Pervy Sage's Secret Ninjutsu

"Huh?"

Jiraiya, who had been watching the show, froze and pointed at his own nose, his face full of disbelief. "Me?"

Minato was stunned as well, clearly not expecting Aoba to make that choice.

"Yes."

Aoba's gaze was firm. "The defensive barrier Lord Jiraiya creates with his hair combines offense and defense and can change flexibly. The idea of turning part of one's body into a weapon is truly astonishing to me."

After a brief moment of shock, Jiraiya suddenly burst into laughter.

"Wa hahaha! Good kid! You've got an eye for it!"

He immediately rushed over and brought his fan-sized hand down heavily on Aoba's shoulder, nearly knocking him off balance with the force.

"I knew it! You're a ninja with real taste! That brat Minato is always saying my Wild Lion's Mane Technique isn't cool enough. He just doesn't know how to appreciate it! Who would've thought I'd finally find someone who recognizes quality!"

He was like a salesman who had finally found a buyer for an unsellable product, so enthusiastic that it was hard to handle.

Minato stood nearby, rubbing his forehead with a helpless smile.

Indeed, he simply could not get interested in a technique that made hair longer and harder. He always felt its whole aesthetic was a little strange.

Still, he was happy that his teacher's ninjutsu had found someone to inherit it.

"That's right! This is art! Using hair as a weapon can catch enemies off guard and defend at the same time. Since you've got such good taste, I'll make an exception and teach you!"

"This ninjutsu may look simple, but there are plenty of tricks to it!"

Jiraiya was in an excellent mood, finding Aoba more pleasing the longer he looked at him. "Listen carefully. This is a secret ninjutsu created by yours truly. Its core principle isn't merely coating the hair with chakra. It uses Yang Release chakra to stimulate follicle cells, causing them to divide and harden at extreme speed in an instant..."

Jiraiya plucked out a white hair and held it upright on his fingertip. "Hair is made of dead cells, but the follicles are alive. By injecting Yang Release chakra into the follicles, you can instantly stimulate cell division and growth while coating the strands in chakra, hardening them like steel needles."

"This isn't merely Shape Transformation. It also involves activating bodily functions, so it counts as a special application of Yang Release."

Over the next few hours, Training Ground 3 became a bizarre hair-sand-dragon teaching session.

Aoba listened with extreme focus, a faint blue light flickering in his eyes behind his sunglasses.

Though Jiraiya usually seemed unreliable, he was unexpectedly rigorous when teaching ninjutsu.

As he explained the chakra's flow path, he slowed his movements to demonstrate the hand seals.

"Snake—Horse—Rabbit..."

Aoba stared without blinking, his eyes narrowing behind his sunglasses.

Jiraiya's smile faded as chakra surged through him in an instant.

"Ninja Art: Needle Jizo!"

His soft white hair instantly hardened, every strand standing upright like a steel needle and wrapping around his entire body to form a spiked defensive sphere.

"This is defense."

Several kunai thrown by Minato struck it, producing a series of metallic clangs.

Then the white hair unraveled and expanded like maddened serpents, instantly winding around a massive boulder ahead. With a thought from Jiraiya, the strands suddenly tightened, and the boulder shattered at once.

"Ninja Art: Wild Lion's Mane Technique! This is offense."

Aoba watched intently as streams of data flooded across his retina.

[Analyzing technique model...]

[Yang Release chakra activation... follicle stimulation... cellular hardening...]

[Analyzing technique structure... simulating chakra flow...]

[Analysis complete. Model established.]

"Well? Do you understand?"

Jiraiya shook his head, restoring his hair to normal, his face smug.

"More or less... I understand."

Aoba closed his eyes and used the Chip in his mind to simulate the chakra flow once.

"All right, now you give it a try."

Jiraiya crossed his arms and stepped aside.

Aoba took a deep breath and formed hand seals.

Snake—Dragon—Goat—Monkey.

"Ninja Art: Wild Lion's Mane Technique!"

Chakra poured into the top of his head. His scalp tingled as though countless ants were crawling over it.

Then—

His hair stood straight up strand by strand as if electrocuted. It looked fairly intimidating, but it had no power whatsoever.

"..."

Aoba's mouth twitched.

Jiraiya burst into laughter, practically doubling over.

"Hahaha! Kid, everyone's like that the first time. Nothing embarrassing about it!"

Minato could not help laughing either, though he quickly composed himself and said gently, "Aoba, take it slowly. Keep at it!"

Aoba did not lose heart.

Actually, he had done it on purpose. He did not want to appear too much of a genius.

He closed his eyes, adjusted his chakra output again, and formed the seals once more.

This time, his hair finally stood up properly. It still had no power, but at least it could twitch around a little.

"Not bad, not bad. You've improved."

Jiraiya nodded. "Keep going."

Over the next hour, Aoba tried again and again.

The Chip continuously adjusted the parameters. Every failure was recorded, and even failure data had considerable reference value.

Finally, after who knew how many failed attempts, Aoba's palm trembled. His hair suddenly surged outward, stabbing toward the tree trunk ahead like sharp blades.

Puff—

Several strands of hair sank deeply into the bark. Though their power was far inferior to Jiraiya's demonstration, they had already taken the initial shape of a practical combat technique.

"It worked!"

Jiraiya's eyes lit up. "Kid, you've got real talent for ninjutsu!"

Minato showed an approving expression as well.

"Aoba, your learning speed really is remarkable."

Although Aoba had deliberately slowed his learning pace as much as possible, learning a ninjutsu comparable to an A-rank technique in an hour still made Minato see him in a new light.

Aoba grinned and shook his head, feeling the chakra consumption.

Fortunately, it was within an acceptable range.

The three sat beneath the shade of a tree and rested for a while, chatting about this and that.

Minato mentioned that the situation along the border had recently become tense. Iwagakure had been especially active, and the village's jonin were all preparing for missions.

Jiraiya, meanwhile, complained that after finally getting a few days of rest, the old man was sending him out again.

Aoba listened quietly, occasionally adding a word or two.

He knew that the curtain was slowly rising on the Third Shinobi World War.

There was not much time left.

As he walked out of Training Ground 3, he was already planning his next move.

Hair could serve as a ninjutsu medium because it was part of the human body and had an extremely high affinity for its owner's chakra.

Then, if hair were ground into powder and mixed into sand, could it improve the sand's chakra affinity?

If he went a step further and used blood, nails, or even cloned cellular tissue, could he make sand into a true "extension of the body"?

He needed to return and conduct experiments.

However, he did not head straight home. Instead, he turned into a medicinal herb shop.

This was a Nara family herb shop. Nearly half of Konohagakure's medicinal herbs were supplied by the Nara Clan, which also had deep connections with Konoha Hospital.

The owner was a bespectacled middle-aged man. When he saw Aoba enter, he greeted him with a smile.

"Little Aoba, what are you buying today?"