The morning air was crisp as Sengoku completed his physical conditioning. With a flick of his wrist, an invisible chakra thread reeled his final kunai back into his palm.
He took stock of his progress. His physical stamina now comfortably ranked at the top of his class, and his chakra manipulation was easily on par with a standard genin. The Puppet Shunshin was fundamentally complete. It allowed for violent, high-speed directional shifts and dead stops, granting him a terrifyingly erratic, non-human movement pattern.
However, the technique was a double-edged sword. The explosive meridian pulses required immense chakra and placed a heavy physical toll on his joints. It couldn't be used recklessly.
More importantly, despite the brief clash with Jiro yesterday, the jutsu still lacked rigorous combat testing. Sparring with Araki Ryo was completely pointless, and their instructor, Sunada Shun, only ever watched and recorded. Sengoku felt like a high-level player stuck in a beginner's zone. Without genuine pressure, his growth was bottlenecked. He needed a real challenge, but where in the academy could he find one?
Later that morning, the classroom buzzed with an unusual undercurrent of anticipation. Standing behind his podium, Sunada Shun delivered his lecture in his usual flat drone.
"Today, we begin the first of the three basic academy techniques: the Clone Technique." Sunada raised his hands and deliberately wove three hand signs. Ram. Snake. Tiger.
Poof.
A small cloud of white smoke dissipated, revealing a perfect replica of Sunada standing beside him, its eyes just as cold and empty as the original's. A murmur of awe rippled through the young students.
"The Clone Technique is an E-rank jutsu," Sunada continued, his voice echoing alongside his double. "It creates a purely optical illusion. It possesses no physical mass, cannot attack, and will immediately disperse upon physical contact. Its sole purpose is deception and misdirection."
Sunada dispersed the clone with a thought. "The sequence is Ram, Snake, Tiger. The key to this technique is projecting and stabilizing your chakra outside of your body to construct the illusion. If your chakra control is lacking, the clone will appear distorted or fail to form entirely. Begin."
Sunada stepped to the side, drawing his clipboard and leaving the students to their clumsy attempts.
The training hall quickly devolving into a chaotic chorus of frustrated grunts and tiny puffs of smoke.
"Ram... Snake... wait, is it Tiger next?"
"How do I even push the chakra out?"
Nearby, Araki Ryo rapidly cycled through the signs and shouted, "Clone Technique!" A weak pulse of chakra flared. A hazy, gelatinous distortion materialized next to him, wobbled pathetically for a second, and vanished.
"Damn it!" Araki cursed, slamming his fist into his palm. Out of habit, he shot a glare toward Sengoku, hoping the boy who always outperformed him in taijutsu would at least struggle with ninjutsu.
Sengoku hadn't even raised his hands yet. He stood with his eyes closed, his enhanced intellect rapidly processing Sunada's demonstration. The flow of chakra, the specific function of the hand signs, the mechanics of projecting an external image—the theory snapped into perfect clarity in his mind. Months of agonizingly precise chakra thread manipulation had pushed his control far beyond the rudimentary requirements of a basic E-rank jutsu.
For Sengoku, this was effortless.
He opened his eyes. His hands snapped together in a fluid blur. Ram. Snake. Tiger.
Poof.
A soft pop echoed as a plume of smoke cleared. A flawless replica of Sengoku stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him. From the pitch-black eyes to the subtle creases in his academy uniform, it was completely indistinguishable from the original.
A sudden hush fell over the immediate vicinity. The surrounding students stared in disbelief.
"He got it on his first try?" one whispered.
"It looks so real..."
Araki Ryo's jaw dropped. The competitive fire in his eyes was replaced by a heavy, sullen realization. "...What is wrong with this guy?" he muttered, looking away.
At the edge of the training grounds, Sunada Shun's gaze swept over the perfect clone. The faint scar on his cheek twitched microscopically. Without a word, he looked down and etched a sharp checkmark next to Sengoku's name on his clipboard, his pen never pausing.
Ignoring the stares, Sengoku turned his attention to his creation. With a mental command, the clone took a few natural steps forward and raised its hands, pantomiming a jutsu casting. Naturally, no chakra was molded. Sengoku made it run and jump, carefully monitoring the structural integrity of the illusion.
After about thirty seconds of sustained motion, he felt the chakra structure begin to fray, and he willingly cut the connection. The clone vanished into white smoke.
'Thirty seconds of dynamic movement,' Sengoku evaluated silently. 'If it remains perfectly still just for visual misdirection, it should easily last over a minute.'
He raised his hands again. Ram. Snake. Tiger.
This time, he consciously allocated a larger reserve of chakra. Two identical clones materialized beside him. He noted that the chakra drain was practically nonexistent. The jutsu demanded immense precision, not raw power—which suited his meticulously refined chakra network perfectly.
Satisfied that he had mastered the mechanics, Sengoku dismissed the clones and lowered his hands. As he watched his classmates continue to struggle, a tactical thought crossed his mind. 'It's just a basic illusion, but if layered seamlessly with offensive ninjutsu or the Puppet Shunshin, the misdirection could be lethal.'
He quickly filed the idea away. Theoretical tactics were useless without a live target to test them on.
The remainder of the morning was devoured by another mind-numbing lecture on absolute loyalty to the village. Sengoku tuned it out entirely.
By the time the afternoon sparring session arrived, Araki Ryo was practically vibrating with pent-up frustration. True to form, he marched straight up to Sengoku's spot on the sparring grounds.
"Sengoku! We're going again!" Araki demanded, his eyes blazing with a mix of stubborn pride and desperation.
Sengoku simply nodded and stepped into the ring.
The moment the spar began, Araki let out a fierce yell and lunged forward, throwing a heavy, committed straight punch at Sengoku's face.
Sengoku didn't even bother activating the Puppet Shunshin. Relying purely on his superior physical conditioning and kinetic vision, he executed a crisp pivot. He slipped past Araki's fist, hooking his foot behind Araki's ankle while simultaneously driving two rigid fingers into a specific pressure point at the base of Araki's spine.
"Gah!" Araki gasped.
A shocking jolt of numbness shot down his leg. Half his body lost all strength, and he face-planted hard into the dirt, swallowing a mouthful of sand.
"What... what did you just do to me?!" Araki sputtered, scrambling backward and frantically clutching his lower back, which now merely tingled with a dull ache.
"Basic anatomy," Sengoku replied flatly.
The rest of the match was a one-sided dismantling. Araki threw everything he had, swinging wildly and pushing his stamina to the brink. Sengoku never broke a sweat. He slipped, parried, and effortlessly swept Araki's legs out from under him time and time again.
Finally, Araki collapsed into the dust, his chest heaving violently, his eyes staring blankly at the sky in total defeat. He couldn't even touch the hem of Sengoku's shirt.
Standing over him, Sengoku's breathing remained slow and steady. He felt nothing.
'Too weak,' Sengoku thought coldly. 'This doesn't even qualify as a warm-up.'
If he wanted to forge his taijutsu into a lethal weapon, he needed the visceral, life-threatening pressure of a real fight. But the academy was a dead end. Sparring with Sunada Shun was tantamount to suicide, and picking fights with soon-to-be graduating students was a reckless gamble with a massive stat disadvantage. He needed a target that hit the exact sweet spot between manageable and deadly.
When the dismissal bell finally rang, Sengoku quietly slipped away from the noisy crowds of students. He turned his back on the academy and headed toward his secluded training ground in the desert, his mind already calculating his next move.