Chapter 461: A Mission!
As the afternoon was fading, Arthur decided it was time to train a little bit before returning to his duties.
In front of him was a massive rock formation jutting out of the dirt a few yards away. So he flexed himself and widened his stance.
’Smoke style: smoke fist...’
The impact cracked like a whip as the boulder broke. Deep fissures webbed across the surface, and the top half of the rock crumbled into chunks of debris.
Arthur lowered his fist and stared at the broken stone. The damage was severe, exactly as he calculated. Yet he felt as if the power could have been greater despite having reacquired ninshū.
Not many would have noticed that the technique had actually dragged at the very last fraction of a second.
The problem was that his chakra recognized the lack of necessity and resisted the violence. For him to truly mix ninshū into his combat again, inanimate objects wouldn’t do; he would need to trick his spirit into genuine self-preservation.
And the only way to do that was to experience that same level of pressure, a real threat. Something that forced his spirit to react to survive like before. Or at least something close to it.
If he had his clones, they would have been perfect training partners. They knew his moves. But they were all destroyed, and he didn’t believe he had enough time to make more. Such a process required a delicate splitting of his reserves.
Even if he did invest the time, they’d be quite weak. A weak clone would shatter before the pressure reached the necessary threshold.
He considered the former Sound Five. They had unique abilities and worked well as a unit. They might work, but they were incomplete. Sakon and Ukon died by Itachi. Without the twins, the group lacked their core defensive synergy.
Perhaps having the Uzumaki and Uchiha clans gang up on him might be nice. A combined assault from two of the strongest bloodlines would definitely force him to move.