Five-Fold Rashomon-He'd Learned It, but What Was the Point?

Yeyu didn't refuse Hiruzen's offer. "Since it's Lord Hokage's kind offer, I won't turn it down."

"I'll study these three jutsu carefully."

All three of these jutsu were forbidden techniques.

Yeyu had chosen these three, which left Hiruzen a little helpless.

He didn't interfere with Yeyu's choice.

He wanted to see how much talent Yeyu had for ninjutsu.

If Yeyu's talent for ninjutsu was only average, Hiruzen would pick out a few of the five elemental jutsu for him later.

For Yeyu, ninjutsu was just icing on the cake.

Even in his normal state, his Taijutsu was already at the level of a Hokage.

Besides, the previous night, he hadn't been able to gauge Yeyu's true strength.

Even so, Yeyu had already shown strength at the level of a Hokage.

And Yeyu was only twelve.

It was hard to imagine what he would achieve in the future.

Hiruzen certainly hoped Yeyu would develop in every area, but that would be very difficult.

After Hiruzen helped Yeyu take care of all the paperwork, Yeyu went to move into his new home.

Yeyu didn't have many belongings. He packed them into a bundle and went to his new place.

The new home was in the very center of Konoha. Yeyu could work as a ninja his entire life and still never earn enough to afford property there.

The apartment wasn't large. It was in a three-story building, and Yeyu's place was on the top floor.

It had two bedrooms and a living room, with about seventy square meters of floor space.

Not just anyone could afford a seventy-square-meter apartment in such a location.

Kakashi lived nearby too, but his apartment was only about thirty square meters.

Naruto lived nearby as well. His apartment was even smaller, at only about twenty square meters.

Yeyu knew that he could work as a ninja his entire life and still never afford this place.

Ninjas earned a fair amount, but they had to pay for a lot of things themselves.

They had to buy and prepare the supplies and ninja tools they needed for missions.

And ninja tools were very expensive.

Only Shuriken and Kunai were relatively cheap, which was why ninjas liked using them so much.

Everyone liked using Explosive Tags, but a single one cost as much as a ninja's cut from a C-rank mission.

If you used an Explosive Tag on a mission below C-rank, you'd end up working for nothing.

Even Jonin couldn't save much money over the course of a year.

Jiraiya had money because he earned it writing novels, not from carrying out missions.

Even Kakashi, such a workaholic, could only afford a thirty-square-meter apartment nearby.

As Hiruzen's biological son, Asuma was still living in the dorms. He didn't even have a place of his own.

Yet Kurenai was willing to be with him even though he didn't own a home. It really was true love.

That evening, Yeyu cleaned every inch of the house. Once everything was neat and tidy,

he sat down and opened the three jutsu scrolls.

"I've only just graduated from the Ninja Academy, and I'm already studying jutsu this difficult. The pressure's real."

Yeyu spoke as he unrolled the scrolls.

"I wonder if inheriting Akainu's learning ability has improved my own."

"It'd be bad if it's gotten worse."

Akainu seemed to have put all his talent into fighting. Yeyu wasn't sure how good he was at learning.

The first scroll he opened contained Five-Fold Rashomon.

It looked like a small scroll, but once unrolled, it stretched more than three meters.

It was densely covered in explanations and diagrams.

After reading through it once, Yeyu was surprised. "I actually understand it. I've never studied this stuff before."

"Could Akainu's learning ability have combined with the ninjutsu knowledge I already had in this world and worked out the rest?"

"But that makes sense. He was a Marine, so besides combat training, he must have studied military knowledge. Akainu and Kizaru were known as two monsters from the same generation. How could their learning abilities be bad?"

"After all, the Marines require a high level of technical knowledge. And Akainu rose through the ranks from an ordinary Marine to become an Admiral."

"He didn't become an Admiral directly through the World Military Draft."

After reading through it once, Yeyu really did understand it, and he even had a good idea of how it worked.

"If I put in some time, I should be able to master this jutsu."

"But this jutsu is meant to block a Tailed Beast Bomb."

"And all it can do is change the bomb's direction. It can't stop it completely."

"I'd be better off tanking it with Armament Haki."

Yeyu didn't know how powerful a Tailed Beast Bomb was, but he felt that Five-Fold Rashomon's defenses were inferior to simply withstanding it with his body, reinforced by Armament Haki.

A Tailed Beast Bomb had enormous destructive power, but most of that power dissipated elsewhere. Yeyu would only have to withstand a small fraction of its energy.

That was the awkward thing about Tailed Beast Bombs.

They could destroy several mountains, but destroying a person—especially someone with great physical strength—was difficult.

The Third Raikage had been able to fight the Eight-Tails hand-to-hand with nothing but his physical strength. The fact that they had both been exhausted afterward proved that a Tailed Beast Bomb wasn't much of a threat to a true powerhouse.

Tailed Beast Bombs were only truly effective against enormous targets. Because of their size, most of the blast would hit them.

Yeyu laughed and muttered to himself, "It seems like huge jutsu have a ton of drawbacks, aside from looking impressive."

"Even Susanoo has major flaws."

"It consumes a tremendous amount of chakra. Its defenses are strong, but not worth the chakra it takes."

"Only the Uchiha Clan have enough chakra for it. For a ninja with a small chakra supply, Susanoo would just be a burden."

"But looking cool really does matter."

"What's the point of me learning this jutsu?"

He'd read through it and nearly learned it, but Yeyu suddenly realized that he probably had no use for it at all.

Using the jutsu would be worse than dodging with his speed or activating Armament Haki and relying on his powerful body. If that still wasn't enough, he could use the Magma-Magma Fruit's ability to become intangible.

Why waste so much time casting a jutsu that couldn't even stop a Tailed Beast Bomb?

Five-Fold Rashomon required Hand Seals, too.

He could have gotten out of the way long before he finished them.

The more Yeyu thought about it, the more useless learning Five-Fold Rashomon seemed.

But as he looked at the scroll spread out on the floor, he thought it over and decided to learn it anyway.

"It'll be nice to show off with it sometime."

Hiruzen had called it an extremely difficult jutsu to learn. Yeyu, however, had decided it would be a good trick for showing off.

Who knew what Hiruzen would think if he found out?

Yeyu spent the entire night studying Five-Fold Rashomon.

It wasn't until late at night that he had fully grasped the theory.

"I'll find an open space and try it tomorrow."

That night, Yeyu slept soundly.

After arranging a time for the next day's test with Naruto and the others, Kakashi went to the Hokage Office to see Hiruzen.

He didn't see Yeyu there.

Kakashi was puzzled. "Lord Hokage, where's Yeyu?"

"Didn't he become your assistant?"