Chapter 165: Team Two
Ishiro wasn't nervous at all about meeting the students. Bringing his three new disciples to a training ground, Ishiro began the customary self-introduction process.
"My name is Ishiro. You can call me Sensei or Ishiro-sensei."
"I like to eat grilled meat. My dream is to become an outstanding ninja. Hmm, this dream seems to have almost come true."
"Well then, my new dream is to become Tsuchikage."
Pfft, all three disciples chuckled. They felt this teacher was different from what they imagined, a bit unconventional.
With this laugh, the sense of unfamiliarity between them diminished considerably.
Ishiro struck while the iron was hot. "Alright, introductions are done. Now it's your turn to introduce yourselves."
Ogura Saki spoke first: "My name is Ogura Saki. I like to eat dango. My dream is to break through my own limits and become a powerful ninja."
The little girl's eyes shone particularly brightly as she spoke, clearly full of confidence for the future. She was the only one among the three who knew which aspect of hers had caught the teacher's attention, and this aspect was precisely where her greatest confidence lay, so her current state of mind was excellent.
The second to introduce himself was Matsutani Shinya. He had originally wanted to wait for Takumi to speak first, but Takumi was still too overcome with excitement to speak, merely opening and closing his mouth without a sound. Helpless, Shinya had to go second: "My name is Matsutani Shinya. I like to eat grilled meat, I like to eat ramen, and I also like to eat dango. Hmm, basically, I like anything that tastes good."
Pausing for a moment, Matsutani Shinya added, "My dream is to live a peaceful life. I hope I don't encounter any danger when carrying out missions in the future. When I grow up, I want to marry a wife, have a child, and then hope my child and wife can also live peacefully."
Ishiro felt like covering his face, beginning to doubt whether his decision to accept this disciple was correct. Ogura Saki, however, frowned and thought to herself: "How can this person be so unappreciative? Being accepted as a disciple by Sensei is such a sacred thing. He's not even seizing this opportunity. I'll have to persuade him properly in the future."
Takumi, who had been in a daze, was jolted back to reality by Matsutani Shinya's words, finally calming down from his excitement. He quickly spoke: "My name is Takumi. I like to eat fish. My dream is also to become an outstanding ninja."
Takumi had originally prepared many words, but he was too nervous and ended up saying only these few simple sentences.
After listening to the three new disciples introduce themselves, Ishiro said, "Don't be nervous. We don't have any missions today. Later, Sensei will take you out for a big meal. Starting tomorrow, we'll take on missions."
"But before that, Sensei has a few things to give you." Saying this, Ishiro took out a batch of scrolls.
Just like when he had accepted Chiko Tomoe and the others as disciples, Ishiro gave the three new disciples a batch of ingredients to enhance their physique. All three were considered civilian ninjas, and physical constitution was not their strong suit. Then Ishiro mentioned some of the benefits related to the ninjutsu he would teach.
After all this was done, Ishiro took the three disciples out for a big meal.
On the first day, Ishiro didn't spend too much time with his three disciples, just a simple introduction. Ishiro planned to get to know them better through subsequent missions.
Time often passes quickly when with children. In the blink of an eye, more than ten days had passed. During these ten-odd days, Ishiro and his three disciples got along fairly well. Ogura Saki trained very hard, and Ishiro, based on his own experiences, thought of many methods for her to practice chakra control.
Takumi's training lacked much structure, relying almost entirely on instinct. This was a shortcoming of civilian ninjas; they often couldn't even find a senior to guide them.
If Ishiro hadn't excelled in theoretical studies back then, gaining the appreciation of his Ninja Academy teachers, and then shamelessly going to ask questions frequently, his later ninja career might have taken many detours.
So, for Takumi, Ishiro's guidance was simple: correcting his erroneous training methods and teaching him systematic training techniques.
The most troublesome was Matsutani Shinya. This problem child's subjective initiative was too poor. Ishiro eventually had Ogura Saki help supervise his training.
Ogura Saki's unyielding personality was just right for dealing with Matsutani Shinya. Although it couldn't change Matsutani Shinya's inherent laziness, at least on the surface, Matsutani Shinya was now willing to train with his two companions.
At least compared to his giving up behavior at the Ninja Academy, Matsutani Shinya was much more proactive now, although his expression always carried a hint of helplessness, a kind of indignant grief from being oppressed. But Ishiro, as an adult, could naturally see that Matsutani Shinya actually quite liked these days, or at least he liked the atmosphere of Team Two.
During these ten-odd days, Ishiro didn't teach the three any ninjutsu. He only took them on one D-rank mission each day, and then the four of them would gather to train. It wasn't that Ishiro didn't want to teach; it was just that the foundations of these three students were too poor. Ishiro felt they hadn't reached the point where they could practice ninjutsu.
More than ten days wasn't a long time, only enough for the three new disciples to change some of their training habits. Ishiro planned to teach them some practical skills after the three disciples slowly adapted to this new training rhythm.
The training progress of the three disciples wasn't fast. Conversely, Ishiro's Lightning Release training progressed rapidly. After a whole month, Ishiro finally completed the first step of the Lightning Release stimulation method. Ishiro could now control lightning to simultaneously split into one hundred parts and hit pre-selected targets separately.
This first step of the training method was obtained by Ishiro through interrogating a Cloud Jōnin, but the second step of training stumped Ishiro. Because at that time, the Jōnin had only said half of it, and before he could finish, he broke free from the genjutsu.
From the man's fragmented words, Ishiro guessed that before practicing the Lightning Release stimulation method, it was necessary to reduce the power of Lightning Release as much as possible. But to what extent it needed to be reduced, and how to reduce it, Ishiro didn't know.
Ishiro could only develop a new path based on his own understanding of Lightning Release. He would ignore the extent of reduction for now, but how to reduce it could be attempted.
Ishiro first converted his refined chakra into lightning nature, then performed the C-rank Lightning Release jutsu, Lightning Conduction. Originally, Ishiro wanted to extract less chakra to make the power of Lightning Conduction as small as possible. But the result was regrettable. Ishiro could increase the power of Lightning Conduction by increasing the chakra amount, but the reverse was not true. If too little chakra was extracted, the jutsu couldn't be released at all.
Finally, Ishiro simply abandoned the Lightning Conduction jutsu and directly developed a ninjutsu that used lightning to attack forward. Of course, this kind of ninjutsu certainly wouldn't be very useful. Fortunately, Ishiro's purpose in developing it was to try and see if he could make the jutsu's power as small as possible.
Although Lightning Conduction was a very basic ninjutsu, it was still C-rank and had a certain complexity.
The new ninjutsu Ishiro developed was much simpler compared to Lightning Conduction, so the minimum power Ishiro could achieve was indeed much smaller than that of Lightning Conduction.
Discovering some effect, Ishiro was very excited. This showed that the simpler the ninjutsu effect, the relatively smaller its power would be.
After continuous attempts, finally, Ishiro created a tiny electric arc on his finger.
Since he didn't know to what standard the power needed to be reduced, Ishiro dared not easily try it on his body. So, he got some small animals for live experiments.
The results were disappointing. Even when Ishiro controlled the electric arc to this extent, it was still far from enough. All the small animals hit by the electric arc basically lost their ability to move. This was completely different from Ishiro's expected result of increasing cell activity.
"It seems the power of Lightning Release is still too great." Although this method could reduce the power of Lightning Release to a certain extent, this kind of Lightning Release was still on a macroscopic level. Ishiro guessed that to achieve Lightning Release stimulation of cells, the power must be reduced to a microscopic level. But unfortunately, Ishiro had no clue how to achieve this.
Although Ishiro was somewhat engrossed in this peaceful training time, after a month of recuperation, Ishiro's injuries had completely healed, and it was time to go to the front lines.
This time, not only Ishiro but even Ikura had to go to the front lines. Ikura had almost finished learning his S-rank ninjutsu. Although he hadn't fully advanced to Kage-level, he could barely protect himself when facing a Kage-level opponent. So Ōnoki finally decided to send Ikura to the front lines.
Ikura left with the three disciples he had just recruited. Ishiro naturally wouldn't leave his three disciples in the village either. Ishiro led his three disciples on a leisurely three-day journey to the eastern front encampment.
Along the way, Ishiro taught his three disciples some things ninjas needed to pay attention to when performing missions outside. He also found opportunities to check the three disciples' trap-setting skills through exercises.
However, when Ishiro and his group of four leisurely arrived at the encampment, Kitsuchi told him a piece of news that shocked him: Sunagakure and Konoha had erupted into a full-scale war.
"Konoha suffered heavy losses. Their defense line has already retreated from the Land of Rivers to the Land of Fire." This was Kitsuchi's summary of the battle in the Land of Rivers.
It turned out that around the time Ishiro left the village, Sunagakure had launched a general offensive.
After Sunagakure's higher-ups exchanged for the Third Kazekage human puppet, they took this puppet to Chiyo, who had already retired.
Chiyo originally harbored resentment for being forced to hand over power and retire. When the village higher-ups came to ask her to come out of retirement, Chiyo refused, constantly saying that this old woman was old, couldn't move well, and the only thing she couldn't let go of was her troublesome grandson.
So when the Sunagakure higher-ups presented the Third Kazekage human puppet obtained from Ikura, Chiyo was, it could be said, both ashamed and furious.
Chiyo immediately recognized that this human puppet was Sasori's handiwork. Besides, in the entire ninja world, only Sasori was likely capable of preserving a ninja's abilities in a puppet to such an extent after their death.
She could neither understand why Sasori would do such a thing nor could she bear the shame of her beloved grandson committing such an act.
Thus, when the village higher-ups again proposed that Chiyo go to the front lines, Chiyo could no longer find a reason to refuse. Because this war had broken out due to the Third Kazekage's disappearance, and the Third Kazekage had been secretly harmed by her beloved grandson.
As the one who had taught Sasori all his skills, and also Sasori's closest relative, Chiyo had to atone for the mistakes her grandson had made.
After Chiyo and her brother Ebizō secretly rushed to the front lines, Sunagakure soon launched a general offensive against Konoha. During this general offensive, Chiyo did her best to hold off Orochimaru, Rasa unleashed Kage-level combat power with his sand Release Gold Dust, and Chiyo's brother Ebizō operated the Third Kazekage human puppet to extraordinary effect.
The high-end combat power balance between Konoha and Sunagakure was completely skewed, not to mention Sunagakure had even prepared their trump card – the One-Tailed Shukaku.
If it were a one-on-two fight, Orochimaru, with his methods, might not necessarily lose. But facing three powerhouses with Kage-level strength alone, Orochimaru hastily managing to retreat safely with about half of the Konoha ninja, Ishiro felt, made Orochimaru worthy of the Sannin title.
After all, the current Orochimaru was still in the realm of mortals and hadn't yet developed those kinjutsu - forbidden jutsu that made one's scalp tingle.
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