Sitting next a hospital bed, a woman who appeared to be in her early twenties was holding the hand of the bandaged man laying silently.
The woman had a pair of dark sunglasses and was looking directly at the wall Infront of her, not the injured man or even out the window.
Her face was neither sadness or anger, just acceptance and melancholy.
"...the Doctors say that your making a remarkable recovery, something that shouldn't be possible.....Of course they've been saying that for over a decade now..... I dont even have a proper answer to how you ended up like this, Lord fourth Hokage told me you became like this after fighting to save the world... I can't even question him, now that he's in a similar state to yours... hah, I guess I too am in a similar situation as you, Chiba..." Koizumi caressed the glasses on her face.
Standing up, Koizumi reached for the cane next to her and began stroking it with mixed emotions.
"Kushina's Child has been labeled the Golden Genius of Konoha, people compare him to Itachi and he's the spitting image of the fourth Hokage... In order not to cause a panick, the people don't know what you did for them, they think you were injured in a regular mission...After checking up on Minato's condition, Tsunade stopped by your room. She said that you're somehow beginning to rebuilding your chakra networks..."
Sitting in the hospital chair, Koizumi thought of everything she could think of, only to realize she said it all. She'd already told him about her failed revenge attempts, about how she went blind from overuse of her Mangekyou, how Minato Namikaze was suddenly attack. She sat in the quite hospital room contemplating life.
A small, selfish part of Koizumi wished Chiba was dead. Every day for the past year she wondered if today was the day he'd wake up and guide her once again, only to be disappointed everyday.
Koizumi knew would've gotten over Chiba's death just like how she eventually gotten over her parents loss, but she couldn't with him in the coma. Chiba was still alive, he was apparently getting better so she continued to hope, even though her hopes contnued to get dashed.
Standing up from her seat, Koizumi gripped the handle of her cane before walking to the door way.
'Please Chiba, get better! I don't know how much longer I can live a life like this...'
=========
Sensing the thousands of shadow clones all practicing different techniques and skill, Chiba silently sat in meditation and wonder how long his torture would last.
The first year Chiba and his thousands of clones diligently trained with all of his Template abilities to the point they became second nature to him, but sadly template ability didn't grow naturally.
After the first year he moved onto techniques and jutsu that he would used in most battles, training them with the thousands of clones made his proficiency grow astronomical but he plateaued after nearly a year of training.
Eventually he moved onto the secret clan jutsus that he had stashed under the house, then he started into fields that he'd never used before like Genjutsu and Medical Jutsu.
Even though he tries his hardest, Chiba was beginning to feel his sanity chip away. Every day he had atleast 2,500 shadow clones training throughout his simulated house, all practicing techniques.
This meant that instead of only experiencing 24 hours of memories each day, he experienced over 50,000 hours worth of memories each day!
Thankfully the memories were so similar that he forgot the large majority of them and only the experience stuck, but it forced the main Chiba to meditating just to help organize his overwhelmed mind.
"System"
Template system:
Host: Uchiha Chiba (Coma)
The first template: Fujitora
Completion: % 100
Template ability:
{Fujitora}:
1. swordmanship [Advanced]
2. Soru [Master]
3. Observation Haki [Master]
4. Zushi Zushi no mi [Devil Fruit]
5. Biokinesis [Evolved]
6. Rankyaku [Intermediate]
7. Armament haki [Advanced]
8. Conquers Haki [Intermediate]
9. Yakuza Kasen
Learnt abilities:
(Ninjutsu, A+ rank)
(Kenjutsu, SS rank)
(Fuinjutsu, A rank)
(Hashirama cells, A+rank)
(Taijutsu, A+)
(Genjutsu, C)
(Bukijutsu, A)
(Meditation, S+)
(Medical Ninjutsu, C-)
(Shurikenjutsu, A)
(Chakra Sensing, B)
Despite learning many more skills and technique in just a couple years, Chiba felt ashamed at how little progress he's made over the past months.
While having unlimited chakra did help him significantly, Chiba desperately lacked the one thing every main character in Naruto had in spades, talent!
It didn't matter if he had a million clones with a thousand years, if he couldn't comprehend the scroll then he It didn't matter how many shadow clones or time he had to practice with.
It took Chiba 3 months of being taught by Itachi every day in order to learn the Shadow clone jutsu, it probably would've taken him over a year if he had done is solely base on a scroll. In this simulated world that didn't have mentors, Chibas learning has plateaued.
There was also quite a few jutsu that he couldn't perfect or even use properly within a simulation like the summoning contracts, genjutsu and medical jutsu.
It was onlt now that Chiba realiziled that learning from scrolls was very incredibly limited, he instead decided to trying and invent new techniques and jutsu. Thankfully this simulated world had no consequences, meaning Chiba could recklessly explore chakra in different ways that no other ninja could!
One of the jutsu he tried to make was heavily inspired by the feats of Tsunade and later Sakura. Chiba attempted what they did and began loading his body with chakra in order to achieve punches that had insane strength behind it.
Filling his entire fist with Chakra, a shadow clone of Chiba launched the glowing hand into the face of another clone, only for the clones fist to explode sending the memories back to the meditating main Chiba.
Chiba saw the possibility of recreating the technique but he wasnt too enthusiastic about the technique itself. Chiba considered himself a swordsman, he couldnt imagine himself ever being forced to rely on hand to hand combat.
"Should I try to learn the rasengan instead, i already know the training method to do so from the anime..... My sword slash empowered by just Armament Haki could literally slice through mountain, a rasengan would actually be a bit of a downgrade since it would cost more chakra to perfom than the slash..." Chiba received another batch of exploding clones memories.
"What if I mixed chakra string that puppet users make with an element to a create multiple element whips that I can control?....When would I ever use an elemental chakra whip in my life?"
While Chiba was talentless, he was pragmatic and knew that his main combat ability was his swordmanship, devil fruit, and Haki. While Ninjutsu could give him variation in his attacks, they simply lacked the lethality he wanted in a fight.
Looking at his shadow clones trying to replicate the jutsu, some exploding from the failed jutsu, Chiba could only shake his head slowly.
"Im not like Orochimaru, I dont want learn every Jutsu in existence and i shouldn't be trying to learn random Ninjutsu that I will never use in a battle, my swordsmanship has surpassed everything and my devil fruit alone transcend most jutsu in this world!"
With a wave of his hand all of the shadow clone disappeared and thousands of hours of memories back to him. Grasping his head in pain he quickly organized them in his head.
"What I need to focus on is buff type jutsu, something that will increase my movement speed and augment my fighting style not change it. I can use the 7th inner gate with little drawback because of Biokenisis, lets use it as the base for a new technique!" Chiba felt the cloud in his mind slightly recede as he formed a new goal.
"Shisui gained the Nickname of 'the Teleporter' from just Flickering Body Jutsu. I'll train to attain absolute mastery of the technique but the real question is which route I should take my buff jutsu?" Suddenly clones began to spawn all around Chiba three at a time.
"Should I go the Naruto and Raikage route, covering my entire body in a constant flow of chakra to enhance everything from speed, strength and reaction? Or should I go the Sasuke and Minato route, using one off movement techniques in quick succession like Lightning Body Flicker and the flying thunder god to enhance my speed?..."
The thousands of Chiba clones began to dash throughout the house using flickering body, he even received a few memories of his clones smashing into each other.
"....I'll focus on a constant chakra mode type jutsu, the entire point of me learning Fuinjutsu was to become a psuedo jinchuriki of a powerful animal, for both me and Koizumi....Koizumi....I wonder how she's been doing, or if she's even still ali-." Slapping himself in the face, Chibas eyes refocused.
"She's alive! What I taught her garanteed her skill and I even told her about my stash of stolen scrolls! Ive helped guide Itachi on the right path and told Fugaku enough about the future to prevent the uchiha massacre! I shouldn't worry about the things I can't change, instead I'll focus on getting stronger, I can't let my little sister or Itachi surpass me!...."
Despite telling himself this, Chiba's heart was filled with anxiety. Ao was an incredibly skill Shinobi that could steal a Sharingan and get away with, not to mention he was the right hand man to the Mizukage!
Shaking off the worry, Chiba continued making shadow clones like second nature, not even having to put his hands together as three shadow clones proofed into existence, followed by another three.
Unfortunately Chiba hadn't learned the multi shadow clone jutsu that could make hundreds of clones at once, so he was stuck with only being able to make three clones at a time.
Normally this wouldve been a bad thing, but because he had to use the jutsu over a thousand time every day, he had perfected the jutsu to the point of being able to to it sign less!
"After mastering the Flickering Body technique, my buff jutsu will take 100% of my attention!"