Yuji opened his palm.
A perfectly round droplet of blood crossed the distance and passed through the Hidden Mist captain's skull. He went down without a sound.
Yuji turned and looked into the darkness where the other five had run.
They were already gone. The cover of night had swallowed them completely in the short time it had taken to deal with the captain.
"They're not sensor types. They scattered." He rubbed his chin for a moment.
Behind his back, visible to Pakura and the others watching, a ring of blood materialized in the air around him, deep red, with small wing-shapes condensed from fresh blood hanging from its circumference.
Blood Release: Wing King.
The technique Eso had used, a method of instantly amplifying physical mobility, providing both acceleration and propulsion simultaneously.
Then he was gone. The displaced air hit the students like a small gust, sharp enough to sting their faces.
He was back within a few minutes.
"Handled. Let's find somewhere safe and get your injuries treated."
The ease of it produced the same speechless admiration in Sakamoto's face that it always did.
Yuji kept Arai's warnings in mind.
The Hidden Mist captain had identified him before dying, and despite the clean resolution, the area's operational environment had become more complicated for future work.
Sunagakure shinobi had been disappearing in this zone, whether any intelligence about his presence had already moved through other channels was an open question.
What Yuji actually concerned himself with was whether Konoha or Iwagakure would use the opportunity to send people.
Neither materialized.
Iwagakure's nearest forces would have had to cross almost the entire Land of Wind to reach this coastline, a significant investment of time and effort for uncertain results. And their recent conflict with Sunagakure had just concluded.
Creating new trouble so soon carried its own costs. Whatever their hatred for him, the practical calculation apparently didn't favor it.
Konoha was in reconstruction mode, its attention turned inward. Even Danzo, who had demonstrated both the willingness and the reach to act against him before, showed no movement.
The post-war period had its own logic, every major village was recovering, resources were constrained, and the appetite for new operations was low across the board.
Yuji concluded he had been overthinking it, accepted the quiet, and used the time well.
He continued teaching Yashamaru Medical Ninjutsu in the margins of each day, working through material at a pace calibrated to what Yashamaru could absorb.
He gave Pakura regular feedback on her Scorch Release, the technique's fundamentals were sound, but the output was still inefficient, the chakra expenditure higher than the effect justified.
The other two he pushed through the same basic process of repeated exposure and incremental adjustment.
By the standards of his own training intensity, what he was putting them through was mild.
By the evidence visible on their bodies, all four of them had shed the particular softness that came from good backgrounds and reliable meals. Pakura, especially, the well-resourced quality that had been obvious about her when they left the village was largely gone.
If her parents saw her now, they would likely assume something had gone badly wrong.
He felt the mission had been easier than anticipated. Something between fieldwork and a vacation, with students attached.
One afternoon Yuji sat on a cliff edge with a book open across his knee, watching the four of them work through an engagement with a Hidden Mist squad on the ground below.
He had been turning a problem over for days.
Hand seals. The mechanical proficiency was improving, his chakra response and mobilization had become more fluid with practice.
But one-handed seals, or the kind of compressed speed that someone like Itachi demonstrated, seemed to operate on a different axis entirely.
It wasn't purely a physical skill. The correlation with Mental Energy was becoming harder to ignore. Shinobi with stronger Mental Energy responded to and mobilized chakra faster at a fundamental level, which meant practicing form alone had a ceiling.
Itachi had the Sharingan, an ocular power grounded in Yin Release, operating directly through Mental Energy, an advantage that came with the bloodline itself. Jiraiya had Sage Mode and years of training at Mount Myoboku behind him.
Yuji had neither.
He considered the broader picture. Sensor abilities, certain ocular powers, Genjutsu, all of them fell under the umbrella of Yin Release, all of them scaled with Mental Energy.
None of the enemies he had faced so far had specialized in Genjutsu. If he eventually encountered someone who did, and who was genuinely skilled at it, his current toolkit had a gap there that he didn't have a clean answer for.
Mental Energy was a weakness.
He didn't want to be like the future Kakashi, being stabbed repeatedly in an illusion for days on end, suffering agonizing pain.
Yuji thought of another thing, as the representative of the 'perfect Ninja,' Minato Namikaze seemed able to detect enemy targets and positions within a certain range just by pressing his palm to the ground, which was quite impressive.
"Mental Energy, Chakra reserves, tsk tsk, there are still many areas to strengthen."
After a long while, Yuji let out a soft sigh.
It couldn't be helped; the methods in the Ninja World were simply too rich and diverse, every type of Ninja had a different fighting style.
To survive, one had to minimize shortcomings as much as possible. Otherwise, even if one could be arrogant for a time, once they met a 'natural enemy' who specifically countered them, it would be game over.
"However, this period hasn't been without its surprises."
"Because I obtained the Blood Manipulation, this ability itself is intrinsically linked to flesh and blood. Components like red blood cells can, to some extent, affect my body temperature, pulse, and various other states to strengthen my Physical Body.
Even without relying on Reverse Cursed Technique, simply using some of the built-in functions of Blood Release can slightly augment and change various physical attributes, including self-healing.
It also speeds up the circulation flow of Chakra in the body, stimulating and increasing the Chakra volume. Most importantly, after my Taijutsu reached a certain training bottleneck, it has finally made significant progress again thanks to this ability."
"And I've finally used this ability to apply Chakra to the 'cellular' level that I've been researching for a long time."
Thinking of this, Yuji showed a smile.
Regarding Mental Energy, although he somewhat understood it now, he still felt a bit like he hadn't found the right knack for it. For now, it wasn't his forte.
But when it came to physical strength and Taijutsu, those were things he had been intentionally cultivating and pondering since he transmigrated.
His polishing of his body had never stopped.
Now that he was leading a team on missions, his time for private training was even more abundant.
"Sensei!"
"Sensei!"
Just as Yuji was lost in thought, the familiar voices rang out again.
On the battlefield below, Sakamoto, caught in a dangerous situation, was screaming at the top of his lungs.
Terrified that his little life was at stake.
"Sigh."
Yuji closed the book in his hand and shook his head helplessly.
Yashamaru and Pakura aside, they at least had talent.
Sakamoto and Fukushima Taki were essentially forced upon him by the high-ranking officials.
The reason Yuji was willing to look after them was also because he had his own plans.
In the future, when he and Sasori implemented their plan to purge some of the Sunagakure high-ranking officials, the best way to change the Village's power structure and habitual style was to support young people in rising to power.
Because these young faces were less influenced by the Third Kazekage or the older generation, they would easily accept new ways of thinking and values.
Rather than stubbornly clinging to their own views and being obstinate.
As the prospective 'heirs' of their respective families, if Sakamoto and Fukushima Taki could grow up and carry this teacher-student bond, they would undoubtedly become great helpers.
This was equivalent to Yuji training his own 'faction.'
The high-ranking officials wanted to use his ability to train their descendants, but Yuji was turning the tables, planting 'seeds' for the Village's future.
If he had the chance later, Yuji also intended to deliberately train some young people in the Village, preferably with a wide range of influence across various institutions, some of them should ideally come from civilian backgrounds, unaffected by family or external factors, focused solely on the Village.
Of course, given the current state of Sunagakure, it was too difficult for civilian Ninjas to stand out or rise to power.
Unless they could achieve the same level as him.
But that possibility was slim. Without the System, Yuji believed that no matter how hard he worked, he would likely have faded into the crowd.
Using his memories as a transmigrator, at most, he would only be slightly stronger than his Chunin father who died in battle.
"Stop shouting, I'm coming."
Yuji patted his backside, slowly stood up, and responded.
...
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