Hatake Swordsmanship

"Of course you can, but it's getting late now. How about this."

Shuomo agreed readily, but it was already noon.

A great fireball seemed to hang in the sky, making it hard to muster any energy.

"As the founding day of Team 10, I'll treat you all to some grilled meat. I can teach you during tomorrow's mission instead."

"Awesome!"

With someone footing the bill, Yayoi raised both hands in approval.

"Teacher, I suggest the one in the village center, the Akimichi place. Good food, good prices."

Yan recommended to Shuomo.

Rin remained silent, but a glint of light flickered in her eyes.

After injecting the Gene Fluid and supplementing her Hyuga genes, her appetite seemed larger than before.

Whatever, it didn't matter—the teacher was paying anyway.

"Alright, we'll go where you say."

The grilled meat tasted really good, really good.

Yayoi ate a bit more because he was from the Senju.

Yan, being from the Uchiha, had a slightly smaller appetite, only eating twice as much as a normal person before she was full.

As for Rin, she was suddenly a little different today.

Elegant posture, polite eating manner, but she never stopped.

Previously, Rin could eat a lot too, but only more than Yan—compared to him, she still fell short.

But today, she'd suddenly surpassed him, even if it was just in appetite.

Yayoi suddenly remembered something.

The Gene Fluid. Right. Rin had supplemented her genes last night.

Both her physical constitution and Byakugan had been strengthened.

But the body couldn't just create energy out of nowhere.

So, as luck would have it, today's Teacher Shuomo seemed to have become the sucker.

"Is she always like this?"

Shuomo's hand felt like it was trembling. His usual calm, confident demeanor had completely vanished.

He couldn't imagine how a half-grown little girl could pack so much meat into her body.

Did she have a Sealing Scroll hidden in her stomach?

"This is an exception. Rin doesn't usually eat much."

Yayoi quickly explained.

"Then—"

Shuomo pointed at Rin.

Before the ironclad fact, Yayoi couldn't explain anything no matter what he said.

And he didn't know how to explain either.

In the end, he could only let out a sigh.

Seeing Yayoi's silence and Yan's feigned ignorance, Shuomo completely resigned himself.

He was already waiting for the shopkeeper's judgment.

"Thank you for the meal."

Rin elegantly wiped her mouth and said politely.

Not bad. Eighty percent full.

This was the first time in her life she'd eaten so much.

Before, she could never have finished it, but after last night, Rin, with her genes supplemented, seemed to have broken her shackles.

An endless stream of energy was absorbed by her, waiting to be fed back into her Byakugan and body.

"That'll be two hundred thousand ryo."

"Cough, cough. I only have one hundred seventy thousand here. Yayoi, do you have any money? Consider it a loan from your teacher."

"It's fine, Teacher. You don't need to pay this back."

Yayoi took out a thirty-thousand-ryo note and handed it to Shuomo.

It wasn't that his conscience had suddenly grown—it was that Rin was just too much of an eater.

Even a flexible moral baseline couldn't withstand such a sudden breakthrough.

"Rin, how did you eat so much today?"

While Shuomo and Yayoi were pooling their money together, Yan quietly sidled up to Rin and asked in a low voice.

"I don't know. I suddenly wanted to eat something, and it just turned out this way."

Rin didn't want to talk about Yayoi preparing the Gene Fluid for her.

Instinctively, she didn't want Yan to know.

And Rin perfectly played up her emotionless, three-nothing persona.

Even Yan, after scrutinizing her for a long time, couldn't detect any other unusual emotions on Rin's face.

To repay Yayoi for his timely help, Shuomo specially took a day off to teach the three of them his swordsmanship and share some experience.

Shuomo was a good man. Just based on this conscientious attitude, Yayoi would call him a true inheritor of the Will of Fire.

Yayoi wondered what happened to Shuomo in the original storyline.

He never seemed to appear, or maybe he showed up in flashbacks.

He might have died in the war against Sunagakure. As for which Ninja World War, Yayoi couldn't remember clearly.

But with their help, maybe he wouldn't have to die this time.

Without further ado, Shuomo formulated a training plan for them based on the results of yesterday's battle.

"Rin, you'd be suited to learning my style. As for the swordsmanship, watch and learn more. You can incorporate it into your own sword techniques based on your own ideas."

Shuomo sat under the shade of a tree, making a training plan for the three little ones in front of him.

"Yan, your focus is mainly on ninjutsu and genjutsu. The short blade suits you for assassinations. It'd be good for you to learn some Hatake Swordsmanship too."

"As for you, Yayoi, my style of swordsmanship isn't for you. But since you're a medical ninja, you don't need to charge into battle anyway.

Of course, if you want to learn, I can teach you."

"I can give it a try."

Yayoi raised his hand and spoke.

"Alright, watch closely. I'll demonstrate it for you first."

Shuomo simply performed the Hatake Swordsmanship once.

The three watched Shuomo's every move without blinking.

Rin directly activated her Byakugan to observe Shuomo's Chakra flow.

Yan opened her two Magatama, focusing intently on copying Shuomo's movements.

Yayoi placed the Mirror in front of his knees and silently activated his Mirror Eye.

Perhaps because it was nourished by his own Dragon Blood, or perhaps because Yayoi, as its forger, had infused a trace of spiritual essence into it, the Mirror he carried on him could provide a certain degree of enhancement to his Mirror Eye.

At this moment, he activated his Full power Mirror Eye, determined to memorize Shuomo's Hatake Swordsmanship.

The grass and trees swayed slightly from the blade's light. A breeze flowed past, and everything was severed cleanly. Shuomo sheathed his short blade and quietly waited for them to comprehend.

White Fang without Chakra enhancement was an imperfect White Fang.

Without Chakra, swordsmanship was perhaps just a technique. Now, Shuomo wasn't using Chakra; he was merely demonstrating his family's inherited swordsmanship.

"How much did you memorize?"

Shuomo asked.

At this stage, he only wanted these little ones to learn the external form of Hatake Swordsmanship.

The internal secrets of Chakra control, flow, and such—only if they met Shuomo's expectations would he consider teaching them.

"I memorized it."

Yan closed her eyes after Shuomo finished teaching, and only opened them when Shuomo spoke.

"Same here."

Yayoi also spoke up.

"Seventy percent."

Rin felt like she was choking, and after hesitating for a long time, she finally spoke.

"Not bad. Truly worthy of being a little genius with Special Jonin strength at this age."

"Then it's decided. Tomorrow, we'll take an A-rank mission to test your skills, hone you, and let you see some blood."

Shuomo was satisfied with their progress.

He remembered it took him a whole month to learn it back in the day.

He didn't expect these little ones to memorize so much from just a single demonstration.

Indeed, bloodline limits were really convenient.

"Shuomo-sensei, how's the current war situation?"

Yayoi asked.

After all, it was wartime—the more frontline intelligence one had, the better prepared they might be.

"The front lines?"

"Sunagakure has been fighting us Konoha for two years now. We're probably entering the late stages of a war of attrition."

"Barring any surprises, the village's victory is all but certain."

Shuomo replied.

As a ninja who frequently traveled to the front lines, this kind of information wasn't hard to deduce.

"I hope the village's victory comes soon."

"Don't worry, it will."

At the mention of the village's victory, the corners of Shuomo's mouth lifted, his smile brimming with hope.