Optional courses

After their short spar that ended with Haru's defeat concession, the two kids made their way yet again to the academy to attend their afternoon lessons.

The last few weeks have been pretty monotonous for Haru. Till now, ninshu lessons have barely covered some elementary knowledge about chakra general characteristics, Hamura's meditation technique and some basic chakra control exercises that Haru had all long mastered.

So it has indeed been a pretty boring class for him lately. He knew most of the things there was to know about chakra nature transformations and such. So unless Hantaro-sensei come up with something new to practice that would keep him occupied for at least a few days his main focus would be the newly started rasengan training. It was unlikely that he could achieve it as fast as Boruto did, but he was fully confident in doing so within two weeks.

But he was quite excited over today's academic class, as today was his first genshu lesson. At last. Haru had great expectations about how genshu would give him an edge in the upcoming interclass battles. He wasn't actually interested in the conventional heavy illusions aiming to put the opponent in a false world that were easy to notice, dispel and quite clumsy in his opinion.

What he was actually excited about was the ability to feint his strikes. He was pretty sure that if he managed to developp this genshu trick his Gentle Fist would be absolutely unstoppable in the upcoming academy battles. 

Something that struck him since ever he began training in the way of the warriors is that it wasn't just a namesake of the nindo. The shinobi were living tools whose only reason to be was the success of the mission of their village. If some optional courses were disregarded, warriors in the way Shirogakure trained them were almost one hundred percent combat oriented. In many ways, warriors were more similar to what could be found in most other manga and novels.

Whilst it had the upside of making almost everyone a ninshu and taishu powerhouses several orders of magnitude above what could be found in Konoha and the rest of the mainland, it also had the downside of passing by many useful tricks and tactics that were developped thanks to the Shinobi mindset. Clones jutsus for example were such techniques, and shurikens, kunais have never cossed the lunar soil.

That emphasis upon raw power was not without reason. Whilst it could be said that nothing has had threatened the clan in the last hundred years besides internal troubles, the Ôtsutsuki never forgot what their race was entrusted with : Jailing the rabbit goddess. And whoever would attempt to liberate the mother of their lineage would by no means be a weak individual.

As for whether or not his kindred had any knowledge about the true Ôtsutsuki clan nature and the threat that they posed the world, Haru had no idea and he didn't care much for now.

A while later, Haru crossed the door of the genshu classroom. Noise reached his ears as an agora of kids in all its liveliness graced his sight. His arrival mostly went unnoticed, though some heads did turn toward him.

Byakuya was one of them. As per usual, he did not partake in most if any social gatherings and activities and was sitting alone in a corner of the room. Whilst some liked to think of him and Haru as some sort of rivals, as they were both fellow "genius" male classmates of the same generation in truth he did not hold any thoughts whatsoever for Haru. Whilst he appreciated his somewhat reserved nature, he simply did not care at all. He had his own agenda, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Genshu was among the most popular courses, because the better educated folk knew that the development of both spiritual and bodily chakra, or in other words yin and yang attributes, was the primary engine of chakra reserves growth. True Hamura's meditation technique was a hax, but it's only an auxiliary way to grow chakra and neglecting the natural strenghtening of the yin and yang attributes was akin to halving your base potential. No knowledgeable warrior would do that.

Physical attributes were naturally the most cultivated in the clan, because of the heavy emphasis on the Gentle Fist and the Shikotsumyaku. Practicing disciplines that had such heavy requirement for the body naturally stimulated the body's generation of yang energy. But although the use of the Byakugan was also very beneficial to stimulate the production of yin energy, it truly wasn't up to par.

That was why among those who have reached the ceilling of the Super Kage level in the clan, nearly every one who has the corresponding chakra reserves has practiced Genshu to the Kage level at least.

Soon, Haru found himself a place in the crowded room. He did not have the luxury to pick a seat without neighbours, and now had a boy of the branch on his right and a pink haired girl a couple years older than him on his left. Surprisingly she had her Byakugan, meaning that she was from the main family's last generation batch.

Haru was not surprised to see someone from the main family outside of his class in itself. The issue was that she was in the same class as him. 

Changing optional courses could only be done once every three years, following the cycle of generations. Her presence in his class probably meant that she didn't take a liking to whatever course she used to have and switched out this year, starting from square one in this new discipline. 

She didn't seem interested in making friends by the way, as she barely spared him a glance when he took his seat next to her. Haru didn't say a word either and waited quietly, observing the others.

"Bahaha Yanmaru, it's been six years since you've entered the academy don't tell me you've changed courses yet again ? You won't be good at anything if you keep it this way !"

"Shut it Hiroshi, mind your business."

"Have you seen the handsome boy with the black hair ? It's rumored he has a new Kekkei Genkai."

The lively scene came to a halt when a tall woman in her late twenties opened the door, her grapefruit pink coloured hair tied in an elegant bun tied with a golden pin. Her Byakugan was mesmerising, and no offense to Hantaro-sensei but she seemed in a whole other league. 

Haru was quite surprised by her persona but soon he recognised her. She was, after all, far from being a nobody in Shirogakure. Suddenly he thought of something and his eyes drifted to the left to fall upon his pink haired classmate. 

She looked back at him, her gaze alone telling in length of her annoyance but neither said a word. Yes, she was the daughter of Ôtsutsuki Kaori, matriarch of the clan, spouse of Ôtsutsuki Shigemoto, patriarch of the clan. She was as wellborn as a moondweller could be, and her upbringing was impeccable. She was the closest thing there was here to a princess, even though there was no such formal social system in the clan. 

Whilst he had not heard anything about this cute shibi version of the matriarch, he knew of course of the latter. She was the most powerful female warrior of the clan, period. Ranking within the top five among three hundred, she was an allround fighter of the Super Kage level with basically no weakness in the warrior paths. Her Byakugan was so pure that she could blast mortals and low level warriors to death just by staring at them. Her Genshu was so exquisite that alone it was enough to defeat Kage level warriors, and even that wasn't her true specialty as it was rumored that she mastered ninshu up to the extent that she thoroughly mastered not only Scorch and Swift release, but also Plasma release, an extremely powerful Kekkei Tôta that fused Fire, Lightning and Wind releases.

She was an absolute powerhouse of the clan. A true genius that only a handful people could hope to match. And if the clan wasn't taken in consideration, Haru could only think of peak level Hashirama, Madara without the Rinnegan, Indra and Ashura throughout the history of the shinobi world out of all people if true Ôtsutsuki and half Ôtsutsuki people aren't considered either. In the future, this level would not be the ceilling but for now it undoubtely was.

She was so good in fact, that here presence as an academy teacher was somewhat odd. Indeed there wasn't a lot of interesting things to do in Shirogakure. Fighting, training, studying, playing games and making art were more or less everything that one could do to pass time, but that life lacked a sense of purpose. True their presence here was due in order to guard the resting place of their ancestor, but the only major incident that happened in seven hundred years was the disappearance of the Gedo Statue a few decades ago. In any case, a warrior of her caliber as a freshman or sophomore cycle grade teacher was completely overkill, meaning she was most likely her own initiative.

And if Haru's intuition didn't fail him, the little grapefruit next to him probably was what motivated this decision. 

"For as long as I do not allow any one of you to speak, you are not to utter a single word am I clear ?" 

"YES MA-"

The fool didn't even have time to finish his sentence that he passed out on his desk.

Fortunately in his enthousiasm he was the only one who answered without thinking, embarassing himself. It was clear to Haru that his genshu teacher probably wasn't interested in anyone in the class, besides her daughter. She didn't even bother to present herself and began her lesson directly.

She first explained how genshu worked, then she gave some application examples and went on to talk about the way it benefits the mind and the growth of chakra. Nothing truly novel for Haru but her perspective was interesting nonetheless. 

Even though he doubted that anyone would dare to raise one's hand to ask a question after what happened to the kid earlier, her explications were clear enough that nobody seemed to be confused.

Haru felt enlightened. Although the knowledge she provided them on their first genshu lesson was elementary, he now had a theoretical foundation that will be invaluable later on when he tries to create his own genshu.

When he lesson came to an end, most students made their way out of the room somewhat quickly. Being in the same room as the matriarch did make every one of them a bit tense, at the very least. Haru's right neighbour had already left, and as he was about to make his way out, he heard her voice for the first time.

"Wait !"

Haru turned around to look at her, his eyebrows were raised.

"Who are you ? I don't think I've seen you at any of the rallies."

Haru was a bit taken aback by her question. A rally was a small party between members of the main family of the same age. As he was kind of a shut in and his household was somewhat ostracised prior to his bloodline ceremony because of his branch house mother, he was never invited to any of the so called rallies kids of his social status usually attended at his age in order to make friends with other wellborn children. 

It was understandable she was confused as it was clear he was from the main family, as he had the Byakugan. 

"... Well I've never been to any, if that's what you were wondering." he replied after a few seconds.

"I see." she nodded dryly. Haru wondered if her stern gaze was simply natural or if she had any unkind thoughts about him. "What's your name ? And who are your parents ?"

"He is Ôtsutsuki Haru, and if my memory doesn't fail me you should be Genji's and Hisame's son right ?" A cold voice he recognised to be the matriarch made him flinch.