“Okay, kids. Now that you have had time to rest and recover from yesterday's test, are you ready to be taught some super cool jutsus and techniques to take the world by storm?” I said, letting my smile creep into my voice towards the end. The three nodded their heads eagerly.
“Hmm, okay, well, today we are going to go over the schedule a little. At the academy, you spent 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, learning and training. I plan on only doing 5 hours a day, 5 days a week with you guys. I can’t give you any more than that because of my other responsibilities.”
Rei raised her hand. “Amon sensei, My brother only spent 2 to 4 hours a day training when he was on a team.” She and the others where kneeling on pillows inside the dojo while I stood, I was to comfortable standing and giving lectures. I will have to change my teaching method soon, but for now, standing up and lecturing would have to be done.
I nodded my head. “Yes, I suspected as much. I will tell you this now before we get too far ahead. I will be training you differently than other ninjas.”
“Why,” Moko asked so earnestly that she forgot to raise her hand.
“Make sure to raise your hand if you have a question, but I will answer your question with a question of my own. Before the founding of the academy system and the villages, how and why did you think little ninjas like yourself were trained?”
The trio looked at one another, and Iemitsu nervously raised his hand, and I nodded to let him answer. “Before villages, it was mainly clans training themselves to keep their family safe.”
I clapped to show that he gave a good answer which made the boy smile, a little positive reinforcement goes a long way. “A good answer, and close to the truth as well. Tomorrow night is the 50th anniversary of the village's founding. Don’t worry; I won’t ask who the founding clans are, ” A sigh of relief escaped the three students as I rolled my eyes and mentally patted myself on the back about predicting their lack of memory. “But roughly 30 to 40% of the village population today is made out of or where a vassal to one of the founding clans.”
“Have we lost that many?!” Moko shouted in surprise. She did not raise her hand.
“Raise your hand if you have a question, but no, we have not lost 60 to 70% of the clan population. That would be horrifying, and every clan would consider abandoning the village if they lost that many family members. No, much of the village population is comprised of non-combatants who joined after the village's founding.
“The way ninjas were trained before the village creation was by an apprentice system. An older family member would take a younger one under their wing and teach them the ropes. This system has its pros and cons. One of the dangers and cons is if combat is required. Many clan kids who were younger than you three died because their teacher dragged their apprentice around all over the place and eventually got hurt. To avoid that from happening, we now use the academy system to train you in the basics and weed out those unsuitable for shinobi life.”
“You said that you are going to be different,” Moko said, then realized she didn’t raise her hand and quickly shot her hand up. “Are you going to start taking us on missions?”
I gave a look which made her sheepishly look down and mutter an apology. “I will be taking you out on missions eventually, but I have no plans to do it so soon. If you guys are bad on money, I will have you work at the hospital for extra cash, but I will be focusing on training you for the time we have. I will be different in many ways, but the main time sink is focusing on recovery.”
“Re-” Moko shot her hand up and stopped talking.
“Yes, Moko, do you have a question?”
“Recovery sir?”
“Yes, the reason Rei’s brother only did 2 to 4 hours was because after that amount of time, you are supposed to recover. However, most people don’t spend that time recovering; instead, they do other things like errands, chores, or having fun. Recovery is just as important as training.” The kids wanted to roll their eyes, but I pressed on.
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“The days are going to look like this: first is warm-ups, followed by katas, then jutsu practice, sparring, chakra control exercises, and finally, basic education.”
Moko wanted to shout but instead raised her hand, and I called on her. “More school stuff, why? I thought we were done.”
“Other Jonin senseis will almost certainly agree with you, but education is important to me. The finest weapon a warrior has in their arsenal is their mind. I will not allow you to let yours rot away in your skull.”
Even though two of my students got high marks in academic knowledge back at the academy, none seemed excited about returning to civilian lessons. “Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, would you guys like me to teach you one of the most powerful jutsu ever?” Hope filled their eyes as they looked at me. I pulled out three seal tags and tossed them at my students. They flinched seeing the tags as they looked similar to explosive tags, seeing how slow their reaction time is, I made a mental note to work on reflex training in the future.
The three grabbed their individual tags and looked at them. “This is a pre-made jutsu tag. If you funnel chakra into the tag, it will act as a replacement for hand signs and help you perform the jutsu.”
Iemitsu raised his hand. “Which jutsu is it.”
“The B rank Shadow Clone jutsu!” A look of disappointment appeared on all three faces. “Hey, hey, hey, don’t give me that look. After a lifetime of research, I’ll let you know that the Shadow Clone Jutsu is one of the strongest utility jutsu there is. Rivaling even the late great Fourth Hokage teleportation technique.”
“Yeah, but it’s like…the scouting jutsu. Even my brother has this one.”
“Okay, teleportation is also a “Scouting” jutsu,” I said, doing air quotes with my fingers. “Two, your brother is lucky to have gotten access to a B-rank jutsu like this. I wasn’t allowed to get access to this bad boy until I was accepted as a member of the Guardian Twelve, and even then, I had to make the argument that a jutsu like this would help me be a better guard.”
Even with my passionate defense, they still didn’t seem impressed. If they only knew the hurdles I had to go through to get my hands on this legendary jutsu, they would be worshipping the ground I walk on. “Just run your chakra through the seal as you would with a paper bomb,” I ordered my three ungrateful students.
They begrudgingly followed my instructions and started to run their chakra through the seal. It took a few minutes, and unlike paper bombs, the shadow clone seal was more complicated. The Shadow Clone Jutsu is one of the least complex jutsu to perform, which is why I was able to make a paper seal for it. I could only shorten the casting time for other, more complicated jutsus with the same method.
With a pop, Rei was first, and a second, she came into life. “Hey! I did…” She was as far as she got when a sudden wave of exhaustion hit her, and with another pop, her clone disappeared as she hit the floor unconscious. I took a few steps closer to make sure she was alright.
“Ehh, what happened to her?”
“The same that is likely going to happen to you. The Shadow Clone jutsu is an amazing jutsu, but it has two to three drawbacks. The reason your teammate fainted just now and why it’s a B-Rank jutsu is one of them. The jutsu doesn’t actively take an arbitrary amount of chakra from the one that performs it like other jutsus. Instead, it evenly splits the amount of charka the performer has among the clones. Rei just had her chakra pool divided by two, seeing Rei became a Genin literally yesterday. Her chakra pool went too low, too fast, and she fainted.”
“Should we be doing this? It seems kinda dangerous.”
“It is “kinda dangerous,” but no more than practicing any jutsu right now at your level.” What I was afraid of was starting to happen. After seeing their teammate collapse, the other two became reluctant to perform the jutsu. I could wait for the girl to get better and show her off to her friends to prove that there was nothing to worry about, but this was why I performed the test on them in the first place. “This is just one of the many “kinda dangerous” things you will be doing. I love this jutsu for you guys because, unlike other jutsu, this will divide your charka equally. In theory, this is as scary as it’s going to get, the first time you perform it, is going to be the single biggest jutsus you have ever perform, and with few exceptions will ever perform with regards to your chakra pool.”
The two looked at each other, and Iemitsu looked back at the seal in his hand. Without further hesitation, he returned to channeling his chakra into the paper seal. After a minute, Rei woke up, and I told her to rest for a few minutes. As I suspected, Moko’s determination returned, seeing Rei was safe.
Despite his head start, Moko performed the jutsu before him and fainted like Rei. Seeing this, Iemitsu doubled his effort and, before Moko woke up, managed to make a clone of himself. Unlike the other two, he didn’t faint, and I managed to tell him how to release the clone and, more importantly, regain most of the chakra he used to make it.
“Is that it? I feel exhausted.” Moko commented after she recovered.
“No, today will be a little different from future days, but the exhaustion is half the point. Two of the biggest advantages a shinobi has on other people, including other shinobi, are A large chakra pool, and two chakra control. The best way to train both of those is what we are doing right now.”
“We can get a large chakra pool with this,” Iemitsu asked.
“Yes, your chakra is like a muscle. If you regularly perform Large, impressive, and flashy jutsus. Your chakra pool will get bigger. If you regularly practice small amounts of chakra control. Your control will get better. However, chakra control is harder to practice the larger your chakra pool is.”
“But with the Shadow clone cutting our pools in half, we can practice easier.”
“While training ourselves to have larger chakra pools.” Iemitsu and Moko realized.
“That’s cool and all, but if it’s that easy, why doesn’t everyone do this?”
“They can and they can’t. First, like I said before, Getting your hands on the Shadow clone jutsu is difficult. It’s a jutsu exclusive to the Leaf village, rarely ever seen performed by foreign shinobi. Second, as you have seen today, it is a dangerous jutsu to perform. You can die of chakra exhaustion. It’s rare, I can count on one hand of people I have heard of that have died of it, and all of those where in the heat of battle with other injuries compounding the problem. But I am here, Princess Tsunade Senju is the greatest medical ninja in all of the shinobei world, but when it comes to treating chakra exhaustion. I am the best.”