2 days after being hospitalized, Kudo was back at the training ground 7, trying to master his water ninjutsu. His current arsenal was not enough, especially for wide-area attacks. His mom had given him an earful about being careful amidst waterfall tears while giving his sensei a glare like judgment from the king of the underworld.
Ai, Enya, and Kudo were inwardly laughing as Takao went through 3 lectures on how he will get married one day, have kids, and such…etc. The only sad part was that it only happened once.
"Hooh." Inhaling deeply, Kudo felt his chakra soar like a flame encompassing his body like a mane. Chakra flooded his pathways as it made its way to every cell connected in the chakra network. There were many branching paths, and in some pathways, the flow of chakra was sparse. With focused intensity, he was trying to amplify his physical abilities with chakra.
1 minute…2 minutes…5 minutes, and Kudo's brow scrunched up, sweat poured down his face as the strain and chakra depletion settled. This time, unlike other times where he would immediately jump into doing taijutsu forms, he was trying to master the control and rhythm of his chakra. "Haaa-haaa." After holding for 10 minutes, Kudo panted himself breathless. "This is so difficult, I wonder how Lady Tsunade achieved such perfect chakra control." During the academy days, Iruka often mentioned Lady Tsunade, one of the Sannin, and her perfect chakra control.
However, it's been more than a year since Kudo had the idea to boost his body with chakra, and the best he had figured out was how to channel chakra into every part of his body, and even then, the chakra flow was terrible. Feeling his chakra reserves, he had about 80% left.
At least now, chakra loss was minimal. When he focused, he sometimes managed to leak out a little chakra.
"Alright, let's do this!" Taking out 3 kunai in his left and 3 senbon in his right, he threw them at targets marked at varying distances around him, some 15 meters, a few at 10 meters. "Thwack-Thwack!" All of them hit dead centre. "Now," Making the Hare handseal, he focused his chakra on his forehead, and from his forehead, then spread it around him in a cocoon that enlarged increasingly away from him. "Six o'clock, Senbon. 3 meters away, southwest." His chakra field kept increasing as more of the projectiles came within range. Eventually, all 6 were sensed and directions identified.
"Final part, "Kudo focused intensely, using the available chakra in the chakra field to extend it as far as possible, thinning it out while having no gaps in the field. His teacher, Manabi sensei, had warned him when he was learning to be a sensor that he couldn't just commit himself entirely and call that being a decent sensor shinobi. If he could use as little chakra as possible and still cover wide areas, then he would be good enough as a sensor. After stretching his field as far as he could, he stopped. His current limit was a 20-meter radius around him, but compared to Enya's 100-meter radius, he was still far.
"I would if it's possible to just send a pulse of chakra down from my leg and then sense everything around me. It kinda feels redundant to be a sensor while Enya is also a sensor, but even he can't sense underground. I read that Iwagakure shinobi are really good at underground movement, maybe I should try it out. If I can merge the two, I would be an excellent sensor shinobi with no weakness." Kudo thought of taking out a book to note down the idea. It was a habit he got from his father to note down things. Looking at the fair leather, he smiled faintly, "I miss you, Dad." He carefully put the book in his backpack.
"Now onto real stuff," Kudo grinned madly, taking out a scroll from his back pouch. It was finally time to add his first real C-rank jutsu. The explosive water bullet had a real punch to it, but it wasn't truly a C-rank jutsu. His first choice was C-rank jutsu water style- waterwall. It was quite like his water veil jutsu, but water veil was poor in defensive ability. It could tank some D-rank jutsus, a few C-rank if he put most of his chakra into it. His most impressive approach was figuring out how to wrap the water veil like a cocoon around himself, something he might try with the waterwall jutsu.
Unfolding the scroll…Kudo quickly studied the chakra movement pathways and hand seals required for the jutsu. He went through the scroll several times to make sure he didn't miss anything. Learning new ninjutsu was dangerous, as chakra often flowed in unfamiliar pathways and could lead to damage to the chakra network.
A few minutes later, Kudo stood on the water in one of the lakes in the training ground, extending his hands. He slowly made the hand seals for the jutsu. Tiger→Snake→Rat→Snake→Tiger, feeling the movement of his chakra as he went through the seals, "Water style; Waterwall." The water beneath his feet rose up sluggishly, forming a bump up to his knees that was swerving everywhere.
'Ouch! That is bad,' Kudo thought, looking at his jutsu. Dispersing the water, "Damn, that really sucked. Let's try it again with more intent and faster chakra flow." It had taken him 10 seconds to do the seals earlier, but in the second try, it took 7.5 seconds as a much thicker wall of water rose quickly to about his height. "Not bad." There are still some issues, like the density and flow of water, which were lacking. The lake made it easier to practice the jutsu repeatedly, as he didn't have to infuse chakra to form water and then use the jutsu. He made use of already available water.
Time marched on as Kudo focused on being able to use the jutsu within a time frame of 5 seconds and eventually, advanced it to just a second or less.