Hokage: Ryo's Path

Ever since Shisui activated his Mangekyo, things between him and Ryo returned to how they were back when they were teacher and disciple.

Ryo, being so busy with teaching him how to utilize his Dojutsu, forgot all about teaching Naruto for a while.

However, what he did not expect was that the young Naruto would actually make some inexplicable substantial progress with the body flicker Jutsu.

A week later, Shisui became rather skillful with utilizing his Mangekyo. As for protecting it from going blind, Ryo promised him to deal with that later.

Before leaving, Shisui hesitated for a long time, and then finally decided to ask Ryo: “Sensei, about the opening of my Mangekyo, I would prefer it if isn’t exposed to anyone else for now!”

“Why?” Ryo asked with interest.

“I want to leave it as an ace up my sleeve. I’ve been around you for so long, and I understand a lot of things. Like you said before, there are things that we need to be prepared to.”

Ryo looked at his apprentice with surprise, and then smiled and nodded.

With Shisui leaving, the 3rd training ground had now two people frequently training in it: Ryo, and Naruto. With the latter making no small progress on his Body Flicker, Ryo prepared to teach him the next stage.

On one evening, Ryo returned home, just to find Inoichi waiting for him.

“Ryo, you’re back! Inoichi has been waiting for you for a long time.” Chinse said to her son.

“Yes mom. Inoichi Ni-san, is there anything?”

“Yes. Yesterday, Shikaku and Choza came to talk to me about the 16th generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho.”

“The 16th generation? You mean Ino, Shikamaru and Choji?” Ryo immediately had the image of team 10 and their Sensei, Asuma.

“Well, the 3 have grown up together and they have a rather tacit understanding. So, we’ve been discussing their growth, and we want you to give them some guidance. Is that possible?”

“Yes! Right now, I’m just teaching Naruto, so they can come over. But you know, it will all be just basics...”

“Of course. For now, they will still be focused on practicing their families’ secrets.” Hearing Ryo agree, Inoichi was delighted.

The next day, Ryo made a special trip to the Nara and Akamichi households to take Shikamru and Choji along with him.

In the 3rd Training Ground, looking at the three boys and the little girl in front of him, Ryo had a headache.

The three boys already had a good relationship, but Ino didn’t get along well with them, just giving them a nasty glare from time to time.

Shikamaru had long been accustomed to this. However, Naruto and Choji were more sensitive, staring at Ino from time to time. Ryo could feel the tension in the group.

“Kids today are really a hassle to deal with!” He scratched his head and sighed.

If these kids carried on like this, they would not be able to make much progress. Thinking about this, Ryo said: “Ino, do you not like them three?”

“Well, uncle, I don’t want to see them! Can you drive them away?”

“Okay, I can do that, but you have to master the clan’s secret you’ve been working on, and use it within a cooperation tactic with Choji and Shikamaru. If you do that, I’ll send them away!” In order to temporarily calm the situation, Ryo could only take this path.

After Ino considered the matter for a while, she nodded and agreed, and ran to the side to sit down and begin training.

“You two, you’ve just heard me. If you fall behind Ino, you’ll have to go home!”

“Then I’ll just go home then... Training like this every day is such a drag!” Shikamaru muttered.

“Shikamaru, you can get me to send you home indeed, but then you’d have to deal with your father!”

The thought made seemed to shake Shikamaru, but then he regained his composure. While his mouth muttered: “Such a drag!”, his body had already begun to train.

As for Choji, he had always been very well-behaved. When seeing that his pals were already practicing, he also started accumulating his Chakra.

The 3 clans of the Ino-Shika-Cho were known for their secret tactics and cooperation, and ironically, the promise of them not having to work together was the only way that Ryo could find to get them to do just that.

As for Naruto, his mastery of the basic body flicker was not bad. Now, Ryo had begun to teach him how to use that in conjunction with Wind Release.

The child was really too young for this, and no matter how hard Ryo tried to explain these matters to him, Naruto would just look at him dumbfounded.

Realizing that Naruto wasn’t going to understand him anytime soon, Naruto decided to teach him more about Wind Release, and incorporate Shisui’s flicker into a more long-term plan.

Like this, a month passed.

Under pressure, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio made some good progress.

Trying to drive the other three away, Ino was practicing hard. As for Shikamaru, he didn’t want to deal with his father scolding him, so he did the same.

The Nara clan was a clan of extremely smart individuals, with kid Shikamaru himself having an IQ of over 200 in the Manga.

With such wits, his early progress at this stage of training that didn’t rely too much on Chakra was much faster than most. Overall, he was rather talented.

As for Ino and Choji, they practiced their clan’s secret Jutsu for a month, but their progress was slower than Shikamaru’s.

Still, compared to how they were progressing before, they’ve been doing great.

As the previous generation of Ino-Shika-Cho watched their children making faster and faster progress, they felt that they had made a wise choice, handing them over to Ryo.

..........

Besides the progress made by the children, there was also progress made by Orochimaru during this month...

One day, Ryo received a message from him, and he immediately teleported to his lab.

Orochimaru had made all his preparations before Ryo arrived. As soon as his friend was in the lab, he began changing bodies.

The clone prepared by Orochimaru was identical to his own body, but quite younger.

The transfer was smooth, which was to be expected. However, the surprise was that Orochimaru took along with him all his Chakra to his new body!

With no lack of Spiritual Power or Chakra, Orochimaru had no trouble moving his body, and no dip in power. In fact, because this new body of his was younger, Ryo could sense a slight boost in his power!

Moving his limbs around, Orochimaru was extremely satisfied with his new body as he sensed that he was in his twenties again. And sensing the Chakra in his body, he appeared rather surprised!

He thought that things would go for him as they did for Yahiko, and that his strength would drop substantially. Therefore, he invited Ryo to help him and make sure that he doesn’t end up being hurt through this experiment. But against his expectations, his power moved along with his soul to his new body!

Orochimaru stared excitedly at Ryo, licking his lips. The latter knew exactly what he wanted, so he went with him to the base’s training ground.

After some fights, Orochimaru found that his power level did not decrease. However, because his control over this body wasn’t perfect yet, he couldn’t exert all his strength.