Since Hanyu's poisoning had been completely cured some time ago, his companions, who had volunteered to stand guard outside his hospital room, had naturally called off their vigil. When Hanyu arrived at the frontline hospital with his newly acquired weapon, he was finally told that he had to leave by the next day. Otherwise, he would be forcibly removed, and the medical ninja would note "cowardly and afraid of the enemy, cowering instead of fighting" in his ninja file.
Hanyu had no intention of saddling himself with such a "reputation." More importantly, there was no need for him to stay at the frontline hospital any longer, so of course he would leave before morning.
After that, his squad would probably receive a new mission and head to the battlefield for their next fight.
Like Hanyu, Hatake Sakumo had recovered after spending some time recuperating. His body, once emaciated from hunger, had filled out again, so he would be leaving the hospital at the same time as Hanyu. Unfortunately, the two of them weren't in the same squad, so they would probably go quite a while without seeing each other again.
Hopefully, neither of them would die on the battlefield. In the story Hanyu knew, Hatake at this age would remain active on the battlefield, but who could guarantee that nothing unexpected would happen now...? As the first person Hanyu had met in Konoha, Hatake could now be called his "friend."
Hatake, however, wasn't thinking nearly as much as Hanyu was. Though he was younger, he was far more accustomed to war. To him, war was just one mission followed by another. At worst, he might go hungry somewhere for another month.
That was undeniably an attitude worth learning from. Hanyu had picked up plenty of experience from Hatake, a "veteran" of the battlefield... He steadied himself and went back to studying Lightning Release.
Hanyu formed hand seals, and faint electric arcs once again flickered across his body. Then he concentrated chakra in his palm. In the blink of an eye, lightning danced across his hand, too intense for his fingers to grasp... In every sense, there was nothing wrong with calling it Lightning Blade.
But now that he had mastered Lightning Style: Shadow Control, this was merely a little trick for adjusting the strength of Lightning Release in different parts of his body. If he wanted, he could even use "Lightning Blade" with his foot.
After trying it briefly, Hanyu quickly dispersed the Lightning Release in his hand. He had no intention of testing the technique's power in a hospital room. That would be practically asking to die...
Then Hanyu drew a short sword from behind him. The moment he revealed the whole blade, bright Lightning Release instantly coated it.
"A Chakra Blade? Where'd you get that?" Seeing the strength of the Lightning Release covering the blade, Hatake couldn't help asking... Had Hanyu just gone out for a stroll and come back with a Chakra Blade? Did he own Konoha or something?
Lightning Release was easily conducted through metal, but the strength of the Lightning Release on Hanyu's short sword was beyond what ordinary metal could handle. That was why Hatake Sakumo had mistaken it for a Chakra Blade at first glance. But metal capable of conducting chakra at such high strength wasn't easy to come by.
Hanyu was just a new ninja, with no special status or backing, so under normal circumstances, he shouldn't have been able to get his hands on something like this.
Hanyu just smiled at Hatake's question. "If I want to, I can turn any weapon in my hands into a Chakra Blade."
Chakra Blades might be rare, but they weren't all that valuable to Hanyu. Just as he'd said, he could turn an ordinary weapon into one, and the method was simple enough: it was just a further application of the Great Ancestral Record and Shadow Control... Like now, all he was doing was laying a path of Water Release along the blade, then letting Lightning Release flow through it.
Once he understood how Hanyu had done it, Hatake Sakumo said ruefully, "What a convenient ability..."
Hanyu thought, Why don't you try practicing how to use two nature transformations at once? Maybe you could learn it too.
While one of them kept fiddling with Lightning Release and the other never stopped stuffing his face, the day passed in no time.
This sort of thing often happened to Hanyu: he would make thorough preparations for battle, both mentally and materially, only for the fight to come sooner than he expected... He couldn't tell whether he was just unlucky or whether war simply loved disrupting everyone's plans.
It was the middle of the night when a tremendous noise woke Hanyu from a deep sleep. The Konoha camp, silent, imposing, and orderly beneath the darkness, erupted into chaos in an instant.
Hanyu and Hatake exchanged a glance, then sprang up without a word. They hastily shoved their feet into their shoes, threw on their armor, weapons, and ninja tools, and rushed out of the tent.
Under the cover of night, the killing had begun.
Was it an infiltration by spies, a rebellion, or an invasion?
Outside the tent, everything had already descended into chaos. Almost instinctively, Hanyu and Hatake turned their gaze toward the frontline command center. Then an astonishing sight unfolded before them.
"What... is that?" Young Hatake Sakumo was undoubtedly good at setting up a punchline.
The instant he saw what was happening, he prepared to rush toward the command center, but Hanyu grabbed him and held him back.
"That's the Uchiha's Susanoo," Hanyu said. He knew the dozens-of-meters-tall "blue giant" well, but seeing it at such close range was a kind of pressure few could withstand.
Holding Hatake Sakumo back, Hanyu continued rapidly, "If I'm not mistaken, that's Kagami Uchiha. And since he chose to use his trump card right away, we can imagine what we're up against... Either a small, elite force has infiltrated the camp, or this is a large-scale invasion. In that case, the enemy's identity is obvious—only the Sand Village could pull this off. Konoha's command system was probably destroyed right away. If we charge over there without proper orders, we'll only make the camp even more chaotic!"
"Besides, there's no need to rush. Whatever the case, the enemy will reach us soon enough," Hanyu declared.
After all, they were at Konoha's frontline hospital, and facilities like this were always among the enemy's top targets for destruction.
As he spoke, Hanyu turned his gaze back toward the command center. Then something even more astonishing happened: the most conspicuous target on the battlefield, friend or foe, was undoubtedly Kagami Uchiha's Susanoo. But the chakra giant didn't immediately engage in battle. Instead, it raised one arm high and then...
Started making Konoha's hand signals with one hand.
That's right, Konoha's command system could indeed be destroyed in an instant. But no one could stop Kagami Uchiha from restoring it just as quickly.
This was... the way ninja fought.
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