Hanyu only felt a little regret that Monzaemon might have escaped, but he couldn't really blame anyone. It was only natural. If Monzaemon had been that easy to kill, he would have been dead long ago. How could he have survived until now?
Since they hadn't seized their chance, there was nothing to be done. Hanyu didn't dwell on it. That night, he slept soundly. When he woke the next day, he did indeed feel much better. He still felt a little discomfort, but it was negligible.
He got out of bed and stepped outside the tent. The morning air carried the chill of winter, and it sent a shiver through him, jolting him fully awake. But before he could stretch his limbs, he turned and saw Chichiwa standing guard at the tent entrance.
"Chichiwa?" Hanyu couldn't understand why she was there so early.
"The three of us agreed to take turns guarding this place while you're hospitalized. I was in the best shape yesterday, so I took the first shift," Chichiwa explained.
"..."
Hanyu could understand his teammates' good intentions, but aside from expressing that "goodwill," her actions served no real purpose. It was pure "formalism." The front-line hospital was right at the center of the Konoha camp. Under normal circumstances, no enemy could possibly infiltrate this far. And if enemies did show up here, it was obvious that one or two guards wouldn't make any difference—the only way that could happen was if the entire Konoha front had collapsed.
Still, faced with his teammate's kindness, Hanyu couldn't say much, even though he knew it was unnecessary. The few of them had nothing more than a "working relationship" at present. They weren't friends, and they couldn't exactly be called close, so he couldn't stop her from showing him kindness. That would have been ungracious... Hanyu had a bit of a blunt, macho streak, but he wasn't socially inept.
"Actually, we're the ones who should be thanking you for yesterday. If you hadn't been there, I'm sure we never would've escaped Monzaemon," Chichiwa added. When they had run into Monzaemon, she had already given up hope. She never expected Hanyu to perform like that.
To be honest, she had been astonished... In their squad, Chichiwa was the only one who had taken part in spy elimination missions, so she knew that just three months earlier, Hanyu had been an ordinary person. Who could have imagined that in such a short time, he would become a ninja capable of skillfully using several different chakra natures?
To grow from an ordinary civilian into a ninja capable of holding off Monzaemon in such a short time—Hanyu's performance could even be called prodigious.
"We're all members of the same squad. I only did what I could. It's nothing worth praising, let alone boasting about." Hanyu shook his head. Even if only to preserve his own life, he would have given yesterday's battle everything he had. And since he had volunteered to be squad leader, he had gained a basic degree of authority, but he also had to accept the responsibility that came with it.
To be honest, no matter how useless Hanyu might be, he couldn't bring himself to the point of letting his squadmates die for him.
Perhaps their conversation had drawn him out, because Hatake Sakumo soon emerged from the tent as well.
"What are you talking about?"
"Going over yesterday's battle... Are you feeling all right?" Hanyu asked Hatake. He and his squad had done well enough yesterday, but that didn't change the fact that their first mission had failed.
"Other than feeling hungry all the time, I don't have any major problems," Hatake said.
Hanyu thought that constantly feeling hungry was already a major problem. Had the events of yesterday left this guy traumatized...?
If they surveyed the entire Konoha front now and asked who thought military ration pills tasted good, at least two people would keep nodding in agreement. Those two people were Hanyu Yu and Hatake Sakumo.
"What about the battle? What did you learn?" Hatake had no idea that he and Hanyu now shared a common interest in food. He steered the conversation back to the battle.
"Simply put... I need a bit of speed."
In the end, what Hanyu needed was speed—the kind of top-tier speed expected of a ninja. He already knew how to address his weakness in that area. In fact, the answer was right in front of him: Lightning Release.
After sunrise, Nara came to relieve Chichiwa. Not long afterward, Koga arrived to examine Hanyu again in detail.
"The poison has been dealt with, but..."
"But?" Hanyu tensed up at that. Was there still something wrong with his body?
"No, it's nothing." Koga swallowed the words that had been about to leave his mouth.
What Hanyu didn't know was that, because of Koga's close relationship with Sanshao, Koga knew far more about him than Hanyu imagined.
That was exactly why Koga thought Hanyu's chakra was growing a little too quickly. To be honest, it was unusual. Even with the effects of the Senju Secret Medicine, it was hard to imagine an ordinary person's chakra reaching Hanyu's current level in just three months.
Still, that was only Koga's own opinion. Perhaps he was just being overly suspicious. After all, growing chakra quickly was a good thing.
"You're still practicing Lightning Release, right? Moderate stimulation can help with your cellular metabolism, but be careful not to overdo it. Lightning Release is an unruly, violent force, and it puts too much strain on the body."
From the sound of it, Lightning Release's stimulation seemed to help Hanyu purge the lingering poison from his body, but he shouldn't overuse it.
"Unruly?"
Koga's words left Hanyu deep in thought.
Whether pure chakra or nature-transformed chakra, both were special forms of energy stored within the body. Ninjutsu was different. Water Release and Earth Release, for instance, had tangible, material properties. Fire Release, Wind Release, and Lightning Release, meanwhile, converted chakra into special forms of destructive energy.
Nature-transformed chakra and ninjutsu were fundamentally different.
To give the simplest example, Lightning Release Chakra quietly flowed through the body along its pathways. It was controllable and docile. Lightning Release was entirely different. Once unleashed, it would run rampant through the body, stimulating and damaging every cell. In a sense, it was a technique that killed a thousand enemies at the cost of eight hundred of your own. Ninja who used Lightning Release had to first endure its ravages themselves, gradually increasing their resistance through repeated practice.
But no matter how much they trained, there were still side effects. A powerful technique like Chidori Current placed an enormous strain on every cell in the body. It could easily disrupt the body's electrolyte balance, leading in turn to all kinds of complications and leaving the user neurotic, embittered, resentful, paranoid, antisocial, and so on—both physically and psychologically.
But what if the problem of Lightning Release's unruly damage could be solved? Wouldn't everything change?
Before you continue