Buzz—
A faint ripple of chakra spread outward.
In the next second, Mikami Yuu's short white hair seemed to be pulled up by an invisible force. It rose and straightened all at once. The soft strands, which had originally looked ordinary, now gleamed with a cold metallic luster, and their tips had become sharp, like tempered steel needles!
Then Yuu continued urging his chakra forward. Those "steel needles" rapidly wove and coiled across his chest, forming something like leather armor that protected his head, face, neck, and torso. When he flicked it with his finger, it even produced a crisp metallic clang.
Clang! Clang!
"Come on, shoot me."
With a thought, the two water clones he had made in advance picked up kunai and shuriken and threw them at the "thorn armor," starting light and gradually increasing force.
Most of the kunai were deflected away in bursts of sparks. A few with heavier force stopped for a moment against the "thorn armor," then slid down along the hard forest of needles. Most of their piercing force was dispersed, leaving only a faint sting.
"Not bad, not bad. The hardness is enough to block ordinary ninja tools and ninjutsu attacks."
Mikami Yuu nodded slightly.
The only problem was…
"This jutsu won't damage my hair follicles, right?"
"Activation," at its core, worked by stimulating the body's cells and making them highly active. Although the cellular activity and recovery ability of the plant-people in the ninja world were far beyond what Earthlings could match, not everyone was Senju Hashirama.
So Yuu was a little worried that if he used Needle Jizō too much, he might go bald…
But considering that Jiraiya still had thick, full hair in his fifties in the original story, that worry was probably unnecessary. Instead of dwelling on that, he might as well consider whether he should grow his hair out like Jiraiya. That way, when he used Needle Jizō, it would activate faster…
On the other side,
Obito and Rin had noticed the movement on Yuu's side.
"Whoa, Yuu, was that the jutsu Lord Jiraiya gave you? You already learned it? That's so fast!"
Obito exclaimed.
Rin, meanwhile, looked at Yuu's appearance and covered her mouth with a soft laugh. "Haha, Yuu, you look… kind of like a hedgehog puffed up in fright! So cute!"
"…"
Yuu almost said something, then stopped. Cute? Was that really the right adjective? Shouldn't she have said something like mighty and handsome?
Still, since Obito and Rin had already noticed, he stopped practicing secretly on his own and simply stood up.
"Come on, Obito, Rin. Help me test the new jutsu. Ninjutsu, close combat, hidden weapons—use whatever you want. I'll only defend and won't attack."
"Really?"
Obito immediately became interested and rubbed his fists together.
For him, chances like this to openly beat up a teammate were rare. Usually, he was the one being beaten up.
Of course, the one beating Obito was usually Kakashi, since Kakashi had the role of "assistant instructor." As for Yuu and Obito, they didn't spar very often. Their training directions were too different, and there wasn't much room for either to learn from the other.
Soon,
the three of them held a small sparring session on the training ground behind the outpost.
"…I'm coming!"
For about twenty minutes,
close-range slashes, thrown ninja tools, Great Fireball, Wild Water Wave, Dragon Fire Technique… all kinds of attacks came from Rin and Obito, aimed at Mikami Yuu.
Yuu kept his word and only defended, never attacking. At most, he shifted around in a small range to avoid getting hit in the face.
"…Looks like Needle Jizō mainly defends against taijutsu-type attacks, including cuts and thrown attacks from ninja tools."
"But its defense against ninjutsu isn't as high, especially against Fire Release."
After all, the more hair you had, the weaker you were to fire.
Although hair reinforced by chakra didn't ignite on contact like normal hair, once it was burned by flames, the previously hard strands softened, reducing some of their protective ability. Water Release didn't affect it much, though. Even soaked hair still retained decent defensive strength.
Additionally,
Yuu made one more discovery: Rin's Monster Strength was starting to take shape. During training, he used Needle Jizō to take one straight punch from Rin, and was actually knocked back several meters.
"Gah!"
Seeing that, Yuu's expression didn't change, but Obito was startled. "Rin, what you used just now was…"
"It's the Monster Strength Technique Lady Tsunade taught us…"
Rin flexed her small fist and said a little embarrassedly, "I've been practicing it lately and feel like I've grasped some of the trick, but I haven't told you guys or had a chance to use it in training… Sorry, Yuu. That punch just now didn't hurt, right?"
"It's fine."
Yuu answered casually.
That punch hadn't really hurt him. Most of the force had been buffered by Needle Jizō, and only a dull ache reached his body. Compared to the punch young Tsunade had once used to break several of Jiraiya's ribs, it wasn't even in the same universe.
But…
He was still genuinely surprised that Rin could unleash that level of force.
After all, he was able to get an initial grasp of Monster Strength in just over a month because he had cheats.
Rin, however, had achieved it through her own diligent practice.
It seemed she really did have some talent for Monster Strength.
If she could master this technique, then her weakness in taijutsu would count as patched up. Later, if they could find a way to learn the Strength of a Hundred Seal and the Hundred Healings Technique, she would basically become a lower-spec little Tsunade, enough to protect herself in most battles.
—As for whether she could survive this Great Ninja War, that was still hard to say. After all, Rin's death trap had been personally arranged by Uchiha Madara. Resolving that would be very difficult.
"No point thinking too much. Training first."
"These next couple days, I should practice Needle Jizō more and understand the nature of 'activation,' see if I can apply it to Cell Activation Technique…"
"And if I remember correctly, Needle Jizō has a variant usage where the hardened hair is shot out like senbon to attack mid- and long-range enemies. It's called Needle Hell. I can try that too when I get a chance…"
Yuu thought silently.
Night deepened.
Inside the Oborozuki Castle outpost, lights dimmed one by one. Only the even breathing of the youths remained, along with the footsteps of patrol squads outside rising and falling in the distance.
Beyond the outpost, in the vast mountain forest shrouded by darkness, invisible undercurrents were quietly brewing…
Several days passed in a flash.
During this time, Wildfire City had already sent a reply.
Jiraiya and Nara Kashima had apparently finished discussing matters and would dispatch an elite force of about sixty people to take over Oborozuki Castle's defense. But because manpower was needed everywhere along the battle line, coordination would take several more days. Until then, Yuu and the others had to continue staying there.
They had no objections.
After all, compared to their time conducting reconnaissance and patrols in zones 7 through 10, the past few days had been much more comfortable.
Although they still had to patrol around the town every day, at least the area was fixed and the routes were clear. They didn't have to crawl through mountains and forests every day and end up covered in mud. And their meals were relatively fresh, they could occasionally eat fruit, and at night they could even take hot baths.
Even Kakashi, who didn't care much about external conditions, felt that this garrison duty wasn't too bad.
Of course…
All of that rested on strength. After all, most of the troops previously stationed here were now dead. And now, even if Suna wanted revenge, they wouldn't dare act rashly for the time being. At most, they could send scouts to probe for information.
Against enemies like that, Yuu's group followed the principle of "kill first, capture second" and successively dealt with two more Suna squads. Another squad noticed them ahead of time and withdrew in time, so there was no direct clash.
During this period,
Kakashi finally found a chance to show off Chidori in front of Yuu, the others, and Minato. That crackling Lightning Release killing move shocked Obito and Rin, who were seeing it for the first time. Yuu also pretended to be deeply shocked.
Minato, after praising it, quickly noticed the flaw in the technique.
"Kakashi, this jutsu's killing power depends on high-speed charging, but when you charge, you lose field of vision. It would be very easy for an enemy to attack you from the side… You may need to find a way to improve that."
"…Do you have any suggestions, Minato-sensei?"
"Well…"
Minato thought for a moment. "There isn't a simple solution. For now, try training your dynamic vision."
Kakashi, who did not yet have the Sharingan at this stage, fell into thought.
Obito was a little pleased by Kakashi's trouble. In any case, he hadn't awakened his eyes yet, so he didn't have to worry about them being dug out.
Yuu, meanwhile, put his training time into Needle Jizō and Shadow Clone.
Both were "skins," and the corresponding Transformation Technique and Clone Technique had already reached maximum affection long ago, so there was little difficulty in training them.
After "learning" Shadow Clone, Yuu tried the "accelerated training method" Naruto used in the original story—that is, using Shadow Clone's ability to send memories and experience back to the main body, allowing several different types of training at once.
Counting it out, through the galgame system, Yuu had already accumulated around thirty points of Constitution.
By his estimate, his current chakra amount was about two Kakashis, ranking second on Team Minato.
First was Obito. No helping it—the trait of "Uchiha" was having a lot of chakra. Even though Obito hadn't awakened his eyes yet and didn't have White Zetsu's body, his chakra reserves were still above two Kakashis. He had never really run out of chakra.
Rin probably had around 0.7 Kakashi.
As for Minato…
he was outside the category.
But judging from the Nine-Tails' night, where Minato repeatedly used Flying Thunder God and Flying Thunder God: Guiding Thunder more than a dozen times, threw out several Rasengan, and still had enough chakra left to use the Dead Demon Consuming Seal to split the Nine-Tails in half, his chakra amount should be quite considerable. At least five or six Kakashis.
In short,
according to Yuu's testing, with his current chakra reserves, creating two shadow clones at a time was the most reasonable option. It stayed within his burden limit while ensuring each clone's combat power wasn't too low. With the main body included, one could practice swordsmanship, one could train ninjutsu, and one could study sealing arts.
The only issue was that dispelling them was tiring. Multiple sets of memories flooded into his mind at the same time, which put a heavy burden on his brain and required extra time to digest and absorb.
In this cycle of patrol and training,
Yuu's swordsmanship and Fire Release slowly improved.
And when the end of the month came,
he also successfully unlocked a new ninjutsu trait.
This time, it was from Cell Activation Technique—
[Cell Activation Technique · Current affection: 25/36 — Friendly]
(Stage reward obtained: Constitution +1. Trait · Overload Pulse: After activating this trait, you can stimulate specific nerve clusters and muscle fibers in your body to activate them. For 45 seconds, nerve conduction speed increases by 200%, and dynamic vision, reaction ability, muscle strength, and other physical skills are all greatly enhanced. After the effect ends, muscle soreness, mental fatigue, and even mild damage may occur. This technique cannot be used again for 8–10 hours.)
"It finally unlocked…"
Mikami Yuu felt relieved.
For a technique that was currently still being assembled and didn't even have complete limbs, Cell Activation Technique's trait actually looked pretty good.
A 200% increase in nerve conduction speed, plus boosts to dynamic vision, reaction ability, muscle strength… this was almost a comprehensive enhancement. It really did resemble Kumogakure's secret Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
The only flaw was…
the duration was too short. Only 45 seconds.
And it could be used at most twice per day.
But considering that this was still an incomplete ninjutsu, he couldn't demand too much. Besides, even 45 seconds, if used properly, was a powerful trump card.
For example: first activate Shadow Prison Phantom Kill Formation, stack the A Cornered Army Must Win buff, then at the critical moment activate Overload Pulse, and combine it with Monster Strength: Mad Gamble… What kind of killing power would that create?
Yuu planned to find a chance to test it.
Mm… he also needed to confirm exactly how severe the "muscle soreness" mentioned by the galgame system was. That was the most important part.
When about a week had passed,
one morning, Minato gathered Yuu and the others together again. He clapped his hands lightly and said,
"Good news. Wildfire City has finished coordination. The sixty-man force replacing us has already started moving toward Oborozuki Castle and is expected to arrive by noon today.
"In a while, we'll go meet them and make sure the handover goes smoothly."
"Great!"
Obito was the first to jump up. "Finally, we don't have to patrol around those same stones every day!"
Kakashi also quietly closed Icha Icha Paradise and tucked it deep into his tool pouch.
"Everyone go pack up. Bring whatever you need. One hour from now, we depart from the outpost."