After clearing the backlog in the Hokage's office, Tōma finally returned to a stable rhythm.
Office hours were regular again. Meetings ended on time. He even had space in his schedule to train.
Naruto, on the other hand, was drowning.
Missions came one after another, barely giving him time to breathe. None of them were particularly dangerous, but every task was different. Escort work. Recon. Suppression. Diplomacy gone wrong. Bandit hunts. Traps. Ambushes.
Pure experience.
According to Kakashi's reports, Naruto was still Naruto. He got tricked more than once and never truly learned caution. That said, his combat instincts had improved noticeably.
Tōma skimmed the report and sighed.
That personality wasn't changing. But that had never been the goal.
Experience was enough.
Shikkotsu Forest.
Tōma finished his training session and stretched, a rare hint of satisfaction showing at the corner of his mouth.
He wanted to test the techniques he'd developed, but after thinking it through, there weren't many suitable opponents. Naruto and Sasuke might survive. Anyone else would die even if he held back.
So he chose the safer option.
He would test them against barriers.
Four shadow clones appeared. Without hesitation, they moved apart and formed hand seals together.
A rectangular, purple barrier snapped into place.
Four Violet Flames Formation.
Even formed by shadow clones, its durability was absurd. Each clone carried chakra comparable to a Kage. This barrier was leagues beyond the version used during the Konoha Crush.
Tōma watched it quietly, a trace of nostalgia surfacing.
Back then, even he hadn't been able to break that formation head-on. Even with the Rasenshuriken, the attack was too dispersed. One mistake would have cost him his ability to use Flying Thunder God afterward.
Now, there was no such concern.
A Rasenshuriken formed in his hand almost instantly. He could fire a weakened version on reflex now, but for testing, he used the full output. Sage chakra flowed naturally. Sage Mode had long since become his default state.
The shrill hum filled the forest. The ground beneath his feet carved itself into spirals.
This Rasenshuriken was dozens—no, hundreds—of times stronger than its early incarnation.
The disturbance stirred Katsuyu, who barely reacted. Having witnessed far worse, she simply split off a smaller body to observe before returning to sleep.
Tōma threw the technique.
The spinning blade tore through the air, sweeping aside everything in its path. The moment it struck the Four Violet Flames Formation, an explosion erupted.
A white flash punched through the first barrier wall and slammed into the second.
Another explosion.
This time, the barrier only shuddered.
The Rasenshuriken dispersed. The formation stabilized.
Half a success.
The shadow clones dispelled, their feedback flowing back to Tōma. Just as expected, the first barrier fell to pure cutting force. The second triggered the Rasenshuriken's cellular shredding effect, which scattered its power too widely to breach the barrier.
The Rasenshuriken wasn't weak.
It was simply specialized.
Against living targets with cells, especially those with regeneration, it was catastrophic. Against pure chakra constructs, less so.
Still, against any normal Four Violet Flames Formation, it would tear through effortlessly.
Tōma nodded once, then created four more shadow clones.
Another Four Violet Flames Formation rose.
This time, he formed different seals.
"Wind Release: Shatterspace."
An invisible blade surged forward.
There was no explosion. No roar.
It passed through the barrier as if it didn't exist.
The Four Violet Flames Formation split cleanly in half. The upper section collapsed without chakra support, dispersing into nothingness.
The invisible blade continued onward, fading only after traveling far into the distance.
Tōma smiled.
Shatterspace lacked the raw destructive scale of the Rasenshuriken, but its strength lay elsewhere.
Absolute focus.
It was an evolution of Vacuum Wave, refined to its extreme. A technique that concentrated everything into a single point of severance.
And that wasn't all.
Shatterspace had two versions.
The first was a straightforward enhancement. High A-rank. Difficult, but learnable.
The second required spatial perception. Not Flying Thunder God levels—just the ability to sense distortion.
With that, the blade didn't just cut with wind.
It tore space itself.
Wind and space layered together. Not additive, but multiplicative.
Without the spatial component, Shatterspace wouldn't have cut the barrier so cleanly.
Despite that, it still qualified as A-rank. The spatial requirement was surprisingly forgiving. Even his past self could have learned it.
Creation, however, was far harder than learning.
Without his recent experiences crossing time and space, this technique would have taken years to realize.
Learning borrowed knowledge.
Creation demanded understanding.
Tōma wasn't done.
Four more shadow clones moved again. This time, a far denser, red barrier formed.
Four Red Yang Formation.
Over ten times stronger than its violet counterpart.
Tōma tested Shatterspace once more. The invisible blade slowed, resisted, then carved a human-sized opening through the barrier.
His eyes narrowed in satisfaction.
Stronger than expected.
That gave him confidence for what came next.
Tōma inhaled deeply. His chakra surged violently. Space around him warped and twisted, collapsing inward.
An invisible, radiant distortion gathered in his hand.
The pressure alone was suffocating.
He raised it to his lips.
And gently blew.
Nothing seemed to happen.
Then the upper half of the Four Red Yang Formation shifted.
Not cracked.
Shifted.
A spatial misalignment.
A heartbeat later, the upper section shattered completely.
The attack had already finished the moment he exhaled.
"Ninjutsu: Dimensional Blade."
Tōma smiled.
This was no longer Wind Release.
If Shatterspace leaned heavily on wind, then Dimensional Blade was pure space, with wind merely shaping it.
An attack that arrived the instant it was launched. Without overwhelming reaction speed, evasion was impossible.
As for power—
Anything that cut space itself didn't need explanation.
The Four Red Yang Formation hadn't delayed it for even a moment.
S-rank ninjutsu.
Its difficulty surpassed Flying Thunder God. Anyone capable of learning Dimensional Blade would unquestionably qualify to learn Flying Thunder God. The reverse was not true.
The shadow clones dispelled.
Then Tōma summoned a familiar weapon.
墨影, Ink Shadow.
He placed his hand on the hilt. The blade trembled within its sheath. Blue sparks crackled where steel met scabbard as he drew it slightly.
The world in front of him fractured.
Slashes appeared from nowhere, crossing the space ahead from impossible angles. Each strike was fast, precise, and impossibly sharp.
Space itself seemed to shatter like glass.
Blue afterimages lingered in every cut. Looking through the fractures warped distance and position. The same object appeared to exist in multiple places at once.
One slash was disorienting.
Dozens were overwhelming.
Tōma continued until the space ahead looked thoroughly ruined.
Then he stopped.
This was his final creation.
A taijutsu-ninjutsu hybrid inspired by a memory from another life.
"Dimensional Slash."
Unlike the version he remembered, Ink Shadow couldn't naturally open space. Every cut relied entirely on his own spatial comprehension.
"S-rank taijutsu?" Tōma mused.
Probably.
It demanded the same spatial mastery as Dimensional Blade, plus extreme speed.
Fortunately, his Swift Release met the requirement.
Speed and space intertwined.
The difficulty exceeded most S-rank techniques. The power spoke for itself.
Tōma sheathed Ink Shadow and looked up at the sky, smiling faintly.
Would even Six Paths–level opponents dare take this head-on?
For single-target damage, Dimensional Blade and Dimensional Slash now surpassed everything he had. Even Truth-Seeking Orbs.
He was confident he could cleave one apart.
His offense had crossed the threshold, even if his base attributes hadn't yet.
At this point, his arsenal was complete.
Single-target: Dimensional Blade, Dimensional Slash.
Area denial: Sage Art Lightning Kirin, Exploding Truth-Seeking Orbs.
Anti-regeneration: Sage Art Wind Release Rasenshuriken.
Crowd control: Railgun combined with Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique.
There was nothing left to overhaul. Only refinement remained.
"Time…" Tōma murmured.
Space had become clear to him. Time was still a blur.
But even beings who manipulated time relied on bloodline power. Mastering it through pure understanding wasn't realistic.
So he let it go.
Instead, he focused on the final step.
Sage Mode fusion.
Sometimes, answers only came after breaking through.
With that thought, Tōma vanished from Shikkotsu Forest.
Katsuyu's smaller body watched the lingering distortions in silence.
"So devoted to power," she murmured, before returning to her main body.
The familiar desert greeted him once more.
Few would believe this was the Dragon Vein's resting place.
Tōma entered with practiced ease, loosened part of the seal, and sat down.
As expected, this Dragon Vein had also been drained by time travel. Still, what remained was enough.
Enough to finish everything.
He closed his eyes.
Quantity would force quality.