章節 93: Chapter 93: Fire of the Mind
When Kannin's team next met, they were in a familiar clearing in the woods surrounding Konoha. Kannin stood in front of them with his arms crossed, his brow furrowed in thought. After a few minutes of thought, he spoke to the genin, who were sitting cross-legged in a semi circle in front of him,
"Araki and Ozu, you only have 1 chakra nature release down, right?"
The two nodded their heads eagerly, getting a clue as to where Kannin was headed.
"In a scenario against another shinobi," he began his lecture, "especially a more skilled shinobi, you need to have at least two chakra natures to work with or else you run the risk of them hard countering you. Araki, you know earth release jutsu, yeah?"
"Yeah!" Araki replied with attention, "I focused mainly on my medical jutsu in the Academy but the teachers forced me to work on it since it was my natural affinity so I'm pretty good at it."
"How good?" Kannin inquired
"Umm," the genin stuttered, trying to find a way to illustrate his prowess, "I can make decently sized mud fields and 3x12x12 earth walls simultaneously."
'Defensive in application,' Kannin thought, 'typical for Earth release. He shouldn't be too far behind where Tetsu was in his position.'
"Do you know which element counters the Earth element, Araki?" The Jonin asked his genin
"It's lightning, isn't it?" Araki said with a quizzical expression, like he was replaying a lecture from school in his head.
"Yes," Kannin replied, "it's lightning. And what counters lightning?"
"Wind!"
"Correct again," Kannin said, "I want you to begin training expertise with the Wind element to make up for your Earth release's weakness to Lightning. And you, Ozu, the same goes for you, but because you use the wind element, you need to learn Water release since Fire counters Wind. Does that make sense?"
The two genin nodded in response, and Kannin began showing them a basic jutsu of each type of the more advanced level.
"Thankfully, your teacher here is proficient in both Wind and Water, so I can show you with some ease" Kannin said with a slight grin appearing on his face. Kannin wasn't vain, per se, but who doesn't like showing off every once in a while?
First he demonstrated Water Release: Wild Bubble Wave to Ozu. After making the full elaboration of hand signs, which Kannin didn't really need given his expertise, which he knew Ozu probably needed, a fountain of steaming foamy water erupted from Kannin's mouth, covering the field behind in a half foot or so of what looked like dishwater.
After wiping the bubbles from his mouth, he turned back to Ozu and said,
"This jutsu is a really useful one. If you aim higher and turn it into more of a cone, it can be a good smokescreen. Layering it on the ground is also good because it tends to make the ground more slippery, making enemies fall--and because you've basically used chakra as a surfactant, it can even wash away other jutsu effects like oil, wax, and fire. You saw the hand signs and you should have a good idea of how to shape the chakra. I want you to be able to perform this jutsu in a week with at least a 50% success rate, ok?"
Ozu hurriedly nodded her head and ran off to the side to attempt it on her own while Kannin turned to Araki to do much the same as he had done with her.
"Araki," Kannin continued, "Wind might be the easiest element to get a hang of purely because it's already all around us. It's base power is rather low compared to, say, Fire or Lightning, but precise and intelligent use of Wind can be devastating. Recall how I used it to dissipate the Fireball Miura sent at me, even though Fire is supposed to beat Wind."
Araki nodded with his whole upper body as he absorbed the lesson, which already seemed more informative than any one day in the Academy.
"The Jutsu I'll be showing you is called Wind Release: Great Breakthrough. You just expel a lot of air from your mouth. Here are the hand signs," Kannin demonstrated the full series of hand signs, before turning his head aside and releasing the jutsu.
A conical blast of wind, visible to the naked eye, barreled out of Kannins mouth. The grass in front of him began to uproot from the power, and the branches of nearby trees began to snap off with a satisfactory crack. Once it had ended, Kannin turned back to Araki and explained,
"This jutsu is also very versatile. It can knock away opponents and projectiles chasing after you, it can pin enemies down to the ground if you're above them. It can even propel you back to avoid an attack, though that require a bit more training since the force begins at your head it ends up creating a torque which spins you...Ah whatever. The bottom line is this is a good jutsu to really start working on getting proficiency with Wind release."
"Yes, sensei!" Araki shouted with enthusiasm, "Can I practice it now?"
Kannin looked at the kid's eager eyes and felt disappointed that he had other things for them to work on for the meeting.
"Unfortunately we have other things to work on, but what I said to Ozu applies to you as well. Next week I want this jutsu at at least 50% success. Now for the rest of our business. I have a very small mission for us to do for the day. It shouldn't take very long. We have a cat to catch!"
The genin, who had reassembled by this point, were a bit curious at the mention. Kannin took notice of this and began explaining,
"In Konoha, every genin experiences the same thing within their first month of graduation: a wild goose chase for the most elusive creature in the Land of Fire!" Kannin's mouth crawled up into a smile before elaborating, "It just so happens to be a house cat of a very wealthy old woman. This cat has the most preternatural awareness of anything I've ever seen. Even better than the average Sharingan user if I'm being honest."
Miura, who had been silently abiding while Kannin instructed Ozu and Araki, after hearing that all they got was a lousy critter capture quest, almost stormed off in protest at the sheer gall of their sensei. Their capabilities were far beyond a stupid cat, and he'd even given Ozu and Araki a special assignment. A lesser shinobi would've taken it as a compliment that they didn't need special attention, but for Miura, it was an insult.
"Hold on, sensei!" The young genin exclaimed, as if they hadn't been paying any attention, "How come they get special jutsus and the only thing I get is a dumb cat to catch?"
Miura took Kannin off guard with his insistence, but Kannin quickly regained his composure and looked at the young shinobi before answering them,
"You're right, Miura, I didn't have anything special prepared for you today since you seemed to be the most advanced of the three." The other two protested that claim, but Kannin waved them off and said, "It wasn't an insult you two. You have your specialties and they're important, but at your level, pure ninjutsu prowess tends to be more critical than anything. But if you do want something to do, give me a minute."
Kannin reached into his cloak and produced a scroll. With a flourish he unrolled it on the ground and placed his palm on the sigils and writing which scrawled across the paper. With a large puff of smoke, about a dozen or so swords popped into existence on the scroll, each one was different: a rapier, a cutlass, two katanas of different lengths, one sword looked like a standard single blade but it hooked forward, and so on.
Kannin waved his hand over them like a merchant displaying his wares to a shopper before saying, "Pick one, Miura. The biggest weakness of us Ninjutsu specialists is our close combat, so swordsmanship makes us more well rounded."
Miura looked at the array of swords in front of them speechless for a few seconds before softly asking, "Where did you get these sensei?"
"Most of these are courtesy of our former enemies in Iwa and Kumo," Kannin replied, "Others were gifts. But most of them have already seen real battle, so you can trust them to hold firm."
Miura again looked at the array of weapons in front of them. They took a moment to take in the meaning of Kannin's words just now. Except for a couple of them, all of these swords represented a shinobi that Kannin had defeated--no--killed in battle. They imagined some foreign shinobi, with an alien headband and hateful glare brandishing them at their sensei. It didn't seem real.
They took another moment to look at the blades displayed on the scroll before their eyes were drawn to a strange looking blade on the right hand side of the scroll. It was a wholly curved blade, whose handle followed the gentle contour of the blade itself. The blade was shorter than the average longsword, but it accounted for it with the blade's width, which increased the further down the length of the sword it went. All in all, it looked like a stylized meat cleaver or machete.
Kannin noticed the kid's gaze and picked up the blade and handed it to them and said, "They call this a Dadao, which funny enough means something like 'Big Sword.' From the way its previous owner wielded it, it's designed to be used as a hacking and slashing implement."
As Miura accepted the blade from Kannin, they inspected it more closely, finding tiny scratches and cuts on its surface. There was even the remnants of an inscription at the base of the blade, which they couldn't fully make out.
"I want you to have basic proficiency with it by next week too," Kannin said, interrupting their thoughts, "But for now, we have a cat to catch!"
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票