I'll Beat You to Making the Meatballs

"Hey, Naruto," Duanmu greeted Naruto, deliberately using the slightly casual form of address common in anime, hoping it would make the other boy feel a little closer to him.

Naruto looked up at the sound. When he saw it was Duanmu, a trace of surprise flashed through his eyes, then they dimmed again. He gave a muffled "Mm" in response. He seemed not to have fully pulled himself out of his earlier disappointment, his fingers unconsciously picking at the corner of the desk.

Duanmu sat down in the empty seat beside him. Most of the people in the classroom had already left, leaving only the two of them and a few students on duty in the distance, slowly wiping the blackboard.

"Don't mind what those guys said," Duanmu said softly, his gaze landing on Naruto's tightly pressed lips. "That's just how they are. They only know how to mock other people to show off their own 'superiority.'"

Naruto stayed silent and said nothing, but the fingers clenched around the desk corner seemed to loosen a little.

"Come on. Want to walk home together?" Duanmu continued. He had to lay a good emotional foundation in advance with this future great hero of the ninja world. Who knew? Maybe when Naruto started cheating his way through life later, he could carry Duanmu along too.

"But..." Naruto hesitated. After all, he was used to being isolated by everyone in the village. Now that someone had suddenly taken the initiative to invite him to go home together, he was a little at a loss. In those clear blue eyes of his was a hint of wariness, along with a barely noticeable trace of expectation. "Why... why do you want to walk with me?"

As expected, Duanmu thought inwardly, but his face showed an easy smile as he pointed out the window. "It's on the way. My house is over by the shopping street. Don't you have to pass that road to get home too? We can keep each other company."

He deliberately made it sound casual, as if he had only mentioned it in passing.

Naruto froze, seeming not to have expected that reason.

He really did have to pass through the shopping street to get home. Ichiraku Ramen was there, a place where he could occasionally feel a trace of warmth. He looked at the sincerity in Duanmu's eyes, hesitated for a moment, and finally slowly nodded. "...Oh. Okay."

Duanmu relaxed slightly inside. It seemed the first step counted as a success. He stood up and patted Naruto on the shoulder. "Then let's go, dead last." He had deliberately used the nickname their classmates had used to mock Naruto earlier, but there was not the slightest hint of ridicule in his tone. Instead, it carried a playful note.

"Hey! Who're you calling dead last?!" Sure enough, Naruto immediately bristled. He shot to his feet and yelled at Duanmu, his cheeks slightly flushed with excitement, but much of the gloom in his eyes had scattered, replaced by a little more vitality.

"Not dead last? Then you'd better perform well in tomorrow's practical class. Don't end up unable to even use the Clone Technique and get laughed at by everyone again," Duanmu said as he slung his schoolbag over his shoulder and walked toward the classroom door.

"Hmph! Just you wait! I'm definitely gonna be stronger than you!" Naruto snorted unconvinced, then hurriedly grabbed his own somewhat faded schoolbag and quickly followed after him.

The two of them walked shoulder to shoulder along the streets of Konoha Village. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the dense leaves, scattering mottled patches of light and shadow.

On both sides of the street stood uniquely styled Japanese buildings. Occasionally, people wearing ninja vests hurried past, and in the distance, the towering Hokage Rock could be seen, the faces of the Hokage of past generations looking solemn and dignified beneath the sunlight.

At first, there was still some silence between the two of them. Naruto seemed unused to being so close to someone else, both hands gripping the straps of his schoolbag, his steps a little stiff.

And the people around them were all pointing and whispering, which made Naruto feel uncomfortable all over. Those gazes were like invisible needles pricking his body, making him unable to resist wanting to quicken his pace and flee from there.

He secretly glanced at Duanmu beside him and found that the other boy seemed not to care about the gazes around them at all. He was still walking leisurely, and even looked with interest at the shuriken models displayed on a roadside stall.

"Hey, Duanmu," Naruto could not help saying, his voice a little muffled. "They're all looking at us..."

Duanmu turned his head, looked at Naruto, then swept a glance over the villagers whispering around them and raised an eyebrow. "Let them look. What's the big deal? They look at what they want, and we walk our own road."

"But..." Naruto bit his lip. "What they say sounds awful..."

"Is that so?" Duanmu turned his head and shouted at the group of gossipers, "What the hell are you staring at?! Got nothing better to do?!"

Naruto clearly had not expected Duanmu's "combat power" to be that strong. He burst out laughing, and the embarrassment and discomfort from a moment ago seemed to be scattered quite a bit by that sudden roar.

The villagers who had been pointing and whispering were stunned by Duanmu's shout, their faces shifting between blue and white. They turned their heads away resentfully and no longer dared to watch so blatantly.

"You... how can you talk to adults like that?!" Although Naruto felt vindicated, he still whispered with some worry.

"Why can't I?" Duanmu spread his hands, looking as though it were only natural. "They're the ones with no manners, pointing and gossiping behind a child's back. Are we supposed to just put up with it? Besides, in the world of ninja, strength is important, sure, but you can't lose in momentum either. The more you shrink back, the more they'll push their luck."

Naruto blinked, only half understanding. As he looked at Duanmu's side profile, something in his heart seemed to quietly change.

Duanmu soon arrived home. After saying goodbye to Naruto, he walked in the door and saw his mother looking at him with a stern expression.

"I heard that not only did you walk together with that demon fox today, you even said nasty things to the neighbors?"

Duanmu: Fuck! Who snitched on me? And how was it this fast?

"Mom." Duanmu still tried to call upon her motherly love, but what he received was a heavy blow.

After dinner, Duanmu lay on his bed, thinking over what he should do next.

The ball. Right, the ball. Naruto rubbing out balls ran through the entire Naruto series, so why couldn't he learn it before Naruto did?

This move had a complete tutorial in the series, and during these days of studying at the ninja school, he had already been able to use chakra a little. He could still perform the basic Three Body Technique.

What he needed to do now was figure out the specific principle behind rubbing out the ball.

Although it looked simple in the anime—just making chakra rotate and compress at high speed in the palm—there had to be a trick to it.

Duanmu remembered that when Naruto first practiced, just controlling the stable rotation of chakra had made him fall on his butt countless times.

He tried gathering the faint chakra in his body into the palm of his right hand. Following the basic refinement method taught at the ninja school, he took a deep breath, focused his mind, and guided that warm current from his lower abdomen toward his arm. However, the moment the chakra reached his palm, it was like a group of mischievous children, darting all over the place and completely unable to stabilize.

"Huff..." Duanmu exhaled a turbid breath, fine beads of sweat seeping from his forehead. It seemed this thing was much harder than he had imagined. Right now, he could not even manage the most basic chakra shape transformation, let alone compress and rotate it.

"Right, chakra nature transformation and shape transformation!" Duanmu suddenly slapped his own forehead. The ninja school's theory classes had mentioned that the execution of ninjutsu could not be separated from these two kinds of transformation.

As an A-rank ninjutsu, the ball had extremely high requirements for shape transformation. It required chakra to be highly condensed and given a specific movement trajectory.

At the same time, Duanmu also remembered the knowledge of centrifugal force and angular momentum he had learned in physics class in his previous life.

Perhaps he could use modern scientific thinking to help him understand this ninjutsu?

He tried to recall those formulas and theorems and whatnot. The smaller the rotation radius, the greater the centripetal force, and the higher the degree of chakra compression...

He closed his eyes again. This time, he no longer rushed for success, instead first focusing on sensing the flow of chakra.

Once, twice, three times... Time passed without him realizing it. The sky outside the window gradually darkened, and inside the room, only his slightly heavy breathing remained.

After who knew how long, a faint tingling itch finally came from Duanmu's right palm, and at the same time, a tiny point of light appeared.

Joy rose in his heart, and he hurriedly focused his mind to maintain that feeling. He tried to use his will to control that clump of chakra, making it spin like a tiny whirlpool.

"Buzz..." A faint tremor came from his palm. After lasting half a minute, that weak vortex scattered like a popped bubble, and the tingling itch in his palm faded along with it.

Duanmu opened his eyes and looked at his empty palm, but there was not the slightest trace of frustration on his face. Instead, he revealed an excited smile. That brief point of light just now was precisely the embryonic form of the Rasengan. Although it had lasted only half a minute, it let him truly touch the feasibility of this path.