After meeting with Hiruzen, Suguru went out to buy a pack of balloons and rubber balls. The training for Rasengan was such an iconic part of the original that Suguru felt inspired to try making his own versions as well.
However, he couldn't come up with anything just yet.
It wasn't like Hellfire Artillery or Blaze Battle Body which were basically variants of pre-existing jutsus. The Rasengan was already a variant of a pre-existing jutsu — the Tailed Beast Bomb.
Furthermore, a variant of the Rasengan had already been made — Hatake Kakashi's Chidori. It was an attempt at adding chakra transformation to an extremely difficult jutsu to master.
Therefore, Suguru's job was to succeed where Kakashi failed. Similar to when Naruto created the Rasenshuriken, his task was to create a Fire Release: Rasengan that had its own special behavior.
It would be a step forward in fulfilling his dream to become a walking nuke.
'Art should indeed be an explosion!'
Suguru couldn't help but agree with Deidara for a moment.
***
In his laboratory, Suguru activated his Kaisugan and mirrored an active Byakugan from the training Hyuga children. Then, he held a water balloon in his hand.
'Rotational motion... If I look at it purely through physics, then perfect rotational motion will not pop the balloon.'
Suguru began pouring his chakra out of his hand and began to let it spin. Through the Byakugan, he could see the water spinning like a whirlpool.
'Indeed, it's like the problem that Naruto faced.'
Suguru then began to focus. He began to rotate his chakra in several more directions, abusing the dimensions of a sphere.
—Pop!
Water splashed onto the floor as the balloon burst into tiny pieces of plastic. Suguru blinked. The white-eyed Byakugan was still shining in his eyes.
'Ah, I wasn't able to catch that with the Sharingan... I'll do it again.'
Just like this, Suguru analyzed every property of the Rasengan he could. He advanced slowly, step-by-step, not because of his lack of talent — his control was already quite good. It was because of the elongating scroll of notes that he had been painstakingly transcribing.
If the process for creating Hellfire Artillery was condensing his Great Fireball Jutsu into a more appropriate shape and maintaining it with chakra, the Rasengan had much much more to it than the maintenance of its shape.
Rotational velocity, chakra quantity, torque, chakra density, chakra flux, and even characteristics like the tenketsu's chakra output from his hand. Suguru's pre-existing chakra theory was further supplemented by this act of learning the Rasengan.
To any outsider, it would seem like he was indeed just learning the Rasengan.
To an experienced eye, however, it was more akin to studying it to further his other jutsus instead.
As an example...
Suguru went out to Training Ground 24 to take a break from his Rasengan research. Then, he did something out of curiosity.
Pouring chakra out of his hand, he formed a spinning ball. This one wasn't like the Rasengan — it was much simpler as it rotated only in a single, uniform direction.
Then, he infused the chakra with Fire Release, creating a spinning ball of flames in his hand. Afterward, he dropped the ball and flickered away.
—Boom!
A small but destructive vortex of flames engulfed the area where the ball fell. It consumed everything around it in a blazing fire. However, the center stayed clean of any damage. It was a hollow sphere of destruction.
'Intriguing,' Suguru thought.
***
Suguru's research continued. Whenever he had time outside of his missions, he would elaborate on the pre-existing characteristics as much as he could — documenting the nitty-gritty details with pinpoint accuracy.
'Shinobi really need to go into research more often. Their Doujutsu is wasted on combat alone.' Suguru sighed as he deactivated his Sharingan.
The reason why he could make so many measurements was mostly because of the Sharingan. The Byakugan allowed for pinpoint observation while the Sharingan built upon it through its memorization and predictive abilities.
They were an amazing duo in his hands.
'No wonder Orochimaru badly wanted it for himself,'
Months went by as Suguru continued his research. Over those months, he had mostly mastered the jutsu. Although it used a significant portion of his chakra, he would eventually be able to spam it.
All he needed was the leeway to go on solo missions. Then, he could consume all the chakra he wanted.
How will he do that, you ask?
By becoming a chuunin.
***
"The three of you have what it takes to become chuunins," Hitomi's words came with a piece of paper — the application to take the chuunin exams. "If you want to take the exams, you can write your names here. You will be going as individuals for this exam, unlike the exams before."
Suguru raised his hand, "Where and when will the exams be held?"
"Sunagakure. In six months." The answer was concise.
"Ah," Suguru couldn't help but have his suspicions. However, he pushed those down.
The earlier he could become a chuunin, the earlier he could ransack towns of their chakra. Anyway, if he died randomly in Sunagakure's territory, their reputation would surely plummet. Incidents beyond the regular exam would strain political ties.
Unfortunately, such an arrangement was flimsy at best.
'I still have a long way to go before I figure out my resurrection system...' Suguru felt a twang of unease.
Nonetheless, he was going to prepare as much as he could.
***
Yumiko and Isao glanced at Suguru, whose paper had his name written on it. Tilting his head, Suguru looked back at them with an inquisitive gaze.
"...Our parents advised us against going," Yumiko answered, understanding Suguru's confusion.
Suguru tilted his head towards the other side, still gazing into their eyes.
"They said that we're not ready," Isao said with resolution.
Hearing this, Suguru nodded. He did not think the same applied to himself. He still had many tricks up his sleeve that others did not know about.
Perhaps Hitomi and Hiruzen had their suspicions already. After all, he killed a chuunin and genin by himself in a two-on-one scenario.
However, they couldn't be sure. Much less the other people who had never met him.
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(No space.)
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