra mixed with the chakra of the mutated beasts he had been occasionally absorbing for a while now, kneading it into the much more potent form of Dark Chakra.
Squatting, he couldn't contain the silly grin in his face as he brought his hand together at his hip.
"Kame…"
The Dark Chakra quickly travelled through his Chakra Network, being expelled through the Tenketsu in his arms and coalescing between his hands in the shape of a sphere.
"Hame…"
He kept feeding if with about one fourth of the reserves he had built up, all the while compressing it down. It was surprisingly easy to do so, but Yohei knew from experience that the more he did it, the less control he would have of its 'splash' once it did set off.
To finish his copy of the iconic move, he employed a trick he had learned some time ago. Coating the sphere in a layer his own normal chakra allowed him to create a kind of membrane around it. It wasn't really a barrier, but it helped guide the movement of the Dark Chakra inside.
By leaving a small hole in the membrane, for example…
"Ha!"
The Dark Chakra 'detonated' inside the sphere, though perhaps a more apt descriptor would be to say that it had destabilized.
Moving out of Yohei's control, it ejected through the easiest exit point, the hole he had left.
The result of this was something that vaguely - barely - resembled the actual Kamehameha. A trembling sphere lay between Yohei's outstretched hands, and from it sprayed blue fire in a stream upwards at the ceiling, consuming through rock, dirt and whatever else may be on its path as it made a burning tunnel to the outside.
Even after it had finished its job and breached the surface, Yohei still maintained his pose and concentration.
That was one of the drawbacks of the Dark Release. While incredibly powerful and destructive, he couldn't really control it after a certain point. He was still at work trying to build up some sense of how much was appropriate to use for different situations.
Still, this time it didn't seem like he was too far off the mark, as only a few seconds later the improvised 'jutsu' was finished.
"See, I said that it would be okay!" Yohei told Kara with a smile, his eyes red from the dust which had fallen on them from the ceiling.
Kara shot him a 'flat' look, before breaking down in giggles again.
Yohei rolled his eyes with a chuckle, trying to ignore the burn. Looking up with a squint, he tried to measure the distance.
"Alright, I think I got it."
Taking a deep breath, he immediately started Total Concentration Breathing - energy surging through his body to compensate for the loss of power he had suffered now that he was under sunlight.
'And just to make sure…'
A hand is raised, the wet warmth of his breath, the touch of teeth against his skin-
Chakra Circuits: Activate.
While his primary chakra network immediately went to work kneading his physical and spiritual energies into Water Chakra, the secondary one suffered no such drawback, allowing him to use it to make Yang Chakra to feed his technique.
Ox.
Extreme Muscle Assault.
The muscles in his legs ballooned up to thrice their size as he crouched and then-
Whoooooooooosh!
The rush of wind as he launched himself up like a rocket made his hair flutter like crazy, and cheeks inflate as he smiled widely at Kara's squee.
He had already come out of the hole about halfway through his ascent, and then a moment later he was already flying high above.
"Hahahahahahahaha!"
Yohei laughed loudly once he saw how high he had gotten, having overshot his intended target.
'Can't say I regret it, though.' he told himself happily.
As his speed tapered off, he looked down in wonder at the sight.
His eyes flitted around, searching through the woods for the Chakra Highlights he had left in his teammates.
'There they are.' He remarked, seeing their outline in the direction of the village. 'Seems like the others are finished already.'
Having reached the apex of his leap, he was then once more greeted to the rushing of wind against his face, as gravity took hold again.
The sight of the ground's rapid approach stirred up butterflies in his stomach.
It also reminded him of some past thoughts.
Way back when he had first met his Team, he had wondered about what his goals for the future should be. The first he'd considered was to seek to have the strength in the likes of Madara and Hashirama, the power to change the landscape, to destroy mountains and-
'Well, this isn't quite the same as surviving a fall from the sky.' he thought with a chuckle that was lost to the wind as he prepared himself for the fall, 'But I've certainly got a lot closer to it than I used to be.'
-~=~-
A few minutes later Yohei found himself rushing between trees, mounted atop Mugetsu, who had been summoned back - this time in her original size, doing a great job of scaring the remaining local animal population to death.
'I wonder how much time it'll take for them to recover.' Yohei mused, somewhat worried, 'Is it going to affect the village? They didn't seem to depend too much on hunting, but still… then again, the predators were the first to go, and being able to get in the woods without having to worry about bears or wolves is always a plus to the average civilian.'
It wasn't truly his concern, not really.
But it was supremely irresponsible to 'help people' without considering the consequences of your actions and how they would deal with things once you were away.
"Maybe I could…" he murmured, making Mugetsu let out a questioning rumble, her upper pair of eyes looking up at him.
He smiled, scratching behind her ears, "Don't worry, girl, it's nothing."
She blinked, which he usually took as an affirmation, before focusing back on their path.
It wasn't long before they arrived where the rest of his team was waiting for him.
Souma was sitting on a stone, going through the motions of cleaning and oiling his sword. Ren, meanwhile, was laying on a tree branch, hands behind his head and one leg dangling down as he chewed on a needle.
Hayama was the first to notice him, having already been looking in his direction before he even arrived. In his hands he had two pieces of paper - maps, depicting the paths and ways inside the system of tunnels that the giant rabbits had made.
Yohei dismounted from Mugetsu, watching as she walked up to Souma, who stopped his work to pet her fur with a smile.
"Yo, sensei!" Yohei greeted with a smile, walking to the man and giving him his own map, "I'm done."
"I suspected as much when I saw the pillar of blue fire rise up to the sky." Hayama said dryly, getting Yohei to chuckle unrepentantly. The man shook his head with a small grin, "Good work. Wait around for a bit while I get finished with these."
"Aye, aye." Yohei replied with a sloppy salute, walking off towards the tree Ren was lazing on and jumping on a nearby branch.
Whatever he was going to say to his teammate was stopped in his throat once he really noticed what he really had in his mouth.
"Uh… Ren?" He called hesitantly.
"'Sup?" The boy answered, not opening his eyes.
"Isn't this one of those hollow Senbon you put poison on?"
The swinging leg of the boy in front of him stopped, frozen in the air.
Slowly, with dawning horror, he opened his red eyes wide and looked down at the metal needle in his mouth, carefully picking it off with his fingers as his breathing sped up.
He looked at Yohei with a frightened expression.
"Shit-!" Yohei swore, his own eyes wide, his heart beating like crazy in his heart. He was about to rush to his teammate when the boy started laughing, almost making him sleep from the branch he was in.
"Relax, relax, it's alright." Ren smirked, putting the needle back in his mouth as he lay down again. "It's harmless."
"Oh," Yohei said lamely before giving the boy a glare. He was too relieved to actually stay mad, though. "You haven't used this one yet?"
"Oh, yeah, no, it's definitely filled with poison." Ren shrugged, nonchalant, "Just a weak one. Gotta get some resistance to the things I use, you know?"
"Right…" Yohei said doubtfully, before the prospect of another avenue of training to get rewards from that didn't actually require more of his time called to him like a siren. "Actually, can I get one?"
Ren snorted, looking at him with mirth, "Much as I'd love to watch you shit yourself, Yohei, I think Hayama-sensei would have something to say about it."
"I most definitely would," Hayama drawled without looking up from his paperwork.
Yohei blew a raspberry with exaggerated disappointment, and his teammates laughed.
He looked at Ren and mouthed, 'later'.
With a wide devious grin the boy nodded his agreement.
"This is already our fourth mission." Souma said with a hum, hand running over Mugetsu's head, who had laid down by his side.
"Yep," Ren agreed. "Just four more and we're classified for the Chuunin Exams."
"If I decide to let you take part in it," Hayma reminded them.
"But you will," Yohei commented with a grin.
Hayama looked at him with a challenging glare on his face.
Yohei didn't back down, smiling with confidence in his words.
He had already seen it, after all, with those pink hearted eyes of his.
'Hayama believes you and your team are ready.'
The Jonin huffed, a smile coming to his face as he refused to answer one way or another, going back to his work.
Yohei chuckled.
'It's getting closer,' he thought, 'only a few months now until… everything changes. Maybe. Possibly. Probably.'
It was already May, and the Chunnin Exams were set to start in July.
For the past month and a bit, Yohei and his team had been doing their best to grow stronger and to complete their missions successfully…
So, really, nothing different from the usual.
What made it special is that he had finally finished quite a few tasks he had set for himself. To start with, he had finally, finally learned Iryoniinjutsu. It was hard as hell, and required a lot of control, but he was taking his first steps on it, and he had certainly been rewarded for it.
[肉体操作教本 - Nikutai Sōsa Kyōhon - Physique Manipulation Manual]
|C-Rank Manual|
This guide teaches you to obtain incredible amounts of control over your own body, down to being able to manipulate each one of your muscles individually. Through this, you can harden parts of your body to the point that a katana would snap in twain against your skin, dislocate your joints at-will to grant unparalleled flexibility, and even stop or start your own heart if you so desire. On top of this, you're also able to adjust your body temperature as you please.
It was most definitely one of the best things he had gotten, especially when it came to Manuals and his history with them.
He also found it amusing that he had gained a manual that required deep knowledge of his own body as a reward for learning a ninja art that necessitated the same.
'Now if only it wasn't such a pain to learn…' he grumbled mentally.
While powerful, the techniques written in the scroll worked similarly to Total Concentration Breathing in a way. They were independent of chakra, but that meant they weren't as easy to learn as a jutsu reward was for him. He had to actively train his body to make use of them.
And the process of learning and adapting your body to be able to freely dislocate your limbs - including your head - and tighten up your muscles so much that blades become unable to cut through them… Well, it was not forgiving in the least.
Thankfully, he had two things going for him.
Firstly, his mom who, being a med-nin, was able to watch over as he engaged in several creative ways to almost-but-not-quite kill himself. He honestly wasn't sure if he'd have been brave enough to even attempt it at all if she wasn't available to make sure he wouldn't die.
Secondly, Total Concentration Breathing by itself was mostly capable of allowing one to do everything the Physique Manipulation Manual did. The problem was that it required a level of mastery over it that he hadn't quite achieved yet.
But just using TCB while doing the training already sped things up significantly. And in a somewhat ironic twist, learning it was also speeding up his mastery of TCB as well.
Beyond that, he had also finally managed to learn the very basics of Fuinjutsu, which…
'Yeah, if I had any aspirations of hacking reality with funny squiggly lines, I should give up on it.' He thought with a quirk of his lips, watching as Kara exited his shadow and slithered towards Ren, who watched her with a smile, one finger extended with a scarlet flame shining on the tip of it that she hungrily gulped down
His affinity to the Sealing Arts wasn't quite negative, but it certainly wasn't anything nearly of note.
He could follow the instructions and logic well enough once he managed to get his brushmanship up to snuff - the problem was that he lacked a certain… spark.
The intuition.
The sauce.
Seals just didn't click in his head. He could maybe, probably, be able to decipher one if he was given plenty of time and references to draw from - and even then it wasn't a certainty. But he couldn't just look into one and feel what it was supposed to do, and he most definitely couldn't just think about what he wanted to do and see the images forming in his head.
To complete his disappointment, the reward he had gained from it wasn't quite as impressive as he hoped it would be.
[陰間雅芸指南 - Kagema Gagei Shinan - Guide to the Elegant Arts of the Kagema]
|E-Rank Skill|
This will teach the readers how to acquire the skills of a skilled courtier and courtesan - to charmingly weave words in pleasant flatteries and convincing half-truths, mask taunts as innocent remarks and make fun of brutish opponents. It can also be used in order to learn a number of subjects, such as poetry, music, singing, and the bedroom arts.
While having the skills of a courtier and a courtesan might become useful in the future… Yohei wasn't in particular need of it at the moment, so he allowed himself to leave it to be studied at some indeterminate point in the future with no worries in his heart.
"Yohei," Hayama called, making him perk up and drop from the tree.
"Yes, Sensei?" Yohei asked, taking the sheet of paper the man offered to him. "Is that why you wanted the maps?"
"Hm." Hayama agreed with a nod, "I made this one using the ones you three made as a base for a more complete picture. In general, though, you seem to have gotten everything down with minimal differences, so congratulations are in order."
Yohei chuckled, feeling pride swell in his chest as his teammates also reacted to their sensei's words, with Ren making a flaming 'v' with his fingers that was promptly eaten by Kara, and Souma giving a thankful nod with a smile.
Hayama smiled at them, before focusing back on the paper, pointing to some parts of it, "Those red markings I made are the places that I believe need to be destroyed in order to make this entire system of tunnels collapse. Can you send your Demons to deal with it? It's better not to leave such a structure here, it could end up causing all sorts of problems."
Yohei nodded, "Sure-" Then he remembered what he had thought about on the way here, "Actually, before we do that, could I get them to bring the bodies of the Chakra Beasts that are in better condition here?"
Hayama raised an eyebrow, not denying, just waiting for his explanation.
Yohei shrugged, "I thought it would be nice if we gave them to the village instead of just burying them under the dirt. They could preserve the meat to last while the forest recovers."
"Hmm… I don't see a problem with that. They don't seem to have mutated anything that would make their meat dangerous to eat. Are any of you in a hurry?" He asked Ren and Souma, who shook their heads. He nodded, "Then, yes, go ahead. Though… did you even leave any bodies in a good enough condition that they could be taken to be eaten?"
Yohei blinked, his mind flashing memories of bisected and dislacerated bunnies.
He laughed sheepishly, scratching the back of his head, "Hehe… a few? Maybe?"
Hayama snorted.
"Dumbass," Ren remarked and called at the same time, holding back a laugh, "The ones I killed are in a good condition, I mostly tried to go for vital spots and didn't really use venom."
"Nice! We can always count on Wimpy to do things the laziest way!" Yohei commemorated teasingly, though he did shoot his teammate a thankful smile, "What about you, Souma?"
The taller boy looked embarrassedly to the side, a light blush on his face.
"They were too weak…" He mumbled, making Ren break out in laughter again.
Hayama shook his head with a smile, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I can't believe I'll have to teach my genin how to hold back, it's usually the opposite, you know?"
"Yeah, well, we're special." Yohei said with a wink and fingerguns.
"Oh, you're special alright." Ren said with a smirk.
Before Yohei could reply with his own snark, he was hit in the head by a chop from Hayama.
"Come on, just because we're in a hurry doesn't mean we should be taking our sweet time. If you don't get it done soon even the ones killed by Ren will start spoiling."
Yohei snapped his fingers, "Right!"
Pushing chakra into his hand, he pressed ito against the ground. Immediately, the chakra rushed through the ground, becoming red and exploding in a 'Boff'' of black smoke.
"Bow."
Thud.
Six Goat Demons appeared in all of their heavy metal glory, falling to their knees immediately, as part of a security measure Yohei had decided to employ in order to always make sure no surprises would arise out of summoning literal fucking demons from a different dimension.
He looked down at the map in his hand, making note of which route Ren had taken before nodding.
"Go." He ordered, and immediately they rushed into the closest hole, having been given their task.
As they moved underground, their outline remained perfectly visible to Yohei, as if he had cast the Chakra Highlight technique on them.
And, in a certain way, he had.
This was all thanks to the last Bloodline he had gained, though he had no idea where it had even come from. It wasn't until he had summoned the Chaos Scroll to retrieve his reward for learning Fuinjutsu that he had learned there was already a seal waiting for him.
[感知タイプ - Kanchi Taipu - Sensor Type]
|D-Rank Bloodline|
With this, you will become a Sensor-Type of good talent and potential. More than that, all Sensing Techniques of yours have been improved.
It was awesome.
What wasn't all that awesome was the feeling of his brain turning into a noodle and being played with - the consequence of eating that specific Bloodline Candy.
'Still worth it, though.'
Being strictly technical, every ninja could become a sensor-nin, but that was the same as saying that every ninja could become a med-nin, or an illusionist, or learn any elemental release.
It wasn't wrong, per se, but disingenuous.
First of all, there were three different kinds of sensors: Sensor-Types, Innate-Types, and Kanchijutsu-Types. Though those labels were mostly something that Yohei came up with on his own.
Starting with Kanchijutsu-Types - those were the ones who could access a form of enhanced perception, though not necessarily of chakra, through the use of specialized ninjutsu. Yohei himself already qualified as such for quite some time, now, through the use of his Chakra Highlight Technique. Funnily enough, while those should be the most widely present Sensors, since anyone can pick up such ninjutsu, they are actually some of the rarest, because of how fiendishly difficult learning them was.
Then, the Innate-Types. These were the ones who were born with Bloodline Limits or pseudo-bloodlines that gave them increased or entirely new senses. The Hyuuga, with their Byakugan, are an example of that; and so are the Inuzuka, because while not all of them have it, some do possess some level of enhanced smell and hearing. Those are the second most common type.
And then finally, we get to Sensor-Types. Those were the ones who were able to shift their chakra into 'Sensory Mode' while kneading it, almost like a Nature Release. While in Sensory Mode, the sensor has the innate capacity of their chakra to feel the fluctuations of others around them severely enhanced, expanding its range by meters or even kilometers, while being able to feel even chakra that's not oscillating or being actively used. This one is the most common of all types, but it is also something of an inborn aptitude that can vary in how strongly it manifests.
Hayama, for example, was a weak Sensor-Type, and despite having trained it quite thoroughly in an effort to become better at his specialty as a ninja, he wasn't able to expand the range of his sensing beyond a mere twenty meters at his best if he wanted to keep an accurate read on his targets.
What this new Bloodline had done was make him a Sensor-Type of well above average talent and potential - and just as good or even better, it severely increased his affinity towards Kanchijutsu.
Thousand Sound Perception, for example, was a technique he could now keep active forever if he really tried, just from how low its chakra upkeep had become. It wasn't something he actually did, because despite the jutsu protecting him from getting overwhelmed by the amplified sense, the wealth of constant information did eventually wear him down - but he could.
The Chakra Highlight Technique, on the other hand, had its range improved by a factor of ten, when comparing the previous base chakra cost to the current one. Not only that, he had gained some insight on how to improve it, allowing him to create some differences in the signatures each use of it generated, allowing him to differentiate between different targets; and even better, he could use the technique to feel anything that carried his chakra, as was the case with the Goat Demons, for example.
Speaking of them, while he had been lost in his own musings they seemed to have completed their tasks and were already returning.
Yohei watched quietly as one by one they jumped out of the same hole they had jumped in - each one carrying a number of the dead chakra beasts in their arms.
Once the last one was done, Yohei grinned, slamming his chakra coated hand into the floor and calling for ten more of them.
"Bow!" He 'ordered', but he didn't actually order them to do so.
'I wish I had a cigar right now,' Yohei thought as he stood up, schooling his eager face into a serious mien as he glared at the constructs.
"Do not mock me, servant!" He shouted, catching the attention of the other members of Team 5.
"I gave you a direct order, nothing has changed! Search and destroy, search and destroy!" He entoned, throwing his right arm dramatically towards the field. "Crush any and all forces who stand in our way! Do not run or hide, strike them from their front! March to all obstacles, pound them, and reduce them to dust!"
He couldn't really restrain the grin on his face as the demons kneeled all at once, bowing their heads before taking off.
Silence remained behind once they left.
…
At least until Ren, who had watched it all with an exasperated look and a reluctant smile cupped his mouth, "Laaame!"
-~=~-
"Hnnng!" Yohei grunts as he stretches his arms above his head, letting out a sigh as they fall. "Haaa. Man, I'm hungry."
Even Souma looked at him with some shock as he said that.
"What the fuck, Dumbass?" Ren asked him incredulously, poking his belly with a look of suspicion, "Are you sending the food to your empty head instead of your stomach?"
Yohei snorted.
They had just arrived from their mission of exterminating the nest of monster bunnies, and most of the others were still stuffed full.
Turns out that Yohei's worries about the village being able to sustain itself were wrong. Instead, they decided to show their gratitude by cooking up a feast with all of that meat that had been brought over.
Not only had Team 5 eaten until they couldn't put any more food inside their mouths on the previous night, they had also gotten the leftovers this morning for breakfast and at noon for lunch on their way back.
That had been only a few hours ago, and Yohei already felt like he could eat again.
'All of those body modifications had to have some trade off,' he thought with a wry smile.
"I'm a growing boy, wimpy, you wouldn't understand," he said with a chuckle.
Ren looked blankly at him before turning to face Hayama. "Sensei, can I-"
"No."
"You didn't even let me finish!" The boy whined.
"Tell me honestly that you weren't about to suggest poisoning your teammate and I'll let you do whatever it is." Hayama said tiredly as they walked out of the Academy doors.
Ren let out a tsk, making Souma laugh softly to himself. "That was a perfectly wasted opportunity right there, I could have been thinking of putting him in a genjutsu, ya know?"
"No, you wouldn't." Hayama denied,"You stopped thinking about beating him with illusions after he showed us Kara - it's why you have been focusing so much on your poison and weapons training. Anko was singing praises."
Ren looked at him with squinted eyes and a doubtful look, but there was a slight blush in his tanned face, "I somehow doubt that."
"Oh, it's true," Hayama reassured, then tilted his head. "Well, she said it in her own words, which involved a lot of graphical violence and dirty jokes, but that's basically what it meant. You should expect an offer to join the T&I Division once you're a chuunin."
The red eyed boy looked interested at the prospect, but then frowned, shaking his head and letting out a sigh, "Nah, I'd rather not."
"Oh?"
He scratched his cheek, looking off the side, "I'd, uh… I think I'd rather keep doing missions with this team, even after we get a promotion."
Yohei was already turning with a teasing look while cooing when the boy decided to use the Body Flicker technique to escape the situation.
Yohei snickered.
"We should do something nice for him," Souma commented with a smile, looking at the direction he had vanished.
"His birthday's next month, right?" Yohei asked, getting a nod, "Maybe we could do something special then."
"Tell me what you two come up with and I'll help," Hayama added, putting his hand on their heads and mussling up their hair.
"Nice! Now, who's going to accompany me to get some grub!?" Yohei asked.
Hayama looked dryly at him before chuckling and disappearing in a silent Body Flicker. Souma gave him an apologetic look that turned into a smile when Yohei winked to let him know he was kidding, and vanished as well.
"Well," Yohei said to himself with a smile as he started walking. "Now I feel like Naruto. Except one of my teammates is a tsundere, not an asshole. And I don't have a crush on the other one."
-~=~-
They had arrived back in Konoha at around three in the afternoon, and it didn't take long for them to finish taking the reward for their mission. That meant that it was still too early for Nanami to have arrived from work.
Yohei considered going there to give her a surprise visit, but… honestly? He thought that it was for the best that she had a place only for herself. Somewhere where all the craziness that involved him wasn't constantly on her mind. A place where she was Nanami, rather than Mom.
Too much of her life revolved around him already, he didn't want to become her sole reason for living.
…
Besides, he really was hungry.
"Oh!" He exclaimed, looking in surprise at the big words in the shining billboard in front of him.
YakinikuQ.
"Huh," he mumbled, then smiled to himself. "What are the chances?"
He walked inside the restaurant, pushing the noren curtains to the side, and looking around.
'What are the chances, indeed.' he thought wryly.
There, in a booth near the corner was Team 10 in all their glory.
Asuma, sitting with his head on the palm of his hand, a cigarette on his ear as he laughed at something Ino said; Chouji, focusing intensely on a strip of meat; and Shikamaru looking off into the nothing as if he had turned off his higher thinking.
Yohei snorted, and stopped looking at them to find a table of his own.
As he was about to do so, though, he heard his name being called.
"Oya! Kid! Uhh- Kuroyama!"
Yohei blinked, looking to the side to see that it had been Asuma who called him. He pointed a finger bemusedly at himself, and the Jonin grinned, nodding and doing a 'come here' gesture with his hands.
Yohei raised an eyebrow, but shrugged his shoulders, deciding there was no harm in seeing what he wanted.
"You're the Kuroyama kid, right? Kuroyama Yohei, from Hayama-san's team?" The man asked with a smile.
"That's me, Asuma-san." he said with a nod, turning to the other genin waving to them with a smile, "Shikamaru, Choji, Ino, nice to see you guys again."
"Yo," Shikaramu greeted back lazily, though his eyes did seem to have regained some focus.
Choji was still looking at the cooking meat; and Ino was looking at him with narrowed eyes, a smug smile on her face as she wiggled her fingers at him.
"Did you need something, Asuma-san?" He asked.
"Relax~!" Asuma said with a laugh, "Come on, sit down, it's my treat, I'd get depressed watching a kid eat alone."
Yohei looked dryly at him, but took a seat with a smirk, "Well, it would be rude of me to deny your generosity."
"Oi, oi, I don't like this look. I can already feel my pocket getting empty," he said with an exaggerated sigh, before smiling and gesturing towards him for the server.
'If you can feed Chouji, you can feed me,' Yohei thought, but restrained himself from saying out loud.
Instead he turned to look at the 'problematic blonde' sitting by his side.
"Alright, go on, say what you want to say," he told her with a roll of his eyes.
She twirled a finger in his direction. Or, more accurately, at his outfit's direction.
"I was right," she said, voice oozing smugness.
He blinked, raising an eyebrow, "I… don't follow?"
She huffed, smiling as she tossed her hair over her shoulder, "About clothing, of course. I mean, it's a little basic, and the whole armored look with the face helmet is so outdated. But the horns are a nice touch, and I suppose it works as a homage to Lord Second. It's good to see you finally saw sense and decided to follow my lessons."
Yohei looked at her dryly, "Yeah, no."
She looked dubiously at him.
Yohei sighed, then chuckled. "Look, maybe I'm wrong because, quite honestly, I'm not sure what of our last conversation actually happened and what was a hallucination born from my lack of sleep, but I don't remember ever telling you that there was a problem with dressing well. What I said is that your clothes weren't practical, and they still aren't. Meanwhile I'm stylish, my vitals are protected, and I won't end up naked if someone grabs my armor in the wrong place, so clearly, if anyone should follow anyone's lessons here it's…"
He trailed off, noticing the string of words that had just come out of his mouth.
'Okay, so maybe last time it wasn't all sleep deprivation. The hell's wrong with me?' Yohei asked himself in amused disbelief.
Looking around the table, Asuma had a look on his face like this was the best show he'd seen in a long time, while Shikamaru was groaning lowly, pinching the bridge of his eyes.
Ino, of course, was malding.
She took a deep breath and gave him a sickly sweet smile.
"Well, if you were nearly as good as you seem to think you are you wouldn't need so much armor. Sasuke-kun certainly doesn't."
'Was… that supposed to be a comeback? What do I care if Sasuke is naked or in plate armor?'
Yohei laughed, genuinely amused, "More's the pity to him, I guess."
Seeing the waiter come close to the table with his plate, he turned away from Ino and accepted it with a bow and a smile, ordering a large bowl of rice and one of every meat available, then setting the plate down before reaching up to remove his modified happuri forehead protector.
It would be a lie to say that the decision of opting for it wasn't influenced by Tobirama - Yohei did actually think that he was the best dressed ninja he knew of. He had only changed it to make a sort of sleeve for his horns, because while they were resistant, he doubted they were unbreakable, and he really, really didn't want to know what would happen if that were to happen while they were filled up with Dark Chakra.
Setting it down in his lap, he looked back to Ino only to see her staring wide eyed at his face.
He was confused for a moment, before he understood where her surprise was coming from.
'Guess I overestimated my importance.'
With a grin, he tilted his head towards her.
"Wanna touch them?" He asked teasingly, getting her to sputter.
"Horns!" She said, pointing at them, "And ears! Why!?"
Asuma laughed, unable to hold himself back anymore.
"You're looking at the newest - and youngest - Clan Leader of Konoha. So, how does it feel to look at a kid your age who's of a higher social status than you?"
"That title doesn't actually mean that much until I'm a Jonin," Yohei remarked.
"'Until', huh?" Asuma said with a grin. It didn't feel mocking, though. Encouraging, if anything. The man then turned to his students with a bemused face, "Honestly, I'm surprised that none of you heard about it before, it was quite the gossip for a while."
Ino scoffs embarrassedly, her eyes still gazing at Yohei's new features, specially his ears, which he was making flicker without looking at her just for the heck of it.
Shikamaru only shrugged, "I think the old man said something about it."
Surprisingly, it was Chouji who actually had something to say.
"Dad said that someone named Yohei from our class had made a Clan and started selling pills, but I didn't remember who you were," he said directly, surreptitiously sneaking Shikamaru's portions of meat into his empty plate.
Yohei tried not to let the words affect him too much, laughing to cover his embarrassment.
"Yeah, that's me, I guess." Putting his hand inside his pocket, he pulled out a small transparent plastic vial filled with little black metallic beads. "Those are Black Iron Pills."
Black Iron Pills were really just the thematic name he had given this lesser version of the Scrap Iron Candy.
Nanami was actually the one responsible for making them, using as a base the notes in their Scroll and the ample supply he had to more or less discover their material makeup and creation process.
The best ones she made were just as effective as the original ones, but only lasted for a couple of minutes. The ones in his hand, however, is what they sold - a version that lasted for 10 minutes but was only about half as powerful as the original.
Just that was already amazing, to be honest, but even better, it was a source of income and renown for the Kuroyama Clan beyond the missions completed by all two of its members.
Once they registered it, the Clan had effectively become the owners of the intellectual property of the creation of the pills, and Konoha became obligated to at least issue a mission of the appropriate rank should it ever be replicated by someone else in order to either retrieve or destroy the stolen data.
In exchange, while they were generally free to sell it to anyone, doing so against Konoha's interests was a big no-no. And during times of emergency, like wars, the village became the priority buyer for any that were produced.
Chouji nodded firmly, "They're sweet and salty with a sharp tang and a crystalline texture. I approve."
"Thanks, I guess." Yohei chuckled, accepting the praise.
"Where did you even get the idea for that?" Asuma asked with a raised eyebrow, absently locking Chouji's hands to the table with the pair of hashi in his hand.
Yohei shrugged, "My senpai is a nintaijutsu earth release specialist, I just wanted to see if I could copy his defense techniques."
'Which is even technically true.'
Applying the logic behind Earth Release Jutsu was the final key they needed in order to figure out how to recreate the Candy.
Asuma laughed, "Is that so? I can see why Hayama-san is so smug when we go out for drinks if the others in your team are even close to your level. Not to mention the A-Rank Mission that you completed."
Shock spread through the table, but Yohei was too occupied frowning at the man to see it. "Isn't that supposed to be a secret?"
"And I'm one of the people with the clearance to know it," Asuma said in a reassuring tone, waving it off. "I don't actually know the details of the mission, though, and Hayama-sanan is always tight lipped about it, no matter how much we try to get him drunk."
"That… sounds like a horrible breach in protocol," Yohei said with a squint.
Asuma just chuckled in response.
"Wait, wait!" Ino called out, looking weirded out, "Asuma-sensei, what do you mean with A-Rank missions? That can't be true! Neither Yohei nor his teammates were exactly top of the class, how could they have done an A-Rank already when we didn't?"
"It was a very specific situation, to be fair," Yohei said with a shrug. "Besides, it's not like we were the only ones who could have done it."
He pointed at the pineapple headed boy in front of him, "Shikamaru, for example, would probably have done it better than I did."
He was certainly much smarter, and although Yohei didn't perfectly remember it, he felt like there were plenty of shadows around that the boy could have used to puppet Ketsubaku.
'Who else…?' he asked himself.
"And maybe Sasuke as well."
'If he had a chance to use the Sharingan Genjutsu and was lucky not to let it hit anyone before catching that piece of shit.'
"What do you mean, 'maybe'?" Ino asks, stressing the word, "Sasuke-kun is the best in our class. There's nothing you can do that he can't."
Yohei really couldn't get mad at her with the constant comparisons. She really sounded like a teenage girl defending her celebrity crush - which, in a way, she was.
Instead of trying to rebuke her…
"Can he do that, though?" He asked as he made his ear twitch furiously, getting her to once more focus on it with a fascinated look in her face.
Yohei chuckled, getting a barely hidden pouting glare from the blonde.
'Adorable.'
"And about him being the best… well I suppose we'll find out in the Exams, right? I certainly don't plan to lose."
'I mean, imagine the rewards…'
Ino huffed.
"Well, after everything I've heard, it's not really a surprise that you're going to take part in it." Asuma praised casually, "I also plan to put my team forward, you know? Now that I think about it, how about a sparring match so you kids can get in the mood for it?"
Yohei looked dryly at the man.
'So this is what you actually wanted, huh?' He deduced, 'An opportunity for Shikamaru to see and experience the skills of the competition so he can make a counter plan for it - with maybe the side benefit of motivating your team to train harder if they do end up struggling.'
The right thing to do would be to recuse.
There was no need for it, and he was thick skinned enough to eat the food the man was paying for without listening to his suggestions…
'But that's how losers think.' Yohei thought with a grin.
"I can't make promises for my sensei, but personally I think it sounds like an incredible idea." Yohei said eagerly.
Shikamaru groaned, letting his head fall on the table.
"Hahahaha! Don't worry, leave Hayama-san to me." Asuma 'reassured' him.
"I'll do that," Yohei said wryly, accepting the serving of meat that was brought to him and putting some to broil immediately.
"Wait a minute!" Ino shouted incredulous, interrupting him as he brought the pretty much raw strip of meat up to his mouth. "Are you wearing makeup!?"
Yohei blinked, then smiled, "Yeah. I just did a light one because me and my team were coming back from a mission today and I didn't have much time. I'm surprised you noticed, considering… Well, would you like some tips?"
The sound of her chopsticks breaking was music to his ears.