“Alright! With that, the introductions are over. Let’s do some ninja-ing, then.” Ren spoke as he slowly stood up, gesturing at Hinata to follow him. “You are fourteen, so if I remember correctly, your class is learning the tree walking now in the academy? Did I get that right?”

When Hiruzen Sarutobi increased the graduation ages, he did not simply let the kids slack off for three years. Nowadays, to become a genin a person needs to know how to tree walk and water walk too. But learning those takes months each.

Once again, the anime did not do these skills justice. Naruto and Sasuke learned them in a week while Sakura got it on her first try. But that is not a correct representation of how learning these abilities usually goes.

Both Naruto and Sasuke have much more chakra than their peers. So, they could go on, training for hours, while a normal thirteen-year-old kid could last maybe for thirty minutes tops.

There was a reason why kids were not taught these skills in the academy. They simply did not have enough chakra to make practicing worthwhile.

Quick math. Let’s say that Sasuke trained tree walking for twelve hours a day for five days. That’s sixty hours spent on it.

But if a child can only train for thirty minutes a day before getting exhausted, then that child would need four whole months to get to Sasuke’s level in that skill. These four months would be spent in intense frustration as making progress would be very slow for the kid.

Having almost a day-long break between thirty-minute-long practice sessions would feel like crawling. Ren would know. He went through the experience. He felt he was not making enough progress. But there was nothing he could do about it. It felt like shit.

That was the difference and why the academy did not teach it. Not to mention, children are not the most patient beings. Many would give up halfway through the four months if they even reached that far. Ren only managed to stick with practicing and not throw the towel into the ring because of his mature mindset.

Teaching an eleven-year-old and teaching a fourteen-year-old is a massive difference.

When a child enters puberty at around the 13th year of life, the body starts growing rapidly. Both physically and mentally. And chakra reflects that growth. The most chakra growth happens between the 13th and 20th year of life. It’s why the ninjas train the most at those ages. It was also why the academy students previously graduated at thirteen.

The villages didn’t throw kids on the battlefield for kicks and giggles. There were real reasons for doing things in certain ways. Ren wasn’t saying there were no better ways. If nothing else, Sarutobi’s decision to increase the graduation ages showed that things could be done better and even provide a more effective result.

But well, it is what it is.

“Um, yes. B- But I already know that.” Hinata mumbled, looking at the ground.

“Hinata, look at me.” Ren gently spoke, causing the girl to raise her head. “No, no, no. Don’t avert your eyes. Keep looking at me.” The tips of the girl’s ears reddened but she did what he asked even if it looked like she had to fight with herself to do so.

“Okay. Now repeat that sentence again.” Ren patiently said with a small amused smile.

He couldn’t be harsh with this girl. That wouldn’t work. She experienced harsh treatment her entire life. She understood that. No. Smiling, being easy-going and amicable was the way to go.

“Um…” Hinata gave Ren a timid questioning look but Ren just encouraged her.

“Go on.”

“I al- already know… t- tree walking.”

“Again.”

“I already know t- tree walking.”

“Again.”

It took a few tries but Hinata was slowly losing the stutter as she started to grow somewhat fed up with Ren ordering her to repeat the sentence.

“I already know tree walking!” She finally almost shouted on the twelfth time she had to repeat it, looking very peeved. She even gave Ren a small and brief glare before she turned her head to the side with a blush when she realized what she had done.

Ren took that as a massive progress.

“Good girl. No stutter.” He joyfully exclaimed and without even realizing it himself he ruffled the girl’s hair.

When he realized what he was doing before the situation could turn awkward, Ren stopped and played it off by turning toward a nearby tree.

“Well, then, since you say you know what you are doing, show me.” He gestured at the tree. “Walk.”

With a nod, Hinata did as asked and she didn’t seem to have much problem. She didn’t need to run up. She just normally walked as if the tree bark was the ground and gravity did not exist.

“Mhm. Your tree walking is good enough.” Ren noted, “The only thing you need to train when it comes to that is endurance and experience keeping it going for long periods of time. And that can only be trained by doing. So, we, and by that I mean you, will do a tree-walking version of dodge the shuriken for two hours as a warm-up every day.”

Ren gave Hinata a winning smile, almost causing her to falter and fall off the tree when she heard about the great morning torture he was going to make her go through. “Don’t worry, I will help you by throwing the shurikens! It’s going to be fun!”

She should be grateful too. Ren didn’t have anybody to throw shurikens at him when he trained. He was being very kind.

With a small smirk at how reluctant the girl looked, Ren spoke, “Come on, follow me. There is a pond that way. I am going to show you water walking.” Not waiting for her response, Ren just turned around and started legging it toward the pond.

It took them three minutes of leisure walk to reach the pond and Ren instantly walked onto the water’s surface, “Activate your Byakugan and observe properly. Look at what I am doing with my chakra in my feet.”

“You are adjusting your chakra according to the water surface.” Hinata muttered with brows furrowed in concentration as she tried to put her foot on the water surface only for it to sink.

Ren happily observed her as she tried to do it again. It was nice that she did not need to be prompted to do it. On her fifth try, her feet finally started pushing against the water’s surface. It still sank but there was a visible resistance to it now.

Ren tilted his head. This was… way too freaking fast. “You are still observing how my charka is doing it, huh?”

“E- eh?” Hinata’s concentration was broken due to her surprise and she almost fell forward into the water but Ren was quick enough to catch her and gently put her back on the shoreline.

“You are learning the technique very quickly. Are you trying to imitate the way my chakra is doing it?”

“W-wasn’t I s- supposed to do that?” Hinata timidly ducked her head, not seeing the dry look Ren shot her for stuttering again.

With a sigh, Ren shook his head, “No. You are doing great.” And the girl’s entire face went red, “Continue. Don’t be afraid to ask me to take a few steps if you need to see how my chakra would behave or ask questions. I can stand here all day.” With a small poof, a notebook appeared in Ren’s hand and he opened it, thinking about some of his fuinjutsu theories there and how to improve them.

He was happy that he was not wrong. Byakugan was busted and Hinata did not need him to verbally teach her much. He only needed to be there as an example and the girl’s eyes would do the rest.

Thirty minutes later, Hinata stood on the water’s surface, trying to hide the big happy smile stretching on her lips as Ren congratulated her for her achievement.

“Adjusting the chakra is still difficult.” She tapped her foot on the water with a small complaint.

“Yes. But don’t worry. Eventually, it will become a reflex.” Ren told her. He had to admit, he was a bit envious of the girl. It took him two months to get to the level she achieved within thirty minutes. And she did it without falling into the pond once. The highest place she was wet after this training session was the middle of her calves.

Ren always knew that bloodline ninjas were special. But now he had seen it and he was still working on believing how bullshit this whole thing was.

It was a very bittersweet feeling. As her teacher, he was proud, but as a ninja, he was disgruntled.

Unlike Sharingan, Hinata’s Byakugan did not allow her to copy techniques instantly but since she could see chakra, she could see exactly what she was supposed to do with her chakra to imitate what Ren was doing. She just needed to practice it and learn it for herself.

Ren had no idea why Hyugas did not utilize this part of the Byakugan. But for some strange reason, they held disdain for both elemental ninjutsu and medical ninjutsu, going as far as forbidding their children to practice them. They also didn’t have much regard for genjutsu because their eyes could see through them easily.

It was silly. And Ren would not allow Hinata to develop a mindset like that.

“Since you succeeded in walking on water and still have some chakra left, I guess you deserve a reward.” Ren said as he exited the pond with Hinata curiously following him.

He just now noticed but the girl was way less tense around him now than she was when they started.

Unsealing several water balloons, Ren grinned. Oh, yes. He was going to do exactly that.

While he wasn’t going to teach the girl all the steps for Rasengan, at least not yet, he knew that the steps themselves were the best chakra manipulation exercises available. And since she was Hyuga, learning how spinning her chakra worked could potentially help her learn Kaiten.

He led her to learn techniques by observing during this training session, after all. And she did have Byakugan and did live in the Hyuga compound where the main branch members practiced.

Now, he wasn’t going to tell her to learn it. At least not for some months yet. He was wondering if she could come to that conclusion by herself and how long it would take her.

Taking one balloon into his hand, Ren put his chakra into it while swirling it in multiple directions at a very fast speed with quite a force… the balloon popped within a second, causing Hinata to shriek in shock as she was showered in water.

Ren might or might not have done a little chakra thingy to direct the water in a certain direction.

Yup. He was definitely still butt-hurt that she got the water walking down so easily.

Chuckling at the huffy pout the stammering girl gave him, Ren took two water balloons. He gave her one while starting to swirl his chakra within the second one. This time more gently and slowly.

“Do you see what I am doing with my chakra?” He asked Hinata who activated her Byakugan again and nodded as she curiously watched the balloon while trying to imitate it with her own, causing it to at most slightly move on her palm.

After three minutes of doing that, Ren gradually increased the speed of his chakra, until the balloon popped a few seconds later, “Once you can spin the chakra in multiple directions, just practice to make it faster. When you get to a certain speed, the balloon will pop.” He told the girl, “It took me five months to learn so don’t feel bad if it takes you a few months-“

A splat suddenly resounded through the surroundings as Ren was drenched in water from Hinata’s balloon, making him stare at her in shock.

In response, the girl only gave him a sweet, overly innocent, smile, blushing deep red as she covered her smiling lips with her hand and softly giggled, averting her head in embarrassment.

‘No. Fuck this. You gotta be kidding me.’

For the sake of his sanity, Ren mentally decided this didn’t happen.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep