RiaN Chapter 14 (Patreon)

Before class started again, I had to test some things. I hadn’t used my invisible barrier to block any jutsu and wanted to test it before actual combat. A clone of myself sat across from me as I prepared for the test. Acting like a scientist, I spoke up. “Alright, testing super secret amazing invisible barrier. Test one: Can the invisible barrier block ninjutsu? Test number one, great fireball jutsu!”

My fireball jutsu was bigger than Sasuke’s, but he could use it far faster, and I didn’t have the method to use it without the breathing technique. The fire blew right past the barrier, it was so shocking my clone forgot to move out of the way as my own attack hit my clone, bursting it. I couldn’t help but yell out to myself. “What? It doesn’t stop jutsu?”

I kept practicing as I gauged out all the details of the barrier. It only stopped jutsu that had a material component to them. It meant that most wind and fire jutsu went straight past it, while water and earth jutsu were blocked. A normal clone could go straight through it, but a shadow clone couldn’t. I punched the barrier, and it didn’t feel like I was punching a hard wall but rather non-newtonian fluid.

It felt like all my force was absorbed; at the same time, I felt a power building up inside the barrier. I kept punching as I tried to work out what the power I was building up was before I finally figured it out. I was storing up the kinetic energy the shield absorbed. I could use that kinetic energy in a similar attack to the allmighty push and pull. Not just that, but if I unsummoned the barrier, the stored kinetic energy would push out like a bomb similar to Pain.

My burst had no time limit; it just required me to resupply kinetic energy if it ran out. The kinetic energy could also block fire and wind jutsu; it just took the shield's stored energy instead of adding to it. I assumed it would work similarly with lightning jutsu, but I didn’t know any at the moment to test. I hammered on the shield and figured out that about one thousand punches was the limit of the kinetic energy I could store.

Something else I found is that the kinetic energy stored bled out, making it impossible to keep at one hundred percent. It bled out more than ten percent in a single day but stabilized and drained much slower the closer it got to zero percent. Under ten percent it no longer drained, or it drained so slowly it was unnoticeable. That year, I spent grinding new jutsu and learning as much as I possibly could. Before the end of my second year of school, I finally did it.

I brought my mom in first. She had gotten back to work as one of the few producers of the frog oil alcohol their family produces. Thankfully, it wasn’t a job that required that much time, so she was free most days, which she filled by taking care of me, but now she does ninja work in her free time. She was surprised when I brought her into the basement, even more surprised when I started to cast a jutsu she had never seen before.

I sort of mumbled to myself while I was casting it. “I mean, if it was just earth and water jutsu, you’d think you’d see more of them, so it got me thinking. What if it isn’t? What if it is more than just earth and water to create wood release? So I got to experimenting and.” I say, loud enough for her to hear this next part. “Wood release, small spear tree.”

A pathetically small and slow root appeared from the ground that slowly formed into a sapling in the shape of a spear. The move was highly unstable, it took far more chakra than it should, and it had no use in actual battle, but I still couldn’t help but smile from my mom's reaction to me using wood release. “W-w-w-what the heck is that!? When, no, how?” I couldn’t help but feel smug that I figured it out.

It wasn’t just earth and water but also more yang chakra than the other two combined. In the same way Naruto brute forced his shadow clone and rasengan by giving it more chakra than what is required to make up his lack of chakra control, I did the same to start learning how to use wood style. I brute forced a kekkei genkai. I didn’t think it was possible for non-Senju to do, at least not until someone figured out how other kekkei genkai worked.

I would have more than a decade to perfect it before I needed to use it in a real fight, and it came across as far more useful as a trump card for the village than for fighting. I wasn’t sure if I should even tell the village yet, because using it to detain a jinchuriki when they’re not aware that someone has this kekkei genkai seemed more valuable. Imagine Gaara shows up and gets fucking clapped before he can do anything because I grow a tree up his ass.

She thought the same as she whispered. “We need… How do I get ahold of the wood release without giving away that you can use it? First, don’t tell anyone that you have wood release. We need to keep it a secret. We should tell your father but… This is crazy! This is the stuff Uncle Orochi did all the time when he would suddenly gain a new power!”

…

More years passed as I easily glided through school with my clone, while only showing up for the practical lessons on Monday. Not much happened. I sat at the top of the practical lessons when it came to taijutsu and ninjutsu, but my ranged and written test scores kept me from being the undisputed top student. We had multiple students now who scored perfectly on every test we took, most civilians put into the elite class, but some were from clans.

I just couldn’t be bothered to pay attention, and most of my slip-ups were from me rushing the tests because they weren’t important to me. The same went for ranged practice, it just didn’t make much sense to me to get good at something I’ll never use as a ninja. I was about to turn ten, and next year, we’d get to pick a specialization to focus on for the foreseeable future.

I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet as I could learn outside the class as well. So, I was looking for teachers for the other subjects that would be better than learning in school before picking my focus. Kenjutsu, sensory, fuinjutsu, medic or support. That was the five bonus classes we’d begin learning, and I was still looking for someone to teach me healing jutsu so I could pick something else to learn in school.

Medics were extremely important, and unlike in the show, every ninja had their focus to fall back on outside for combat. At least that was how it was for Konoha, I couldn’t speak for the other villages. This system just made more sense to me. Very little ninja work now is actual fighting; the battle is won most of the time by the team that notices the other first. That’s why I was leaning towards the support class, it seemed like the most useful specialization to pick up outside of war and the only class I wouldn’t find someone outside of the school to teach because it was a freshly added class.