Saul left after breakfast so as to not interrupt the father-daughter reunion. Unfortunately, it seemed he was still late to the morning training. Kiba and Hinata were both sitting at a tree, waiting for him. Kurenai looked at him from the corner of her eye,

"Enjoyed your morning with Yakumo?"

She must have heard from Hinata. Saul scratched the back of his head.

"She was ill, so I had to help her take care of a few things around the house."

Well, actually, that was a good reason. Maybe she was too harsh on the boy. After all, he had been nothing but helpful in all the circumstances where he acted out. If only he would stop going after multiple women... Kurenai sighed, then motioned for him to sit with the rest. She begun,

"Today I will be teaching you all the body flicker jutsu. This jutsu is an essential asset for ninja, all ninja, as it is crucial for both escape and pursuit. It is a D rank jutsu. Thus, it is one of the least chakra consuming jutsu. However it is difficult to learn or master. Watch."

Kurenai placed her hands in the tiger seal. Smoke formed around her body, and then a wave of air breezed past their heads. Saul looked up. Kurenai was standing horizontally on the tree, looking down at them with her red eyes. She flipped off the tree, landing in front of them.

"This is the body flicker Jutsu. It can be divided into three parts. First is the initial stage of the technique, cloaking yourself with chakra. You should all be familiar with this - the transformation and clone jutsu both do something similar. Instead of transforming into your likeness however, the chakra will temporarily mimic the likeness of your surroundings. Like so."

Kurenai formed the hand seal for the body flicker jutsu again, but this time not moving. Her body turned into a shimmer, a distortion within the air. You could tell something was there, but not exactly what. It rapidly became less and less stable, showing more and more of her body until Kurenai deactivated the technique to become visible again.

"The body flicker jutsu would not be so hard to trace if one did not camouflage themselves with their surroundings. The camouflaging chakra cloak is also essential for the second part of the technique. Essentially, you shoot out a tunnel of chakra that determines the path you wish to take. When you pass through the tunnel, it combines with your chakra cloak to slow you down quickly at the end of the tunnel. There is no way for me to easily demonstrate this, but that was the source of the 'breeze' you felt when I jumped over your heads."

The genin nodded. Saul wondered, was the tunnel some sort of construct to get rid of air resistance during the high speed movement, and then increase it to quickly slow the user down after the technique? It sounded interesting...

"The final part of the technique is simple. It strengthens the body to a massive degree in an instant. Use this moment to leap through the tunnel you created. You will move incredibly fast and are able to travel long, straight distances within a short period of time."

Kurenai handed each genin a scroll containing the jutsu. It detailed the Tenketsu required for the technique, the chakra circulation for strengthening, and various ways to tweak the jutsu.

"I want you all to focus on learning the body flicker jutsu. This jutsu could potentially save your life - especially in the scenario of encountering an enemy ninja you cannot fight."

Ah, that's what it was. Kurenai was shaken up by the appearance of the missing-nin in our last mission. Regardless of what was said about her strength, she was a much better teacher than Kakashi. She took everything very seriously and was never late. Speaking of, Saul wanted to check in on Naruto soon. He wondered how things were going with Sakura - and maybe he could set the dude up with more than just his appearance. 

"Kurenai-sensei. Am I allowed to teach this jutsu to someone else?"

"Who?"

"Naruto. I'm realizing the shadow clone jutsu he taught Hinata and I was more valuable than I originally thought. I want to make it up to him somehow."

Kurenai relaxed. "His Jonin, Kakashi sensei, was promoted to Jonin at the age of 19, just 3 years after he graduated early from the ninja academy. He is a prodigy. There is no need to worry about his teaching standards."

"Really? Naruto has always complained to me about how unserious his Jonin is, never teaching them anything and always arriving late."

Kurenai was silent. She thought of scolding the weird man, who was always reading smut in public, and never showed his face. He was much, much stronger than her, a newly promoted Jonin. She shuddered. She was already almost a middle aged woman at the ripe age of 34! Thank goodness her chakra kept her looking good!

"Well..." She closed her eyes and smiled awkwardly, "Teach Naruto whatever you want. Just don't mention me, ok? We never had this conversation. Anyway, you'll have to master the jutsu first before you can teach anything!"

"Oh don't worry."

Saul loved ninjutsu. The process of utilizing the mystical energy coursing through his veins to activate jutsu felt magical to him still. Memorizing the tenketsu was annoying, but it was well worth the feeling mastering a jutsu could bring.

The reward was like figuring out a puzzle. Every puzzle was different, challenging, thought provoking. The more puzzles you solved, the better you'd become at solving them all. For Saul? After figuring out the puzzle, he literally rewired his very being with the solution.

With every ninjutsu learned, he felt he was closer and closer to learning some sort of foundational secret. A truth that still remained hidden past the horizon. He was still so far away, barely at its inception, but as he learned more and more jutsu something qualitative would change. He could feel it.

Unlike Kiba and Hinata, Saul's genius in learning and developing Jutsu was paramount. Even when learning Genjutsu at the same time as Yakumo, a woman literally entirely specialized in Genjutsu, he still was able to perform the Genjutsu initially a little faster. 

Kiba didn't care for traditional ninjutsu, focusing only on his physical skill or his dog. He still hadn't learnt any of it even after a week had passed. Saul doubted he was taking it seriously, the man felt he was already fast enough normally. Why would he need a jutsu like this?

Hinata learned it after around 5 days. This was already an impressive result for something as complex as the body flicker jutsu. It only utilized one seal, but the chakra flow required constantly changed, the circulation route was complex, and the intent changed depending on what stage of the ninjutsu you were performing. It all had to be done in one quick motion or the chakra tunnel would expire. 

She also had help from Saul, because he learnt it in a mere two days. After training with it to no avail that afternoon, the jutsu was constantly playing back in his head. Mistakes, failures, he recognized them when they happened and learned from them. Things clicked on the very next morning where he successfully performed the jutsu for the first time. Even now, more than a week later, he could still think of ways to improve his execution. He was never satisfied with any stopping point, always improving even after most would say 'good enough.'

His speed increased. The tunnels were formed faster, longer. The jutsu used less chakra. He could curve his tunnels a bit, allowing him to move in an arc rather than a straight line. Next he wanted to be able to activate the body flicker again while in the jutsu, going for a second jump rather than just one leap. That would have to wait until later, however.

Kurenai had let them go for the weekend. If his memory was correct, the Land of Waves Mission would be coming up soon. Saul wanted to go find Naruto and check up on him while he still had the chance.

Author's Note: Question, should I actually explain how jutsu like this one work? It ends up being quite long even if I end up summarizing a lot. I personally find such things interesting to theory craft and write, but I don't know if it ends up sounding like an info dump. Also, the details regarding my current thoughts on the potential Land of Waves mission are below if you're interested.

After reading feedback and thinking about what it would mean for Saul to accompany Naruto during the Land of Waves mission, I decided not to include it. It wouldn't make much sense; he's a part of Team 8 not Team 7.

Even if he convinced Naruto to do the smart thing and send a shadow clone back to Konoha to request reinforcements if Kakashi was injured, who's to say they wouldn't be ordered to abandon the mission, or maybe the Hokage sends a team of Anbu instead. It's unlikely his team would be allowed to help in an official capacity.

In addition his involvement with Haku would likely be of the unsavory sort if he has any involvement at all, which would not be preferable to write for me because I actually liked Haku's character. Finally, I'd have to deal with the Genderbending shithole, which while debatable in this case, I'd rather it not be a question to begin with.