Neji watched for about ten seconds, then turned his head and whispered something into Chisen's ear.
His voice was so quiet that the sea breeze almost swept it away.
"There are rings of thickened tissue along the walls of his chakra pathways.
Their distribution matches the healed traces of God Tree Cells erosion we saw in the Konoha Hospital records exactly.
The thickening has stabilized. It should be scar tissue formed after the Rejection Reaction ended.
His chakra circulates a little more slowly than a normal person's, but it doesn't affect basic functions."
After listening, Chisen gently twisted his cane against the sandy ground, then looked up at Akamatsu Kinpei.
"What's the frequency of that sound coming from your bones? Can you hum it?"
Akamatsu Kinpei froze for a moment and instinctively glanced back at his house, as though checking whether any neighbors were listening.
Then he turned back and opened his mouth. What emerged from his throat wasn't a musical note, but a very, very low hum forced out from deep inside his chest.
Hmm, hmm, hmm-the rhythm wasn't fast, but perfectly even. The intervals between each hum were identical, as though an invisible ruler were measuring time.
After humming a dozen or so times, he stopped, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"That's it.
It's always that rhythm. It's never changed."
Chisen reached into his coat pocket, took out a stopwatch, and pressed it.
He silently counted along with the rhythm Akamatsu Kinpei had just hummed for a few seconds, then checked the stopwatch.
"Seven point three." He slipped the stopwatch back into his pocket. "What's left in your body isn't a disease. It's metabolic waste from God Tree cells.
Those metabolic products accumulated in your marrow cavities, forming a tiny crystal that won't spread. On a mechanical level, its