The Explosion Release ninja and the poker-faced duo who came after them never found this place. Qiuyang, however, lay unconscious for seven or eight days without waking.
Every day, Nadeshiko watched him run a fever during the day, then turn ice-cold at night and whimper like a puppy, asking her to hold him.
A few days later, Nadeshiko noticed something writhing beneath the skin of his chest. Gathering her courage, she lifted his shirt—and was horrified to see a blurry human face bulging out of his chest.
She had no idea it was the First's face. The sight drained the color from her face, and she fell to the ground. When she got back up and cautiously leaned in for a closer look, the face had vanished.
It was as if what she had seen had only been an illusion, but the terrifying sight had still left a shadow in her heart.
Three days later, Nadeshiko was leaning against a rock in the cave, drowsy from barely getting any rest the night before after Qiuyang had kept her up.
Suddenly, she felt a ticklish sensation on her face. A woman's keen sixth sense told her someone was watching her.
Remembering the terrifying face she had once seen, Nadeshiko jolted awake. Then she saw Qiuyang's beaming face.
"Hello, Nadeshiko! Have I been asleep for a long time?"
He leaned a little closer, his voice gentle.
It seemed as though he was thanking her, yet also afraid of frightening her. Nadeshiko's heart skipped a beat.
"Were you the one taking care of me? I was right to save you back then. The moment I saw you, I knew you were a beautiful, kind-hearted girl."
Such a frank compliment made Nadeshiko forget her fear for a moment. Blushing, she tried to lower her head.
But with Qiuyang's face only a few centimeters from hers, she could only hold her breath and pray he'd move away on his own.
Qiuyang was practically grinning from ear to ear, so happy he wanted to plant a big kiss on Nadeshiko's cheek.
When he woke up, he'd immediately noticed the makeshift syringe on the ground—the one he'd used to store the Hashirama Cells.
He'd spent so long psyching himself up to inject them into his own body, but he'd never found the courage to go through with it!
Who could have guessed that, by sheer coincidence, Nadeshiko would inject the Hashirama Cells into him while he was poisoned?
And most importantly, he'd actually endured the invasion of those domineering cells and successfully fused with them.
It had been a perfect fusion, too—without a Hashirama face appearing on his body.
Qiuyang could clearly feel that the place where his body stored chakra had expanded by at least a fifth since before he passed out.
And then, swish, swish...
Without the slightest hesitation, Qiuyang formed the Hand Seals for a basic Wood Release technique right in front of Nadeshiko.
His right hand suddenly split into four wooden branches, which continued extending and growing forward.
It was genuine Wood Release. He might as well have been reborn.
"Wahaha... So it really is true that every cloud has a silver lining!"
Nadeshiko was dumbfounded by the technique Qiuyang had just shown her, one she had never seen before.
Although she had never met Senju Hashirama, the God of Shinobi, she had heard of Wood Release. Gaping, she asked, "Is that... the legendary Wood Release?"
"That's right. Thank you, Nadeshiko. I never would have learned it without your help."
"???"
What? Nadeshiko was baffled. Why was he saying he couldn't have learned Wood Release without her?
Could it be... because she'd held him at night all those days?
Nadeshiko shook off the ridiculous thought. Then she turned cold and said that since he was awake now, they should each return to their own village and report in.
Their relationship no longer seemed as hostile as it had been at first, but an even greater divide now seemed to lie between them.
Hearing that, Qiuyang suddenly remembered his current circumstances and what the Ninja World would be like in the future.
Bringing her into the events to come seemed far too dangerous. Besides, she was supposed to meet someone in the original story...
Qiuyang didn't know that the butterfly effect caused by his arrival meant Nadeshiko would never meet the person she was supposed to encounter.
But now he had truly calmed down. To keep the beautiful girl who had helped him from getting hurt, he decided to put his feelings for her aside.
Maybe he could pursue the one he loved without hesitation once he reached Six Paths Level!
"Then I'll head back to my village and report in. Are you going back to yours, too?"
"Mm."
Nadeshiko answered, her mind in a muddle.
Actually, she'd asked Tsunade to assign them to the same mission, explaining her village's customs and asking her to make the arrangements.
She hadn't expected so much to happen on this mission. She'd been away for a long time, and it was time to go back and report to her teacher.
She also needed to think carefully about whether she should follow her village's customs and decide her fate by joining with this man named Uchiha Qiu Yang...
"Wait, Nadeshiko."
After the two of them walked out of the cave and said goodbye, Qiuyang suddenly took her hand. As the girl's glare warned him he'd better not, he pulled out a scroll.
He formed Hand Seals to open it, then took out a cat mask.
"I really didn't think of it that day. Let me make it up to you with a cute one. It suits your style perfectly."
"If you dare tell anyone about how long we spent together this time, I won't forgive you. And... if I hear you slandering me again by saying I've got some sweetheart, you'll see... Hmph!"
That final, slightly drawn-out "Hmph!" tugged at Qiuyang's heartstrings again. He wanted to move closer, but managed to control his feelings.
Even so, the girl took the mask from him and put it on. After giving him one last, lingering look, she ran into the woods to the left and gradually disappeared from sight.
He gazed after her, feeling lost. He returned to the cave and stared blankly for more than ten minutes. At last, he picked up the piece of cloth she'd torn from her clothes to cool him down and tucked it into his chest...
Then he left the cave. But he didn't actually return to his village to report in. Instead, he chose to travel around as before, getting familiar with the Hashirama power within him.
As time passed, Qiuyang could clearly feel his Mangekyō Sharingan slowly recovering its ocular powers under the nourishment of the Hashirama Cells.
His lost ocular powers were also returning faster and faster, suggesting that the Senju power was bonding with him more and more closely.
Once his ocular powers had fully recovered, Qiuyang used Medical Ninjutsu to perform a transplant, temporarily replacing his eyes with his older brother's Two-Tomoe Sharingan.
Over the next year, he traveled and went on adventures, searching everywhere for a catalyst to evolve his Sharingan.
Unfortunately, it seemed his luck was always just a little short. After all that time, he had only managed to evolve the eyes to the Three-Tomoe stage.
Qiuyang also understood that evolving into the Mangekyō Sharingan required a specific catalyst that could trigger intense emotional upheaval.
Artificially forcing the issue would give him time to anticipate it, and might not create the right kind of situation or opportunity.
There was no point rushing it.
So he devoted himself to studying Wood Release and continued familiarizing himself with the Flying Thunder God Technique.
The effects of fusing with the Hashirama Cells were remarkable. He could now teleport at will to a moving marker without forming Hand Seals, and he could also use the Flying Thunder God Technique regardless of distance.
However, when making an extremely long-distance jump, he still had to consider whether his chakra reserves could sustain it.
The Eight Trigrams Sealing Jiraiya had once placed on his body had long since expired. Yet after three months, Qiuyang's chakra reserves were already comparable to what they had been when the seal was active.
One day, not long after he'd been traveling outside the village, Qiuyang received word through a Communication Frog that his teacher, who was traveling in the Land of Iron, would soon be returning to Konoha with Naruto.
Only then did he wake from his daze and realize that three years had passed without him noticing.
A brand-new season was about to begin. Now, let's give a grand welcome to all the overpowered freaks making their debut.
Before you continue