Chapter 200: Yahiko's Growth
Traveling on and off, Ishiro's group of five arrived at the Kawa no Kuni Ninja Village (River Ninja Village) without encountering any mishaps.
The Land of Rivers was aptly named; a large river ran through the entire country, and both the capital of the Land of Rivers and the River Ninja Village were located on its banks. However, the distance between the two was not short.
The arrival of Ishiro's group of five was quickly intercepted by a River Ninja squad.
The ninjas of the original River Ninja Village would not have dared to so boldly intercept a squad from a major power. But the addition of the Akatsuki Organization had greatly boosted the confidence of the River Ninjas.
Looking at the River Ninjas, who were beginning to show some of the confidence of a major ninja village, Ishiro found it somewhat amusing.
The current River Ninjas were probably like the Amegakure ninjas before the Second Great Ninja War, thinking that with one strong leader in command, they could stand on equal footing with the Five Great Nations.
However, Ishiro wasn't concerned about these things and directly said to them, "I'm here to find Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan of the Akatsuki Organization. I am their friend."
This squad of River Ninjas was somewhat displeased that Ishiro directly called their leaders by their names. In their hearts, their leaders would one day be addressed with the title of "Kage."
However, since Ishiro was a friend of their leaders, they politely asked Ishiro to wait for a moment, then sent one person back to the village to report.
In a short while, Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan personally came out to welcome Ishiro.
Upon meeting, both Ishiro and Yahiko were stunned, because both simultaneously noticed that the other was in the same state as themselves: quasi-Kage.
Yahiko was overjoyed and quickly said, "Ishiro, you're about to become Kage-level too? That's great!"
Yahiko was more overjoyed than surprised, while Ishiro was more surprised than overjoyed.
When Yahiko died in the original story, he wasn't Kage-level. And Ishiro recalled that due to the timeline being advanced, the Yahiko of the original story might not even have died yet at this point in time.
In other words, Yahiko had surpassed the self from the original story who had committed suicide.
Only after chatting in detail did Ishiro realize that Yahiko had become a quasi-Kage after becoming the leader of the Land of Rivers and feeling the pressure of maintaining order in a medium-sized country.
Ishiro couldn't help but say, "This is very Yahiko."
Ishiro, Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan walked and talked, slowly strolling through the rebuilding River Ninja Village.
Only after the group reached the River Ninja Village leader's office building did Ishiro begin to discuss serious matters.
Firstly, Ishiro took out a pile of scrolls he had prepared long ago. These were all ninjutsu Ishiro had obtained from enemies over the years, as well as ninjutsu he had developed himself. Among them, the highest-ranking were only one A-rank Water Cutting Technique and one A-rank Lightning Release Stimulation Method. The rest were B-rank and C-rank ninjutsu, but their strength lay in quantity.
Of course, Ishiro had reported this matter to Ōnoki.
Originally, Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan only had the Akatsuki Organization under them. Although Iwagakure valued them, they didn't consider Akatsuki an ally. But the situation was different now; Iwagakure couldn't ignore a ninja village of a medium-sized country with a Kage-level figure in command.
So, before Ishiro set out, when he proposed giving the ninjutsu he had developed and captured to the River Ninjas, Ōnoki agreed directly after some thought.
Of course, this was also related to the geographical location of the Land of Rivers. The Land of Rivers was situated between the Land of Wind and the Land of Fire, capable of effectively tying down these two major competitors of the Land of Earth.
And the Land of Rivers was not adjacent to the Land of Earth, posing almost no threat to it.
Therefore, Ōnoki had developed the idea of forming an alliance with the Land of Rivers.
Seeing Ishiro give a large pile of ninjutsu, Yahiko was overjoyed. Although their River Ninja Village had inherited the foundation of the original River Ninja Village, its depth was still too shallow.
Ishiro's action could be described as timely assistance.
After Yahiko accepted the ninjutsu, he expressed his gratitude to Ishiro.
Taking this opportunity, Ishiro brought up the matter of Iwagakure planning to host a joint Chūnin Exam.
Upon hearing this, Yahiko agreed without a second thought and said, "In this war, Iwagakure was the first to proactively propose ending the war. We also want to visit Iwagakure to witness Iwagakure's prowess."
"I heard that ending the war was also your achievement, Ishiro. Ishiro, although you haven't established a peace organization like Akatsuki, you have walked ahead of us."
"You accomplished what we wanted to do but couldn't; you successfully prevented a war."
As Yahiko said this, Nagato and Konan also looked at Ishiro with eyes full of admiration.
This made Ishiro somewhat embarrassed; his starting point was not so pure. Speaking of which, in this Third Great Ninja War, Ishiro did indeed play some roles, but these roles were all about adding fuel to the fire.
"If Yahiko finds out the truth one day, will he directly hunt me down across the ninja world with Nagato and Konan?" Ishiro thought with some guilt.
However, these were not things the current Ishiro needed to consider. With the biggest objective of this trip accomplished, Ishiro called his four disciples over and introduced them to Nagato and the others.
Kawakita also thanked Nagato and his group for the B-rank swordsmanship jutsu they had given him previously.
Nagato, seeing Ishiro had taken on another batch of disciples, and after observing the four of them, felt somewhat envious, wondering if he too should take on a few apprentices.
For this reason, Nagato even carefully asked Ishiro several questions about taking disciples.
When Ishiro had visited the Akatsuki Organization last time, they had discussed similar topics, but at that time, Yahiko and the others were focused on how to cultivate Akatsuki's younger generation. This time, the focus of Nagato's questions was vastly different.
Ishiro quickly understood. After considering for a moment, he said, "Nagato, if you want to take disciples, it's best to choose those with relatively lively personalities. You are rather quiet; if your disciples are as quiet as you, it will be quite difficult for you to teach them. You should choose students who like to actively ask questions."
"Besides personality, talent is also very important. Don't look at how my disciples' grades in the Ninja Academy were average; they all have their own specialties."
"Especially Little Saki, her talent aligns very well with mine, and I can help her bring out her talents and specialties very well."
"As for you, Nagato, it's best to choose students with relatively strong spiritual energy. Your power needs the Rinnegan's enhancement, but these abilities are not necessarily unteachable to students. Perhaps you can find disciples suitable for learning your unique ninjutsu?"
After listening to Ishiro's analysis, Nagato nodded thoughtfully.
Hearing that Nagato wanted to take disciples, Yahiko and Konan immediately expressed their intention to take disciples together as well, and both asked Ishiro for advice.
The group chatted late into the night before finally going to rest.
Early the next morning, Nagato proactively sought out Ishiro, saying he had something to discuss with him. Ishiro, assuming it was still about taking disciples, didn't refuse.
After the two arrived at a training ground, Nagato said, "Ishiro, because you learned Banshō Ten'in before, after you left, I have been studying both Banshō Ten'in and Shinra Tensei."
"Based on your method of cultivating Banshō Ten'in, I have come up with a method for cultivating Shinra Tensei. Would you like to try it?"
Ishiro was dumbfounded. What was going on? Nagato wanted to teach him an S-rank ninjutsu?
Could it be to repay him for the pile of low-rank ninjutsu he had given yesterday? Although the quantity of ninjutsu Ishiro gave was not small, their value was definitely far less than an S-rank ninjutsu.
Moreover, Shinra Tensei was an S-rank ninjutsu with special abilities.
It wasn't that Ishiro hadn't thought about learning Shinra Tensei from Nagato. It was just that, putting himself in Nagato's shoes, Ishiro felt he definitely wouldn't easily show such a trump card to others.
To prevent even losing their friendship in the end, Ishiro hadn't dared to bring it up at all. But now, Nagato had proactively proposed it.
Moreover, judging by Nagato's meaning, he had been thinking about this issue ever since Ishiro left last time; it had nothing to do with the pile of ninjutsu Ishiro gave him yesterday.
Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan truly regarded Ishiro as a friend, as one of their own.
That was what Yahiko thought when he accepted Ishiro's ninjutsu yesterday, and it was for the same reason that Nagato wanted to teach Ishiro S-rank ninjutsu today.
"Phew~~" Ishiro nodded and said, "Nagato, thank you. Come on, let's try."
Then Nagato began to describe to Ishiro in detail the similarities and differences between Shinra Tensei and Banshō Ten'in.
Both ninjutsu were related to gravity and were similar in essence. But since the Rinnegan gave them different names, they were indeed very different.
During the teaching process, Ishiro was surprised to discover that Nagato's Shinra Tensei seemed to no longer have the limitation of a time interval.
It seemed Nagato had completely mastered this ninjutsu through his research over the years.
"No wonder Nagato offered to teach me Shinra Tensei; it turns out he has this confidence."
Thanks to Nagato's long-term research and contemplation, coupled with Ishiro's experience in learning Banshō Ten'in, learning this time was smoother than expected.
Under Nagato's careful guidance, Ishiro managed to barely master this ninjutsu in just seven or eight days.
However, the Shinra Tensei Ishiro cast was too weak. If he used Shinra Tensei to accelerate a thrown kunai, it had some effect, but if he wanted to cast Shinra Tensei out of thin air to attack an enemy, its power was less than even the weakest C-rank water jutsu.
And what frustrated Ishiro the most was that Shinra Tensei actually consumed a lot of chakra; the greater the power, the greater the consumption.
Nagato had chakra by the ton, so he naturally wasn't concerned, but Ishiro's pitiful chakra reserves were nothing in the face of such massive consumption.
Ishiro calculated that currently, casting Shinra Tensei once at full power consumed no less chakra than an A-rank Great Raging Water Shockwave, reaching a terrifying 20A.
And because Ishiro was at the quasi-Kage level, his chakra reserves were growing wildly, now around 1200A.
A chakra reserve of 1200A seemingly allowed him to cast Shinra Tensei 60 times, which didn't seem like a small number.
But Ishiro hadn't fully mastered the Shinra Tensei ninjutsu yet; the power he currently used didn't even reach C-rank ninjutsu levels. There was still a very large room for power increase.
By then, Ishiro wasn't sure if 1200A of chakra would be enough for him to cast Shinra Tensei even once.
Although he had taught Ishiro Shinra Tensei, Nagato was somewhat embarrassed. He himself didn't lack chakra, so he hadn't thought of this situation before teaching Ishiro.
Besides the high consumption, this Shinra Tensei actually had a cooldown time of up to 1 minute. Ishiro needed to rest for at least a minute before he could cast it again.
Therefore, the current practical combat application of this ninjutsu was almost zero. Its only benefit was that, like Banshō Ten'in, it was an instant-cast ninjutsu that didn't require hand seals.
After all, he had learned a new S-rank ninjutsu, and an offensive S-rank ninjutsu at that. Although it wasn't very useful now, no one could say what the future held. So Ishiro was still very excited and kept thanking Nagato.
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