After playing with Shizu and Yori for two straight days, Shota finally started training with the jutsu he'd received yesterday.
The scroll for Fire Style: Fox Fire had arrived a day earlier.
Even while training, he blinked as little as possible. His dojutsu, Erasure, needed eye contact to work, and the longer he kept his eyes open, the better he'd be in long fights.
Blinking was the enemy. 'Gotta train these eyes to stay open forever,' he thought, staring at a cactus like it owed him money.
He unrolled the Fox Fire scroll, reviewing the hand signs. Twenty-four of them, way too many. With practice, he could cut it down to four or six. But no more than that.
Shota thought,'How the fuck did the people in the show used such jutsus without any handisgns?'
He'd chosen this jutsu for a reason and it was perfect for him. Fox Fire created nine small fireballs, each like a grenade that exploded on contact.
Stronger than Phoenix Flower Jutsu, the fireballs were bigger, packed more punch. But the real trick? He could control each one with his mind, guiding them like tiny missiles.
The jutsu's name came from the nine fireballs circling the user, mimicking the nine tails of the Nine-Tails fox.
It covered his biggest weakness: fighting multiple enemies at once. If two shinobi attacked from different sides, he could send a few fireballs to slow one down while using the rest on the one in his line of sight. With Erasure active, he'd shut down their chakra, leaving them slow and helpless. Then boom, fireballs to the face.
The jutsu was inspired by Pakura's Scorch Release: Extremely Steaming Murder. She created flaming orbs like mini suns, orbiting her and evaporating enemies on contact, leaving them mummified.
Fox Fire wasn't that deadly, but it was close enough for Shota. He preferred long-range attacks anyway. Close combat was risky, too many variables, too much chance of blinking.
At a distance, he could erase chakra, dodge, and let the fireballs do the work.
In the anime, characters dodged fireballs like they were playing tag. Jump left, slide right, no problem. Shota snorted, remembering how many times fire jutsu failed to kill anyone even by main characters.
'But take away their chakra,' he thought, 'and they can't jump ten feet in the air or Body Flicker away. They're just slow, panicking humans.'
His fireballs had already taken lives on missions, enemies too sluggish to dodge, too shocked to react at having no access to chakra. Fox Fire would make that even deadlier.
More than that, He could control the small fireballs. So even if someone dodged, he could make the fireball follow the person like a homing missile.
He read the scroll's details again. The jutsu started with spitting a single fireball, which split into nine smaller ones. He had to compress chakra into each for bigger explosions.
And he could increase the firepower of each fireball too by compressing more fire chakra in each fireball.
Then, using chakra fluctuations in his body or hand movements, he'd guide them. Sounded simple. Wasn't.
The fireballs exploded on contact with anything—kunai, another jutsu , a random rock. They were very volatile since the chakra used to make them also made them unstable.
One wrong move, and he'd blow himself up. "Great," he muttered. "I'm my own worst enemy."
Shota started with the hand signs: Tiger, Ram, Monkey, Boar… He went through all twenty-four, slow and careful. His fingers fumbled on the twelfth sign, and he groaned. "This is gonna take forever." He tried again, faster this time, but still clumsy.
By the tenth attempt, he was down to fifteen signs, skipping a few that felt redundant. "Progress," he thought, wiping sweat from his brow.
He formed a small fireball in his hand, no explosion yet, just testing control. It flickered, wobbling like a drunk candle. He focused, picturing it splitting into nine. Nothing happened. The fireball puffed out, leaving a sad puff of smoke.
"Come on," he grumbled, trying again. This time, the fireball grew, then split into three wobbly orbs that fizzled out instantly. "Better than nothing," he said, but his eyes stung from not blinking.
He kept at it, hour after hour. The sun baked the sand, and his throat was dry, but he didn't stop. Hand signs, fireball, split, control. Over and over. By late afternoon, he managed five fireballs, each the size of a fist, orbiting him shakily. He guided one toward a rock, and it exploded on contact, sending sand flying. "Yes!" he cheered, then winced as another fireball veered off and blew up too close, singeing his sleeve. "Okay, not perfect."
Shota might be lazy but to live a lazy life in the future, he could work hard.
The jutsu was tough. Twenty-four hand signs were a nightmare, and controlling nine fireballs at once felt like juggling while running.
His chakra control was good, Rasengan had seen to that but this was different. He had to split his focus, keep his eyes open, and not blow himself up. "No pressure," he thought with sarcasm.
He took a break, sitting on a rock and gulping water from his canteen.
Training alone was slow, though. He needed more time, more practice. Then it hit him: shadow clones. If he had Shadow Clone Jutsu, he could make copies to train while he napped.
'It would be Genius,' he thought. "Clones do all the work, I get the skills, and I catch up on sleep. Perfect plan.' Shota thought with a grin.
"Gotta get the jutsu. I don't want the jutsu because I'm lazy…probably."
------Author Notes---------
Thankyou Nocturnal for supporting me!
Y'all can now read the next 15 chapters of the fanfic. Thankyou for your support!
Pat*reon.com/Charizard6
[No star]