"Huh?"
Jiraiya, who had been watching the show, froze. Pointing at his own nose, he looked utterly incredulous. "Me?"
Minato was stunned as well, clearly not expecting Aoba to make that choice.
"Yes."
Aoba's gaze was resolute. "The defensive barrier Lord Jiraiya forms with his hair combines offense and defense and can change flexibly. The idea of turning a part of one's body into a weapon is truly astonishing to me."
After a brief moment of bewilderment, Jiraiya suddenly burst into booming laughter.
"Wahahaha! Good kid! You've got taste!"
He immediately charged over and heavily slapped Aoba's shoulder with his fan-sized hand. The force nearly knocked Aoba off his feet.
"I knew it! This is what a ninja with real taste looks like! That brat Minato always says 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 whose unsold product had finally found a buyer, so enthusiastic that it was hard to fend him off.
Minato stood nearby, rubbing his forehead with a helpless smile.
Indeed, he had never been interested in a technique that made one's hair longer and harder. It always felt rather strange.
Still, he was happy that his teacher's ninjutsu had found an inheritor.
"That's right! This is art! Using hair as a weapon lets you catch enemies off guard and defend yourself. Since you've got such good taste, I'll make an exception and teach you!"
"This ninjutsu may look simple, but there's a lot to it!"
Jiraiya was in high spirits, and the more he looked at Aoba, the more pleased he became. "Listen carefully. This is a secret ninjutsu invented by yours truly. Its core principle isn't simple chakra adhesion, but using Yang Release chakra to stimulate the hair follicle cells, making them divide and harden at extreme speed in an instant..."
Jiraiya plucked out a white hair and held it upright on his fingertip. "Hair itself 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 with 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 several hours, Training Ground 3 turned into a lesson on styling a sand dragon's mane.
Aoba listened with utmost concentration, blue light flickering faintly behind his sunglasses.
Though Jiraiya usually seemed unreliable, he was unexpectedly rigorous when teaching ninjutsu.
As he explained the flow path of chakra, he slowed down 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 in an instant.
"Ninja Art: Needle Jizo!"
His soft white hair instantly hardened, every strand standing upright like steel needles. It wrapped around Jiraiya's entire body, forming a spiked defensive sphere.
"This is defense."
Several kunai Minato threw struck it, producing metallic clangs.
Immediately afterward, the white hair unraveled and expanded wildly like frenzied serpents, instantly winding around a massive boulder ahead. At Jiraiya's command, the strands abruptly tightened, shattering the boulder.
"Ninja Art: Wild Lion's Mane Technique! This is offense."
Aoba watched with rapt attention as streams of data flooded across his retina.
[Analyzing ninjutsu model...] [Yang Release chakra activation... hair follicle stimulation... cellular hardening...] [Analyzing technique structure... simulating chakra flow...] [Analysis complete. Model established.]
"Well? Do you understand?"
Jiraiya shook his head, his hair returning to normal as he looked smug.
"More or less... I understand."
Aoba closed his eyes and simulated the flow of chakra in his mind through the Chip.
"All right, now you try."
Jiraiya folded 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 flowed into the top of his head. His scalp tingled, as though countless ants were crawling over it.
Then—
His hair stood up strand by strand as if electrocuted. It looked fairly intimidating, but it had no power at all.
"..."
Aoba's mouth twitched.
Jiraiya burst into laughter, bending over with amusement.
"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 was not discouraged.
In truth, he had done it on purpose. He did not want to seem too much like a genius.
He closed his eyes, readjusted his chakra output, and formed the seals again.
This time, his hair finally stood up somewhat properly. It still had no power, but at least it could twitch a few times.
"Not bad, not bad. You've improved."
Jiraiya nodded. "Keep going."
Over the next hour, Aoba tried again and again.
The Chip continuously corrected the parameters. Every failure was recorded, and failed data also held great reference value.
Finally, after who knew how many failures, Aoba's palm trembled as his hair suddenly shot outward, stabbing toward the tree trunk ahead like sharp blades.
Pfft—
Several strands of hair pierced deeply into the bark. Though far less powerful than Jiraiya's demonstration, it had already taken the first shape of a combat technique.
"It worked!"
Jiraiya's eyes lit up. "Kid, you've got real talent for ninjutsu!"
Minato also showed an approving expression.
"Aoba, your learning speed is truly astonishing."
Even though Aoba had deliberately slowed his learning pace, mastering a ninjutsu comparable to A-rank in an hour still made Minato see him in a new light.
Aoba grinned, shaking his head as he felt the chakra expenditure.
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 at the border had recently grown tense. Iwagakure had been unusually 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 medium for ninjutsu because it was part of the human body and had an extremely high affinity with one's own chakra.
Then, if hair were ground into powder and mixed with sand, could it improve the sand's affinity for chakra?
And taking it a step further, if he used blood, nails, or even cloned cellular tissue, could he make the sand a true "extension of the body"?
He needed to go back and conduct experiments.
But he did not head straight home. Instead, he turned into a medicinal herb shop.
It was a Nara family's herb shop. Nearly half of Konohagakure's medicinal herbs were supplied by the Nara Clan, and they had close ties with Konoha Hospital.
The owner was a bespectacled middle-aged man. Seeing Aoba enter, he greeted him with a smile.
"Little Aoba, what are you buying today?"
Before you continue