The scene shifts to a room within darkness that swallowed all light. It was more than a room; it was an isolation room, designed to sever the senses one by one, leaving a shinobi with nothing but the raw, unadorned truth of their instincts. The floor was covered in a scant few inches of cool water, which felt less like liquid and more like a viscous, living presence that clung to their ankles. In this oppressive void, the faintest sound, the slightest vibration, became a shout.
Ryu stood at one end of the chamber, a silhouette within the deeper gloom. Across from him, Akihiro was a similarly indiscernible shape, his posture tense and his senses straining against the unnatural emptiness. Ryu wore a blindfold, a formality meant to put him on equal footing with his student. He was there to train his own senses as much as his student's.
This room was designed for training in chakra sensing, but at this time, this was not a mere exercise in chakra sensing but to train the other instincts of the body. This was about developing the true sixth sense, an amalgamation of all five natural senses used at a subconscious level, the true state of a perfect shinobi. Ryu had been working on a solution to accelerate this process.
Ryu said, "Listen to your body; you can feel the water move. Make that feeling always an active part of your body. Don't just listen… Actively determine the direction of the voice, determine the distance from the intensity of the voice and match that data with what other senses are telling you. Try to do all that at the same time. I know it will be hard for you at the beginning, but in time it will become your instinct."
Akihiro just nodded. He knew it would take time and practice to develop this new skill, but he was determined to master it in order to improve his abilities. With Ryu's guidance, Akihiro began training diligently, focusing on honing his senses and integrating them seamlessly into his combat techniques.
"This is about making your instinct a conscious, reliable tool," Ryu's voice cut through the silence, each syllable echoing, a ghost in the dark. "Others wait for their instincts to whisper; we will force them to scream using the [InstinctGPT] seal on your body."
It was a new, modified [BodyGPT] seal variant. A fuinjutsu-based neural network. Unlike its predecessor, which I used to control the paralysed body of Souji, this one analyses your sensory input and refines your instinctual responses. Just like its predecessor, it was an additional brain, a system that was training to be an extension of your own instincts. With [InstinctGPT], you will be able to react faster, think quicker, and anticipate moves before they even happen. It was a game-changer in the world of combat and strategy. For someone blind like Akihiro, it was a revolutionary tool that would level the playing field and give him a fighting chance against opponents with sight.
In the sensory deprivation room the training began. Ryu took the role of aggressor. He took one deliberate step forward, and the resulting ripple in the ankle-deep water was the first and only sensory input Akihiro received. The world, so empty a moment ago, was now defined by that single disturbance. Akihiro's body reacted before his mind could process it. He turned his head and shifted his weight, his muscles tensing, his instinct pinpointing the origin of the ripple. The aim was to train the [InstinctGPT] to learn to sense these ripples in water.
The first clash was jarring. Ryu's training sword cut through the thick air, a whisper of a sound. Akihiro, guided by his now-heightened senses, raised his own blade. A sound echoed through the otherwise silent chamber as the wooden swords clashed.
"You should not have moved your head." Ryu's voice was firm but not unkind. "A shinobi in a fight to the death would exploit such an obvious tell. Even the slightest movement betrays your position. You let your opponent realise that you have realised your position by turning your head towards them. Don't do that."
The training progressed into a full-blown "fight between blinds". In the beginning, Akihiro struggled, trying to remain still and use only his ears and the feel of the water to locate Ryu, but now he was slowly getting the hang of it. The [Instinct GPT] also increased his growth rate by 100 by consolidating what he learned and recording it permanently.
Ryu shifting his weight without creating a large ripple. Akihiro, exhausted and frustrated, got hit multiple times. He was too slow to react and too obvious in his tells.
The second round showed his improvement. Akihiro began to understand the lesson. He focused on the slight changes in air pressure as Ryu moved and the almost imperceptible sound of his clothes. He successfully blocked a few more hits but was still a step behind.
Now, [InstinctGPT] began to take over and show some positive results. Akihiro was now reacting instinctively to the subtle displacement of the water from a footstep twenty feet away. The two engaged in a fluid, ballet-like sword fight, their blades clashing in the darkness—a testament to the effectiveness of the training.
"The session is over." Ryu's voice broke the silence. "You are improving faster than I expected." It was a brief compliment, but to Akihiro, it meant the world.
They emerged from the isolation room, blinking against the sudden brightness. The oppressive stillness was replaced by the mundane sounds of the compound, but the quiet hum of their elevated senses remained. They sat on a bench; Akihiro was visibly mentally exhausted by all that focused training. Ryu looked at his pet hummingbirds in the distance.
They discussed Akihiro's chakra control. Ryu's words were a mix of praise and a firm call to do more. He stressed the importance of mastering the fundamentals that others often overlook, the simple things that could turn the tide in battle.
Akihiro, still lost in his thoughts, used hand signs to express his confusion. "How am I going to sense when there is no water?"
Ryu smiled, the humour returning to his voice. "Using water now is just to get things started. You will have to sense using ground waves. Like water, there are always ground waves when anyone steps; you need to raise your senses to the point you can feel those waves."
This was only the beginning phase of training the [InstinctGPT]. The difficulty level will rise after many sessions of training and then ground waves, sound waves, wind waves, and all kinds of sensory inputs will be combined to form a mental image of the surroundings. Chakra sensing will also be added on top of all that.
Akihiro's disbelief was evident in his rapid signing. "Sensing steps from this distance... you must be joking."
Ryu's demeanour changed completely. The smile vanished, replaced by a profound, unnerving seriousness. His eyes seemed to look through Akihiro.
"I'm not joking. This is going to be a ninja in the Sand Village in the future." Ryu's words were a low, powerful rumble. "A teammate of Shinki, the adoptive son of the Fifth Kazekage."
Akihiro's initial shock was followed by a flood of questions, his hands flying in rapid succession. "Fifth Kazekage?? But the current Kazekage is the Fourth. What are you saying? In the future…?"
Ryu's eyes remained fixated on a distant place, reflecting a dark and tragic depth. "His son, in about nine to ten years in the future, is going to be the next Kazekage when the current Kazekage dies at the hands of Orochimaru."
The words hung in the air, each one a hammer blow to Akihiro's perception of reality. The world felt unreal, as if the ground had been pulled from beneath him. "Are you trying to say … you know the future?"
Ryu finally confessed, "Yes… This is something… I have not told anyone… not even Grandpa."
Akihiro signed and asked, "But why are you telling me all this...?"
Ryu finally revealed the reason for his revelation: "There is one thing wise men should remember: there is always someone wiser than you. I need someone I can actually talk to and seek advice from when I am lost."
Akihiro, humbled and honoured by Ryu's trust, tells using hand signs and vowed, "I am blind, but after all the things I have seen you do and create… I believe you… And I will keep your secret and guide you when you are lost."
Ryu replied, "Thank you."
Akihiro then asked about the future, "What is going to happen in the future?"
Ryu's response was short but terrifyingly vague, dark and ominous. He said, "So many things happened; living turned into dead, dead rose among the living, and gods descended. Too much happened too fast, and in the Fourth Great Ninja War… everything changed."
Akihiro, in disbelief, asked, "How can such a terrible future exist with someone like you in it?"
Ryu's final revelation was the most impactful. "That is because in the future I knew and saw… I do not exist…. It's an alternate future… without me in it."
The chapter ended with Akihiro sitting in stunned silence. He was no longer just a student; he was now a guardian of a great and terrible secret, training not just for himself but to change the course of destiny.
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