4 Growing Up and Training

In the Elemental Nations, near the northern side of the Land of Fire, there was a small village. This unnamed village was situated near the border of Land of Iron. The village was home to farmers, workers, small merchants and various other people. Going along the small village's main road you could spot a normal shop selling different food products. This was the Yamamoto household, home to our protagonist. In the backyard of the said house, in a small clearing stood a man in his thirties and a little boy facing each other. The man was Toru Yamamoto and the little boy was his son Takeru. Takeru was 3 years old now but he looked like a 5 year old kid, due to the constant nourishment of physical energies Takeru's body matured and grew faster. Today, Takeru was holding a small wooden stick in his hands and was listening to his father's instructions.

"Now, Takeru, look closely and try to follow my movements." - said Toru.

"Yes, dad."

"The first thing you have to know is that the strength of your strike comes from your feet. Always remember to plant your feet on the ground firmly, lower your center of gravity. Start the movement from your feet, then travelling to your waist then from your upper body to your hands. Feel the strength travelling upwards in your body and..'Whoosh', strike down in one single motion." - Toru demonstrated the strike using a wooden katana. Takeru could see his father's moves clearly, even without his absolute sense, his normal 5 senses, visual, auditory, olfactory, somatosensory and gustatory were all enhanced. His vestibular sense particularly was enhanced the most, increasing his sense of balance, equilibrium and spatial orientation, making his movements very much coordinated and balanced. He could see the little movements his father was making and started to copy them to the best of his ability. Toru could see Takeru from the corner of his eye and became amazed at the accuracy of the moves he was displaying. It did not look like a mere attempt of imitation of a child. Toru wanted to test Takeru's fitness and tried to find his shortcomings to create a fitness regime for his son to increase Takeru's physical abilities. So yesterday he told Takeru to do laps around the Yamamoto property. Takeru ran at full speed for 3 hours top, shocking Toru. He thought that Takeru could run for at most half an hour but Takeru's stamina blew his mind. Toru immediately ordered his son to run laps around the property every single morning. Toru was satisfied with his son's fitness so from today he started training Takeru in basic taijutsu and kenjutsu. Takeru once again amazed his father with his abilities. He fully understood the basics after Toru explained them once and started doing the various katas with no signs of an amateur. If anyone saw him, they would think that he started practicing from the time of his birth. His enhanced abilities facilitating him to learn at a tremendous rate. A smile graced Toru's lips at the confirmation that his son was a martial prodigy. Toru instructed him in footwork, body postures and fundamental knowledge. He gave Takeru crucial tips to make him more and more efficient. Takeru believed that hard-work beat talent and smart-work beat hard-work. So he trained zealously with focus on accuracy and efficiency. He wanted to engrave the moves permanently into his muscle memory so that it would become like a second nature to him. After a full day of training Takeru stopped. He bathed, washing off all the accumulated sweat and grime. Then he had lunch with his family. After lunch he started moulding chakra using hand-signs. From the time Takeru awakened his chakra, he regularly practiced controlling it within his body. Akane taught Takeru all the different hand-seals for manipulating chakra and he continuously practiced doing hand-seals increasing his speed and accuracy doing hand-signs. Now most people would not even be able to see his hands when he started doing hand-seals. He observed the changes in his chakra while doing hand-seals, taking precautions and keeping in mind to use only little enough chakra to sense and memorize the changes his chakra was having. He did not want to accidently use a random jutsu only to exhaust his reserves and die. He was slowly coming to an understanding in how the various jutsus he remembered worked in real-life. His absolute sense and control was making his job easier. He also constantly tried to circulate his chakra through the pathways and chakra coils to increase the width of his chakra pathways and to enlarge his chakra coils to increase his chakra reserve. And he was getting results. The width of his chakra pathways slowly increased and his pathways became more flexible and durable day by day. His chakra coils was also getting bigger by the day increasing his chakra moulding rate and the capacity of his chakra reserves slowly. Takeru could feel the 361 tenketsus and the eight gates on his chakra pathway system. He theorized that if he could consciously control the opening and closing of all the tenketsus in his body then he could manipulate and release chakra from all over his body. So far he could only consciously open and close only a few tenketsus on both of his hands with full control. But his continued in his endeavour and made a target to fully control all of the tenketsus one day. As Takeru could control the chakra in his body to a great degree and with his absolute sense made him almost immune to any low-level genjutsus. If he trained like this, then maybe in the future he could theoretically be completely immune to any genjutsu, albeit barring the overpowered ones like the Infinite Tsukuyomi. So he trained and trained, increasing and refining his ability to employ hand-seals faster and more properly; controlling the chakra in his body, oscillating, vibrating, controlling the flow; increasing the number of tenketsus he could fully control; learning kenjutsu and taijutsu from his father. He also continued his previous training of meditation, mental calculations, sensing and physical conditioning. Toru and Akane saw that Takeru was a prodigy. He could learn things in a fraction of time others took to learn. He could control chakra with superior control and efficiency from the start. They knew their son had tremendous potential, and to unearth his full potential, they helped him by increasing the intensity of his training. Nothing too extreme, just enough to hasten his growth.

Takeru wanted to try some jutsus himself. But he knew better. Although he sensed that his chakra reserve was nearly 10 times bigger than an regular adult, he still wanted to first master the chakra control excercises. So he asked his mother for anything that would help him control his chakra better. Although he knew the excercises himself, getting proper instructions and an alibi to practice was good. Akane taught him the leaf concentration excercise first. So, the next day Takeru grabbed a leaf from a tree beside his house and put it on his forehead and tried to stick it. He could feel chakra coming through the pathway and exit through an uncontrolled tenketsu to the leaf. He could do it with surprising ease. He discovered that as he was exercising, the tenketsu from which a steady stream of chakra came slowly became more and more controllable. This new discovery made his head spin. If he did the excercise using all the tenketsus on his body then he could control them much faster. But first he focused on his current task. He slowly minimised the chakra expended from a stream to a string then to a trickling amount and finally to sending small tiny drops of chakra with some intervals, enough to stick the leaf on his forehead effectively. He trained like this for a few days with a single leaf and he soon mastered the leaf concentration excercise with one leaf and could control that particular tenketsu fully. He soon upped the number of leaves stuck on his body one by one, focusing on minimising his chakra expenditure and controlling the tenketsus consciously. The customers coming to the Yamamoto shop would see a kid with multiple leaves on his body sitting in front of the counter. Takeru got some weird looks from some ignorant passersby but he ignored it. Akane was happy seeing her son's dedication and saw that with his rate of progress he would master the excercise in few weeks. So she instructed him on the next two chakra excercises, which are the tree climbing and water walking excercise. Within 3 weeks and with constant practice, Takeru finally managed to fully master the leaf concentration excercise. He could fully control all 361 tenketsus in his body. He could stick 361 leaves on his tenketsus, one leaf per tenketsu for total 12 hours until he became exhausted. He could release chakra from all his tenketsus with full mastery. So, he went to practice tree climbing excercise next. He started doing it by putting one leg on the tree trunk first. He tried to gauge the exact amount of chakra necessary to stick his foot but not much as that would crush the bark. His physical excercises increased his core strength and leg strength making his next steps easier. He took step after step slowly, minimising his chakra expenditure and after a few moments he walked all the way to the crown of the tree. He practiced this for a few weeks, making tree walking a subconscious action for him. He even used leaf concentration excercise whilst tree climbing to further increase his chakra control. He tried sticking his body from different angles using different parts of his body, not just hands and feet. Head, shoulders, knees, toes, back, arms, legs. He used all parts of his body to train all the while having leaves stuck all over his body. Though he fell numerous times, he persevered and continued practicing. He used chakra to stick different objects on his body and used just enough chakra to repel them hard. Takeru found that he could use this method to throw and grab objects quickly and efficiently with any and all parts of his body. He named this technique Chakra Grab and Chakra Throw. He practiced these two new techniques with fervor, aiming to master them first before anything else. He used everyday objects, rocks, leaves, broken tree branches to practice these two abilities in conjunction. He found that these two techniques worked on living beings too and implemented it into his taijutsu practice. The intensity of these techniques was directly proportional to the amount of chakra he used. If low amount of chakra was used then the grab or throw would be weak, and as he increased the amount of chakra, things, objects stuck more solidly and the velocity of the throws increased. Takeru practiced with rocks using multiple tenketsu to release chakra so he could throw objects in any desired direction with pinpoint accuracy. Takeru next started doing the water walking excercise on the small pond in the backyard. He worked on minimising chakra consumption, increasing his control and used different parts of his body to do the same thing. He even stuck a few leaves, rocks and other objects to train simultaneously. He sometimes intentionally created small waves, disturbed the surface of water in the pond and trained on it. He even asked Toru to continuously stir the water while he practiced. Toru and Akane were amazed at the different chakra control training Takeru was doing. They just knew the three basic ones. When asked about them, Takeru simply said that he created them, not wanting to explain much. Toru and Akane saw this chance and sometimes practiced chakra control with him. And after more than 3 months Takeru finally mastered all thre chakra control excercises.

Years passed and Takeru grew up. Tomorrow he would celebrate his 10th birthday with his family. Takeru was tall for his age, his height was about 5 feet 4 inches. His muscles were ripped, defined and visible. He looked like a 13-14 year old teenager. He always had a confident but easygoing air about him and his face always had a serene smile. Takeru had short, a little spiky black hair. His eyes were gleaming brown. His face was sharp, oval shaped with chiseled jaws and little to no baby fat. In the past of couple of years Takeru progressed leaps and bounds. This happened because of his rigorous training. He trained daily and the results spoke for themselves. His absolute sense had increased. He could now always passively sense 10 meter around himself and actively he could sense as far as 300 meters around himself continuously for 6 hours straight. His control over sensing beings, objects, emotions and chakra was much more refined and regulated. His ability of focus point vision has increased to two points which he can control with ease. Takeru's physical conditioning also increased tremendously. Due to regular excercises, his physical strength, speed, agility, flexibility, reflexes, durability and endurance had increased many folds in this short time. Takeru's reaction time was incredible to say the least. His base physical conditioning had reached peak human capabilities and was bordering on superhuman. Due to daily meditation and mental calculations, his mental capabilities also increased, further enhancing his already superior brain. Takeru could now control his physical body, emotions and especially chakra to a ridiculous degree. After mastering the three chakra control excercises he went on to create and master different ways to control chakra. He first trained his water walking on a little whirlpool his father would create in the pond. He then procured different coloured sands and mixed them, then he would try seperating them from one another only using his chakra. He mastered that excercise too. From then he started doing daily tasks only using chakra, from paper folding, to using chopsticks, to creating chakra strings and using them for various tasks. He could now lift heavy weights using them, could move objects easily, he could now literally float in the air using chakra strings. Takeru had now effectively mastered the use of chakra strings and could employ them from any of his tenketsus. He could already make his chakra strings invisible, which he taught himself with the help of his parents. He wanted to incorporate chakra strings into his fighting style, and he was doing it and was nearing completion. Takeru had already learned all the martial skills he could learn from his father and went on further and improved them. He could now use two swords in both of his hands with perfection. He was now a kenjutsu expert on the path to become a master. His kenjutsu style incorporated standard samurai sword techniques fused with kendo and iaido. His taijutsu was far better than his father now. His fighting style included boxing, karate, judo, jujitsu and aikido infused with chakra grab and throw and some use of chakra strings in between them. Toru taught him chakra enhancement which he mastered completely, enhancing his already superior physical prowess. Akane taught him some basic medical ninjutsus which included Chakra Scalpel and Mystical Palm Jutsu. Takeru's ridiculous chakra control facilitated his training and he even outdid his mother with his skill in the two techniques in record time. But the most important thing he achieved from his perspective was his instincts from regularly sparring with his father. Although Takeru was inexperienced in a sense, his father, Toru once commented about how good his instincts were.

Takeru a few years back had finally started his personal jutsu training. He first started with the Transformation Jutsu. He trained it regularly out of his parents' watchful eyes. He reduced his chakra expenditure to the minimum and reduced the amount of hand-seals required for the jutsu from 3 to none. He could now use it without any hand-seals. He also made no smoke while transforming or dropping the transformation. Next he went for Body Replacement Jutsu and Body Flicker Jutsu respectively. Like the Transformation Jutsu, he did the same thing with both these new jutsus. Reduction of chakra usage and hand-seals. He could now use both of these jutsus in any given moment in an instant. Body Replacement Jutsu came easer to him than Body Flicker Jutsu though. He practiced Body Flicker Jutsu with all his effort for nearly 6 years for him to completely master it. He could now use body flicker jutsu with unparalleled skill and efficiency. His enhanced equilibrium, sense of balance, spatial orientation and visual prowess completely negated the negative points of this technique, mainly disorientation and tunnel vision. Though it was just extreme speed movement, his mastery of this technique was such that in the eye of any other person it would seem like he was teleporting. Takeru did not try to use or practice any elemental jutsu however. As even with the knowledge of some elemental jutsus, he did not know how to do them. He did not know how to use nature transformation. He did not know how to turn chakra into the five elements. Toru and Akane were also not knowledgeable in this aspect so he had no help from them. He did however mastered shape transformation of chakra. On his 7th birthday, Takeru made a weird request to his parents. He asked for balloons, regular air balloons, water balloons and rubber balls, a lot of them. When asked he said that he had an idea about a new jutsu and he wanted to test it. Toru with the help of Atsuno bought them in bulk. And in these 3 years the Rasengan became the most offensive and destructive technique in Takeru's arsenal. Takeru had no idea how to use genjutsu. He knew that genjutsus were Yin release techniques and you had to use spiritual energy to form them but he did not know how as he lack knowledge about them and more importantly guidance. Toru and Akane were also ignorant about the use of genjutsus. Although they knew how to identify and dispel them, which they taught Takeru. Takeru managed to perfect the process on how to identify genjutsus with the help of his absolute sense and could now dispel high level genjutsus easily by always constantly vibrating and oscillating the chakra in his body in a controlled manner. Now Some might wonder how he accomplished so much in this short time. Well, at the age of 5 Takeru took up the courage to finally use one of the biggest cheat of this world, the Shadow Clone Jutsu. The 5 year old Takeru could use this technique to form at most 2 clones. But it did what it promised. His learning speed increased exponentially. After 5 years Takeru's chakra capacity increased many folds and he mastered the usage of the clone hack jutsu fully. He could now employ more than 20 shadow clones without breaking a sweat. He used his clones to scout a nice training area outside of his parents knowledge and in the jungle behind the village he found a training area suitable enough. It was just a small clearing with a small lake beside it but it was enough for him. Whilst he stayed in the house for his daily training, his clones trained in the jungle. He also started using weights to facilitate his physical training a few years back. Nothing too extreme, and he increased the weights continuously throughout accordingly.

Takeru also made some free time to enjoy his life, helping his father in the fields, his mother in manning the shop. He was a sociable person now and his jovial smile and good behaviour made him popular in the community. His parents loved him dearly. The neighbours and people of the village adored him, specifically the bitter blacksmith Tenshi Higurashi, who saw him as his grandson. Takeru would often go and watch Tenshi making tools, different products and sometimes even weapons of different kind. Takeru loved the time he spent in these 10 years. But there were some things that always nagged him and made him concerned about the future. He knew that these concerning thoughts he was having were justified and he had to do something about them. So with determination he returned to his home after buying some necessities from the market to have a serious talk with his family.