Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00174. Chakra aura?

With the ‘Beast’ taken care of by Tao, Ezekiel used an earth based jutsu to fill in the large crater left from the battle. Afterwards he made a clone to watch over the area as he portaled back to his training room. Since the ninjas and his clones were still investigating the Hand, he went back to his training for now.

The training he planned to do was something he just added to his routine. It was called chakra aura or better known as battlefield presence. An even better term for it would be killing intent, but it wasn't used just for that. Flaring your chakra aura basically turned you into a lighthouse projecting its light out on a storm covered night. That ‘light’ could either focus on a single person or target everyone within its range depending on certain factors. A person skilled in the art of chakra aura could even mix in their thoughts or add emotions into their chakra.

Want to inspire your comrades mid battle or possibly create chaos in the enemy ranks? Want to protect your troops from the enemy's chakra aura? All you had to do was mix those thoughts and emotions into your chakra aura. It was a lot harder to do than just saying it and it took a ridiculous amount of chakra control to do it properly. But those who mastered the skill could use it as another tool in battle.

That’s not to say someone couldn’t easily brute force the whole thing, but it would lose its effectiveness that way. Sure it might work on weaker opponents but it would never work against a strong opponent. While it had its uses on the battlefield to help weaker troops, its main purpose was to let strong opponents find each other in battle and ward off weaker ninja.

It was something from the warring states period that carried forward with the creation of the village system. Did people always use it? Nope. But it was basically an unspoken rule that you flared your chakra aura throughout a battle so weaker opponents wouldn’t try to target you by mistake and to attract stronger opponents.

As for why Theo just started to learn the skill? The first was his chakra control needed to be at a certain level before it was recommended to learn the skill. Well he could have learned it, but he would basically have to learn it again once his chakra control was better. The second reason was it was always better to learn from someone who already knew how to properly use the skill.

So Theo was currently seated in front of Madara ready for his first lesson on chakra aura. Seated next to Theo was Agatha and Tao who also had enough chakra control to start learning the basics of the skill. They haven't had chakra that long, but they practiced their control with it even more than Theo did. It also helped they've both spent centuries learning to finely control their magic and transferred that experience to chakra so it took them less time to master.

Madara glanced over his ‘students’ with his arms crossed over his chest for a few seconds before he flared his chakra aura over them. It slammed into them almost like a physical blow and they each felt a slight fear towards Madara.

Once Madara stopped channeling his aura he said, “As you can see, your chakra aura can be powerful depending on a few things. The first and most important is how much control you have over your chakra.”

“Shouldn’t the amount of chakra you have be more important, since your chakra aura depends on your chakra itself?” Agatha asked.

Madara shook his head as he said, “While some clans and bloodlines were known for having massive amounts of chakra. Most people had a certain average amount depending on a few factors and training.”

“It's why civilian ninjas existed and could even rival clan ninjas with proper training.” Madara said with a mocking smile.

Madara lifted up a hand and pushed out some chakra into one of his fingertips as he said, “Chakra control is the most important factor because without it, you won't be able to control your aura.”

His fingertip became engulfed in a flood of chakra and was basically out of control as Madara said, “With no control your chakra aura would be like this. No real form or function other than existing.”

The chakra settled down and wrapped tightly around his finger to form a barely noticeable protective layer as he said, “This is your aura when it's under control. It's tightly controlled and not even noticeable until you activate it.”

The layer became thicker but stayed under control as he said, “This would be your aura when it's activated. Still under control but flared out for all to see.”

“So we're gonna be covered in an invisible layer of chakra? Isn’t that kind of wasteful?.” Tao asked.

“The chakra never leaves your body and isn't actually used to activate your aura or keep it maintained. It's why the size of a person's chakra pool doesn't matter so much.”

Madara stepped closer to a white board that was setup for him to use and took a moment to draw six circles in a row. Each circle was bigger than the last and he marked each one in order. The first and smallest circle was named untrained, the second was genin. Next was chunin and it was followed by jonin. The fifth circle was named kage and the last and biggest one was named ME.

Everyone stared at the circles for a little while before Theo said, “Shouldn’t there be another bigger circle named Hashirama?”

Madara’s eye twitched at the comment before he said, “Hashirama and I have about the same size chakra pool.”

“But he still beat you in all of your fights.”

“He only won because he had plot armor!” Madara huffed.

Theo smirked slightly as he said, “I guess you have a slight point…”

Madara ignored Theo and pointed at the board as he said, “We got off topic. The reason I said your chakra pool doesn't matter much is because it only affects how far your aura can reach and how strong it can be.”

Madara pointed at each circle as he said, “As you gain more chakra the area your aura reaches will expand. The same thing goes for the overall strength of your aura.”

“That makes it sound like your chakra pool is pretty important to your aura.” Tao said.

“Not when you consider the fact that you don't have much control over your chakra pool. Sure if you are diligent and train properly everyday you can increase your chakra to kage levels in theory.”

Madara pointed at the jonin circle as he said, “But if you only train half heartedly, you can easily reach jonin levels of chakra by the time you are in your mid twenties.”

Madara turned back to the group as he said, “Your chakra control on the other hand will determine if you can do this.”

Theo and the others felt dread for a moment before it disappeared and was replaced with a warm feeling that wrapped around them. That was quickly replaced with a feeling of being watched as Madara said, “That is what basic control of your aura is like. Now this is your aura with almost no control.”

The feelings disappeared and were replaced with an unfamiliar pressure. It didn't affect them so much as make them slightly uncomfortable. It changed and they felt more uncomfortable and a slight hint of fear as Madara said, “This is the best someone with no real control can do. Now I'll show you what good control is like.”

The pressure more than doubled and Theo felt like a physical weight was pressing down on his body making it harder to move or even breath. He also started to feel the threat of death hovering over him and unconsciously shivered from it. The feeling and pressure disappeared as Madara said, “What you just felt was me with my genin levels of chakra and my masterful control of my aura.”

“You said your chakra pool doesn't matter and that you don't really use chakra to activate your aura or use it… So what do our auras use if it's not chakra?” Agatha asked.

“Your aura is the chakra pool itself.”

“Then wouldn't your aura get weaker as you battle and use up your chakra?” Tao asked.

“If you have a cup full of water and then dump out the water, you lose the water but still have the cup.”

Madara shrugged as he said, “Honestly I'm just supposed to train you on how to use aura. If you wanna get into more details about it, ask someone else who likes to dig into the theory side of things like Tobirama.”

Madara spent the next few hours as he explained how to activate and manipulate your aura. It was something Theo already knew, but having someone teach you how was a lot easier than using other people's memories. By the time they finished Theo had a very basic grasp on his chakra aura.

It would take him at least a year before he was confident in its usage and even longer before he mastered it. But it would be a very useful tool to have in the future… The only issue he had with it was if it worked on people without chakra.

He knew a good bit about chakra aura and understood it worked through a resonance with other people's chakra. Since they were on Earth and no one had chakra except him and the people he gave bodies to… Would their chakra aura even work on normal people? It was something he would need to test soon and he had a good idea who the test subjects would be.

Theo spent the next month training as he waited for his investigation into the Hand to be completed. It would have been faster if the Hand kept digital records, but being a centuries old cult they did almost everything the old way. They were actually worse than Hydra in how outdated some of their system of communication was.

Sure they used phones and computers for a lot of normal communication. But that was still in a special code the Hand used. The real problem came from their use of carry pigeons and other birds.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

They also used sealed scrolls to pass important messages around and keep track of records… Yes, that's right, the Hand used scrolls. Not paper or digital messages, but scrolls that they actually made themselves. They actually had a small team of people and that was their only job in the Hand, to create scrolls they could use to send information. It was like they were still living in the past, over a thousand years ago. Needless to say, it was a time consuming problem to dig through all of their information and collect it.