The morning air was crisp and clear as Murakami made his way to the training ground 8 in unhurried steps, his expression calm and unbothered.
Anyone who saw him would think he was out on a morning stroll and not on his way to his evaluation.
But how would they know that while others were thinking about what kind of test their sensei would give them, Murakami was thinking of how efficient his Martial arts would fare against a Jonin.
The True Combat Technique.
That is the name Murakami gave his developed martial technique.
Martial Technique begins with an idea on how Force, Energy or the Body should behave.
Key word: Should.
The idea then forms a series of progression: Principle. Movement. Method.
An example of Principle is flow and rigidity, direct force and redirection, Internal and external power, timing and distance control.
Murakami's True Combat Technique built upon the principle of Pre-emptive Resolution or Non-opposition.
Force does not meet to oppose force when it could be guided.
Having observed the Hard fist style of the Uchiha clan and the Gentle fist style of the Hyüga clan from his classmates over the years, Murakami noticed how they complimented each other.
One sought to dominate with direct and overwhelming force while the other sought to incapacitate with gentle but precise and swift strikes.
So one focused on the principle of Overwhelming force the other focused on Precision and speed.
They were like two sides of the same coin and the novelty intrigued Murakami and the True Combat technique was born.
With the Principle down, the next progression was Movement.
The 27 forms were in truth, a repetitive sequence of the first 9 forms divided into 3 segments for fist, palm and leg.
Fist Core included: Straight Penetration Fist. Spiral Torque Fist. Compression Short Fist
Palm Core included: Structure Disrupt Palm. Redirect Palm. Shock Transfer Palm
And the Leg Core included: Low Sweep Entry Kick. Rising Intercept Knee. Axis Turning Kick
They were a series of moves that could be performed by anyone patient enough, but the real deal came with the next repetition.
That was where Flow integration came in.
With the first nine forms mastered properly, controlling an exchange becomes relatively easier.
Now moves are no longer single techniques, but become chains, reactions, conversions and positional traps.
Any casual movement becomes equal to striking due to muscle memory.
This was where Taijutsu ended, but when mastered and internalized, a new layer is added.
Redirection timing, multi-option branching, momentum stealing, structure breaking mid-motion, entry denial footwork, recovery inside attack and pressure rhythm control become relatively easy.
This was the stage Aiko had yet to reach.
The next 9 movements, Tier 3, focused on Spatial Expression.
This is where Murakami level is at.
Some might argue that Murakami shouldn't be able to create such a technique at such a young age since he hadn't seen much combat, but Murakami was not just young.
He knew the capabilities of the Hyüga clan gentle fist: Trigram Seal.
This technique ensured that anyone caught within the Eight Trigram field has all 361 tenketsu struck leading to an inevitable bodily shutdown.
As for the Uchiha clan hard fist, Murakami had no head or tails on where its limit lay. No Uchiha was shown using it extensively other than Madara when he was being a maniac on the battlefield during the Fourth Shinobi War.
With the information he had, the Tier 3 of the True Combat Technique focused on Spatial Control.
In this stage, moves stop being techniques and become decisions within his space.
Murakami had no idea where the True Combat Technique stood in terms of rank. He hadn't fought someone focused purely on Taijutsu to know where his technique ranked.
Murakami knew there was still room for improvement but since there were no Martial art techniques he could get his hands on as a reference material, he settled for perusing through the numerous Taijutsu scrolls he could get his hands on.
Perks of being rich.
But if Murakami were to stop here, the True Combat Technique would not be a martial technique but a Taijutsu.
In this stage of progression, Murakami's body responds without delay since the mind doesn't overthink when moving.
Movement takes the shortest path as his presence suppresses opponent options
This leads opponents to experience missed timing, sense false openings and attacks losing structure mid-flight.
In essence, within a certain level of combat strength, Murakami was invincible, but that was only with the second progression.
The next progression was the Method.
Method describes how the Internal World of the body operates to bring out the potential of the technique.
The creation process of the Method often begins with discovering how energy flows in the body, find a stable circulation pattern, link movement to that pattern, then train until body and energy synchronize.
There were no records of such things in existence, but Murakami wasn't disturbed by this.
Although there weren't energy sources like Chi, qi, or ki, he had chakra. As for how chakra flowed in his body, Murakami was confident in his understanding of it, so all he needed to do was find a stable circulation pattern.
This didn't take long as he chose to follow the Martial arts route to the end and settle for developing a breathing method similar to the one he created for training spiritual energy which he passed to Hina.
This however, was where he met his first obstacle.
The chakra pathways in the body were too fragile to circulate Chakra at the speed necessary to execute each form, and even when he slowed it down, his body was too weak to exert the force produced by the circulation of energy.
Reaching this point, Murakami came to understand why Martial arts don't exist in this world and the one that does exist, the Eight Inner Gate, ruptured the heart at the Eight gate.
Murakami wasn't reconciled with this.
So he created the weighted seal to ensure that his body continued strengthening till it was able to exert the force necessary to bring out the full potential of the True Combat Technique.
He continued practicing the breathing method while performing the katas, but he never fully executed the technique since he'd needlessly injure himself.
However, while one door closed, another opened to him.
Murakami discovered that with each set of 9 katas done with the breathing method refined his Chakra little by little and increased it.
Over the years, Murakami's chakra had grown in both quantity and quality.
This didn't make him arrogant though.
There were still people in this world who were born with reservoirs of chakra in them.
There were still people in this world who were born with bloodlines that ignored chakra quantity when they intend to kill you.
There were still people in this world who were broken enough to be walking disasters against their wishes.
He couldn't get arrogant.
This thought process led him to create the Genjutsu seal that showed him how weak he was whenever he stepped into his training ground.
It was difficult for someone who has seen the peak to be arrogant after all. The moon in the sky was a daily reminder of how powerful a human could get with mastery over Chakra.
Now, Murakami was faced with a decision.
Trust in his sensei and go all out in hopes of getting a reliable sparring partner.
Remain low-key and show just enough to pass as a strong Genin.
While Murakami was in thought, he arrived at the entrance of training ground 8 and paused. Then he took a step.
There was no burst of speed, explosive launch or visible exertion, but one moment he stood at the edge of the field, the next, the grass behind him bent in a delayed ripple, as though the world itself had realized too late that he had already moved as he stopped at the center.
Nothing dramatic followed. No shockwave, no dust plume, no crater. Only silence.
Murakami exhaled slowly, eyes half closed, posture loose to the point of carelessness. To an observer, he looked unguarded, almost inattentive of his surroundings.
In truth, nothing about him was relaxed, his senses were expanded to the point where he could perceive everything within a hundred meters of his position.
Sensing no one in his vicinity, he raised one hand and let it fall.
The air around his palm trembled faintly, as though the space itself had been persuaded to move aside and in the next instant the ground beneath him caved.
Murakami frowned.
"Too much intent," he murmured. If it could be perceived, it could be dodged and blocked.
This was the improved Shockwave Jutsu.
Murakami took inspiration from the Palm technique he'd often read about and hoped to create a technique on the level of the Shinra Tensei.
He shook his head and turned to the distance where a training dummy stood half-buried in the earth, its thick timber reinforced with iron bands, meant to withstand taijutsu strikes of proportional force.
Murakami did not approach it, instead, he faced it and lifted his arm slightly, elbow bent, fingers loose… and simply brought it down in a cutting motion.
A faint cracking sound echoed across the field as the dummy split down the center and collapsed into two clean halves.
But Murakami did not look impressed. "Still inefficient," he said calmly. "Sakuna could've done better."
'Whoever said the wind element wasn't overpowered?' He closed his eyes and observed his chakra. He had used more chakra than he intended for that simple cut. 'Chakra control still needs work.' he thought to himself and opened his eyes.
If a Jonin had seen what Murakami did and heard his thoughts, there was a high possibility of them spitting blood in anger.
What Murakami had done was use chakra to enhance the force behind his cutting motion, directly using the wind element in the air to strike.
Unlike conventional Shinobi who treated movement as a means to produce force, Murakami saw it differently.
Force was merely the loudest expression of a deeper process.
Balance, alignment, timing and intention.
If those were arranged correctly, force became unnecessary.
A simple strike did not need to overpower, it only needed to arrive where resistance could not exist and its intent would be carried out inevitably.
His Phantom steps too. He didn't know how different it was from the Body flicker, but he was certain he wouldn't lose in a contest of speed.
He flexed his fingers slowly, watching the minute adjustments in tension ripple through his arm.
If he continued refining this… the possibilities were endless.
A faint breeze passed through the field as Murakami lowered his hand. "…Troublesome," he said quietly.
Because a system like this could not exist safely in a world built on measurable strength.
And if others realized what it implied… The era of shinobi would not evolve… It would collapse into something else.
'Hmm? Someone's here.' Murakami's eyes sharpened but he made no outward movement and just walked towards the fallen training post. "Now how do I explain this?"