After clearing the backlog in the Hokage’s office, Tōma finally returned to a stable rhythm.
Office hours were regular again. etings ended on ti. He even had space in his schedule to train.
Naruto, on the other hand, was drowning.
Missions ca one after another, barely giving him ti 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 skimd 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 ford hand seals together.
A rectangular, purple barrier snapped into place.
Four Violet Flas Formation.
Even ford 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 ford 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 beco 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 tis 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 mont it struck the Four Violet Flas Formation, an explosion erupted.
A white flash punched through the first barrier wall and slamd into the second.
Another explosion.
This ti, 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 Flas Formation, it would tear through effortlessly.
Tōma nodded once, then created four more shadow clones.
Another Four Violet Flas Formation rose.
This ti, he ford 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 Flas 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 extre. 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 enhancent. 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 requirent was surprisingly forgiving. Even his past self could have learned it.
Creation, however, was far harder than learning.
Without his recent experiences crossing ti 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 ti, a far denser, red barrier ford.
Four Red Yang Formation.
Over ten tis 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 ca 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 seed to happen.
Then the upper half of the Four Red Yang Formation shifted.
Not cracked.
Shifted.
A spatial misalignnt.
A heartbeat later, the upper section shattered completely.
The attack had already finished the mont he exhaled.
"Ninjutsu: Dinsional Blade."
Tōma smiled.
This was no longer Wind Release.
If Shatterspace leaned heavily on wind, then Dinsional Blade was pure space, with wind rely 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 mont.
S-rank ninjutsu.
Its difficulty surpassed Flying Thunder God. Anyone capable of learning Dinsional 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 t 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 seed to shatter like glass.
Blue afterimages lingered in every cut. Looking through the fractures warped distance and position. The sa 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 mory from another life.
"Dinsional Slash."
Unlike the version he rembered, 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 sa spatial mastery as Dinsional Blade, plus extre speed.
Fortunately, his Swift Release t the requirent.
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, Dinsional Blade and Dinsional 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: Dinsional Blade, Dinsional 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 refinent remained.
"Ti..." Tōma murmured.
Space had beco clear to him. Ti was still a blur.
But even beings who manipulated ti 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.
Sotis, answers only ca 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 ti travel. Still, what remained was enough.
Enough to finish everything.
He closed his eyes.
Quantity would force quality.
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