Harvest and Setting Out Once More

Hyuga Ao was testing out her newly acquired power.

A gust of wind swirled around Hyuga Ao. She called this layer of wind her Wind Cloak.

Taking advantage of the Hyuga ninja's ability to release chakra throughout their bodies, Hyuga Ao released Wind Nature Transformation chakra around herself. The chakra transformed into wind, forming a Wind Cloak that draped over her body.

Simply put, Hyuga Ao could use her own wind to guide—or, more accurately, control—the natural wind around her.

This Wind Cloak was Hyuga Ao's controller for the natural wind.

Wrapped in the Wind Cloak, Hyuga Ao completely merged with the natural wind. At that moment, she was the wind.

Merging with the wind had many benefits. The most obvious was that Hyuga Ao could now barely feel any resistance from the air. This greatly increased her agility. It was like playing League of Legends without any lag—her reactions were incredibly sharp.

This gave Hyuga Ao's strength a tremendous boost.

Once wrapped in the Wind Cloak, she could use it to propel herself. For example, when moving forward, she could increase the chakra released behind her to create more wind and push herself onward. The same applied when turning left or right.

Wind had no thoughts, but Hyuga Ao's own wind did. She could use her wind to drive the wind around her, greatly reducing her consumption. Most of the expenditure instead went toward maintaining the Wind Cloak.

Hyuga Ao felt that she could maintain the Wind Cloak at full power for ten minutes, but if she only maintained its basic functions, she could keep it active all day.

Hyuga Ao tested her speed with the Wind Cloak's assistance and felt as though every movement followed her will. Normally, the faster one moved, the greater the resistance from the wind, which was why the sound barrier existed. But now, Hyuga Ao's sound barrier had been lifted. Breaking the sound barrier was effortless for her.

Thus, the most important problem—speed—had been solved. Relying on speed alone, Hyuga Ao had already entered the ranks of the Kage.

However, Hyuga Ao still lacked a method suited to high-speed combat. Shikotsumyaku would have been ideal, but before revealing her identity, she could not expose it. She had no choice but to create a new technique herself.

In this regard, she could take inspiration from the Raikage lineage. Every time Hyuga Ao saw the Raikage use One-Finger Nukite, she was reminded of a childhood memory—the Holy Sword of the Capricorn Gold Saint.

That sort of Holy Sword suited Hyuga Ao quite well, so she began trying to transform both her hands into Holy Swords.

Hyuga Ao raised one hand level. A massive amount of Wind Nature Transformation chakra coiled around it, attempting to shape her arm into a Wind Blade.

Amid the howling wind, Hyuga Ao could vaguely see a Wind Blade taking shape. But the instant it formed, the Wind Blade lost control. The violent wind tore her sleeve to shreds, exposing a lotus-root-white arm.

It had failed. Hyuga Ao summed up the reason.

Wind was constantly moving, so it was impossible to bind it in one place. To create a Holy Sword, she had to first make a shell out of chakra, just like with Wind Style: Rasenshuriken, and then add Wind Nature Transformation.

But since the Holy Sword path was unworkable, Hyuga Ao thought of the Holy Spear that was constantly being pulled from its sheath.

Hyuga Ao raised the arm with the ruined sleeve and controlled the wind to rotate around it. At the same time, she infused it with a spiraling force of energy, merging the two. A rotating Holy Spear took shape. Once she pursued greater power in the future, she could even use Shikotsumyaku to form a real lance.

With the Holy Spear around her fist, Hyuga Ao punched the ground. The rotating Holy Spear struck the soil first, drilling into it like a bit and sending dirt flying. Hyuga Ao's fist plunged into the earth without the slightest resistance.

"What Holy Spear: Gungnir? Isn't it just a drill?" Hyuga Ao complained.

It seemed that the Holy Spear could only improve Hyuga Ao's ability to break through obstacles. If she truly wanted to use it as a trump card, she would have to add Shikotsumyaku. A lance created by Shikotsumyaku, combined with spiraling force and wind gathered around her hand—that was what constituted a true Holy Spear.

"If I dyed my eyes and stuck up a cowlick, I could cosplay as the King of Storms." Hyuga Ao made a mental note of it, then laughed helplessly. "But it seems I'd still need to pad things out a little to recreate it properly."

Hyuga Ao continued developing the Wind Cloak's applications. Chakra gathered in her palm and condensed into a Wind Blade. The pale green Wind Blade floated above her hand and could move around her body according to her will.

"Does this count as controlling a sword?" Hyuga Ao stroked her chin in thought. "I don't think so. At most, it counts as Qi Blade Control."

Next came testing its power. Hyuga Ao poured chakra into the tiny Wind Blade, transforming it into a slender Moon Blade. She condensed a Rasengan in her left hand, used the Wind Blade with her right, and controlled the two to collide.

"Zzzzzzz."

A sharp sound rang out, like fingernails scraping across a blackboard, making it extremely uncomfortable.

Under the intense friction, the chakra in both techniques was depleted, and they vanished simultaneously.

Hyuga Ao deactivated her Byakugan and considered what she had observed. At first, the Wind Blade had held the advantage. Relying on its sharpness, it had cut directly into the Rasengan. But because the Rasengan's structure was too tightly packed to be cut apart, it had then been twisted apart by the Rasengan's rotational inertia.

Even so, this was enough to show that the two were ninjutsu without hand seals of the same level.

Moreover, the Wind Blade had an advantage the Rasengan lacked: it could be fired.

The Wind Blade condensed in her hand could reach the attack power of an A-rank ninjutsu, but once fired, it was only an ordinary C-rank Wind Blade. However, the Wind Blades Hyuga Ao fired consumed little chakra, moved quickly, and could be produced in large numbers. They were an excellent supplement for ranged combat.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh." Hyuga Ao waved her small hand from side to side, fanning the air. The Wind Cloak wrapped around her hand and sent out a gentle breeze. Combined with the wind from the Wind Cloak, and with the surrounding wind drawn into it, the breeze slowly grew into a gale.

"Still too weak." Hyuga Ao sensed the wind's force. "The base wind must be too weak. If the foundation isn't strong enough, no amount of amplification will help."

Hyuga Ao also needed to consider the Wind Cloak's coverage, so she returned to the Hyuga and requested some chakra-conductive metal. She drew it into fine threads and sewed them into her clothes. This way, the Wind Cloak could wrap around her entire body along the chakra threads, without requiring Hyuga Ao to expand its range herself to enclose her clothes.

After changing back into the Hyuga family's standard kimono, the wind fanned by its wide sleeves far surpassed that produced by Hyuga Ao's small hand. With all the various amplifications, the final wind power could reach the level of C-rank Wind Release: Great Breakthrough.

Hyuga Ao nodded in satisfaction. At last, she was no longer merely a close-combat ninja.

A word should be said about the Hyuga family's standard kimono. Hyuga Ao usually wore this set of clothes. It was the Hyuga clan uniform, loose and comfortable while also accommodating the Hyuga ninja's fighting style.

Most importantly, it was simple. Having once been a man in her previous life, this was what Hyuga Ao valued most.

Its specific appearance was the same set Hanabi often wore, except that the color had been changed to white.

Thus, Hyuga Ao wore the same outfit every day, unchanged for a thousand years. Her wardrobe was filled with identical clothes, which could also be considered a trace her previous life had left behind.

A week later.

Hyuga Ao received orders.

The battlefield in the Land of Rain had stabilized. They were now in urgent need of reconnaissance ninja to investigate enemy activity. Finding the enemy in the Land of Rain, where it rained all day long, was truly too difficult.

Hyuga Ao would lead a team of Hyuga reinforcements into the Land of Rain's battle formation.

Before leaving, Hyuga Ao turned back and gazed deeply at the village. The periosteal transformation in her legs was now complete, and with her explosively increased speed, she had officially entered the ranks of the Kage. What level would she reach on this journey to the Land of Rain?