11 Improvement

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-End of Note

A week had passed, and Shinji found himself lying in his bed, thinking about the week that had gone by. He was able to meet all the targets set by Kuro and far exceed them. To begin, he was able to complete all the physical exercises in a single attempt, along with far exceeding the time set to stay above water and finally being able to use the body flicker technique proficiently. Alongside all his training, Shinji had been studying and getting a grasp on fuinjutsu; he knew that if he was to create a more powerful jutsu later on, this knowledge would help him significantly.

Although Shinji made a ridiculous amount of progress, causing Kuro to dub him a "genius," he couldn't help but feel there was more that could be done with the body flicker technique. Shinji began to recall Shisui, a high-level ninja, and how he was able to use the body flicker technique for battle. "If I want to stand a chance against the Jonin of other villages, I need to be able to use that technique in battle," Shinji thought.

Ready to begin the next day of training, Shinji got out of bed and began to get dressed. One thing that caught his attention was how toned and chiseled his body looked when he took off his shirt. Shinji had been working out for a while, but he now looked the most defined he had ever been. While he was busy admiring his physique, Sakura, as usual, barged into the room saying, "Shinji I'm going off to do a miss-" She paused mid-sentence. "Whoa.. You've been training hard! Mom, Mom come see Shinji's abs!" Sakura yelled.

It wasn't long before Mebuki entered to see what Sakura was making a big fuss about. "Sakura, there's no need to shout every morn-" Mebuki also failed to finish her sentence. "Oh my son is so handsome, why don't you stop this ninja life and I can get you married!" Mebuki laughed. Shinji's face began to become bright red. "Mom, I'm not ready for that yet!" he exclaimed. Shinji put on the rest of his clothes and headed out of the house, skipping breakfast. "Don't push yourself too much, dear!" Mebuki shouted. Shinji nodded and waved as he left the house.

Once he was outside, Shinji shunshin'd to the third training ground, appearing there almost instantly. Upon entering the training ground, Shinji saw Sasuke, but decided to ignore him in order to focus on his own training. Sasuke was also aware of Shinji's presence, but the two pretended as if the other didn't exist.

Shinji created a shadow clone and instructed it to dodge all the attacks he threw. The shadow clone nodded and stepped back, awaiting Shinji's flurry of attacks. Shinji began to shunshin side to side while moving closer to the clone, aiming to confuse it. At one point, Shinji was succeeding, but after a few more body flickers, he tripped over his own foot and fell over.

Shinji tried to do it again, but constantly failed, not coming close to even attacking, let alone causing the clone to dodge. Kuro, who was watching the entire time, jumped down from a nearby tree and approached Shinji. "Looks like you're having some trouble, Genius," he mocked.

Shinji ignored Kuro's remarks and attempted the technique again but was stopped by Kuro, who placed a hand on his shoulder. "You're limiting yourself to a rigid style that's in your head. Make the technique yours; you don't need to imitate how you think it should look," Kuro said in an encouraging way. Shinji nodded and sat down.

"Kuro is right, there's more than one way to make this work. What if I apply wind to my soles and instead of moving around on foot, I glide…" Shinji thought. While sitting down, Shinji practiced applying wind evenly to his soles to keep balance, and he did this for a while before applying the wind to different parts of his sole to direct movement. He found that this task was much easier for him to do, due to the prior chakra control training he had endured.

"It appears you've found another way to do things," Kuro said, intently looking at Shinji's soles. Shinji pulled his feet away and laughed. "You seem awfully interested in my feet!" This caught Sasuke's attention, and he began to look over. Kuro snapped out of his focus and looked at Sasuke before looking back at Shinji. Keeping his composure, Kuro said in a loud voice, "Yes, it seems you have a bunion."

Shinji, realizing his joke backfired, pretended it didn't happen and stood up to attempt combining shunshin with the wind glide. Shinji understood that if he could combine these two techniques, he would be a lot faster and wouldn't have the risk of falling over. He'd also only have to focus on shifting the wind below his soles to move around, as it would propel him in the direction he wanted.

First, he applied the wind to his soles, causing him to hover a few centimeters above the ground. He then held this position to help his body get adjusted to the balance. After getting a hang of hovering, he gradually began gliding around, picking up the pace even more. After a while, he had grown accustomed to gliding; it wasn't terribly difficult because he was the one controlling the wind. If he began to lose balance, he would simply redirect the wind to the parts of his sole that needed more support.

"Now it's time to truly test combining the two. This will let me know if it's possible," Shinji thought to himself. "Take it easy," Kuro encouraged. Shinji leaned forward and applied the majority of the wind to the front of his soles before releasing his chakra and bursting forward. To the naked eye, it appeared that Shinji had disappeared and reappeared all the way at the other side of the field. A few seconds after reaching the other side, a gust of wind had formed where Shinji previously was, causing Kuro to block and making Sasuke tumble over. "Amazing.." Kuro said in awe.

Shinji, feeling convinced, summoned a clone and gave it the same order. He began gliding side to side, simultaneously disappearing and reappearing using shunshin, creating gusts of wind that blew in different directions. Finally, he used his kunai to easily dispatch the clone. "If you can control the amount of wind you use, you'll find you just invented a priceless skill," Kuro said.

Sasuke, still on the floor, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the dust caused by the wind, stared in disbelief. Just a little over a week ago he felt it was possible to catch up to Shinji, but now he wasn't too sure. Sasuke bit his lip and left the field to meet up with the rest of his team. "Hey Sasuke, slow down, it was an accident!" Shinji yelled, running after him. Sasuke turned around and scowled, "I've got a mission, you moron; I'm not leaving because of a little wind." Kuro, who was disguised in regular clothing, grabbed Shinji's collar from behind and dragged him back. "You don't have time to worry about others," Kuro said in a stern tone. Shinji, remembering he didn't have long before his first Anbu mission, went back to training.

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