"Yes."
Yuu nodded. "However, the principles behind the Spirit Transformation Technique are rather profound. It involves chakra transformation on the soul level and controlling the spirit after it leaves the body. I still can't use it yet. I'll need to go back and study it carefully."
The Spirit Transformation Technique was an S-rank ninjutsu on the same level as Flying Thunder God and Water Severing Wave. Its difficulty was indeed far higher than the A-rank Bringer-of-Darkness Technique. Although Yuu had barely completed an encounter with it, he truly could not use it freely yet.
Sarutobi Hiruzen was not surprised by this. He merely reminded him earnestly,
"I don't know whether Tsunade has told you this, but the Spirit Transformation Technique is a very risky ninjutsu. It places extremely high demands on the caster's mind and soul. After it is cast, the main body will be completely defenseless. If the enemy discovers it, the consequences will be unimaginable.
"If you want to practice this technique inside the village, you must be cautious. Do not rush. You can call Anbu in advance to guard your body. As a jōnin, as long as you have a suitable reason, you may temporarily mobilize Anbu."
"…Understood."
Yuu nodded slightly.
Sarutobi Hiruzen gave him a few more instructions, then smiled.
"Alright. You gained quite a lot today. Go back and properly digest it. If there is anything you can't understand, you can come ask me. I'll make time to answer a thing or two for you."
"Thank you, Lord Third. Then I'll take my leave."
Yuu bowed respectfully, then turned and left the archive room.
After leaving the Hokage Building,
Yuu immediately quickened his pace and hurried home. Once he arrived, he did not even bother with dinner. He rushed into his bedroom, took out several blank scrolls, and began copying.
A ninja's memory was stronger than that of ordinary people, but unless one had a cheat, it was still difficult to reach the level of remembering everything after a single glance. As for ninjutsu like Reanimation Jutsu, the technique formula itself was quite complex and included many diagram explanations, making it even harder to memorize.
So Yuu had to quickly convert what he had memorized into writing while the impression was still relatively deep.
The tip of the brush moved quickly across the scroll, making soft rustling sounds.
Suddenly,
Yuu's brush paused. He faintly heard a slight movement from outside the window.
His eyelid twitched, and he swept his peripheral vision toward the window. He vaguely saw a gray-black shadow flash past a leafy tree, like a large gray bird. However, the chakra fluctuation coming from it was definitely not something an ordinary bird could emit.
"…Anbu?"
"No… it should be someone from Root?"
Yuu frowned slightly.
Yuu was not surprised that Root had eyes around him.
After all, Danzō had clearly expressed his intention to recruit him. Although Yuu had rejected him once, he obviously would not give up easily. And with Danzō's abnormal desire for control, it was unlikely that he could tolerate the current Yuu moving completely outside his sight.
Since Sarutobi Hiruzen had already promised to speak with Danzō, Yuu did not dwell on the matter for the time being. He planned to observe the situation first. If the matter was not effectively resolved later…
then it would not be too late to consider responding in his own way.
At once,
Yuu withdrew his gaze, picked up his brush again, and continued writing on the scroll.
One copy of Reanimation Jutsu, one copy of Multiple Shadow Clone. These two were the ninjutsu he remembered more clearly. They were skins for Summoning Technique and Clone Technique, respectively.
The former was a legendary limited skin, so he could not gift it for now. But the latter could be given, since Yuu had already maxed out the affection of the Three Basic Techniques long ago.
[Clone Technique: Wow! It's a new skin!]
[Clone Technique: Hehe, as expected, I'm little Mikami's true favorite. Every time there's a new outfit, you think of me first! Fireball, how did you know I got another new skin? Seeing this, are you jealous?]
[Great Fireball Technique: Who asked you? Hmph… you make it sound like no one else has several outfits. I really don't know what there is to show off about.]
[Substitution Technique: …]
"Uh…"
Seeing Substitution Technique appear, Yuu inexplicably felt a little guilty.
Fine.
He really had intended to get Orochimaru-Style Substitution Technique from Orochimaru and give it to Substitution Technique. Unfortunately, due to various reasons, he had not been able to do so yet. Now that he had withdrawn from the southwestern battlefield, it would probably not be easy to obtain in the short term.
He could only later search through the ninjutsu archive in the mission hall, or ask Tsunade whether there were other types of Substitution Technique that could be used as skins to fill this gap…
…
The next day,
Yuu called Rin and went to the training field on the west side of the village, intending to consolidate the ninjutsu he had newly learned.
As soon as they arrived, they saw two familiar figures standing at one side of the training field. They were Kakashi and Obito.
These two seemed to have arrived early and had already trained for a while. One was supporting himself with both hands on his knees and adjusting his breathing, while the other sat on a wooden post reading a dirty book. The moment the former saw Yuu and Rin, he immediately jumped up as if injected with chicken blood.
"Yuu! Rin! I knew you'd come!"
Obito put his hands on his hips, raised his chin high, and spoke loudly.
"You came just in time! These past two days, I went to Lord Fugaku for special training and learned an incredibly powerful genjutsu! Yuu, do you dare accept my challenge, Uchiha Obito's challenge?"
Beside him, Kakashi seemed to want to say something, but stopped before the words came out. He also wanted Yuu as a sparring partner to help test the Chidori Current he had recently figured out. But because Obito had spoken first, he could only temporarily keep quiet.
On this side,
Yuu looked at the two of them, the corner of his mouth curving slightly.
"Sure. Why don't both of you come at me together? That'll save time."
"?"
Obito was displeased.
"Hey, you're being way too arrogant! Seriously, you actually dare look down on us… Kakashi, let's go! Let him witness the power of the Uchiha clan!"
"…I'm not surnamed Uchiha."
Kakashi corrected him, then put away Icha Icha Paradise and jumped down from the tree stump.
"Then let's begin, Yuu. Be careful. The current me and Obito are not at the same level as when we were on the Sunagakure battlefield."
A brief standoff followed.
Then Yuu clasped his hands and quickly formed seals.
"Ninja Art: Bringer-of-Darkness Technique!"
In an instant,
Kakashi and Obito felt their vision blur. Then everything before them went dark, as if they had been thrown into the deepest ocean trench. Sunlight, trees… even the ground beneath their feet—every bit of light and scenery disappeared, leaving only boundless, heart-chilling darkness.
"W-what's going on?"
Obito shouted in panic, desperately widening his Sharingan, but he could not capture even the slightest outline of Yuu in the darkness. Even Kakashi beside him had disappeared from his sight. Only his voice still came through.
"It's a new ninjutsu… focus on defense! He should already be coming!"
As he spoke,
Kakashi held his breath and focused, raising his chakra sensing ability to the limit while trying to observe and listen to every movement around him. But the darkness before him seemed able to conceal sound and chakra fluctuations, making it impossible for him to judge Yuu's position—until a strong gust of wind attacked from beside him.
Whoosh—!
At the critical moment, Kakashi relied on his honed taijutsu instincts and suddenly turned sideways, raising his arm to block. With a bang, a tremendous force smashed into his forearm, numbing his arm and forcing him to stagger back several steps.
The next moment, a scream came from Obito's side as well.
At this moment, Yuu was like a leopard in the dark. Using the cover of the Bringer-of-Darkness Technique, he continuously launched close-range taijutsu attacks against the two. Kakashi could still barely block and dodge, but Obito directly turned into a human sandbag, beaten dizzy and shouting wildly.
"This won't work… Raikiri!"
Judging the current situation, Kakashi suddenly shouted and condensed chakra in his palm, forming a dazzling mass of blue-white lightning that tore apart a small area of darkness around him.
Immediately after, the violent lightning transformed into countless fine blue-white arcs, like thousands of spirit snakes, covering Kakashi's body and releasing piercing chirps. This was the shape transformation Kakashi had only recently developed and still could not use very steadily—
Chidori Current!
With lightning covering his entire body, if Yuu still directly punched and kicked like before, he would definitely be shocked and enter a brief state of paralysis. That would be Kakashi's chance to counterattack.
On the other side,
Obito heard the movement from Raikiri and immediately shouted toward the source of the sound.
"Kakashi, are you okay? Did you find Yuu's position?"
"Shut up! Listen carefully to the movement around you!"
Before Kakashi's words could finish, Obito heard wind behind his head. He hurriedly dodged sideways, but was still punched flying by Yuu. However, the instant he landed, he had a flash of inspiration and formed a seal. Ripples like water spread across his body, and then he vanished.
"…Transparent Escape?"
Yuu recognized Obito's move. It was the Transparent Escape Jiraiya had taught them back in Wildfire City. At that time, Obito had tested it once, found the effect poor, and had not continued. He had not expected Obito to secretly practice it until he was familiar with it… As expected of a naturally evil Uchiha.
However…
Transparent Escape was only visual invisibility. It could not conceal chakra fluctuations.
Yuu quickly used All-Spirit Perception to distinguish Obito's chakra location. Then he attacked from behind, sending several heavy punches at him. Obito was beaten until lumps covered his head, and he groaned from the pain.
As for Kakashi, he was not so easy to deal with.
Yuu moved through the darkness for a while, found an opening, and suddenly burst forward. As he closed in, he drew his sword. Jumping lightning wrapped around the blade as he slashed at Kakashi with an iaijutsu strike. The force of the sword seemed as if it could even cut space apart.
"!?"
Kakashi's pupils contracted sharply. He pushed Chidori Current's defense to its limit and also drew a kunai from his ninja pouch to block in front of himself. Then he was struck by an immense force, his whole body flying far away like a kite with its string cut.
Even under these circumstances, Kakashi still counterattacked. He suddenly burst the remaining Lightning Release chakra on his body outward, turning it into dozens of tiny lightning snakes that shot toward Yuu like a storm of pear-blossom needles. But Yuu responded with Great Dragon Fire Technique.
Boom—!!!
Amid the roaring of the flame dragon, all the lightning snakes were shattered and canceled out. Kakashi was also blown away by the fire wave. In a hurry, he used Substitution Technique, and his real body appeared on the ground more than ten meters away, panting violently.
"It's over."
After a brief silence,
Obito sprang up from the ground with a kip-up and shouted,
"Damn it! Yuu, you're too despicable! You secretly learned another new ninjutsu, and it's such a cheating ninjutsu too… I didn't even get a chance to use my genjutsu!"
"Heh."
Yuu thought, Who do you think the Bringer-of-Darkness Technique was developed to deal with? But out loud, he said casually,
"What's despicable or not? Ninjutsu is only useful or not useful. There's no such thing as cheating. Didn't you also hide Transparent Escape?"
"This…"
Obito was speechless.
"That… that was tactics! Tactics, do you understand? Besides, I'm not very practiced with it yet…"
On the other side, Kakashi lowered his head, thinking about the Chidori Current form he had just used, repeatedly deducing its flaws and shortcomings.
Next,
the four of them continued practicing on the training field for a while. Yuu took the opportunity to inspect Rin's cultivation progress. Only when noon arrived did they tidy up and go to Ichiraku Ramen together for a meal.
"Yuu, Rin, where are you going this afternoon?"
Obito asked.
"As for me, I'll probably go check on Yakushi Kabuto and the others. His vision only recovered recently, so I need to confirm how he's adapting. Also, those civilians from Mount Kikyo have just been settled down. They need someone from the village to act as a guide… Yuu, do you want to come with me?"
Rin looked at Yuu.
"…Tomorrow."
Yuu smiled. "I have some other arrangements today."
"Alright then."
After the meal,
Obito eagerly followed Rin to find Yakushi Kabuto.
Kakashi continued heading to the training field to develop ninjutsu.
Yuu, meanwhile, walked alone through Konoha's streets at an unhurried pace. When he passed through a relatively quiet alley, he glanced at the Root ninja following not far behind him. Then he clasped his hands and quickly formed several seals.
Poof!
A soft puff of white smoke rose and enveloped Yuu's figure. When the smoke dispersed, there was no one left there, only a few slowly falling leaves.
Dozens of meters behind him,
the Root ninja wearing a tanuki mask had his pupils contract. He immediately rushed out from the shadows and charged to the place where Yuu had disappeared, looking around in shock and anger.
"Damn it… how did this guy suddenly disappear? Was it space-time ninjutsu?"
Although the intelligence said that Yuu had not yet learned Flying Thunder God, the fact that he possessed "space-time ninjutsu talent" was real. Now that the other party had suddenly disappeared, he had clearly discovered he was being followed. If this news reached Lord Danzō's ears…
he probably would not be very pleased.
Just as the Root ninja was struggling over whether to report the target's disappearance to Danzō, and how to report it,
Yuu's figure had already appeared somewhere else.
"Huh, it's Yuu!"
A furry head poked out from a crack between rocks not far away, looking at Yuu and squeaking.
"…It's you again, Tarōmaru."
Yuu recognized the yellow figure in his vision.