Chapter 60: Teaching Eiko the Senbon Jutsu
"I mean... having high quality wood will improve my puppet's quality." he explained and Kira nodded.
"Oh okay... so you're saying that you want some wood so that you can create better puppets huh?"
Sasori nodded, "Yes."
"What'll I get in return then? I'm not giving anything for free." Kira said, shrugging.
Sasori stood silently for a while before nodding, "I can.. sell you the hidden techniques of the hidden sand. Of course, only the puppet techniques. I'll give you everything, but in return, I want a lot of wood."
Kira thought about it for a while and nodded. Getting his hands on the puppet techniques wasn't really hard, but getting every single one would prove to be quite tough. Making a deal with Sasori really had no drawbacks as Kira hated leaving behind trails.
Infiltration or forceful breakthrough to the hidden sand's storages would undoubtedly alert the higher ups and even though Kira could escape easily, he'd rather get everything from one person without anyone else knowing about it.
'There's only me and Minato who can use the flying raijin at this moment, so it'll be very easy to guess my identity. Sasori will keep his mouth shut as long as I help him with his goals.
After thinking about the deal, he spoke his own conditions, "Sure, but you'll have to keep this trade a secret. No one must know."
"I'll make sure of that." Sasori said, "To other's the puppets will look like regular puppets. Even after fighting against my puppets, the chances of them guessing about your wood release is almost zero. After all, to the entire world, Hashirama is dead."
Kira nodded and created a huge 1 meter cube of wood.
"Here's the advance payment. Tell my clone when you're ready to attack the third kazekage and keep the jutsu scrolls ready. I'll take them once I come back here and then we can attack him."
"Okay."
Kira then teleported back to his tent and continued strengthening his seal. He really did not have much to do as most of the injured people had been treated by the other medics.
'Perfect scenario for me to continue training.' he thought as he made a few shadow clones and got them to work on elemental releases. His control over moulding his chakra was near perfection, but when it came to turning this moulded chakra into different elemental natures, the results were lacking.
Of course, they were only lacking in Kira's eyes. If there was anyone who was better than him in all the elemental releases at this point in time, then it would be Hiruzen.
He continued to train until he heard his stomach grumble. He walked out of his tent and looked up at the sun that was high up above his head.
"Big brother! You're here!"
Kira turned to look at the girl who was standing with Raichi. The expression of pain and distress was gone, and instead, Kira was a little surprised to see her smiling like today was the best day in her life.
"Oh Eiko, what's going on?" he asked as he glanced at Haruki and Raichi who had two large bags strapped behind their backs.
"Uncle Fugaku told daddy that he's useless, so now I can go back home and eat meat!"
Kira listened to her and saw Raichi's expression warp from neutrality to anger.
"Looks like Uncle Fugaku understands and isn't dumb like a certain someone." Kira commented as he stared at Raichi before looking down at Eiko, "Once the war ends, big brother will come play with you okay? Until then, train well and become strong."
Eiko nodded, "I'll become very strong! Just like you!"
"Hmm..." Kira nodded as he stared at her for a while, thinking whether he should teach her one of his jutsu's or not.
"Okay then, since you want to become strong like me, I'll teach you a jutsu that I created. It doesn't consume too much chakra, but there are too many hand signs to make." he said as he brought his hands together and made 7 handsigns at an extremely fast speed.
A bunch of needles shot out of the ground and flew into the sky at high speeds.
He then looked at her, "Why don't you copy what I just did? It's a variation of my water senbon justu, but instead of creating water senbons from thin air, this one creates earth senbons and flies out from the ground. It can be used as an effective surprise attack."
".... big brother, you're too fast. I couldn't see any of the hand signs you did..." Eiko said meekly as she stared at Kira's hands that were still together.
"Oh... why don't you just activate your sharingan? You should be able to see with your sharingan, right?"
Eiko nodded and looked up at her parents who gave her a nod, signifying that they give her the permission to use the ocular jutsu of the Uchiha.
With an excited smile, she activated her sharingan and Kira immediately used all the seven hand signs once again. One senbon shot out this time, but it was because kira used very little amount of chakra compared to the first time.
Eiko silently watched everything happen and then slowly copied the hand signs that Kira did.
Handsigns helped with using jutsus, but there was a limit to the assistance they could provide too. If the person using the handsigns was too slow, then the chakra wouldn't be moulded properly inside their bodies and if this happened, then the jutus won't be unleashed.
One needed to use the handsigns at a certain amount of speed to get the required results.
At first, Eiko was going slow and after 26 tries, she finally managed to get the minimum speed. Just as she completed making all the handsigns, Kira nodded and gave her a thumbs up even though there weren't any senbon that were launched into the air.
"Good job, you managed to get the first step right. Now, all you have to do is slap the ground with your hand after doing the hand signs so that the chakra can flow into the ground."
Eiko nodded and followed his instructions. The moment her palm made contact with the ground, 12 senbon shot out.