After about a month of training, I began to notice changes not only in my body but also in my mindset and those around me, especially Nora and Baskin. In the beginning, we all followed Hatoshi-sensei's intense training regimen with equal determination. Each day was physically and mentally taxing, but we knew that progress, though slow, would come. But as the weeks went by, I started to see signs of doubt in their resolve. The progress we were making was minimal, and the sheer difficulty of the exercises made them reconsider their approach. Both Nora and Baskin seemed to convince themselves that even if they eased up a bit, they'd still be able to keep pace with me, and to some degree, they were right.
One afternoon, as we were catching our breath after training, Baskin leaned against a tree and said, "You know, we don't really need to go this hard every day. We've made progress, right? Besides, I'm sure Sensei would understand if we took it down a notch."
Nora, stretching lazily, chimed in, "Yeah, Satoshi. With the amount of chakra we've got, a little rest won't kill us. I bet we'd still be ahead."
Nora, being from the Yamanaka clan, naturally possessed a much larger chakra pool than I did. His heritage gave him a clear advantage in terms of raw chakra reserves. As for Baskin, both of his parents were ninjas, and he had been training from a young age, which meant his chakra reserves were also solid, even if he wasn't from a particularly prestigious clan. Compared to them, I was at a severe disadvantage. My chakra reserves were the smallest, and unlike them, I had no natural gifts or clan techniques to fall back on. So when Sensei offered them the option to scale back their training, they quickly agreed, figuring that a little slacking wouldn't hurt their overall progress. And they were probably right—given their larger chakra reserves, they could afford to slow down a bit and still stay ahead or at least remain competitive.
But I didn't have that option.
"That's easy for you guys to say," I replied, trying not to let my frustration show. "If I ease up, I'll fall way behind. You two might keep up with less effort, but I don't have that luxury."
There were countless moments during that month when I was tempted to follow their lead. Watching Nora and Baskin take it easy while I struggled to keep up made me question myself. It would've been so easy to join them, to let myself take a break, but I knew I couldn't. For them, slacking off might still keep them in the running, but for me, it was different. If I slowed down, I would fall behind, not by a little but by a lot. I had no cushion to rely on, no natural chakra advantage, and no family secrets to help me make up the difference. It was hard, but I kept going because I knew I had to.
Aside from the physical gains, that month also brought a lot of revelations about how things worked in the world of chakra and jutsu. The first eye-opener came when I asked Hatoshi-sensei about the tree-climbing chakra control exercise, something I had assumed was a standard technique for improving control.
When I had mentioned it to mom, she said she didn't know much about it. When I explained it to her, she found the idea intriguing but admitted she wasn't sure how to perform the exercise correctly. We tried it once, but both of us failed miserably, so the topic was never revisited. So, I had hoped that a jonin like Hatoshi-sensei would be familiar with it and could teach me. But when I brought it up to Sensei, his reaction took me by surprise. He looked puzzled and asked, "Where did you hear about this exercise?"
That question immediately made me uneasy. His confusion worried me. For a moment, I wondered if this was some kind of secret technique reserved for elite clans or jonin-level shinobi. So I quickly fabricated a lie, saying I had heard about it from my mom.
Sensei raised an eyebrow but didn't press further. "Well, the tree-climbing exercise is beneficial for shinobi with large chakra reserves, but for someone like you..." he paused, choosing his words carefully, "...it would drain more chakra than you can afford. You wouldn't see the benefits before exhausting yourself."
This realization hit me like a ton of bricks. Suddenly, everything started to make sense. Naruto, being an Uzumaki and a jinchuriki, had an absurdly large amount of chakra. Sasuke, being an Uchiha and a top student, also had high chakra reserves. Even Sakura, who in the anime was portrayed as useless, likely had a substantial chakra pool. As I thought about it more, I realized that Sakura, despite being a civilian, must have had enough chakra to compete with clan children like Ino, which meant her chakra reserves were exceptional, and her chakra control had always been praised. Well to honest it was never talent that made her useless, rather it was her personality.
"Naruto, Sasuke... even Sakura," I muttered. "They all had way more chakra than I ever realized."
Sensei said. "Chakra reserves determine how long and how well you can perform certain techniques. Out of you three, only Nora would benefit from that tree-climbing exercise."
I filed that information away, determined not to let it discourage me.
The second thing I learned that month was just how much chakra it takes to maintain a jutsu. Up until that point, I had only been activating and deactivating my jutsu quickly—never holding them for extended periods—so I didn't realize how draining it could be.
"Maintaining a jutsu takes more out of you than activating it," Hatoshi-sensei explained. "The longer you hold it, the more chakra you burn. That's why battles aren't just about knowing a technique, but knowing when to use it and for how long."
Take the Transformation Jutsu, for example. It costs around 5 chakra points (cp) per second to maintain. That might not sound like much at first, but if you're in a prolonged battle, even a minute of maintaining the jutsu costs you 300 cp. For someone with large chakra reserves, that's manageable, but for me? That's a lot. Then there's the Substitution Jutsu. I always thought it was a simple technique, but maintaining the transformation of the substituted object requires 6 cp per second. And when it comes to creating clones, the chakra cost increases exponentially. Keeping just two clones active can eat up over 20 cp per second.
According to Sensei, these costs can be reduced to a certain extent but cannot be completely eliminated. As of now, I do not possess that level of mastery.
"Every second counts in battle," I murmured to myself during a solo training session.
The Body Flicker Jutsu was different in that it's an instantaneous technique. Since it's more of a burst movement, it doesn't require chakra to maintain, but the initial cost is high depending on the distance traveled. Well, that part had already been discovered by me, but I discovered a new problem: the longer the distance I had to travel, the longer it took me to infuse chakra.
And genjutsu like the Demon Illusion? Even more chakra-intensive.
"Remember," Hatoshi-sensei had said, "it's not just about learning the hand signs. Mastering chakra management is what separates an average shinobi from a great one."
That lesson stayed with me, especially as I tried—and failed—to maintain the C-rank Mirror World Jutsu for more than a few seconds before my chakra reserves were depleted.
It was a harsh truth, but one I had to accept: chakra management wasn't just an important skill, it was a survival skill.