A Big Win

In the days that followed, Kanna and Amayuri trained under Shinnosuke's swordsmanship instruction. After several months, they had finally rounded out their abilities a little.

During that time, Kanna and Amayuri had also begun talking more often, so he learned how far apart they were in skill.

In a one-on-one fight, Kanna and Amayuri were about evenly matched. The bigger difference lay in their fundamentals. Kanna's ninjutsu was undoubtedly much stronger, but Amayuri had the edge in reaction time and adaptability under pressure. In a real fight, the outcome would depend on the circumstances. They were about fifty-fifty.

However, Amayuri had received formal training as a Genin of Kirigakure. If she hadn't been caught up in the struggle between the Third Hokage and the clans over exam reforms, she would certainly have been promoted to Chunin by now. She'd told him herself that she had plenty of other skills, including tracking and countertracking, intelligence gathering, basic medical knowledge, basic weapon modification, stealth, and the ability to make, identify, and neutralize poisons.

By comparison, Kanna had become a ninja with nothing but muscle on his mind. As far as Kirigakure was concerned, his current combat strength wasn't common, but it was nowhere near indispensable. Talents like Amayuri were what the village needed.

These days, aside from unexpected encounters, most battles were fought on a force-wide scale, making a well-rounded skill set essential. Kanna still had a lot to learn from Amayuri.

Fortunately, Shinnosuke's instruction had helped him shore up some of his weaknesses, broadened his horizons, and given him plenty to think about.

Take the Seimusō Style swordsmanship he'd always been fascinated by. It taught practitioners to understand the heart through the heart and to model themselves on the earth. Every move carried the earth's vast power: some were as weighty as mountains, others as boundless as the sea or as ethereal as white clouds and blue skies. It was one path toward developing his own ninja way. At its highest level, it reached the same destination as Sage Mode: drawing on the earth's power and making it one's own. It was truly extraordinary.

Other sword styles had their own strengths, but Kanna figured he shouldn't waste time trying to study them. The ninja way and the way of the sword were merely different approaches to combat. Besides, modern swordsmanship had fallen into decline, with almost no path forward, while the ninja way had reached its peak. Naturally, he would choose the latter.

The Silent Killing Technique Shinnosuke taught Kanna was a true sword art of the ninja way. Before learning it, Kanna had thought it was just a technique for sneaking up on people and killing them. Now he understood its mysteries.

The Silent Killing Technique, Kirigakure's signature assassination art, emphasized concealing one's presence and killing with a single strike. Often, the victim didn't even know they'd been attacked until the moment they died.

The reason this assassination art was called a sword style was that it involved studying the body, mind, and spirit. Its core principle could be summed up in one word: restraint.

Swordsmanship had three methods of killing: killing the opponent's weapon, killing their technique, and killing their spirit. That meant suppressing their weapon so they couldn't wield it freely; seizing the initiative with relentless attacks, sealing off their moves and leaving them no chance to win; and using a powerful spirit to crush their will to attack, then overwhelming them with one's own fierce spirit.

The Silent Killing Technique did the exact opposite. It never confronted an enemy head-on. Instead, the practitioner drew inward, keeping their chakra in reserve and their spirit focused, until at last, a thunderclap sounded in silence. Then came a sudden sword strike that killed the enemy outright.

Set aside the stealth, concealment, breath control, and other techniques used to approach the enemy, and what remained was a proper sword art for training the mind and spirit. Once mastered, it made its practitioner like Shinnosuke: a treasured blade kept hidden, quiet until it was drawn, then striking like thunder.

The difference between a sword art of the ninja way and conventional swordsmanship was plain to see.

Day after day, Kanna practiced this sword art. Rather than mastering its killing techniques, he focused on cultivating his mind and spirit. Gradually, he felt his body, energy, and spirit coming into balance. This was different from the mental elevation he'd experienced after using the Flying Thunder God to travel the world and broaden his horizons. The Silent Killing Technique brought a deep stillness to his mind and spirit, yet beneath that calm, something stirred—like the pressure building before a volcano erupted. If one day he drew his sword against an enemy, he would be silent until the moment he struck, then take them by storm.

Little by little, Kanna shed the restlessness he'd felt in recent days. The dark cloud the struggle between the Third Hokage and the clans had cast over his heart also dispersed.

Three months later, he drew another S-rank ninjutsu and got Double Lariat. Three months after that, he drew Sage Art: Rasengan. He was fairly satisfied with the results.

Double Lariat required two ninjas who were in perfect sync to use together. They had to synchronize the frequencies of their Lightning Release chakra, then use the attraction between their lightning and magnetic fields to greatly increase their speed. Over short distances, they could almost match the Flying Thunder God Technique. It was a classic high-speed attack.

But Kanna would never train in this technique with just anyone. At the very least, not until he found a comrade he could entrust with his life.

Usually, two opponents' chakra frequencies would never match, so their ninjutsu would often cancel each other out, like Sasuke Uchiha and Itachi's Fire Style or Sasuke Uchiha and Killer B's Lightning Release. But if someone else learned your chakra frequency, it meant your entire defensive system was open to them. Your related techniques could no longer hurt them, and if they had enough control over their chakra, they could even redirect your ninjutsu and turn it against you.

The Fourth Raikage and Killer B were brothers, and a pair like them was truly rare. Kanna guessed he wouldn't find a comrade like that in Kirigakure. Fortunately, there was another way: he could use a solid clone alongside his real body to perform the technique. A Water Clone wouldn't work, of course. Its physical vulnerability meant it would collapse as soon as it used Lightning Release, so he'd need a Wood Release clone or a Shadow Clone.

Sage Art: Rasengan, meanwhile, contained the only ninja way in the Shinobi World capable of countering Yin-Yang Release: Senjutsu.

But just like Water Style: Water Body Flicker, until he obtained the Rasengan technique itself, Kanna could only grasp its principles, not use it.

The Rasengan created a rapidly spinning sphere of chakra. Its attack could penetrate the surface and drive the force of its rotation straight into the target's body. An ordinary person struck by it might show no outward signs of injury, but their internal organs and bones would be completely pulverized, leaving no hope of treatment. Sage Art: Rasengan drew in the Natural Energy scattered throughout the earth and sky, centered it around the Rasengan, and imbued it with the earth's immense power to destroy all things.

The chakra extraction technique Kanna practiced turned his body into a "circle," a world of its own, while Senjutsu connected him to the greater world. The two complemented each other. However, there was only one Highland, and Kanna needed its assistance to use either technique. Connecting himself to the earth would take much more practice.

In the final two months, Kanna drew two A-rank ninjutsu. This time, he felt as if he'd hit the jackpot.

Human Path: Mind Reading!

White Secret Technique: Chikamatsu Ten Puppets!

One was an ultimate technique possessed by the Rinnegan! The other was Chiyo's secret art, the work of a master puppeteer!

The former could extract memories far beyond the capabilities of any intelligence department in the Shinobi World, probe the hidden layers of any living creature's mind, and forcibly rip out an enemy's soul. The latter could be called the definitive work on modern Puppet Technique. Ten fingers were generally all a puppeteer had to control their puppets.

Now that Kanna had acquired so many ninjutsu, he was finally starting to feel that he needed to find a way to overcome the Highland's limit of holding only one technique as soon as possible.