Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_563: Variant Demonstration (Patreon)

A group of people gathered a few dozen kilometres outside the Hidden Leaf Village in a barren patch of land that seemed out of place amid the greenery stretching endlessly around it. The land was surrounded by a wide manmade ditch partially filled with rainwater. A few metres outside the ditch, a wide metal fence stood with unmissable warnings of danger and caution signs stamped onto the mesh weave.

Most were shinobi, but some in the crowd were civilians who had arrived the day before and stayed overnight at a nearby campsite. They were excited because it wasn't every day one got to witness a live A-rank ninjutsu.

Takuma looked away from the gaggle of rich civilians, invited because someone in the administration wanted to butter them up by giving them a rare experience, and turned his eye to the jōnin in the distance. He had seen A-rank ninjutsu firsthand—up close and from a distance—but all of it had been on a battlefield, where he'd been more concerned with survival than anything else.

It’d be the first time he would be witnessing one without the threat of death looming over his head.

“Have you been to something like this before?” Takuma asked. One of the people who had cast one of the A-rank ninjutsu he had experienced stood right beside him.

“It’s my first time as well,” Itachi said. “Variant Pathway Discovery in the A-rank category is exceedingly rare.”

Ninjutsu were a result of chakra manipulation through nature and shape transformation. During the casting process, the chakra was processed inside the body, woven through a very specific route configuration inside the chakra pathway network. Each jutsu had its own configuration, but sometimes people discovered alternate pathways. These discoveries mattered, as they sometimes improved chakra efficiency or casting time, or were easier to cast overall. Even without notable improvement, new configurations were always welcome because people were different, and some who struggled with one configuration might find success with another.

Takuma and Maruboshi both knew the Water Release: Water Dragon Missile Jutsu, but they didn’t use the same configuration because three variants had emerged in the decades between when they learned the same jutsu, and the recommended variant had changed by the time each learned it.

Variant Pathway Discovery was a rare occurrence that got increasingly unlikely with the subsequent higher ranks. At the complexity of A-rank jutsu, the discovery of new variants was a result of luck as much as knowledge, if not more.

“Did you ever attempt to create a new variant?” Takuma asked.

Itachi nodded.

“Oh!” Takuma chimed, intrigued. “Which jutsu?”

“Fire Release: Solar Nucleus Needle.”

Takuma was about to be wowed because any response would’ve been impressive, but the name of the jutsu gave him pause until he recognised it to be an A-rank ninjutsu.

“…Isn’t that the one you used against him?”

The memory and heat of the laser that melted a hole in the demonic gates of the Rashōmon and still utterly destroyed one of the strongest shinobi in the world flashed in his mind.

“O-Oh,” Takuma uttered when Itachi nodded. “When did that happen? I’m sure I would’ve heard it.”

“It’s not surprising that you don’t know. You were deployed to the Steam-Frost war.”

“Heavens… How old were you back then?” Takuma asked. At that time, he was struggling to use Water Release: Spirit Water Wave, a C-rank ninjutsu, with usable consistency. “Well, congratulations. Did they add your name to the scroll?”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Huh?” he frowned. “They’re going to do that with the jōnin who found this variant.”

“They weren’t able to replicate my variant,” Itachi said.

“Pardon?”

“My variant improved efficiency by seven per cent and reduced casting time by a ninth of a second, but they weren’t able to replicate it.”

For a variant to be officially recognised, shinobi other than the discoverer had to be able to replicate it.

“Did we not have someone else?” Takuma asked.

At lower ranks, finding a shinobi who knew the jutsu in question was much easier, but at A-rank, jōnin were rare, and not all of them could cast A-rank ninjutsu, shrinking the available pool. Those who could learned one or two at most, so there was no guarantee another jutsu would have the variant discovery. For that reason, it sometimes took years or even decades before they had a shinobi who learned the jutsu and could try to replicate and verify the variant pathway.

Takuma glanced at Toridasu, opulently dressed as always, standing nearby as the centre of attention, surrounded by other shinobi. He basked in the attention and entertained the crowd. He looked like a fish in water. Toridasu had discovered the variant. It was a landmark career achievement, and he deserved all the praise. The current gathering, attended by many high-ranking and prominent shinobi, was to celebrate his achievement. The Hokage was in attendance, alongside a few clan heads—who probably wanted to be on Toridasu’s good side after seeing how he was dealing with the Aburame inquiry.

However, Toridasu had discovered the variant over two decades ago. Since then, no other jōnin had used the jutsu. There were those who tried but didn’t manage to learn it, so there was no one to replicate his variant. That is, until five years ago, when a young jōnin in her prime learned the jutsu and, over half a year ago, dedicated time to learn the variant and successfully replicated it.

“Father knows the jutsu. He tried, but failed to replicate it,” Itachi said.

Takuma didn’t know what to say. Itachi didn’t look bothered in the slightest—in fact, he barely seemed to care.

“My variant didn’t sit well with him. To his credit, my changes are unorthodox in terms of how the original configuration deals with things.” Itachi then let out a rare sigh. “He was also dealing with other things at that time.”

That was an understatement. The last thing Takuma did before leaving for the war was write the letter to Mikoto, which, along with Uchiha Shisui’s death, set off a whole mess that took a long time to sort through. The clan was also dealing with other things before everything became very public.

“Excuse me, Chūnin Takuma.” One of the organisers of the demonstration came up to him as they were talking. “We were wondering if you could help us set up some walls as the target for Jōnin Kagero.”

“Do we not have enough people?” Takuma asked, looking into the distance where a group of shinobi were using Earth Release ninjutsu to erect walls as the target for the A-rank ninjutsu.

“We have enough people, but it’s taking too much time. We don’t want to keep the guests waiting, and your help would make the setup much faster.”

“Well sure, I don’t mind.”

Takuma made his way to the centre of the barren patch where thirty or so shinobi were erecting walls. Twenty or so were genin who were erecting C-rank earthen walls in the gaps of the much thicker and sturdier B-rank earthen walls that would serve as the main targets. The ten or so chūnin had erected seventeen walls and had moved on to padding out the gaps with C-rank earthen walls. All the walls had been made extra tall to make them look more imposing.

“I think this much is enough,” he said, looking at their progress.

“Jōnin Kagero wants more,” the organiser facilitating the construction said awkwardly.

Takuma sighed. The demonstration wasn’t for the jōnin to prove herself; it was a performance. She had already replicated the variant beforehand. The demonstration was just an excuse for people to socialise and celebrate the accomplishments of the two jōnin involved. As long as Kagero made a spectacle that got some ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the civilians, genin, and chūnin, her job was more than done. Adding more stuff wouldn’t make any difference because everything was going to get obliterated all the same.

“Very well,” he said. “Where do you want the walls? I can do one in the front and another in the back.”

“It’d be preferable if you could place both of them in the front to cover everything we have already as much as possible.”

“Works for me.”

Takuma warmed up while the organiser cleared the area so people wouldn’t get swept up in the way. All the talk about variant pathways made him wonder if there was any value in looking at variants of the jutsu in his arsenal; it fit with his method of learning, which involved ingesting as much of the jutsu scroll and the additional reading recommended within. He took in a deep breath as he summoned up a massive amount of chakra and guided it through his pathways while weaving hand seals.

Earth Release: Earth-Flow Rampart

The ground shook with the intensity of a major earthquake as a wide rampart rose beneath Takuma’s feet. He pulled earth from the surroundings, supplementing it with created earth where needed to fortify the foundation so the weight of the elevated earth wouldn’t collapse on itself. He faced the other walls behind his rampart and stopped the jutsu slightly shorter than the rest so the audience could still see the walls behind, so Kagero’s jutsu would look as impressive as possible.

“How is that?” he said to the organiser after jumping down. The rampart curved gently, its length covering everything else. It was far thicker and longer than the other chūnin’s creations. “I can still make one in the back.”

The organiser craned his neck back to look at the giant rampart with his jaw just so slightly ajar.

“…That’d be great, yes.”

And so Takuma made another rampart in the back. This time, however, he made the rampart taller than the rest so it seemed more imposing than everything else and presented itself as the final challenge.

When he returned, Takuma caught Kagero looking at him and gave her a nod before she stepped away and put a safe distance between herself and the audience.

“Good job,” Itachi said.

“I get restless when I have a full tank in the middle of the day,” Takuma said. Usually, he wouldn’t come to events like this, but Itachi insisted that he join him for the demonstration. He also ordered him not to make any clones for the day and to use the outing as a break.

“Please don’t say that in front of anyone else. They’ll think strangely of you,” Itachi said.

Takuma didn’t comment and instead turned his attention to the other star of the show.

There was a silence loud with anticipation as Kagero prepared her body for the strain of the A-rank ninjutsu. Normally, she would have slowly circulated chakra through her body until her pathways were warmed and ready to bear the load—which she had done—but for the final stage of her preparation, she chose a flashier method better suited to the setting.

She started with Fire Release: Running Fire, a D-rank ninjutsu that sent a stream of fire running along the ground in a large spiral before the flames shot up into the air in a flashy display. There were cheers and applause in the lull before her next move, where she escalated to the C-rank ninjutsu, Fire Release: Fox Fire, which produced nine fire orbs that burned softly and flew around her. They started to move around in her circle gently before slowly picking up speed as she weaved hand seals for the B-rank ninjutsu Fire Release: Blast Wave Wild Dance before slapping them together. The fire orbs were moving at such speed that they seemed like a solid ring; suddenly, they exploded into a rapidly growing volume of flames that spiralled into a massive fire vortex that surrounded her.

Until now, only the civilians had been impressed, but with the B-rank ninjutsu, even the shinobi were impressed as the heat and size of the fire showed her ascendant understanding of chakra and her expression of that understanding through advanced chakra manipulation.

The vortex continued to grow for the next minute until it fizzled out within seconds, leaving Kagero in the middle of the scorched, sizzling ground.

The wind seemed to halt as the jōnin was ready. She breathed in through her nose, and a cloud of fire escaped along with her breath as she exhaled from her mouth. She began weaving a complex set of hand seals as chakra flooded her body, racing through her network.

Though they could only see her back, everyone could tell it wasn’t easy on her body.

With the last hand seal, she pulled her hand away, and her fingertips fed wisps of fire into a bright orb that grew between her palms. The jutsu wasn’t over; Kagero shoved more chakra into the fire orb’s centre, turning it hot white. She raised her hand straight up where everyone saw the orb transform into a dainty firebird that took to the air with rapid flaps of its tiny wings.

It didn’t look powerful at all. The fire construct was so small that one wouldn’t have been able to see it if not for the scorched trail behind it.

“Is this right?” a civilian asked, his voice carrying far in the silence. No one answered him. All shinobi—even the jōnin—gazed upon the firebird in silence, knowing the power it contained. They could feel the concentrated, agitated chakra inside the bird, raging to break out and wreak havoc.

The firebird didn’t crash into the rampart. It sat down gently on the top.

For a single heartbeat, silence persisted. Then, the chunk of the rampart vaporised. The delicate bird dissolved, blooming not outwards into an explosion, but inward, sinking its chakra directly into the structure of the large wall. Gone was the delicateness as the fire-natured chakra tore through the strong solid. A web of blinding, incandescent white cracks spider-webbed across the darkening earth, spreading with a liquid speed. The stone began to weep molten slag. The flames ate like a hungry beast. Within seconds, the large rampart was collapsing from within.

Small explosions rang out, spewing ash like sick coughs.

But that was only the start, as the gluttonous fires were already devouring the walls behind, and they fell faster. Whether C-rank or B-rank, there didn’t seem to be a difference.

The organisers seemed to have seen enough, as they immediately began their extinguishing efforts. Dozens of shinobi, a mix of genin and chūnin, began using Water Release, spewing water toward the fire. The paltry output of many genin didn’t even reach the flames as the hot ground flash-boiled the water on contact. As enormous amounts of water poured in, the resulting steam explosion sent out splashes that caused some unlucky ones to get burned.

It only took less than a minute for the second rampart to sink into purgatory and turn into lava.

“You know, he used the same jutsu at the gold mine and then at the City of Yu,” Takuma said, looking at the fire that was being contained with great difficulty.

“Toridasu?” Itachi asked.

Takuma nodded. He had only seen the flames from a distance at Yu, but in the mines, the clash of two A-rank ninjutsu had almost buried him alive, and that was when he was on the opposite end of the mines. Many years had passed since then. A lot had changed because even though he was safe right now, he could better understand the threat of the jutsu than he could feel back in the mines. He could feel the almost twisted and unnatural ferocity of the fire-natured chakra from a distance; it was a sign of his growth. And yet, something remained the same: he still didn’t have a way to stand against a jutsu like that.

“You’ll get there,” Itachi said, picking up on his thoughts. “You’re close, I can tell.”

Takuma felt irritated; he was stuck, and there was nothing he could do about it. He sighed and gave his boss an appreciative look.

“Now, sharpen up. We have company,” Itachi said.

Takuma turned around to see the Hyūga clan head walking towards them.

———

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A/N: Long chapter. Tired. See you tomorrow.