Super Ninja

I woke up to cold water being poured directly onto my face. Since my mouth was open, some of the water got inside, causing me to jerk up and start coughing. This quickly brought me to my senses, which immediately triggered all the pain I had accumulated during sparring with my sensei.

The painful memories reminded me that I should definitely avoid doing that again next time. But I will keep doing it if it means a better future for me. The strength and desire to continue training hadn't diminished—in fact, they had only grown stronger. I'm sure this is the best outcome I could have gotten from this training, along with the realization that I'm still far from the level of a Jonin, like the distance from Earth to Mars.

"Well, have you come to your senses?" Captain Kiochi asked me.

"Yes, Sensei," I replied.

"Does anything hurt?" he asked next.

"Everything hurts," I responded, trying to distance myself from the pain. It was much easier to do this during sparring than it was now, probably because I was focused on something entirely different at the time. "Like never before."

"Well, what did you expect?" the captain chuckled. "When you try to fight beyond your limits, it's only logical that you'll have to pay the price."

"Yes," I nodded. "And was it worth it that I did it?"

"Of course," the captain nodded. "If you don't believe me, just listen to yourself. In the meantime, I'll talk to Shiko and Ayamane."

I'm not sure if he noticed, but I nodded. Then, overcoming some pain, I slowly immersed myself in meditation. This time, reaching this state and feeling zen was not particularly easy. The pain constantly tried to seep into my thoughts, reminding me of itself. But... I managed. I felt my chakra channels through which the chakra was flowing. The first thing I noticed was that they had stretched and become larger. Although this comparison isn't particularly accurate, the size really had increased. Besides this, I noticed that my Yin and Yang production had also increased. Naturally, more Yin was produced than Yang... So even a small increase in the production of physical energy was already pleasant and useful. I think all the effort during the sparring was worth it.

"Well? What do you think?" the captain asked when I came to and tried to stand up.

"In general... it seems to me that I've become stronger in terms of chakra," I replied.

"Of course," the captain grinned. "With active work, your potential will be realized better and better."

I joined the girls, who didn't look particularly pleased. We pulled out our lunch and started to eat slowly. The captain also pulled out some sandwiches from his pouch and watched us with a grin.

"Finished lunch?" the captain asked. "I see that you have. Now, I'll take care of your training."

He created a clone of himself, who looked at Nara and Yamanaka, then nodded, inviting them to follow. The girls didn't need to be asked twice, so they quickly followed the clone to the other side of the training field. The original stayed behind, watching me with a satisfied smile.

"So," he began, "I can estimate your approximate level. You fight very well for a Genin. I think many of your peers wouldn't be able to handle you, or it would be very difficult for them. But what you're lacking are offensive techniques."

I remained silent, although I listened to my sensei very carefully. I indeed lacked techniques, but I didn't think I could learn any of them so quickly. This is excellent news!

"Do you want to learn an offensive technique?" Subidzu Kiochi asked me.

"Yes, Sensei," I replied with great enthusiasm.

"Excellent," he smirked. "Watch."

He slowly formed several hand seals, giving me time to memorize them, then touched the ground with his palms.

"Earth Style! Stone Spear Jutsu!"

In the next moment, a large and very sharp stone, truly resembling a spear, shot up from the ground and pierced straight through a tree.

"Wow!" I exclaimed, jumping to the spot where the technique had hit. "What do I need to do?"

"Like any technique, it requires a mental impulse," the captain chuckled. "Watch again. Earth Style! Stone Spear Jutsu!"

Captain Kiochi demonstrated the technique a few more times, then moved on to a theoretical explanation with some diagrams he drew in the dirt with a stick. In general, everything seemed clear to me. I asked questions right away because I didn't want any gaps in my knowledge to cause problems later on.

"Now it's your turn," he said. "How soon do you think you can learn this technique?"

"I don't know, Sensei," I replied. "But I'll try to learn it as soon as possible."

"I like your attitude," he chuckled.

I began studying this technique, trying to put it into practice. Of course, it didn't work the first or the second time. But by the third attempt, I felt like I was catching on to something interesting. On the fourth attempt, I managed to perform the hand seals, channel the chakra into the ground, but then the mental image of the technique slipped away. Let's try again.

Hand seals, chakra, mental image, and the words:

"Earth Style! Stone Spear Jutsu!"

The next moment I touched the ground, and the technique activated. In an instant, a stone spear shot up from the ground, striking the tree... but then it cracked and shattered into fragments.

"Not bad!" the captain began clapping his hands. "Very well done. Your spear lacks hardness. But no worries, the first step has been taken, and the rest is just a matter of practice."

"Yes," I replied. The sensation of an offensive technique hitting its target is hard to compare to anything. Honestly, I'm going to practice this technique until I can perform it without hand seals and without touching the ground with my palms. I want to stomp, release my chakra, and have the spear hit the target.

As the saying goes, I see the target... I don't see the obstacles. With these thoughts, I continued training this technique. First, I didn't rush to increase the speed of execution. That can always be improved later. No. I started slowly and carefully, practicing each action until everything came together. Not automatically... not even close, but I didn't need to consciously control my hand seals as much. They formed on their own.

This slow and deliberate practice quickly improved the quality of my spear. Now it didn't shatter upon impact with the tree, but it still didn't have enough power to pierce it completely like my sensei's did.

At one point, I ran out of chakra, and the captain made me do physical exercises. I put on some weights.

"Here, take these," the captain said, handing me another pair of weights, which I strapped on without question. The added weight immediately increased the pressure, trying to pin me to the ground, but I held on. After a while, I got used to it and resumed my physical training, silently cursing that everything had become difficult again, as if I hadn't been rigorously training myself over the past year.

When night fell, I didn't want to do anything anymore. The morning sparring already felt like something distant and unreal. Even learning the technique seemed to have happened long ago. But no... it was just that I was extremely exhausted from the physical training.

The girls didn't look particularly fresh and relaxed either. The captain had pushed them hard, making them train and catch up on what they had missed during their previous training sessions. However, as I noticed, he didn't give them any extra weights. Maybe he thought they weren't ready yet...

"We trained well today," the captain said with satisfaction. "Tomorrow we'll have another training session, and then in the evening, we'll go take a mission."

"A mission?" Shiko asked in surprise. "In the evening?"

"Of course," the captain nodded. "I think you're ready for more challenging tasks. So why not test yourselves?"

"Do you already know what to expect?" Ayamane asked.

"Not yet," the captain shrugged. "But I think you should be prepared because you'll be away from home for more than a week. By the way, it'll be almost a month since you graduated from the Academy. How time flies, right?"

"Yes," we could only respond.

I barely made it home, but I didn't even think about taking off my weights. My parents weren't home. I think they planned to go somewhere today... or they were invited somewhere, I don't remember. I washed up, grabbed some food from the fridge, and went to sleep.

My dreams were filled with sparring sessions with my sensei, where I kept seeing my own mistakes. They were so obvious that I definitely won't repeat them next time. I didn't even need a Taijutsu expert to spot those mistakes.

After that, my dream suddenly shifted to practicing the technique, which surprised me. It was almost too good, like my day was repeating itself in my sleep. But when it came time for the grueling physical training, I woke up.

My body was trembling slightly. I really needed to go to the bathroom. After taking care of that, I returned to bed. It was still very early. I had another hour to rest and maybe sleep some more. As soon as I closed my eyes, sleep took over again, plunging me back into the depths of slumber... where I once again found myself facing off against the captain, once again seeing all my mistakes.

In short... when I woke up, I can't say I was particularly pleased. My eyes felt gritty, and my head felt stuffed with cotton. To pull myself together, I had to take a bath in almost ice-cold water. It was as invigorating as an electric shock.

For the first time today, I arrived at the training session almost at the same time as the girls, instead of earlier than them.

"Good morning, Genins," the captain greeted us as usual. He was sitting in his chair, reading some book. He was watching us with one eye. "I see not all of you slept well."

His attention immediately focused on me. He closed the book and tucked it into his bag.

"Perhaps, Captain," I replied.

"Then nothing beats an active workout," he said in an annoyingly cheerful voice. "And for that, I've prepared some weights for you."

Each of us received two additional pairs of weights. For all of us, this immediately became a very challenging test. The weights pressed down on us as if an elephant was trying to crush us.

"Now it's time for push-ups," he said with a big smile. "Let's go, let's go."

Let's just say that what started as an unpleasant morning quickly turned into hell for me. And as for the girls, I can't even imagine how they felt. If you think about it, if the morning starts on a good note and ends on a bad one, the level of mood drop is much greater than if the morning starts off not so great and ends on the same bad note. It's like the difference between the numbers zero and ten, and between zero and three.

After that, he took us to a body of water where he made us stand on the water and then slowly walk on it. To maintain such a weight, it was necessary to properly regulate chakra usage because increased use of energy would lead to quicker exhaustion. But if you didn't use enough, well, hello cold water.

"Ahhhh!" Shiko screamed when the water couldn't hold her weight, and she fell in. Fortunately, we weren't training in deep water, so drowning was difficult.

"Get up," the captain chuckled at her, walking on the water, and then a piece of bread appeared in his hand. "Or maybe you'd prefer to be fed a bun? Get up and walk."

She slowly got up and tried to stand on the water again. Of course, it wasn't particularly easy, but Yamanaka tried. For me and Nara, it was also quite challenging, but for different reasons. Ayamane simply wasn't ready for such weight and couldn't immediately focus enough chakra, and the general fatigue from the 'warm-up' didn't help either. For me, the difficulty was due to the weight, as I simply lacked chakra control. It's a bit different. Nara didn't have enough chakra to maintain focus.

In general, we all got our share of soaking and also a share of jokes and teasing from Kiochi-sensei. He was incredibly pleased that we gave him opportunities to make fun of us.

"The first half of the day went pretty well," he chuckled. "Shiko and Ayamane, you can remove your extra weights. But you, Suzuki, should keep wearing them."

I only sighed in frustration, feeling the girls' sympathetic looks. Well, it's okay, I'll get used to it, and after that, I won't even feel these weights anymore. This will make me even better in the future.

With these thoughts, I tried to console myself, although the weight of the weights definitely wasn't going anywhere. So I'll have to walk with them for a while longer. We had lunch and then went for an hour of meditation to improve chakra control. When you realize that your chakra control is lacking, there's an immediate opportunity to fix it. But if you think it's at a good level, progress becomes very slow and barely noticeable.

After chakra control training, it was time for training with the captain. I had to continue practicing the Stone Spear Jutsu until it was good enough to at least pierce a tree. By the evening, I managed to embed the spear about a quarter of the way into the tree, which was already a big achievement in just two days. Yesterday, my spear was breaking as soon as it hit the tree, but today it was already penetrating halfway.

When my chakra was almost depleted, the captain gathered us all for a team training session where I had to face him and the girls. Let's just say... it was very unpleasant.

"Are you ready, Machine?" the captain asked me.

"Hai, Captain," I exhaled in response.

"And you, Shiko and Ayamane Nara?" he looked at the girls.

"Hai," they answered, giving me hungry looks.

"Then let's get started."

The captain began to approach me, moving at a speed normal for me. He threw the first punch, which I blocked, then tried to counterattack. Since I wasn't allowed to remove the weights, I had to fight with them on.

I stepped back and jumped a few paces away. The captain immediately followed, delivering a powerful sidekick. I blocked it but couldn't stay on my feet, and I was knocked to the side. Rolling over, I had to adjust my stance a bit because the weight of the weights affected my ability to defend.

At that moment, I had to dodge the kunai that Ayamane threw. Quickly shifting my focus back to the captain, who was already trying to execute a move right after the kunai. I won't say it was a pleasant experience. I took a hit to the torso that nearly made my eyes pop out, but I managed to stay on my feet. I jumped back and noticed Shiko preparing her technique. One glance into her eyes was enough to knock my consciousness out of my body.

I floated in darkness, piercing the void with a dim grayish light that emanated from me like moonbeams through clouds. All around was a complete abyss, where time seemed to have stopped. This is the Yamanaka clan's technique. Interesting. A technique that could separate consciousness from the body, leaving it helpless. At that moment, I felt invisible threads take control of my body as if I had become a puppet in the hands of a skilled puppeteer. These threads, weightless and invisible, extended from the depths of my consciousness, trying to make me move according to their will.

But suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, my consciousness shot back into my body. The moment of disorientation, when the world around me regained color and form, was instantaneous but enough to deprive me of the ability to react adequately to external events. I felt a powerful strike from the captain, who hit me in the torso with the force of thunder. The impact expelled all the air from my lungs, and my body, like a light leaf, was thrown a good ten meters before I crashed into a tree trunk. The sound of cracking branches and the crunch of bark mixed with my groan.

Trying to get up, I realized that my legs wouldn't cooperate. They felt paralyzed, not responding to commands from my brain. My whole body seemed disconnected, powerless. Even a simple movement of my head was an impossible task. I lay on the ground, trying to gather my will and strength, but so far without success. Around me, the leaves rustled quietly, and all I could do was listen to the sounds of nature, feeling my vulnerability in the face of such an unpleasant technique.

"Ayamane, show him," the captain said, drawing my attention.

My head slowly turned without my conscious effort, and my eyes lowered. The Nara clan's technique is terrifying. My shadow connected with the tree's shadow, and the tree's shadow connected with another nearby tree. The nearby tree connected with another through an extended shadow emanating from Ayamane herself.

"Suzuki, try to break free," the captain told me.

I tried to move my body, but it was in vain. It meant that physical efforts alone wouldn't overcome this. If that didn't work, I needed to try something else. For example, a burst of chakra. Maybe that would work.

As soon as I concentrated on the remnants of my chakra and expelled it through my tenketsu, the control immediately disappeared. I inhaled, exhaled, and began moving my body, stepping out of the shadows into the sunlight.

"That was something," I said to everyone. "I've never experienced anything like it before."

"Did you like it?" the captain asked in surprise.

"Not really," I shrugged. "It was just interesting because I've never experienced Yamanaka and Nara techniques before."

With that, our training day ended. We headed to the Hokage's administration, where we were supposed to receive our next, more challenging mission. I wonder what the reward will be.