Standing in front of a modest general store packed with all sorts of random goods, Ryan watched as the shop owner hauled a heavy box off to the side.
"Excuse me, sir! Do you have any water balloons or rubber balls here?" Though Ryan's voice was soft and childlike, it carried the composed tone of someone far more mature.
The shopkeeper froze for a moment, surprised someone was shopping so early. Then he responded, "Yes, I do. Hold on!"
He set the box down and walked into the store. After the sound of rummaging came to a halt, the shopkeeper returned, holding a bag of balloons and a single rubber ball.
"For water balloons, just fill these up with water yourself. As for the rubber ball, how many do you need?" the shopkeeper asked, only to pause when he noticed the Star Ninja forehead protector strapped to Ryan's arm. He was clearly shocked that such a small child was already a certified shinobi.
"I'll take a whole basket of rubber balls—just that one bag of balloons will do," Ryan replied casually after estimating the amount he'd need.
"A… a whole basket of rubber balls?!" The shopkeeper stared at him, dumbfounded.
At this point, many readers have likely guessed what Ryan was planning—and you're right. He was about to start training the Rasengan.
The Rasengan was a jutsu centered around shape transformation, not elemental manipulation. It didn't require hand seals—it demanded only a high level of chakra control. For Ryan, who was in the middle of refining his chakra output to a microscopic level, the Rasengan was the perfect next step.
Carrying a basket loaded with rubber balls, and ignoring the curious stares of passersby, Ryan made his way back to the Star Ninja compound. He was just beginning to fill balloons with water when Natsuhoshi showed up.
"Ryan? What are you doing?" she asked, a bit stunned to find him playing with balloons. Normally by this hour, he'd be deep in the woods training.
Looking up with a grin, Ryan replied, "Natsuhoshi-nee, I've thought of a unique way to use chakra. If I can pull it off, the result will be incredibly powerful. I'm just prepping the training materials right now."
Ryan had no intention of keeping it a secret. There was no harm in telling Natsuhoshi. Once a technique was learned, it was his—what did it matter that it came from the late Fourth Hokage? Still, to avoid too much shock, he framed it as a "special chakra technique" rather than a jutsu.
"Oh? A technique that involves balloons and rubber balls?" Natsuhoshi blinked, puzzled. While she doubted a child could develop anything game-changing, she knew Ryan wasn't one to waste time. Her curiosity piqued, she crouched down, picked up a rubber ball from another basket, and examined it.
"Last night when I was at your place for dinner," Ryan explained, "I saw Smell playing with one of these balls. I suddenly thought—what if we could compress chakra into a ball shape and make it spin at high speed? Wouldn't that drastically increase its power? And since it wouldn't need any hand seals, it could be more practical than most jutsu…"
Ryan wasn't lying. He really had gotten the idea after seeing four-year-old Smell rolling a ball across the floor. Watching it spin so fiercely had sparked the realization that it was time to begin Rasengan training.
"You mean… you want to shape your chakra into a spinning sphere?" Natsuhoshi blinked again, clearly surprised.
"See this?" Ryan rolled the ball along the ground. "Normally it just sits there, but once it spins fast enough, it throws off everything around it. If I can make chakra behave the same way… it'd be a completely new kind of jutsu."
He set aside the water balloon he'd just filled and took the ball from Natsuhoshi. Spinning it quickly across the ground, he pointed at the dust flying off its path. Natsuhoshi's expression shifted from curious to serious. The theory wasn't complicated—but the potential…
"You're right. This would qualify as a non-seal ninjutsu. And in theory, it's doable… but actually doing it?" she said with concern in her voice. "That's incredibly hard."
Even for an elite jonin like her, forming and maintaining a perfectly spherical, rotating mass of chakra would be nearly impossible. The chakra control needed was off the charts.
Natsuhoshi wasn't particularly well-informed about the outside world—Star Village was a secluded place. She'd only vaguely heard of Konoha's Fourth Hokage, "Yellow Flash" Minato Namikaze, and only knew he was famous for some legendary space-time jutsu. She had no idea that he was the one who invented the Rasengan.
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