Chapter 33

The day after I had witnessed Minato and Kushina's spar I started bothering my mother about her affinity and applied a gravity seal to her.

After finding out my mom also had a lightning affinity, I spent the next month trying to get my mom to learn Ninjutsu, she was resistant to the idea and I didn't understand why until I was a month into teaching her Lightning Release: Heavens Palm.

She had zero talent in Ninjutsu, though she had learned a few techniques to become a qualified Jonin she quickly gave up afterward.

She said she thought her time was better spent elsewhere, I wholeheartedly agreed after spending a lot of time trying and failing to teach her Heavens Palm.

I had thought my progress in Ninjutsu was slow, but compared to my mother my progress was considered prodigious.

I had given up on any fast progress after a while, instead, I had started trying to get her to do some 'Body modifications', she and I fought over it for another three months all the while her progress with the Heavens Palm slowly trudged forward.

I had spent six months total trying to get my mother stronger.

If she didn't want to do any body-modifications, I couldn't force her but It was a damper on my mood as of late.

I left her to her own devices with the Gravity Seal, I didn't feel like it was my place to police her exercise.

...

I sighed and cracked my Knuckles.

Even though I had no success with my mother I had made some improvements with my Lightning Constructs and had been pondering experiments and further enhancements.

I had been trying to find ways to further improve my Byakugan's range.

The Byakugan can detect additional wavelengths of light, while chakra is normally invisible to the normal eye, it emits electromagnetic waves in a different part of the light spectrum, the Byakugan has photoreceptor cells corresponding to those wavelengths, making chakra visible.

Different materials absorb different regions of the spectrum and thus will be opaque or transparent to different wavelengths. To see through various objects, Byakugan needs to be able to detect a wavelength that the object is transparent too.

There wasn't anything I needed to do about this part of the Byakugan but it was interesting.

The Part I could improve was visual acuity or the 'range' of the Byakugan.

Visual acuity depends on the amount of cone and rod cells you have, this is why birds like hawks have amazing visual range, they have a huge amount of rod and cone cells.

The same applied to the Byakugan, the Byakugan has many more rod or cone cells than the normal eye, to accommodate the increased number of wavelengths the Byakugan detects and to increase the visual acuity for each wavelength.

The increase in the number of active rod or cone cells requires increased blood flow to supply it with the necessary nutrition and oxygen, which is why the blood vessels enlarge when the Byakugan is active.

I had been thinking about increasing the number of rod/cone cells in my eyes.

Though I didn't think it would increase my range much I was interested in seeing what it did.

But after some thought, I gave up on the idea.

The Byakugan's range naturally increased and my range had not finished expanding yet so I shouldn't be in a rush.

I wrote down my findings in my book of experiments and decided that I'd get back to it later.

Though I knew the clan had people with ranges of more then ten kilometers I guess five or so would be fine with me.

Sigh...

I should leave my eyes alone for a while...

At least until I could grow new ones...

I needed a more private space to get started on Byakugan experiments...

...

I watched Gai exit from the academy, I had seated myself in the usual tree and was watching both new and old faces stream from the academy.

Gai was graduating this year in September, which meant team Minato would soon be complete and the war would soon kick-off.

I was feeling good about my chances of survival but was less sure about Gai and mom.

I had tried with my mother and now it was time to offer Gai some training.

...

I caught up to Gai as he was leaving.

"Hey Gai!" I tapped him on the shoulder as I spoke.

Gai turned and smiled at me.

"Hello, my Youthful friend!"

I sent Gai a nod.

"What are your plans for today?"

Gai sent a wide grin in return.

"I was going to have a most Youthful training session!"

Excellent.

"Can I join you in some Youthful training?"

Gai struck his nice Guy pose.

"Of course, my most Youthful friend!"

Gai took off in the direction of the northern gate, it seems we were running around the village...

...

"So, are you interested in apprenticing under me when you graduate?"

Gai's canon team was full of nobodies as far as I knew so it didn't matter to me if I deprived the team of Gai. If they died because of a lack of Gai it wasn't my problem.

Gai teared up and wiped his tears away with the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

"No thank you, my Eternal friend! Look deep into my eyes and accept my sincere apology!"

Gai stopped running and then gave me a deep bow.

"I can't look into your eyes if you bow..."

I gestured for him to stand-up.

"Are you not interested in an apprenticeship? I may not be as experienced as other Jonin but I could still teach you whatever you needed to know."

Gai likely wanted to join a team under his own merit, I think I had made a mistake in asking like this.

"I want to join a team with my prowess! I don't want people to say I became a ninja because of my connections!"

I was disappointed but I tried not to let it show.

"That's very Youthful!"

I gave Gai a thumbs up and started on my run again.

Gai probably thought I was offering an apprenticeship because I felt he wasn't good enough to get a Jonin sensei, it wasn't the case but trying to deny it would probably look worse than just dropping the topic.

I eyed Gai as I ran, he had a lightning affinity maybe I could teach him, Heavens Palm...

"How's your chakra control?"

Gai's shoulders slumped a tiny amount.

"Not very well my friend. I still have trouble making even a basic clone."

I hummed in reply.

So ninjutsu was out.

I activated my Byakugan for a moment, Gai didn't have enough chakra to make any Shadow clones...

Hmm...

I wonder if Gai will be open to body modifications...

I looked at Gai, I seemed to have ruined his mood...

Sigh...

Maybe not...

...

I sloppily waved my sword of lightning at a tree and watched as it slid off its stump before falling to the ground.

The lightning constructs might make up for my lack of Kaguya bloodline with its versatility if I wanted to wildly slash at my enemies with a ten-meter lightning sword now I could...

Though I had no sword skills and I wasn't willing to invest any time into anything other than basic sword skills...

Once I 'cast' the jutsu the sword wasn't malleable which was a shame. But I suppose making a sword was already good enough. I shouldn't expect to turn into the green lantern I guess...

I gave my sword another swing, this time carving a deep furrow into the ground.

What should I call this?

I looked at the construct with a critical eye.

I was going to slim this down a bit, it didn't look cool when it was this thick...

It didn't look anything like a sword, no one would know it was a sword unless I told them...

I took a stance and tossed the construct like a javelin into the earth.

I watched it tunnel for a while before it dispersed into the ground.

Hmmm...

Could I use the huge sword to kill big summons?

Something to try if I'm ever unfortunate enough to run into a summoner...

I'll slim it down a bit and keep calling it a lightning sword...

I'd gotten what I wanted out of the Lightning Construct Jutsu, and didn't have any other ideas at the moment.

I now had seven Lightning Jutsu's to my name...

'It's a shame this had such a huge chakra cost' I thought as I idly twirled the blade around.

It looked cool but it was too expensive to use for normal fighting.

I guess that's why people coat weapons in lightning instead of making constructs...

...

I was sitting in my backyard sunbathing while a pair of clones worked on Fuinjutsu a few meters away from me.

The clones were making Storage Scrolls and explosive tags, I had found out I could sell my seals and now I had a clone on seal duty almost all day.

I want to buy a few houses...

Having another stream of income from renters would be nice.

I was laying in the grass and thinking whilst my clones were hard at work.

The more lightning jutsu I learned the faster I seemed to learn other lightning jutsu, the things I needed to learn for a new jutsu overlapped with the things I learned when I was practicing other jutsu's.

It cut down the time I needed to learn stuff considerably.

Which was nice, though it still took me a few months to learn anything...

I think I inherited some of my mother's lack of talent in ninjutsu...

That or all Hyuga had no talent in Ninjutsu.

I had just thought ninjutsu was hard but there were lots of people with more than one nature release even when it wasn't their affinity.

But then again most people only learned their affinity, it was only the truly talented that learned more than their affinity.

Sigh...

My control was amazing but once distance was involved my control was lacking...

I'd been able to overcome the problem some with training but I was still lacking...

Was this a me problem or a Hyuga problem?

Mom was the only other Hyuga I spent time with.

I blew a breath from my nose.

I'll get around to figuring it out eventually...

Perhaps I need to scan a few Hyuga...

...

"Shiro! Look at what I found!"

Kushina was waving a pair of scrolls around while she danced towards me.

I just stared dully at her in response.

She sent me a sunny smile and slid the scrolls into my pockets.

I raised an eyebrow and ignored the scrolls for now.

"What brings you here?"

I was practicing with a dual bladed lightning sword after remembering the dual bladed lightsaber from Star Wars.

"I wanted to say bye before I left, I'm going to reinforce some buildings around the border for a few months."

That sounded like an opportunity.

"With Fuinjutsu."

Kushina nodded

"With Fuinjutsu."

Learning Fuinjutsu and the possibility of fighting, how could I resist?

"Can I come?"

Kushina bit her lip and looked to be lost in thought.

Eventually, she shook her head.

"No, it's highly classified, no-one is supposed to know about it."

I raised an eyebrow at her, why was I told then?

At my look, Kushina looked sheepish and rubbed the back of her head.

"I had forgotten until now..."

I rolled my eyes at her.

"Alright."

My body was impacted and I blinked in surprise as I was caught in a hug.

"So, have you said goodbye to mom?"

Kushina nodded and released me from the hug.

"Yep, you and Kakashi are the last people I needed to see."

I nodded and took the scrolls from my pocket.

Lightning Release: Lightning Dragon Jutsu

I skimmed the scroll for a while and was slightly disappointed, I would be more interested in the technique if it didn't require twelve hand-seals.

As it was anything with more than six hand-seals was usually useless in combat.

I unrolled the second scroll.

Lightning Release: Omnidirectional Lightning Wave.

Something I already had memorized and also something useless as of now, another big move with too-many hand-seals.

I looked up from the scroll to see Kushina's expectant face.

"Thanks, Kushina!"

I hugged her with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

"Anytime Shiro!"

The hug lasted a few seconds before Kushina broke it.

"Alright I gotta go, I have to go see grumpy Kakashi."

And with a flamboyant wave, she disappeared in a Shunshin.

I sighed and looked at the sun, I had about eight hours left in my day.

Back to training...

...

"So..."

My mother sent me an unamused look.

"So?"

I started tapping my fingers on the table.

"How do you feel about adding another member to our team?"

Mom wrinkled her nose and knitted her brows, and that told me all I need to know about her answer.

"I want to take Duy from the Genin corps and add him to our team."

Moms features smoothed over and she looked less opposed to the idea.

"Why's that?"

It was almost impossible to escape from the Genin corps once you were there, your only chance of escape was a random Jonin taking interest while you are young.

If you were over fifteen and in the Genin corps, you were doomed to the Genin corps for life.

"Duy practices the Eight Gates and prolonged use of the Eight Gates causes weakness which is why Duy is still a Genin."

That wasn't completely true, Duy was still a Genin in base strength, the Eight Gates only multiplied your existing strength.

"Makes sense, Duy is known for failing basic missions, I guess that could be attributed to his use of the Eight Gates." Mom nodded at me but didn't look sold on the idea.

Even with opening all Eight Gates Duy was still weak only being able to fight a few elite ninjas with most of them escaping. It was much different from canon Gai who nearly defeated a pseudo-space-god, this could be attributed to Gai's higher base strength.

So, my goal was to bump Duy up a few notches in base strength, mainly with body modifications and liberal use of Medical Ninjutsu.

Mom blew a heavy breath from her nose, crossed her arms, and leaned back in her chair.

"Give me a few days to think about it."

I nodded and stood up, that was more then I thought I would get.

"Alright."

I needed to go check on my rabbit...

...

Emergency Rations was a fine specimen, always providing me with discoveries.

It seems that cells don't just affect chakra, but chakra also affects the cells.

Emergency Rations chakra recovery rate had become that of a normal Genin and his bodily functions seem to have become more efficient.

It was quite the find...

But also something I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been looking at a younger rabbit just moments ago.

What a discovery!

Chakra affects the cells...

Now I'm interested in artificially expanding my reserves...

Though any changes to my body likely wouldn't happen for a while.

As tempting as it was to jump the gun and expand my chakra system, I should do some human trials before I do anything.

Or at lease some observable human trials...

I don't think the woman counts, she could have exploded for all I knew.

Hmm...

Could I get Duy to let me do it to him?

A question for later I suppose...

Hmm...

Maybe this is why Madara survived for so long, being hooked up to the statue and being fed its chakra must have somehow changed him.

Being hooked up to the statue might also be why his and Harashima's chakra combined.

Or it could still just be that they were spiritual brothers.

How would feeding myself Ōtsutsuki chakra go?

Where could I get Ōtsutsuki chakra?

Could I steal the statue from Madara or Nagato?

Questions... Questions...

...