Talent

"From now on, Sai, all your missions are canceled. You need to do your best to fit in with Team 99. Your goal is to become Yu's best friend.

"Also, you don't need to return to Root anymore. Just act as if you've left. If anything comes up, I'll come find you myself."

Danzo's words left Sai utterly stunned. Not only had Danzo told him to give up his missions, he had also asked him to become friends with Yu. The word "friend" was something they weren't even allowed to mention in Root.

In Sai's heart, the only person who mattered was his older brother, Shin. After his brother died, the very concept of emotion had vanished from Sai's world.

Now, he couldn't even smile.

He had practiced for a long time just to make a smile, but he was still nowhere close. His smile held no emotion at all. Danzo had once told him, "Your smile makes people want to punch you."

As a ninja raised from childhood by Root, Sai's life goal was to carry out the missions Danzo gave him.

So even though Sai resisted the mission to "become friends with Yu," he had decided to complete it.

The three members of Team 99 charged into the Great Forest of Death and began their chicken-catching mission.

More than a hundred chickens had been scattered across the vast forest. The mission was an absolute nightmare.

It wasn't until the sun was about to set that Yu finally returned to Farm No. 4 with the last chicken in hand.

"At last, it's done."

Yu's body didn't feel particularly tired, but the mental exhaustion was very real.

The chickens raised at Konoha's farm were unusual. They were more than twice the size of ordinary chickens, and every one of them was incredibly fast and could fly. That made catching them much harder.

Sai and Fujiwara Chima returned to the farm shortly afterward.

A tiger that looked as if it had stepped out of an ink painting followed Sai. It had nine chickens in its mouth and on its back. Sai's already pale face had turned even paler—a sign that he had exhausted his Chakra and stamina.

Fujiwara Chima had done even better. She held a rope with eighteen chickens tied to it. But her beautiful face was streaked with several cuts, her hair was a mess, and leaves and chicken feathers clung to it.

By comparison, Yu had fared much better. He had caught plenty of chickens too—about half of them—and had come in first among the three.

"Congratulations on completing your first mission," Yamashiro Aoba said, popping up at that moment.

All three stared at him without expression, their silent response making their dissatisfaction clear.

"D-rank missions are pretty much always like this. There's nothing I can do about it," Yamashiro Aoba said helplessly.

On the way back, Fujiwara Chima followed behind Yu with her head bowed, without saying a word.

Fujiwara Chima, you're such a failure. You couldn't even handle something as simple as catching chickens. How will you get Yu to accept you and teach you the power to grow stronger? She was deeply dissatisfied with her performance that day.

She had actually worked very hard. She hadn't stopped since the mission began, but those chickens were a real pain. They were incredibly fast and could fly, so with her abilities, she had to chase them down before she could catch them. She also had to make sure they weren't injured, or she'd lose part of her payment. Worse still, if they were hurt badly enough, the mission would fail.

Yu didn't pay Fujiwara Chima much attention. He didn't want to get involved in other people's business, especially when it had nothing to do with him.

After Yamashiro Aoba dismissed them, Yu returned to the laboratory.

After reflecting on the day, he felt he needed to improve his ninjutsu. He knew quite a few techniques, but they were all low-level. He was sorely lacking in more advanced ones.

If only I knew the Shadow Clone Technique or the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique. I could make a hundred clones and catch all those chickens in no time, Yu thought.

The Shadow Clone Technique was an incredibly powerful ninjutsu created by the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju.

The Shadow Clone Technique created solid clones that inherited the user's memories, abilities, and Chakra. They were like separate bodies that could fight.

What's more, when the Shadow Clone Technique was released, the original could gain the clones' memories and experience.

With all these qualities, the Shadow Clone Technique could practically be called a "divine" technique. In Yu's view, it was even more impressive than Impure World Reincarnation.

Yet the Shadow Clone Technique was classified as B-rank, while the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique, a forbidden technique recorded in the Scroll of Seals, was only A-rank.

That was because the Chakra available to each clone was divided evenly from the user's total Chakra. The more clones there were, the weaker each one became, including the original. Also, when a Shadow Clone disappeared, the original absorbed all the fatigue it had endured. That was why most ninja didn't use the Shadow Clone Technique.

In battle especially, even making one Shadow Clone meant losing half your Chakra. Chakra was the core source of a ninja's power, and every bit of it was precious to most ninja. The clones also had weak defenses and would disappear after taking a serious hit. Their combat strength was far below that of the original. So most ninja didn't like using the Shadow Clone Technique. Usually, they used it only to scout, which had been the Second Hokage Tobirama Senju's original intention when he created it.

But to Yu, the Shadow Clone Technique was a god-tier ability. He had infinite Chakra, so even a clone with only half his Chakra would still have an absurd amount. His body was also immune to fatigue.

Uchiha also had a way to train in the Shadow Clone Technique, but over the past few years, he had made little progress. That was simply a matter of talent.

Learning a ninjutsu and mastering it wasn't easy. Aside from techniques like the Three Body Technique, other ninjutsu couldn't be learned through effort alone.

The Slime Bloodline was powerful in some respects, but its limitations were also obvious. If a technique was C-rank or lower, he could usually learn it as long as he had the chance to train. But once a technique went above C-rank, he found it incredibly difficult to learn. It was as if an invisible barrier stood in his way, one he couldn't get past no matter how hard he tried.

There was nothing he could do about it. Even Might Guy, who had nearly kicked the story to its conclusion after opening all Eight Gates, had little talent for ninjutsu. He might not have been able to use more than a few C-rank techniques.

Might Guy's father, Might Duy, had once taken on the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist by himself, yet he was still a lifelong Genin with practically zero talent for ninjutsu.

Might Guy's student, Rock Lee, had no talent for ninjutsu either. Yet he was one of the main cast of the Konoha 12, and he eventually became one of Konoha's elite fighters.

These three examples didn't mean hard work guaranteed success. They showed that talent really mattered. No matter how strong you were, if you couldn't learn ninjutsu, you simply couldn't learn it.