"Alright, Karin's back. Let's go upstairs."
Karin was adapting more and more to life in Konoha. The timid personality cultivated during her time in Kusagakure had completely disappeared, replaced by a boisterous, carefree tomboyishness.
Yumi found this quite worrying, fearing the girl might never marry. Aoba, however, wasn't particularly concerned.
"Don't worry. When the girl grows up and meets someone she likes, she'll naturally change. Parents shouldn't worry too much. Usually, the more you interfere, the more likely you are to make things worse."
"I hope you're right," Yumi said, still troubled.
"Mom, is dinner ready? I'm starving!"
After running wild all afternoon, Karin clamored for food. Yumi wore an exasperated expression but still lovingly went to cook.
Meanwhile, Karin latched onto Aoba."Brother Aoba, can you teach me some more powerful ninjutsu? I've already mastered the Three Body Technique. I can even climb trees and walk on water now."
"Oh? Let me see then."
In the original manga, Karin was mostly portrayed as someone who had a crush on Sasuke. There were very few scenes depicting her growth as a character.
Later, she followed Orochimaru. But given Orochimaru's mindset at that time, he was likely already obsessed with his pursuit of immortality.
He wouldn't have seriously trained her. Yet despite that, Karin still grew to become a manager at one of Orochimaru's bases.
So from the beginning, Aoba knew this girl was an unacknowledged genius from the original story.
But little Karin's performance still surprised him.
Considering she had only been in school for about half a year, even with some prior foundation, her rapid completion of the school curriculum was astonishing.
Sure enough, under Aoba's watchful gaze, Karin flawlessly demonstrated the Three Body Technique, tree climbing, and water walking.
"Very impressive indeed. You're ready for the next stage of training."
In truth, it wasn't just these basic skills. The Chakra within Karin's body had already surpassed that of an average Konoha genin.
The Uzumaki clan's physical constitution was truly awe-inspiring.
Overall, Aoba even felt the Uzumaki clan might be the closest to possessing the Sage's body. Apart from Hashirama Senju, the rest of the Senju clan's physical abilities were rather mediocre in comparison.
Aoba had long prepared for Karin's next training phase. He had previously tested her Chakra nature - the girl had earth and water affinities.
Neither of these were Aoba's specialties. However, his plans for Karin's development weren't limited to being just a ninja.
After all, the original story had shown that Karin possessed all the most prominent traits of the Uzumaki clan. Her Kagura Mind's Eye had already awakened.
Moreover, in the later stages of the story, Karin awakened the Adamantine Sealing Chains - a sealing technique requiring exceptional talent to perform.
This indicated that Karin's true potential lay in sealing techniques. In the ninja world, high-level sealing techniques, when mastered, could rival pure ninjutsu in combat effectiveness.
In terms of potential, they far surpassed conventional elemental ninjutsu. After all, the Uzumaki clan's sealing techniques might even touch upon the power of the Shinigami.
During his last transaction with Orochimaru, Aoba had obtained extensive sealing technique materials with this very purpose in mind. Eventually, they would inevitably confront Tailed Beasts.
Conventional ninjutsu would be ineffective against the brute force of Tailed Beasts. But the Uzumaki clan's Adamantine Sealing Chains and Eight Trigrams Sealing techniques were specifically designed to counter them.
When that time came, Karin would be his trump card.
Soon, Karin regretted her request. Compared to physical training like tree climbing and water walking, sealing technique practice required extensive specialized knowledge.
In other words, Karin needed to start with massive amounts of theoretical study.
Heaven help her - theory classes were what Karin feared most in school. She had hoped to come home and learn some flashy skills to show off to her friends.To her surprise, what she needed to learn turned out to be the theoretical classes she hated the most. Moreover, those theories were obscure and difficult to understand, even more sleep-inducing than the school's teachings on the Will of Fire.
But there was no way out—she had asked for it herself, and Aoba had agreed. Now, it was too late to back out. Her only way of resisting was to play outside a little longer after school.
Because once she got home, her days of endless studying would begin.
Karin's studies had entered a stable routine. Aoba, too, seized every minute to improve himself.
After mastering Sage Mode, his need for conventional ninjutsu had increased. After all, under Sage Mode, even the most ordinary techniques could become terrifyingly powerful.
For civilian shinobi, avenues to obtain ninjutsu were scarce. Typically, they had to accumulate mission points and exchange them with Konoha's higher-ups.
Completing high-rank missions could also yield ninjutsu as rewards, as could spoils from battles.
But Aoba didn't need either of these. He had his own source—Kakashi.
As one of Konoha's renowned elite Jonin, the number of ninjutsu Kakashi mastered might only be second to the Third Hokage—or even surpass him in quantity.
Previously, to conserve chakra, Aoba had mostly relied on taijutsu in combat. But with Sage Mode enhancing the power of ninjutsu, he had learned many techniques from Kakashi to diversify his combat methods.
Of course, he didn't take advantage of Kakashi for free. He gave Kakashi two Life Potions. Used well in battle, these could mean a second life—and with no side effects, their value was easily worth several standard ninjutsu.
At the same time, Aoba was attempting to learn one of the most famous techniques in the Naruto world—the Spiraling Sphere.
The original concept of the Spiraling Sphere actually came from the Tailed Beast Ball—compressing chakra to its limit before releasing it.
But in reality, shinobi could never achieve this. Humans simply couldn't possess the vast chakra reserves of a Tailed Beast, and even if they did, they lacked the ability to compress it to that degree.
The Tailed Beast Ball didn't require any special technique—just sheer brute force: extreme chakra and ultimate compression.
Without sufficient compression, a chakra ball couldn't deal damage, as chakra would dissipate rapidly once it left the body.
This was why ninjutsu existed. Ninjutsu allowed chakra to change form, manifesting as matter or energy, making ranged attacks possible.
Minato Namikaze realized this and shifted his approach. He experimented with rotating chakra in his hand to maintain stability while achieving a compression effect.
This became the basic principle of the Spiraling Sphere. Knowing the fundamentals, Aoba naturally wouldn't pass up this technique.