Contrary to Kakashi's expectations, Sasuke mastered the Rasengan the very next day, and Sakura followed suit on the third day.
Naruto, who had originally taken nearly forty days to learn the technique in the manga, achieved it even faster than Sakura, thanks to the relentless efforts of his nearly a thousand Shadow Clones.
He was already itching to apply the Rasengan's principles to the Konoha Dragon God.
This left Kakashi in a bit of a bind.
He had hoped to enjoy some downtime during the remaining seven days, but his students' rapid progress had thrown his plans into disarray. By the third day, they had all mastered the Rasengan.
For other teachers, having three prodigies as students would be a dream come true.
But for Kakashi, it meant fewer opportunities to slack off. His students' exceptional talent left him wondering what else he could teach them.
It was as if his carefully designed month-long training plan had been completed in just a week, and he hadn't yet figured out what to do next.
Unable to think of anything else to teach Team Seven, Kakashi dismissed them under the pretense of "individual practice," leaving them to train on their own.
After Kakashi left, the members of Team Seven exchanged glances. Sasuke spoke first.
"Since Teacher Kakashi wants us to communicate on our own, let's do just that. Come to think of it, we've never really had a deep conversation before. I'll start."
"Sakura, I want to learn your Body Flicker Technique!" Sasuke declared bluntly, turning to Sakura.
"Huh?!" Naruto blurted out, stunned. He quickly recovered and shouted, "I want to learn it too!"
What followed was a flurry of mutual deference, entanglement, and bickering.
'Sakura:' "Sasuke-kun, if you want to learn it, just go ahead. Don't be shy!"
'Naruto:' "Anything Sasuke learns, I want to learn too!"
'Sasuke:' "Enough talk! Just do as I say!"
In the end, Sasuke and Naruto each exchanged their respective techniques—Sasuke's Shisui-style Body Flicker Technique and Naruto's Steel Fist Style Taijutsu—for Sakura's Body Flicker Technique.
With that matter resolved, the trio's conversation naturally shifted to the newly learned Rasengan.
"Look at this," Sakura said, holding up a blue Chakra ball to Naruto and Sasuke. "Even though the Rasengan has 'spiral' in its name, it's actually just a single-directional, high-speed rotation, not a dual-directional one!"
"A true Rasengan should be like a whirlpool in the ocean. If the centrifugal force on the outside of the vortex spirals leftward, then the centrifugal force on the inside should spiral rightward. The entrance should be negative, the exit positive; conversely, if the exit is negative, the entrance should be positive—just like the magnetic fields of positive and negative poles or the yin-yang fish of Eight Trigrams, generating immense attraction and repulsive force!"
Naruto stared blankly, utterly lost. He didn't understand a word about centrifugal force, repulsive force, or positive and negative poles.
Thankfully, he grasped the difference between unidirectional and bidirectional rotation.
"Sakura, what's the difference between a Rasengan with unidirectional rotation and one with bidirectional rotation?"
"Of course there's a difference!"
Sakura glanced at him calmly, her gaze devoid of malice or condescension. Yet Naruto inexplicably sensed a hint of disdain—the disdain of a top student.
"Naruto, you've seen whirlpools before, right?"
Pausing, Sakura remembered Naruto's wind affinity and, fearing he might not understand, continued, "You know about hurricanes and typhoons, right?"
"Yeah!"
"In my vision, a Rasengan with bidirectional rotation would generate immense pulling forces, just like a hurricane."
Sakura smiled confidently. "To put it another way," she explained, "once the Rasengan possesses a pulling force, the closer we get to an enemy while using it, the stronger the pull becomes, making it nearly impossible for them to escape. They'll be drawn in and struck, just like someone caught in a whirlpool!"
"When the Rasengan becomes powerful enough, it can even pull enemies toward us with its pulling force alone, making them come to us to get hit!"
"Like this!"
As she spoke, Sakura retracted the Rasengan in her hand.
After a moment's thought, she reopened her palm, revealing delicate Chakra threads as supple and smooth as water. The outer layer of threads rotated continuously counterclockwise, while the inner layer spun endlessly clockwise.
The moment the threads materialized, Sasuke and Naruto felt a faint pulling force.
"Unfortunately, this is the limit of what I can achieve for now," Sakura sighed. "Maintaining the opposite directions of rotation at high speeds isn't a problem with my Chakra control, but compressing and solidifying them into a cohesive form—that's beyond my current abilities."
As Sakura spoke, she attempted to mold the chakra in her hands into a cohesive form, but the bi-directional swirling chakra strands began to waver.
"Sakura, your chakra control isn't the problem," Sasuke, who had been pondering silently, finally spoke up. "In fact, your chakra control is already more than sufficient for this. The reason you can't do it now isn't because of your chakra control, but because you haven't mastered the Rasengan yet!"
"If you've truly mastered the Rasengan, with your natural talent, you could not only create this tensile Rasengan, but also take it a step further. In the future, by infusing it with Water Release nature transformation, you could even form the true Water Vortex Rasengan."
"Is that so?" Sakura nodded thoughtfully.
If there was one talent she was most proud of and excelled at, it was undoubtedly her chakra control. Even when she was very young, her parents had often marveled at her innate aptitude for manipulating chakra.
"What about you, Naruto?" Sasuke turned to Naruto and asked, "What's your next plan?"
"Of course, I'm going to merge the Rasengan with the Konoha Dragon God!"
"That's a great idea!" Naruto shouted without hesitation.
Sasuke smiled faintly. "Not bad. But the old problem remains: you still haven't mastered the Rasengan. I suggest you learn from Sakura first, perfect the Rasengan, and then develop your own unique version!"
"Huh?"
Naruto scratched the back of his head, looking puzzled. "But I can't do that dual-directional rotation like Sakura does."
"Sakura's strength lies in her precise Chakra control. What about you?"
"Me?"
Naruto froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"Then I'll just pour more Chakra into the Rasengan! I've already got the names: Great Ball Rasengan, Super Great Ball Rasengan, Ultra Big Ball Rasengan—"
While Sakura needed technique and control to enhance the Rasengan's power, Naruto, with his naturally massive Chakra reserves, had a much simpler solution: if the power wasn't enough, just pump in more Chakra!
It was that simple!
"What about you, Sasuke?"
Having decided on their paths, the two turned to Sasuke simultaneously.
"Me?" Sasuke shook his head slightly, his voice calm. "I'll stick with my current methods for now."
"I'm about the same as you guys," Sasuke replied.
"Tch, what a vague answer," Naruto scoffed.
Sasuke wasn't actually being vague. The principles behind the Rasengan were invaluable for refining and enhancing his Lightning Release Sword Technique.
He had long known that Naruto could increase Chakra output to amplify the technique's power.
However, Sakura's theory—that mimicking water vortices with bidirectional rotation creates a pulling force—had piqued his interest immensely.
He planned to experiment with this in his sword techniques later, to see if it would work.
His Lightning Release Sword Technique was already lightning-fast; if he could also generate a pulling force, future opponents would find it even harder to evade.
Lost in thought, Sasuke glanced westward and casually asked, "Sakura, isn't that the Kubisaki Territory of the Land of Fire over there?"
Sakura followed his gaze, pondered for a moment, and nodded.
"Mm-hmm!"
The Kubisaki Territory had once been the Kubisaki Kingdom, a small nation located on the northeastern border of the Land of Fire. Over fifty years ago, the kingdom mysteriously fell, and its Daimyo vanished without a trace.
After enduring various conflicts and entanglements, the Kubisaki Territory was formally incorporated into the Land of Fire's dominion over a decade ago, becoming a local administrative region.
As an academic prodigy, Sakura possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of the Ninja World's history and geography. Sasuke's question posed no challenge to her.
"That's good!" Sasuke nodded, ending the conversation.
Two nights later, deep into the night.
Leaving a Shadow Clone in his room, Sasuke slipped out of the Land of Waves under cover of darkness, his movements as ghostly and silent as a wraith. He sped toward the Kubisaki Territory.
The Kubisaki Territory wasn't far from the Land of Waves; both lay along the eastern border of the Land of Fire. The key difference was that the Kubisaki Territory was an integral part of the Land of Fire's territory, while the Land of Waves remained an independent neighboring country.
In just over an hour, Sasuke reached the Kubisaki Territory. After a brief reconnaissance and sensing his surroundings, he pinpointed his direction and ventured alone into a mysterious ancient castle.
Inside the castle, in a hidden chamber...
After a bit of effort, Sasuke effortlessly navigated his way to this concealed location.
In the center of the room hung a mysterious scroll, nearly half a man's height. Sasuke stepped forward, took it down, and unfurled it.
It was a Summoning Scroll. As Sasuke slowly unrolled it, he noticed that almost all the names began with "Kubisaki."
When Sasuke reached the second-to-last name, a strange expression flashed across his eyes.
'Kishimoto Masashi?'
'Old Bastard!'
Sasuke cursed inwardly. He immediately signed his name in blood on the scroll, then left the room and returned to his quarters in the Land of Waves.
The entire operation had taken less than four hours.
Several days later, the bridge was completed. Contrary to everyone's expectations, Gato didn't launch an attack; instead, he mysteriously vanished.
In the presence of Team Seven, Tazuna, in gratitude for the Konoha ninja's friendship, named the newly constructed bridge—Konoha Bridge!
With everything settled, Team Seven set out on their journey back to the Land of Fire.
Notes:
Kubisaki Territory originates from the Naruto anime, specifically the "The Mysterious Curse of the Haunted Castle" episode.
Author Kishimoto Masashi makes a cameo appearance as an Easter egg.
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