Lightning Release: Lightning Ball

The next morning.

In a grove on the outskirts of Konoha, the lingering morning mist curled between the trees.

Few ninja passed through here, making it an ideal place to practice Ninjutsu.

Asami Ri sat cross-legged on a boulder, his eyes gently closed.

After a night of deep sleep, his body was fully rested, every muscle supple and brimming with vitality. The coolness of dawn washed over him, its chill reaching straight into his mind.

"Celestial Pivot, transfer the analyzed content of Lightning Release: Lightning Ball to me."

[Command confirmed. Transmitting content. Establishing optic nerve connection...]

As the system's cold notification sounded, a faint blue light lit up Asami Ri's vision.

Text and diagrams of Chakra circulation cascaded down his field of view like a waterfall.

Red lines precisely traced the flow of Chakra through his body's pathways, with every critical junction labeled in exhaustive detail.

Asami Ri studied the Ninjutsu material organized by Celestial Pivot, word by word, line by line.

Silence settled over the grove, broken only by his soft, rhythmic breathing.

In his mind, he simulated the process of creating a Lightning Ball again and again.

"Incredible..."

After a long while, Asami Ri slowly opened his eyes, delight flashing deep within them.

He looked at the hand seal sequence marked out by Celestial Pivot and marveled inwardly, It even reverse-engineered the hand seal sequence Raiga Kurosuki skipped.

Ninja generally needed to form hand seals before performing Ninjutsu. Some, however, could shorten or even eliminate that process.

Tobirama Senju, for instance, had simplified forty-four seals into four.

Raiga Kurosuki had used the Lightning Blades: Fang to dispense with the seals for Lightning Ball.

But Celestial Pivot had bypassed all those complicating factors and reconstructed the most fundamental code.

[This derivation is based on captured residual chakra samples and the underlying logic of Lightning Release Ninjutsu.]

[The analyzed content represents the "theoretically optimal path" and may differ somewhat from the original Lightning Release: Lightning Ball. Host, monitor your chakra pathways strictly during the first execution to avoid injury.]

"The theoretically optimal solution... excellent."

Asami Ri held his breath and focused. The pathway diagram Celestial Pivot had transmitted into his mind overlaid his physical body, every route of Chakra flow etched precisely into his memory.

He flexed his long fingers, his knuckles making faint clicks, then slowly practiced the twelve basic seals three times with a steady, deliberate rhythm.

As his fingers danced, the slight stiffness left by the morning chill faded away.

"Whew—"

Asami Ri slowly exhaled a stale breath, and his gaze abruptly sharpened.

"Horse—Dragon—Monkey—Horse!"

His hands blurred into afterimages, completing all four seals precisely in less than a second.

The instant the final Horse seal locked into place, Asami Ri clearly felt the Chakra in his body surge along his pathways toward his palms.

The Chakra was no longer gentle. It had become sharp, as though countless tiny steel needles were scraping the inner walls of his pathways, as his previously natureless Chakra transformed into Lightning Release Chakra.

The Lightning Release Chakra gathered in his palm, and Asami Ri shaped it into a sphere with his mind.

The initial Shape Transformation of his Lightning Release Chakra was complete.

"Bzz—bzzzt!"

A Lightning Ball roughly the size of a fist took shape three inches in front of his palm, faint blue arcs leaping all across its surface.

High-frequency electrical sparks tore wildly at the surrounding air, giving off a shrill screech like a thousand cicadas and casting flickering light across Asami Ri's face.

"Go!"

Asami Ri directed the Lightning Release Chakra forward. Like a baseball knocked flying, the Lightning Ball streaked through the air in a straight line with a piercing shriek.

Boom!

The Lightning Ball slammed into a tree ahead, its trunk thick enough to encircle with both arms.

There was no red flare of exploding flames, only the crackle of electricity and a deep, muffled blast.

Arcs raced across the bark like a spiderweb, and the entire tree shuddered violently.

When the light died away, a charred hole as wide as a bowl had been blasted into the center of the once-vigorous trunk.

The edges of the hole were heavily carbonized, and wisps of white smoke rose from the electrically scorched wood fibers, carrying an acrid, burned smell.

Asami Ri looked at his faintly tingling palm and sensed the lingering ozone in the air. A satisfied smile curved his lips.

"First attempt: successful."

Asami Ri did not rush into a second attempt.

In his field of view, Celestial Pivot was reviewing the data from the entire execution, frame by frame.

"Replay the entire Chakra flow from that attempt."

[Command confirmed. Retrieving recorded data...]

A faint blue, translucent model of a human body appeared in the center of his vision, with red lines outlining the direction and speed of Chakra flow.

He keenly noticed that at the critical junction where Chakra flowed from his arm into his palm, its previously steady movement had paused noticeably, causing an extremely small amount to dissipate in that instant.

"That's the problem."

Asami Ri murmured to himself, "When the Chakra passed through the pathways in my hand, the introduction of nature transformation caused unstable fluctuations in its speed. Those fluctuations directly interfered with the subsequent shape control, producing excess repulsive force as I formed the Lightning Ball."

"Two seconds."

Asami Ri shook his head slightly, his expression serious. "In a fight to the death, two seconds of charging would be enough for an enemy to take my head off ten times. This execution is too slow. It's completely unusable in actual Practical Combat."

The essence of Lightning Release lay in speed and ferocity.

The Shape Transformation had taken so long because he had kept wasting effort counteracting repulsive force while "rolling the ball." If he could maintain a constant Chakra flow through his pathways, shape control should be completed in an instant.

Asami Ri let out a long breath, cleared his mind of unnecessary emotions, and raised his hands again.

His fingers curled loosely, as though he could already feel that violent Lightning Release Chakra waiting to be tamed once more.

Every mistake had become a precise reference point in his mind.

"Good."

A confident smile curved his lips. "This experience... will definitely prove useful on the next attempt."

"Again!"

Asami Ri gave a low, forceful shout, sunlight reflected in his eyes.

His hands blurred into afterimages again, forming seals a little faster than before.

The Chakra in his body moved like a tamed stream, advancing smoothly through his pathways at a constant speed.

The instant that energy surged into the pathways of his arms, he felt none of the previous resistance, only smooth passage.

Lightning Release Chakra Nature Transformation: complete!

Lightning Release shape transformation: complete!

A sharp crack erupted in the air as electrical arcs compressed before his palm.

In the span of a single breath, a Lightning Ball the size of an adult's head took shape, dazzling blue light flowing within it.

Tiny electrical serpents along the sphere's edges sliced wildly through the surrounding air, producing a scorched smell.

"Go!"

With a fierce shout.

The Lightning Ball tore through the air and struck the previously charred hole with perfect accuracy.

Boom—!!!

A deafening explosion rang through the grove.

Violent currents poured through the existing wound, instantly destroying what remained of the trunk's structure.

Countless charred splinters were flung into the air by electromagnetic force. Then the thick tree let out a teeth-grating groan.

Creak—

Amid a shower of electrical sparks, the massive trunk snapped in two.

Deprived of support, the lush crown crashed to the ground with a rush of wind. The impact made the earth shudder and startled a flock of birds out of the grove.

Asami Ri stood where he was, letting the gusts tousle the hair over his forehead.

Watching the charred wood still crackling at the break, he slowly lowered his hand. The lingering numbness in his fingertips was rapidly fading.

This time, his execution speed had more than doubled, and the power was on an entirely different level.