First, There Must Be Chakra

In his mindscape, Wu Yu lay atop an endless expanse of water.

Blip... The water beneath him gently rippled, forming the figure of someone continuously refining Chakra beneath a tree. The Chakra gathered in its hands was lightning-blue, while an abnormal crimson flow coursed through its head...

Blip. The water rippled again, and over a hundred identical Chakra figures—each with an ominous red glow in its abdomen—besieged Wu Yu's Sage Shadow Clone...

Blip. The ripples swayed, and nearby, the relatively faint Chakra of another humanoid figure continuously converged toward its head, seemingly undergoing an intense transformation...

Blip...

Farther out, within a one-kilometer radius, there were no other Chakra signatures besides passing stray cats...

Blip...

Farther still, countless Chakra figures moved through the streets in groups... Occasionally, stronger Chakra figures flickered about at greater heights, moving at incredible speed...

Each person's Chakra had subtle differences—perhaps in color, perhaps in some kind of frequency. In any case, no two were quite alike...

Blip...

Centered on Wu Yu, the vast water beneath him reflected every Chakra signature he could perceive after entering Sage Transformation, spanning a radius of ten kilometers.

The gray Jade Rabbit hopped about on Wu Yu's chest, thoroughly enjoying herself.

Wu Yu scooped up Jade Rabbit, lifted her high, and asked, "Little Jade, what's the extent of your perception? Is it also limited to a radius of ten kilometers at most?"

"Hm?" Jade Rabbit giggled, her long ears twitching. "I don't know! It seems like..." She closed her deep-red eyes and focused hard for a moment. "It seems so, I guess?"

Was that right?

Wu Yu stroked Jade Rabbit's fur. In the original story, after Naruto learned Sage Mode, he had displayed several utterly outrageous feats of perception.

One was when Pain invaded Konoha. After Naruto returned, he swept his Sage Mode perception across the entire village in an instant and immediately discovered that Kakashi's Chakra had vanished—the farthest reaches of Konoha's residential area stretched nearly fifty kilometers!

Another was even more ridiculous. During the Fourth Great Ninja War, Naruto used Sage Mode on Turtle Island in Kumogakure and sensed the Chakra of distant battlefields—those were at least several hundred kilometers away, damn it, right??

They both possessed Sage Power, so how could the difference in their perception ranges be this enormous?

...Was becoming a god on one's own really nobler than becoming one by refining a godhead?

Wu Yu suddenly felt something damp on his forehead. Jade Rabbit had hopped onto his face and was licking his tightly furrowed brow.

"Wu Yu, don't look so gloomy!"

Jade Rabbit pawed at his face and comforted him. "I have other abilities too!"

Hm?

Why hadn't she said so earlier?

With a splash, Wu Yu shot upright from the water as though resurrected on the verge of death, shaking Jade Rabbit by her front paws. "Little Jade, what other surprises do you have that I don't know about?"

Jade Rabbit tilted her head. "That move Mother used. My Sage Power comes from the same lineage as Mother's, so of course I can also... imitate her a little, just a little little bit! Hehe..."

Wu Yu asked excitedly, "That move? You mean, Sage Art: Natural Integration?"

"Mm!"

"How do we do it?"

"I haven't tried it either... and it's hard to explain..." Jade Rabbit looked troubled.

Wu Yu smiled and rubbed her little rabbit head. "Then don't explain it. Let's just do it! Little Jade, take over my body. Let's try this move, Sage Art: Natural Integration."

"Really? Is that okay? Wu Yu, you're so nice!"

Jade Rabbit excitedly pounced toward Wu Yu.

Wu Yu opened his arms.

The next second, it felt as if someone had knocked him stumbling, and his connection to his body was severed.

Night fell...

Moonlight spilled through the window onto the floor of Sasuke Uchiha's home, where the four members of Team Zero and Team Seven lay sprawled like corpses.

After an afternoon of high-intensity training, they were all so exhausted that they did not even want to move a finger.

In the silence, Naruto Uzumaki suddenly opened his eyes, quietly got up, and quietly slipped out the door.

Wu Yu's ears twitched. He could faintly hear Naruto's voice rising and falling, along with the impacts of punches and kicks...

After a while, Sasuke Uchiha also silently climbed to his feet and sneaked out.

Wu Yu seemed to hear the crackling current of Lightning Nature Transformation coming from afar...

In the darkness, Sakura Haruno muttered in a low voice, almost as if speaking to herself, "Honestly, do boys all like pushing themselves so hard? You're obviously exhausted to death already."

"Now that you mention it..."

Wu Yu gave her a deadpan look. "If I don't get up and go train too, it'd feel a little rude."

"..."

After a while, Sakura Haruno asked faintly in the darkness, "Then why are you still lying there?"

"Don't get this wrong, Sakura."

Wu Yu's eyes turned resolute. "Don't lump me together with those two."

Sakura Haruno felt a little nervous, but then Wu Yu beside her said flatly, "When a civilian player like me says I can't do it, I really can't do it."

"Why are you saying something so lame in such a cool tone?!"

Sakura Haruno was speechless. Her inner personality loudly complained in the depths of her mind, while she smiled and agreed aloud, "That's true..."

After a while.

Lying on the ground, Wu Yu turned his head and saw Sakura Haruno beside him forming hand seals with both hands, silently refining Chakra.

"I've already found the trick to Yin Nature Transformation."

With her eyes closed, Sakura Haruno murmured softly, "It's all your fault and Kakashi-sensei's fault. Your conversation during the day misled me for so long..."

"Mental energy and physical energy combine to refine Chakra, so every ninja has both Yin and Yang attributes. The way you put it made me think that to refine Yin Release Chakra, I had to completely exclude physical energy and use only mental energy... But how could that be possible? Yin Release Chakra had to be Chakra first!"

The top student Sakura kept muttering, "Without physical energy, could it still be called Chakra? And if it wasn't Chakra, how could it undergo nature transformation?"

"..."

Wu Yu blinked. "Oh, then sorry for making you take such a long detour."

Sakura Haruno smiled. "It's fine. Back when I was solving problems at the academy, I realized that sometimes, after taking a few detours and suddenly understanding something, the understanding becomes much deeper."

The Chakra within her silently transformed into an ethereal, intangible nature.

Yin Nature Transformation was complete.

"In that case, Yang Release nature transformation must work the same way. You can't simply cut away mental energy..."

Wu Yu and Sakura Haruno said in unison, "It has to be Chakra first!"

Lying side by side, they turned their heads and smiled at each other. Then both silently began refining Chakra and training in Yin Nature Transformation...

The next day, 7 a.m.

"Ahhhhhh!!!" A scream tore through the sky, waking Sasuke and Naruto at opposite ends of the Uchiha Training Ground.

The two patted the dust off themselves and headed toward the house. When they saw each other on the way, each secretly admired the other's hard work, yet both gave a disdainful "Hmph" at the same time. Then the apartment door was pushed open, and Sakura Haruno rushed out in a panic. "I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late!"

"You actually don't need to worry about that..." Wu Yu came out behind her and stretched lazily.

"Oh no!" Sakura Haruno clutched her head, her expression changing dramatically. "I didn't go home last night, and I didn't tell my parents..."

Wu Yu glanced back at the clock on the wall. "If you go home now, you should still make it in time."

"Sasuke, Naruto, let's meet directly at the Third Training Ground later!" Sakura Haruno waved and hurried off.

"... " Naruto Uzumaki narrowed his eyes and scratched his cheek, seeming a little downcast.

Wu Yu smiled. "The three of us orphans don't have that kind of trouble."