And training did I do, everything I could, like practicing physical reinforcement, trying to create jutsus, and all that, basic stuff.
And, one year passed.
The Academy hadn’t changed much. The classes were still boring, the drills were still repetitive, and most of the kids still acted like they were five steps away from becoming Hokage. The amount of confidence they had was baffling...
But I’d changed, not much, but change is change.
In the past year, I’d refined chakra enhancement to a ridiculous degree. Bones, joints, tendons — I could reinforce everything to the point I could sprint up a cliff without chakra sticking techniques, purely off physical reinforcement.
Both my speed and strength, I had trained hard to increase by chakra reinforcement, I also tried my hand on the Rasengan.
Yeah, I tried creating other jutsus before that, but reality is often disappointing, when the ROB said that I would be ultimate tier in chakra control, and mid in everything else, he really did mean it.
My talent is... average... the kind of talent which can help you learn a jutsu if you know about it in detail, but creating one... nope, way beyond me, so I did what every Naruto fanfic isekai protagonist does.
Plagiarize Rasengan. My only hope, an A rank jutsu enough to make everyone belief my genius, but reality again struck me hard, I simply did not have enough chakra to create a Rasengan.
You might be wondering with my perfect control, I can make rasengan easily, but sadly, Rasengan is my antithesis type of jutsu, that raw, undulating chakra, which is used as a super spinning ball... I did not have the chakra to create the ball at all.
Sure, I could make it spin more, and make every strand of it sharper and much deadlier, but all I could manage was a small rasengan, so I changed my approach.
Instead of copying Minato, I went even further and copied his grandson. So now I have a brand new jutsu, Rasendan.
But that was not all, I’d even figured out how to use chakra threads to manipulate small objects mid-fight — like catching a kunai mid-air or tugging someone’s sleeve while moving.
But that was all it was.
Impressive, but yeah, I am at my limit now, I know nothing more...
Genjutsu? Beyond me, I don’t know how to do it at all, if I could learn one, I could do it better than anyone, but I need to know about how the fuck does one cast a genjutsu in the first place.
Everyone else was learning new jutsu — Fireballs, water clones, even some C-Rank techniques. The clan kids had jutsu scrolls back at home.
The instructors handed out low-tier manuals to those with recommendations. Which I lacked.
Tsunade? She had an entire clan library.
No scrolls. No techniques. No guidance. Just pushups, chakra exercises, and theories based on fragments from lectures.
I wasn’t dumb. But I wasn’t some groundbreaking genius either who could create everything from scratch.
And perfect chakra control couldn’t solve everything. It could make everything easier, more efficient — probably stronger too, but that was all.
It was like having a proper electrical grid and supply, but no appliance to run on with the electricity.
So, I started getting frustrated.
Nothing obvious. Just quiet, invisible weight pressing down on my days. It was faint, I didn’t notice it myself at first, but I was changing.
But Tsunade started noticing.
It was a random afternoon. We were at one of the open training grounds behind the Academy, tossing kunai at moving targets like usual. She’d already landed six bullseyes in a row. I was off today — my throws were a little slower, my form a little sloppy.
She didn’t say anything at first. Just watched me miss another one and then sighed way too loudly.
"Okay, what’s wrong with you?" she asked, hands on her hips. "You’ve been all... grumbly lately."
"Grumbly?" I blinked.
"Yes. Grumbly. That’s the official term. You’ve been sighing more than the old man at the dango shop."
I shrugged, aiming another throw. Missed again. "Just tired, I guess."
Tsunade narrowed her eyes. "Don’t lie. You are a slacker through and through, you haven’t nearly done enough work to get tired."
"...That’s not true."
I stayed silent, hoping she’d drop it.
She jogged over and stood right in front of me, arms crossed. "Spit it out."
"There’s nothing to spit."
Her tone changed. Less teasing. More... firm.
I looked away. Tried to pretend I was stretching my wrist.
"I’m just... plateauing," I muttered finally. "Nothing serious."
Tsunade blinked. "Plateauing?"
I sighed, rubbed my face, and finally sat down under a tree. She followed and dropped beside me.
"I’ve done everything I can with what I have," I said. "My chakra control’s great. My physical reinforcement is top-tier. I can crack boulders with two fingers and throw a punch through a tree."
"But that’s it. That’s all I have. I don’t have any techniques. Except my rasendan, which I can use like once before running out of chakra... No elemental jutsu, no clan ninjutsu, no style. I can only reinforce and hit stuff."
She tilted her head. "That’s still more than ninety percent of the class."
"Not enough," I said quietly. "I feel like I can do more."
Not a giggle. A loud, full-body, throw-her-head-back kind of laugh.
"Wow," she said between laughs, "you’re such an idiot sometimes."
I blinked. "...What?"
"You’ve been sulking for days because you didn’t want to ask for help? That’s adorable."
I frowned. "I’m being serious."
"So am I!" she grinned, slapping my shoulder. "C’mon, why didn’t you just say you wanted access to better training and resources?"
"...I didn’t want to sound like I was leeching off you."
She rolled her eyes so hard I could almost hear it. "First of all, you are leeching off me. You lazy bum have been using my notes for months. Second, I don’t care. You’re my friend."
She stood up, stretched, and cracked her knuckles.
"You’re coming home with me after class. No arguments. I’ll show you some of the beginner clan scrolls, and we’ll train together. You’ve already got better chakra control than all the people in my family tree — I can teach you the usage part."
I stared up at her. "You sure?"
She smirked. "Yeah. Besides, if you keep looking this mopey every day, people will think I’m bullying you."
"...You are bullying me."
"Nonsense. You’re imagining things."
I snorted. "Fine. Deal."
"Good." She offered me a hand. "Now come on. Let’s go break the target dummies until they start billing us for replacements."
As I stood, I felt something shift.
Maybe I couldn’t do everything on my own.
And maybe that was fine.