Report and Progress

Catching up with the rest of the group walking ahead of me, I pulled both Kiyoko and Benimaru back to talk to them for a second.

"Hey, are you guys doing okay?"

Benimaru looked at me weirdly, while Kiyoko just gave a small smile in my direction.

"Yeah, I'm doing fine. Thank you for asking."

Glancing between both of us, looking confused, Benimaru spoke his confusion. "Um, okay, about what?"

Kiyoko rolled her eyes good-naturedly and looked at him, saying, "About your first kill; we both had our first during this mission."

Benimaru seemed to tense up while letting out a breath. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Benimaru, you know you can alwa—" Kiyoko didn't get to finish because he cut her off.

"Just shut up. I'm doing fine." He walked away from the two of us towards the Uzukage's office.

I looked at Kiyoko, and she looked at me while frowning. "He'll get better; he just needs to process this and find his justification for killing those bandits." I looked at Kiyoko, trying to stop the worry for Benimaru I felt starting to build up in her.

"Yeah, I hope. I took it well enough because of what I've heard from my dad about what they do to the kids and women that they capture. If I could kill every single one in the world, I would." She stated with a powerful and resolute tone in her voice.

Walking in the direction of the office, I looked over to Kiyoko. "Are you sure you're okay? Nothing else you want to talk about from the mission?"

She blushed and coughed into her hand as I felt waves of embarrassment come off of her. "Yeah, I'm sorry that I got knocked out on the first move. I could've helped, but I decided to get caught up in the feeling of battle, and it bit me in the butt."

I laughed at that. "That's what's making you so embarrassed? We all get carried away sometimes; it's not a bad thing unless you don't learn from it. I bet next time you won't get so caught up in the battle lust of everything."

Laughing and rubbing the back of her neck, she nodded. "Yeah, you got that right, but I'm still gonna have fun in the battle, so you better be ready to back me up."

"I'll always be there for my friends." We both smiled at the comment as we stepped into the Uzukage tower, seeing both Hanzo and Benimaru waiting for us by the stairs.

Knock knock knock.

"Enter." The deep voice of the third Uzukage rang out from behind the door.

All four of us entered and kneeled in front of our kage.

"Ahh, Team 4, am I right to assume that you have completed your mission?"

Hanzo nodded his head and replied in the affirmative. "Yup, all of them are killed, and none escaped. There were a couple of things that popped up along the way, but none that affected the outcome of the mission."

"Very good, as expected of one of the top jonin in our village. If there's nothing else, you can take a mission report form to fill out and return it either today or tomorrow."

I raised my hand, and Aoi turned towards me.

"Yes, Shiran? What do you have to say?"

"Well, during the mission, we got pushed into a corner, and I unlocked the second stage of my dojutsu."

Aoi raised an eyebrow and motioned to me. "Please continue; what are the abilities of the second stage?"

"Well, like I told you before, this stage could either increase chakra potency or the amount of chakra output. Well, during the mission, I started to run out of and towards the end of the fight with the chunin, I barely had any chakra left. So when I used one last jutsu to protect these two, I felt my kanjogan evolve and a rush of information entered my mind."

"Interesting, so the two stages seem to respond to what you need at the moment the most. When you were trying to get to Miki, your thoughts were only about going faster to be at her side, so you awakened the speed aspect. During this battle, since you didn't have enough chakra for the last jutsu you used, it awakened the aspect that allows you to augment your chakra output."

I nodded along. "That seems to be the case; I also learned that I can only use one aspect of the kanjogan at a time as well. I can't augment both my speed and chakra at the same time."

"Hmm, this is interesting. Did you learn anything about the third stage of the dojutsu?"

"Unfortunately not; it still hasn't given me any other information than we already have."

"Well, I'm sure we'll learn about it at some point; there's no reason to rush anything right now. Was there anything else that happened during the mission?" Seeing no one else had anything to add, he dismissed us.

"Alright, listen up. We are going to meet in training ground 87 at 8 a.m. for training tomorrow morning. Don't be late."

We nodded and scattered to our respective compounds.

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Sitting in front of Yoko, she looked at the jutsu seal I had set in front of her with a critical eye.

"I think that we can start teaching you more advanced concepts. You're not quite at an expert level (special jonin) yet, but if you keep progressing the way you are currently, then it won't take you too much longer to get there."

I nodded. "So what do I need to do to get there?"

"Well, the one thing you can't train is experience. You need more experience using seals in combat. In order to do that, though, you need to start learning how to use seal imprints. You also need to start thinking about what you want to specialize in; that way, we can get you more complex seals in the field. You'll also need seal imprints of those as well, so you can truly be considered an expert level sealer. Do you know what seal imprints are?" She asked me while I thought about it.

"If I had to guess what they are, they're probably permanent sealing jutsus we put on our bodies. That way, all we have to do is channel chakra through it, and it makes the seal. This allows us to use sealing techniques in the blink of an eye and without any hand seals."

Yoko shook her head at me and smiled. "You would be correct; sealing imprints are essential for seal use, and it needs incredible chakra control and knowledge of seals to use. Anyone is able to make seal imprints on their bodies, but you have to be careful because any little mistake can cause your body to blow up when applying it."

My eyes widened. 'That makes sense considering when you create a faulty seal, there is always some kind of explosive reaction.' I thought.

"So that is what we'll be doing. I'm going to teach you how to create a seal imprint, and you're going to follow my directions to do it. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask them. I don't want to have to clean up blood today."

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70 power stones for an extra chapter this week.

120 for two extra chapters.