Early one morning, at a medium-sized training ground in Konoha, two Shin stood facing one another.
Without warning, the long-haired Shin reached into the ninja tool pouch at his waist and snapped his arm forward, sending several shuriken whistling through the air.
They flew with extreme speed, traveling in perfectly straight lines—clean, efficient throws, without the exaggerated curves favored by the Uchiha Clan.
The opposing Shin raised a kunai in a reverse grip with his left hand, batting the incoming shuriken aside amid a rapid series of sharp clangs.
At the same time, his right hand drew the Black Ironwood short sword from his back, and he surged forward to engage.
The two clashed at blinding speed. Every strike was aimed at a vital point; every attack met an equally precise defense.
Their positions shifted constantly, the fight spilling from the ground up into the trees and then crashing back down again.
For a moment, their figures seemed like afterimages in the dust—kunai and shuriken flashing through the air, metal striking metal in an unbroken rhythm.
Suddenly, the long-haired Shin drove a powerful kick into his opponent, sending him flying backward. In the same motion, he hurled four kunai from both hands.
Before the weapons could reach their mark, the long-haired Shin rapidly formed hand seals.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough."
A violent gale erupted forward, shredding the attack and blasting the kunai back toward their sender.
The short-haired Shin instinctively considered using Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall, as he usually did—but this time, he abandoned the idea.
Chakra surged through his legs as he accelerated sharply to the side, evading the wind head-on. In the same instant, he vanished in a flicker of speed.
The Body Flicker Technique.
He reappeared behind his opponent and drove his blade forward.
"Poof!" The long-haired Higashino Shin exploded into a cloud of white smoke.
The remaining Shin groaned and dropped to one knee, clutching his stomach. There was no wound—yet the pain was sharp, vivid, and unmistakably real.
Both combatants had been Higashino Shin.
One of them was a Shadow Clone, distinguished only by the Transformation Jutsu that gave him long hair.
The Shadow Clone Technique is a miraculous ninjutsu that uses chakra to create one or more fully physical copies of the user. Almost no one in the Ninja World can distinguish them from the original—not even Ōtsutsuki Kaguya herself.
Its weakness lies in durability. A clone cannot withstand blunt force beyond a certain limit, nor can it endure slashes or stabs from ordinary sharp weapons. More importantly, the technique divides the user's chakra evenly among all clones.
When a clone disperses, all of its experiences—along with the full sensation of pain—are transmitted back to the original body.
Originally, it was an exceptional technique for reconnaissance and deception. However, for ninjas with limited chakra or insufficient mental fortitude to endure intense pain, it is a dangerous gamble—one that can easily cost them their lives.
And this was only the standard Shadow Clone Technique.
If it were the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu, an average ninja might literally kill themselves through feedback alone. It was labeled a forbidden technique for good reason; it is not something most ninjas can afford to use.
So why is Naruto the only one who uses it recklessly?
Because he carries the Uzumaki bloodline—and more importantly, because he has at least two "cheaters" capable of absorbing the backlash.
Kurama: "???"
Ashura: "???"
Since mastering the Shadow Clone Technique, Shin had relied on his exceptional chakra control to gradually reduce the amount of chakra used per clone, preventing his reserves from being split evenly and making the technique far more practical.
At the same time, he sparred frequently against his own clones to sharpen his combat instincts, reaction speed, and—perhaps most importantly—his tolerance for pain. He never held back, always striking for vital points.
Unfortunately, his opponent was himself.
They knew each other's habits too well. Aside from refining neural response speed, the combat experience gained was limited.
The pain feedback, however, was never reduced in the slightest.
After collecting the scattered ninja tools, Shin settled atop a massive tree, drinking the nutritional water prepared by his mother, Megumi.
His gaze drifted toward the distant outline of Konoha Village, unchanged on the surface, as he quietly contemplated the direction of his future training.
More than a year had passed without him noticing. He was now over five years old, taller, broader, and far removed from the child he once was.
The Ninja World was growing increasingly tense.
Shortly after Shin's fifth birthday, his father, Higashino Jiro, had once again rotated to the border for guard duty. His mother continued her demanding work at the hospital.
Over the past year, the group of four—Shin, Gekkō Hayate, Uchiha Shisui, and Uzuki Yūgao—had occasionally gone out together, exchanging training insights and practicing wilderness survival skills.
But that time was fading.
With the start of the new school term, Hayate had officially enrolled in the Ninja Academy.
Uchiha Shisui, due to his extraordinary talent, had begun receiving direct guidance from clan instructors alongside other promising youths, leaving him little freedom to wander outside the compound.
Even Yūgao Uzuki was no exception.
The adults understood the situation clearly. War could erupt at any moment.
Any family with sense had already begun intensifying the training of their children, hoping—praying—that they might survive what was coming.
Though everyone spoke of teamwork and trust in comrades, every ninja knew the truth.
In the end, personal strength was the only guarantee of survival.
Over the course of that year, Shin had also mastered the Three Basic E-rank Jutsu, the commonly used Body Flicker Technique, basic Konoha-style swordsmanship, as well as several Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and the Shadow Clone Technique.
The Ninjutsu he knew included: Wind Release: Great Breakthrough, Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique, Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall, Water Release: Water Formation Wall, and Genjutsu: False Surroundings Technique.
All of these were widely used techniques, with the highest rank among them being only a B-rank.
The Higashino Clan was merely a civilian ninja clan; even after three generations of accumulation, they possessed no Ninjutsu above B-rank, nor did they have a complete or distinctive kenjutsu legacy like the Gekkō or Uzuki clans.
With Shin's current level of precise chakra control, learning these techniques posed little difficulty.
His body had also grown stronger day by day through the continuous absorption of White Natural Energy, and his chakra reserves were already quite respectable—at the very least, he wouldn't collapse after casting a few C-rank techniques.
Of course, the highest-ranked technique he currently possessed was the A-rank Rasengan.
After all, it was the only technique in the original records whose principles and training methods were clearly documented. As someone reborn with prior knowledge, how could he not learn it?
Yet even so, Shin soon discovered a problem.
Whether it was the Rasengan—which he still couldn't use reliably—or his other Ninjutsu, none of them truly aligned with the combat style he envisioned for himself.
The reason was simple: their efficiency was too low.
Among the three major disciplines—Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu—Ninjutsu was by far the flashiest, and the one most children imagined when they dreamed of becoming ninja.
Who wouldn't want to defeat enemies with dazzling techniques, earn praise from comrades, sit in the Hokage's chair, marry well, and reach the peak of life?
Reality, however, was far less romantic.
Ninjutsu consumed enormous amounts of chakra. For the average civilian ninja, with their meager reserves, a "Ninjutsu battery" fighting style was simply unrealistic.
Most spent their entire careers using Ninjutsu only as support—forcing enemy movement or creating openings—before relying on shuriken and kunai to finish the job.
Shin possessed a natural method of cultivating Natural Energy, and he was confident that chakra shortage would never be his problem in the long run. Even so, he couldn't help but look down on Ninjutsu to some extent.
Unless massive amounts of chakra were poured into a technique to expand its range into something resembling carpet bombing, ordinary Ninjutsu were simply too easy to dodge.
More often than not, they served as distractions, ambush tools, or positioning aids rather than decisive killing moves.
Even the dignified Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique had been reduced, in practice, to something closer to a warning shot. From what he had seen, it killed remarkably few people.
Was Ninjutsu weak? No.
Most ninjas possessed terrifying offensive power and pitiful defense. Even a Kage-level ninja would die if struck by a Great Fireball while completely undefended.
The problem lay elsewhere—ninja mobility was simply too high. Speed made evasion easy, and that made Ninjutsu seem inefficient.
In the thousand years since the rise of the ninja, what has claimed the most lives? Not grand techniques. But the unassuming metal weapons—ninja swords, shuriken, and kunai.
Compared to weaving hand seals and expending chakra to kill an enemy, stabbing them with a kunai was faster, simpler, and far more economical.
The path Shin envisioned for himself was one of overwhelming speed and power through Taijutsu.
With his body continuously refined by Natural Energy, he believed his physical capabilities would eventually surpass those of an ordinary ninja.
Paired with that Taijutsu, he would develop instantaneous killing methods using swords or concealed weapons, maximizing lethality while minimizing wasted movement and chakra.
In his mind, techniques akin to the "blade energy" he remembered from stories in his previous life would suit him perfectly.
And, as it happened, such methods did exist in the Ninja World.
Notable examples included Wind Release: Vacuum Sword, later used by Jōnin Shirakumo Hayama, and Danzō Shimura's practice of infusing wind-natured chakra into weapons such as kunai and shuriken.
Danzō could even shape wind chakra directly into a blade. Though Shin had no love for the man, he had to admit that few in Konoha surpassed Danzō in mastery of Wind Release.
Conveniently, Shin possessed wind-natured chakra himself—saving him the immense amount of time normally required to cultivate elemental affinity from scratch.
With that realization, his next direction became clear.
He would focus on chakra nature transformation, drawing inspiration from existing techniques without being bound by them, and develop combat methods uniquely his own.
With his growing understanding of chakra theory and the knowledge he carried from his previous life, he was confident it was not only possible—but inevitable.
This didn't mean abandoning Ninjutsu.
On the contrary, just as precise chakra control made basic techniques easy to learn, mastering nature transformation at a deep level would make high-level Ninjutsu far easier to grasp later.
Sharpening the axe, after all, does not delay the cutting of wood.
And Medical Ninjutsu could not be neglected. It was one of the most practical branches of ninjutsu, and further training in it would only refine his chakra control even more.
Having finished organizing his thoughts, Shin recovered his stamina, fastened his weighted training equipment, and began his physical training once again.
The metal bars embedded in the weights were now twice as many as they had been a year ago.