Under Konoha’s Shadow

Chapter 32: Rasengan

Thump, thump, thump...

The three of them were locked in a tangled fight. Yamamoto Ryusei held his own against two opponents without falling behind in the slightest.

Inuzuka Rō's expression was a little stiff. "Ryusei's taijutsu is a bit too strong. To think he can trade blows with Natsuki's Gentle Fist for so long. But how is he blocking it? I remember the Gentle Fist can use chakra to attack the internal organs directly through the body."

"Look at his hands," Sarutobi Hiruzen said, his eyes fixed on Ryusei's hands. "Every time Ryusei blocks Natsuki's Gentle Fist, he covers his hands with a dense layer of chakra, preventing Natsuki's chakra from attacking his insides."

Inuzuka Rō was amazed. "Doesn't that mean the Hyuga's Gentle Fist has been broken?"

Hiruzen rolled his eyes at him. "It's not that simple. To defend against that kind of Gentle Fist, not only does your chakra quality have to be high, but the amount of chakra you use has to be several times more than Natsuki's. Over a long period of time, you'd still be worn down. And this is just the basic Gentle Fist, not to mention the secret technique, the Eight Trigrams Palms."

Hyuga Natsuki's face was a little dark. He had thought that by restricting Ryusei's movement, he could defeat him with taijutsu. But he never expected Ryusei's close-quarters combat to be so formidable. His moves were clean and precise, aimed at vital points, and even with Kagami's help, they couldn't take him down.

Natsuki took a step back and assumed a palm-out stance.

"Gentle Fist: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms!"

A storm of palm strikes rained down, but Ryusei simply weaved through the gaps in the attack. The strikes he couldn't avoid, he blocked with his chakra-coated hands.

After the thirty-two palms were finished, Hyuga Natsuki asked with disbelief, "Why were you able to dodge that?"

"Because I'm faster than you," Ryusei said. Thanks to nourishing his body with chakra, not only was his physical strength greater than his peers, but his perception and reaction speed were also superior.

Ryusei closed in on Natsuki and threw a punch at his face, but it was caught by the arriving Uchiha Kagami.

Ryusei pulled back his fist and gathered chakra in his arm. "Be careful. This punch is a bit heavy."

Natsuki and Kagami saw the chakra practically overflowing from Ryusei's arm, and their expressions turned very grave. Natsuki stepped forward and shouted, "Kagami, get back! Let me handle this!"

Natsuki's body began to spin, and the chakra erupting from his tenketsu points formed a sphere.

"Eight Trigrams Palms: Rotation!"

"Monster Strength!"

Ryusei's fist slammed into the chakra sphere Natsuki had become. The sphere caved into the ground violently, then was sent skidding backwards by the force of the punch, plowing a two-meter-wide trench in the earth before finally crashing into a wall and creating a three-meter-wide crater.

Seeing the unharmed Natsuki, Ryusei asked with feigned curiosity, "What was that jutsu just now?"

Natsuki said proudly, "That is our clan's absolute defense, the Eight Trigrams Palms: Rotation! What do you think, impressive right? I was originally planning to use it to block your Rankyaku. Who knew you'd force out my Rotation with just taijutsu?"

"Absolute defense?" Ryusei said with conviction. "There is no such thing as an absolute defense in this world. Any defense can be broken. Natsuki, how many more times can you use Rotation?"

Natsuki sensed the chakra within his body and said, "I have enough for one more time. We lost this time. What do you think, Kagami?"

Uchiha Kagami, who had been unable to use ninjutsu during the close-quarters fight, also agreed. "We did indeed lose this time. His Monster Strength is definitely not limited to just two uses, and he didn't even use Rankyaku. If we continued to fight, we would have been the ones to lose. And I've already found my own weakness."

Kagami's weakness was that he didn't know any nintaijutsu and couldn't coordinate well with a taijutsu-focused partner. It seemed he had to find a nintaijutsu to learn.

Ryusei stared at the trench plowed by the Rotation for a long time, then said to Natsuki, "Your Rotation... can it be used for offense, like Inuzuka Rō's Fang Over Fang?"

Natsuki replied, as expected, "No. I can't move while I'm spinning."

Uchiha Kagami said, "It's not entirely impossible. Either someone else gives you a push, like just now, or you roll horizontally, like the Akimichi clan's Human Bullet Tank."

Natsuki imagined himself rolling like a Human Bullet Tank while shouting "Rotation!" and felt the coffin lids of his ancestors rattling in the Hyuga cemetery. He shook his head vigorously. "No, I can't spin like that. And the rotation speed would definitely decrease, so it wouldn't have the effect of an absolute defense."

"Then what about spinning like my clan?" Inuzuka Rō asked.

He and Hiruzen, seeing that the fight was over, had come over after hearing their discussion.

"It's still the same problem as before," Natsuki said.

Hiruzen, however, thought for a moment. "But it is worth researching. We could learn from it."

Ryusei created a shadow clone and then immediately dispelled it. "I have some ideas. Let me explain."

The five of them sat in a circle. Ryusei began, "First, chakra is inherently offensive. There's no problem with that, right?"

The other four looked at the trench plowed by the Rotation and all nodded in agreement.

Ryusei continued, "This is an inspiration I got from the Gentle Fist. Since the Gentle Fist can directly attack the inside of the body, then our chakra should be able to do the same."

Natsuki said, "You can't see the tenketsu points, so you can't use the Gentle Fist."

"We don't need to see the tenketsu. We can just increase the amount of chakra to attack any tissue inside the body. Like this..." Ryusei gathered a circle of chakra in his hand, slowly thinned it out, and lightly swiped it at a small tree. The tree snapped in two.

Kagami looked at the broken tree. "It's indeed a decent ninjutsu, but it wastes too much chakra. I can do the same thing with a kunai."

Hiruzen tried it himself and said, "Not only that, this ninjutsu requires extremely high chakra control. But if it can attack internally like the Gentle Fist, then it can deal with some special ninja. For example, Steel Release users."

Inuzuka Rō said, "Ryusei, you've invented a ninjutsu. Give it a name."

Ryusei thought for a moment. "Let's call it the Chakra Blade. Simple and clear. But that's not the main point. The point is the Rotation."

Natsuki was confused. "Didn't we already discuss the Rotation? It's not suited for offense at all."

Ryusei said proudly, "Since you can't move while you're spinning, then why not just create a small Rotation in your hand to attack?"

The eyes of the other four lit up instantly. They realized it could work. Kagami, especially, had just been thinking about finding a nintaijutsu, and now one had just appeared.

Just then, Komiya Yuki and the shadow clones who had received their memories also came over. The clones, without a word, began to experiment.

In truth, this was the Rasengan, invented by the Fourth Hokage. Ryusei had already mastered it long ago based on his memories from his past life. He was just looking for a pretext to introduce it.

Hiruzen and Kagami were both trying to create a "Palm Rotation," but they failed after several attempts. Although they knew it had to rotate, their chakra control wasn't good enough. Natsuki and Rō, on the other hand, weren't interested in this jutsu; they were content with mastering their own clan's secret techniques.

Two hours later, after much discussion and experimentation, a Rasengan appeared in the hand of one of Ryusei's intentionally guided shadow clones.

The training for the Rasengan is divided into four steps:

Concentration: Gathering chakra to a specific point.

Rotation: Making the chakra rotate in the hand.

Power: As a ninjutsu is for attacking, its power must be increased.

Maintenance: Making the chakra rotate at maximum power while containing it within a sphere to achieve its greatest might.

The Rasengan in the clone's hand was at the third step. Under everyone's watchful eyes, the clone pressed the Rasengan against a large rock.

BOOM!

The rock was instantly blasted with a basin-sized crater. Around the crater was a thumb-width spiral groove.

"Yes! It's a success! Ryusei, you're a genius!" Hiruzen exclaimed in admiration.

Natsuki looked at the hole he had made himself, then at the hole made by the Rasengan. "It's still a bit off. The power isn't concentrated enough."

Ryusei pointed at the groove. "That's right. If the power were concentrated, there wouldn't be this groove. But why? It should be the same as the Rotation." Ryusei feigned confusion.

"That's because your chakra is only rotating in one direction, so some of the power leaks out," said Tobirama Senju.

The group saw the sudden appearance of Hashirama and Tobirama and hurriedly greeted them. "Greetings, Lord Hokage (Teacher) and Lord Tobirama (Teacher)."

Hashirama waved his hand. "Alright, no need to be so formal. The atmosphere just now was very good."

Hashirama loved to see harmony in the village. Seeing the next generation of children discussing ninjutsu together, he felt that his dream from long ago had already been realized.