TRAINING
Land of the Rivers, In a certain valley.
The sun was shining down onto the earth giving warmth and life to the plants and creatures of the world. It was a very beautiful day except for a certain group of bandits in the Land of Rivers.
In a certain place lay more than a dozen of bodies, some of them were burnt, some were only a dried husk like a mummy, some sliced in two or cut in their necks, and some died of broken bones.
Ranmaru stood in the middle of it and looked at the gory scene. His face was calm but his heart was in a turmoil. All the people he killed, and their faces were flashing in his mind. He thought that he had already came in to terms in killing since his last kill, but he guessed wrong. Deep in his heart he still cannot forget every life that he had reaped even though most of them were bad people.
Ranmaru pushed this thoughts to the back of his mind and decided to clean up the evidence of the fight first. He needed to clean this mess fast as someone might see him and this can cause trouble. He doesn't want any unwanted trouble and attention to himself now that he is still weak compared to true powerhouse shinobis. He still had to practice the techniques he copied when he return to the village and truly master them.
Ranmaru released two shadow clones which he learned in the arena and thanks to his knowledge in the anime about shadow clones, he learned it in one try. His chakra reserves were still full thanks to his 'touch of death seal'. He carried the bodies with the help of his clones one by one to the forest behind the valley and burry them there. He did not try this technique earlier before because he does not understand how it works so he waited until he saw some shinobis using it in the arena as to not hurt himself and possibly cripple him if it goes wrong.
After Ranmaru moved the bodies, he cleaned the blood stains on ground and left the scorch marks and crater there as it was difficult to remove unless he knows any earth release to terraform the land.
Ranmaru went to the carriage and checked if grandma Sho and Karashi were harmed. After checking that nothing was wrong he controlled the horse with genjutsu to move along the road and leave this place fast.
After two hours of sleeping the two woke up when Ranmaru deactivated the genjutsu. They were lying under the shade of a tree while Ranmaru was pretending to sleep beside them. The two looked confused as if there was something in their mind but couldn't grasp what it is. They looked at Ranmaru who was sleeping and decided to forget this weird feeling.
Karashi stood up from the ground and went to check the horse and feed it. Grandma Sho stayed with Ranmaru for a while and woke him up after a few minutes when the horse had properly eaten and rested. They went onto their journey back without any hiccups after that incident.
A few hours later, people noticed the site of the fight earlier and reported it to the authorities. When the authorities heard the report, they dispatched a team to investigate what happened. Later, after hours of searching in the site, they found the trail that Ranmaru did not bother to clean and found where the bodies of the bandits were buried. When the team of shinobis found out that the bodies belong to the bandits, they sighed in relief and decided to report this matter back to their lord of this good news. About the killer though, they decided to not go after him/her, after all he/she helped them to clean the bandits in their territory.
The three finally arrived back to Katabami Gold Mine Village the next day at noon. They spent the night in one of the villages on the way because it was still a few hours away.
Ranmaru bid the two goodbye after taking his things in the carriage. He came to the horse and bid it farewell too, while patting its head and the horse neighing at him as if saying farewell his too.
Ranmaru went back home to his house and lay on his bed, staring on the ceiling. He started to think of the people he killed and how to cope with it. He did not want to kill people as much as possible but they forced him. As earlier as the bandits showed up this morning, Ranmaru already felt their malice and crazy thoughts directed towards them as seen in their aura. When he heard their thoughts with the help of yureigan, his resolve was made stronger and so he decided to kill.
'I am not Naruto who will save anyone. I will not be kind to those who are not. I will follow my will and do what is right what I deem is right, and no one can force me against it.' Ranmaru said in his heart what he truly felt. His eyes glowed redder than usual in the dark for a moment without him noticing and returned back to normal. He closed his eyes and slept for the night.
The next morning he performed his yoga and weight training as usual. He felt that it is time to improve his weights, so he decided to do research and make a sealing art for increasing weight in objects later in the afternoon after his work. After taking a bath, he went to the shop and started the day's business.
When he went home after work, Ranmaru started to do his research. Since weight seals was not included in the scroll taken from the first bandit leader, Ranmaru had a headache while thinking about this. In his previous life, the only way he knows to increase the weight of an object without changing its size and shape is by increasing the gravitational force of an object and keeping it at constant speed to achieve extra weight. So he went on this path of research with his seals. He first drew the design of the seal, and drew conductive pathways where the chakra flows like how circuit boards work. He thinks that the different symbols used in fuinjutsu are like capacitors, inductors, transformers, and resistors in a circuit board creating the desired effect. He stayed until late at night and woke up the next day early to continue with his research and went to work when it was time.
A week had passed and he finally had the prototype of weight increasing seals. His weight increasing seals can increase the mass of an object approximately up to a hundred times of its previous weight. With this, he can increase the intensity of his training and improve his strength further. However the metals which were inscribed by the seals won't last long and rust, then corrode turning it into a scrap because of the properties of chakra. He estimated that the seals will last for one to two weeks tops and he will need to make a new one. Chakra conductive metals are rare and expensive so he did not have a choice and would have to create new weight seals in every week or two.
This day was Ranmaru's day off so he tried to put on the weights on his body excitedly to test it. It resembled a modern plate armor of the police and army with arm guards and leg guards which is also inscribed with weight increasing seals.
In which, he deliberately asked the village blacksmith with this design so the plates are easy to remove. He made a deal with the blacksmith where Ranmaru will give him the corroded metal for free and the blacksmith will forge the new plates for him for free because it was easy to make with molds but he will have to buy his own metal used for forging. Ranmaru also asked if the blacksmith can forge a sword for him but the blacksmith denied him saying that he only makes kitchen knives, pickaxes, shovels and the like, that is commonly used in mining. So Ranmaru can only return home helplessly that day.
After checking how the weights look, Ranmaru tried moving and adjusting it to his preferred weight and started doing his yoga and weight training. After he was done, he went outside and walk towards the lake where he often fished.
Ranmaru decided to increase his chakra control now that he had reached a bottleneck. He wants to practice his control of his chakra in the water for more challenge. He went into the shore lake and stepped into the water with his left foot. He applied chakra on his feet with the amount he used when wall climbing but nothing happened and his foot fell in the water. He hurriedly stepped back and tried again, now with more chakra on his feet. When his foot touched the water, it exploded and soaked his pants. Ranmaru tried different amounts of chakra and its frequency of release to stabilize his footing on the water. It took him a whole night to be able to stand up steadily on top of water and walk like a pro. However he still can't fight and run while on it, he still needs time on this to practice.
After he was done, he went home and meditated until morning. He woke up from meditation the next day and started his morning yoga and weight training while standing above the lake and took his bath in the lake after and went home for a change of clothes. He went to work every day and trained on the lake everyday with his yoga, weight training and taijutsu. This went on for a week until Ranmaru was confident to have fight over the water.
This whole week, Ranmaru improved again by leaps and bounds. He did not practice ninjutsu this whole time as he devoted it all in his water walking + yoga, weight training, and taijutsu. After every session of his training, he did not have enough chakra to cast a single ninjutsu so he ignored ninjutsu training.
Now, Ranmaru decided to finally start his ninjutsu training in the forest after a week of delay.