CHAPTER 20

Yuske knew that after completing the first two steps of chakra control training, and before moving on to walking on water, he would need to create a couple of makeshift boats by sticking a semblance of a sail on a piece of wood so that his little lie would not be detected. Only after that he can bring the basin into the room, fill it with water, and when parents are not around - start practicing the control technique.

Things should get easier from there, and it should be enough to throw a couple of towels next to the basin so that if there are splashes of water, he won't soak everything around him.

* It is decided, tomorrow morning I will do the necessary routine of body training, and in the afternoon and almost till the night I will occupy myself with chakra control. – Yuske wanted to stick to this pattern of daily training for years until his chakra control reached the desired results. Only after that can one move on to the study of ninjutsu, which in his understanding is very closely related to Nature Transformation.

He didn't have any other options for the time being anyway, which made it impossible for him to occupy himself with anything else.

He clearly didn't have enough chakra to produce large amounts of black substance, much less learning ninjutsu right now.

Increasing his chakra reserves was possible either by waiting until he was older or resorting to more exhausting workouts. Growth would happen on its own, and as for the strenuous training, not only was it impossible to predict whether it would really give a serious increase in chakra reserves, but, as mentioned earlier, he considered it inappropriate for a growing body.

Yuske didn't want to miss out on the potential of his own body because of his greed, or worse, cripple himself and thus live this life as a disabled person as well. Accordingly, there is a lot of free time after the morning light training, and the only acceptable alternative, based on the fact that it does not cost a lot of chakra, the boy considered training in chakra control, which in the future should have a very strong impact on his strength.

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Somewhere in the Land of Fire.

* Here comes the last one. – Azuma Izuno repeatedly lamented over the oddness of the task itself over the course of his data collection.

The fact is that the civilians chosen as spies were very 'motley' personalities: at times they were the goofballs of the village, at other times grumpy old fossils.

Jonin believed that whoever was in charge of selecting these 'personnel' was clearly someone with a little extra wind in his head.

The genin team, on the other hand, turned out to be pretty flimsy. Granted not much was expected of the kids, but such a weak jonin made it impossible to even get into the spirit of the battle. He was able to get out of the genjutsu, but in combat he was of little use.

The sole survivor of the recon squad kept pondering how in the world their village had managed to lose the last war to such an enemy. The jonin had some guesses as to why their squad had been sent on this mission, and if they were correct, the intel he'd gotten would allow Iwagakure to make plans for the next few years, and they promised nothing more than the imminent start of a new war.

After receiving reports from the last 'spy', he moved towards the border located between the Land of Fire and the Village Hidden in the Grass.

Initially, the squad were supposed to return using the same route they had taken to sneak into the Land of Fire, but if no one but him could make it to the gathering point, then by now the border between the Village Hidden by Waterfall and the Land of Fire must be cordoned off by Leaf shinobi.

The Stone jonin's musings were false in their bud, but there was no way he could know such a thing. Had he known that Konoha had not increased the intensity of its border security in order not to escalate the conflict, and that Iwa ninja had been eliminated by Root's Anbu, and that the same Root, with the help of chakra sensors, was still watching him, he would have rushed to the border with all his might, gaining any chance of survival. In truth, this was not required either, since Root's Anbu had been given strict orders to allow this jonin to successfully leave the Land of Fire. Even more, if Konoha's ninja discovered him, Root would have to eliminate their own shinobi, while doing it quietly enough not to arouse any suspicion from the Stone jonin.

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The Yoshida family's backyard.

* As expected, doing the exercises has gotten easier and my movements aren't as puppet-like, but it's likely that further progress will be without sudden jumps in strength. – The next morning, Yuske once again waited for his parents to leave and began his exercise routine anew.

Immediately after beginning the same course of action, he had taken yesterday, he found that the exercises came much easier to him. He clearly realized that he needed to push himself even harder in training to get even more strength, but it was not advisable.

Given his reluctance to put pressure on his own two year old body, he didn't go after another spike in strength, instead opting to do only the available minimum of exercise over the next few years, which would smoothly and gradually increase his chakra reserves.

Finishing off a short exercise to warm up, he began what was of most interest to him at the moment, namely moving on to his planned exercise to improve his chakra control.

After Yuske had collected two dozen of the most intact leaves from the backyard he went up to his room, and closing the door behind him began to ponder over the procedure itself.

- So, from what should I start? - Unfortunately, he didn't have a clear understanding at the moment, so he decided to start by chaotically running chakra in waves throughout his body, which he had done yesterday with the chakra paper, while trying to attach a leaf to his forehead.

Yuske believed that if chakra is concentrated in the abdomen, then the most reasonable point to attach it would be the forehead, being one of the farthest away from the belly and yet a point on which it is very easy to concentrate.

The first few attempts were unsuccessful, the leaf just fell off, but eventually it began to take hold for a few brief moments, though the training had to be stopped.

His chakra reserves were so meager that a few runs in waves through his entire body were enough to exhaust himself, given that he had only converted 25% of his chakra into the black substance before starting the training.

25% was equal to his natural hour-long chakra generation, which he decided to take as a standard for the future habit of constantly refining chakra into a black substance without letting it waste away.

Having decided that today would be the day to find out the details of Leaf Concentration Practice, Yuske sat down and began to accelerate the gathering of chakra, so to speak, to conduct a kind of restorative meditation.