"Hanyu, are you sure you're all right? For the past three days, I've watched you... swell up before my very eyes." Hatake Sakumo sounded worried. The "swelling" he mentioned had nothing to do with Hanyu's attitude; he meant it literally. Hanyu's body had swollen up.
"I-I'm fine. It's just a little water retention."
By now, Hanyu was having trouble speaking clearly. He still hadn't cracked the seven-nanometer process, and there was a good chance he never would.
He wasn't just suffering from "a little" water retention. He was severely bloated... Compared to a few days ago, he'd expanded several sizes. Every inch of his skin was stretched taut and shiny, making him look like a woman's belly in the final month of pregnancy.
Hanyu's experiment had run into trouble right at the first step. For one thing, chakra could only flow smoothly through the body's meridians, so he couldn't use Water Release chakra to create (fake) meridians. For another, if he created Water Release inside his body, its physical substance could indeed make his idea work—but the result was the state he was in now... Even a piece of pork couldn't be injected with water forever.
"What exactly are you doing?" Hatake Sakumo asked again, clearly dissatisfied with Hanyu's explanation.
What normal ninja would let his body swell this badly? Hatake was even beginning to suspect Hanyu was deliberately making himself ill so he could stay in the hospital and avoid going back to the battlefield.
It wasn't that Hatake Sakumo had an "evil" mind. From the outside, that was exactly what Hanyu's behavior looked like.
"I'm experimenting with a certain ninjutsu. Don't worry, I've found the knack for it. I'll get the swelling down soon," Hanyu said.
On that point, he wasn't lying. He really had found the right approach. If there'd been no hope, Hanyu wouldn't have kept this up. At this rate, he might have ended up giving birth in another two or three days.
Hanyu was trying to maintain a balance between Water Release chakra and its conversion into Water Release, using the intermediate state between the two to achieve the shared qualities of energy and physical substance.
Only now had Hanyu finally confirmed that he had exceptional talent for Water Release. It didn't matter whether the Second Hokage was the reason he'd started down this path; Hanyu's ability in this area was no worse than the Hokage's... It was precisely this talent that had gradually helped him find the knack.
Still, even though he'd found a way forward, the process took longer than he'd expected. After five days, he didn't give birth; instead, he finally began to lose the swelling. Twelve days later, he'd returned to his pre-hospitalization size.
By then, he'd been at the front for over half a month, but had spent only half a day on the battlefield. The rest of the time, he'd been "slacking off" at the front-line hospital. Ordinarily, the medical ninja should have forced him out long ago. But Koga was willing to vouch for him, so even after dragging out his stay at the hospital for so long, Hanyu could keep doing so... Of course, Koga wasn't the sort of ninja who bent the rules without reason. He was making an exception for Hanyu only because he knew Hanyu was conducting in-depth research into chakra.
Young people's research was usually just a flash of inspiration, and its results were mostly unreliable. But after seeing how hard Hanyu was working, Koga was willing to give him some leeway... Not everyone could force water into himself for days until he resembled a pig. No one understood the pain of damaging one's body from within better than a medical ninja.
Yet Hanyu hadn't complained once—not that he hadn't brought it on himself. At least, his perseverance and dedication to research deserved praise. (Or perhaps he'd only felt pain at the beginning, and the severe swelling had dulled his senses as time went on.)
Ahem. Ninjas could be considerate, too.
In the Land of Rivers, east of Konoha's front-line camp, there was a large lake. This area was under Konoha's control and formed part of its safe "rear."
Hanyu and the three members of his squad were there, along with Koga and Hatake Sakumo.
"I only wanted to do a final test of my ninjutsu. There was no need for everyone to come along, was there? If it fails, won't everyone find out?" Hanyu hadn't planned on bringing them with him. He'd chosen a spot far from camp simply to avoid drawing attention.
But since they'd all come along anyway, all he could do was complain.
"At the very least, we want to find out what you've been doing all this time," Koga said. That was what everyone present, aside from Hanyu himself, wanted to know.
They wanted to understand what Hanyu's "secret research" was about.
"Then watch from here. I hope you won't be disappointed." Hanyu left them by the lakeshore, then walked out onto the water alone, stopping some distance from shore... He was still a little worried, so he'd decided to keep his distance. That way, even if he failed, the spectators wouldn't get caught up in it.
Hanyu didn't mind revealing the ninjutsu, because the others wouldn't understand what he was doing anyway.
He stood on the lake's surface, stopped, and closed his eyes to calm himself. A moment later, the half-converted Water Release chakra began quietly flowing through the false meridians in his body.
The false meridians flowed smoothly and normally. That was Hanyu's greatest achievement over the past few days.
Next, Hanyu began forming Hand Seals, moving neither quickly nor slowly... They were Lightning Release seals.
"Those are Lightning Release seals, aren't they? Can Hanyu use Lightning Release now?" Koga tried to identify the seals Hanyu was making and voiced his question.
But no one answered him.
In the blink of an eye, Hanyu finished the seals. Powerful Lightning Release formed around him, but it didn't run wild and out of control. Instead, it flowed back and forth along the best "conductive medium"—his false meridians.
These "channels," specially created for Lightning Release, gathered its unruly energy just as they'd been designed to do. Then, acting like a great artery, they circulated it throughout Hanyu's body.
At the same time, as the energy circulated, the Lightning Release seeped gently through the outer walls of the false meridians, strengthening each of his cells in a controlled, harmless way. By the time it emerged from the surface of his body, all that remained was a faint blue Electric Arc...
There was none of the ear-splitting noise that usually accompanied the creation of powerful Lightning Release.
"Isn't that Lightning Release a little too weak?" Hatake Sakumo frowned. Had Hanyu spent all this time just to come up with this?
Just as he was thinking that, Hanyu simply took a step forward with one leg, and then... he abruptly disappeared, leaving only a ripple on the lake's surface.
"Body Flicker Technique... No, at that speed, could it be Space-Time Ninjutsu?!"
Obviously, Hanyu couldn't actually be using Space-Time Ninjutsu. But he was fast enough.
By the next instant, Hanyu had reappeared in the middle of the lake.
"It really... worked."
Hanyu thought to himself. How could he describe the exhilaration of moving at high speed?
The water rippled gently, the wind stirred circles across the surface, and blue sparks burst from their fingertips at the instant they touched. Their eyes met, and that lonely acceleration shattered the clouds in a heartbeat, as if he'd mounted a cosmic shooting star and could fly to anyone's side...
Too bad Hanyu didn't have green hair. Otherwise, this would've been the moment to debut as a space-time idol.
"How does it feel?"
The next moment, Hanyu suddenly appeared before everyone again and asked what they thought of his new ninjutsu.
"What... is this technique?" Hatake Sakumo asked, unable to help himself.
Hanyu stood right in front of Hatake, yet Hatake felt as though he were facing a vast wasteland, where flames stretched to the horizon and burned in silence.
"The name? How about Lightning Style: Kira?"
"..."
First, Hatake hadn't been asking only for the technique's name. Second, no one reacted to Hanyu's choice of name.
Hanyu secretly smacked himself. "All right, Lightning Style: Shadow Control. I'd already decided on that name."
What he'd just shown wasn't lonely acceleration at all. It was the acceleration of an orphan.
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