Chapter 9 - Wood Clones

"Hey big brother and sister, did you dye your hair? Can I have hair like yours too? If I can, can my bugs also have hair like yours? Maybe not hair but can their shells change colour?" he asked excitedly as he took out his kikaishu and showed it to them. 

Minato and Kushina paused in an awkward position with Kushina's chopsticks a few centimeters from Minato's mouth as she was about to feed him. 

Internally, Kira felt embarrassed and wanted to run away right at that moment and disappear, but he thickened his skin and looked at Kushina like she had wronged him. 

"Hey big sister, if you can't just feed one person! Come feed me too!" he declared shamelessly. 

Kushina's face went beet red while Minato smiled at him as he quickly slurped up the ramen before his girl took it away from him due to sheer embarrassment.

"Are you from the Aburame clan? What's your name?" Minato asked, tactfully changing the subject. 

Extremely glad that the topic was changed, Kira nodded in response, "Yeah! My bugs are the best and my name is Kira Aburame!"

Minato pointed at the chair on which Kira was standing on and said, "Why don't you sit down first? Standing on chairs is bad manners."

As Kira sat down, Minato turned to look at Teuchi, "Three more ramen for the kids, I'll pay."

"Coming right up!"

The five of them didn't talk much. It was only Kira blabbering nonsense while Minato engaged with him in small talk along with Kushina. 

Once the three kids were done eating, they left. But once they did, Kushina let go of appearances and ordered three more bowls of ramen. 

"I'm surprised you didn't get angry at them." Minato commented, and Kushina shrugged. 

"Well... he's a weird kid. And the second person to tell me that he liked my hair... don't the kids his age hate the color of my hair? Also, didn't the hokage announce that I'm the jinchuriki a few years ago? This kid wasn't afraid at all. The other two kids were very silent and tried to sit as far away from me as possible but this kid... Kira, he literally asked me to feed him hahahahaha!"

As she talked, she couldn't help but burst into a laughter and once the extra three bowls of ramen were placed in front of her, she began to eat, not wanting to speak to Minato until she was done. 

Outside, Kira separated from his friends and ran home with a smile on his face. He wasn't smiling because he met the parents of the child of prophecy. No, he was happy because he found a loophole that he could exploit. 

There were multiple missions he had added to his game which gave him character points and a batch of them were related to genin missions. 

Help 100 people - 1 point

Help 1000 people - 1 point

Help 10,000 people - 1 point

For genin mission accomplishments, he wrote code for "helping" while for chunin, it was in terms of missions completed. 

Like, 1 mission, 10 missions and lastly, 100 missions.

It was the same for special jonin and Jonin level accomplishments, all giving the player 1 point each.

Genin mission accomplishments never stated that he had to be a "genin" and nor did it mention that he had to take missions from the office.

But first, he had to make preparations. 

'I can't just waste my precious time trying to get those accomplishments while I could be training. I'll have to master the advanced clone jutsus first.'

As he made his plans, he rushed back home and the moment he reached got into his room, he locked the door and windows before closing the curtains too. 

"Alright, here goes..."

Ram - Serpent - Tiger

He simply copied the hand signs he saw in the anime and after a few tries, he managed to see results.

Poof Poof Poof Poof Poof

Five shadow clones appeared around him. 

For the next few months, Kira spent most of his free time trying to master elemental release with the assistance of his clones and did not leave wood release behind.

It was hard at the beginning, but as time passed, he slowly got the hang of it with the assistance of his 5 shadow clones who trained together with him. 

On the side, he also kept himself in shape by working out. Along with that, he also practised using substitution jutsu and body flicker jutsu along with his regular clones. 

He didn't wish to show his shadow clones to his family members and since he couldn't train the jutsus inside his house, he had no choice but to go out and practice on his own. 

Even though he practised the two jutsus outside, his clones were busy with mastering the elemental releases inside his bedroom, especially the wood release.

Kira panted as he lay on the ground exhausted when he heard his family members gossiping about the Hatake family. 

'So it started...'

He got up from the ground and headed back to his house so he could freshen up. Once he was done, he deactivated his shadow clones and absorbed their experiences. 

He stood in middle of his room and closed his eyes before he brought his two hands together, making a plus symbol with two fingers of each hand. 

"Wood Release: Wood Clone technique." he muttered as he controlled and moulded his chakra. 

Although the process was slow compared to the instantaneous shadow clone technique, he wasn't disappointed. 

A small stick grew from his shoulder and slowly, it grew wider and larger as it took on his shape. In total, the creation of his wood clone took him more than ten seconds, but he was still satisfied. 

He placed his hand on his clone's shoulder and moulded chakra once again, changing it's appearance and also the clothes. It grew in height and a few seconds later, it looked like a strong adult ninja.

Nodding his head in satisfaction, he relayed his thoughts to it and a second later, it moulded itself into the wall and travelled through the wood walls, stealthily moving out from the Aburame clan's compound. 

[A/n: I've decided to make a Kofi account. The upload schedule will continue as planned, but if you wish to read ahead, then feel free to visit the website. You'll get access to all 58 chapters. Check the Aux chapter for more details.]

Kofi Link: https://ko-fi.com/roastedpotaatoo