Yakushi Nonō smiled as she crouched down and handed out the dried boar meat the villagers had forced on her earlier to the children at the orphanage—
The children took their portions and chewed on them, their faces lighting up with genuine, contented smiles.
One little girl, probably two or three years old, stood among the crowd with her hair tied into a small topknot. She sucked on a chubby finger and blinked her big eyes at Sato Hideaka, who stood beside Nonō, then asked in a babyish voice,
"Sister Director, is this the new sister?"
The other children looked at Sato Hideaka too, their faces alight with excitement!
Three black lines appeared on Sato Hideaka's forehead. Why did they think he was a girl? I'm this cute, so obviously I'm a boy!
Yakushi Nonō, who always looked like a mature big sister, noticed Sato Hideaka's speechless expression and broke into a rare, amused smile. She covered her mouth to hide a giggle, then explained,
"Mai, this big brother is called Sato Hideaka. He's a boy, not a girl!"
"Oh, but didn't you tell us, Sister Director, that everyone who looks pretty is a big sister? Hideaka sis...brother is so handsome. Why is he a big brother?"
Fujiwara Shinichi reached up with a chubby right hand to rub his round head. His adorable eyes stared blankly at Sato Hideaka, as if he still couldn't figure out what was going on.
"Pfft..."
The children's innocent words made Yakushi Nonō and the orphanage teachers who had gathered around burst into laughter. The other children didn't understand what was going on, but they joined in anyway, and clear, cheerful laughter rang through the courtyard...
With the other children's help, Sato Hideaka got his bed, blankets, and toiletries ready. Amid laughter and chatter, he enjoyed a wonderful dinner with Sister Nonō, the children, and the orphanage teachers.
After dinner, the substitute teachers went home. Yakushi Nonō and the children gathered in the main hall. A few of the younger ones, who were still too little to know better, tugged at Nonō's clothes and clamored to play the rocking-horse game—
Sitting in the middle of the group, Sato Hideaka suddenly said, "Sister Nonō, could you teach us ninjutsu? Once we learn it, we'll be able to protect the things most precious to us..."
The older children's eyes lit up. They were eleven or twelve, and more mature in their thinking. They knew that Yakushi Nonō was the one keeping the orphanage going. Though their young minds couldn't fully grasp the weight of the burden and responsibility she carried, they could sense that Sister Nonō had a hard time managing it all.
"Yeah, yeah! Sister Nonō, teach us ninjutsu. Then we can protect you..."
"Mai wants to learn nin...ninjutsu too, so she can protect you, Sister Director!"
Seeing the children bubbling with excitement, Nonō's eyes curved into crescents as she smiled. "Learning ninjutsu is hard work. Can you keep at it?"
"We can! We can do it!"
The older children nodded like pecking chickens. The younger ones didn't understand what was happening, but when they saw their older brothers and sisters nodding, they nodded along too, as if they had little electric motors inside them.
"Chakra is the foundation of ninjutsu. To learn ninjutsu, you first have to extract chakra. Chakra is a form of energy created by perfectly combining the energies controlled by the body. It is the foundation of all power. Ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, Sealing Jutsu, and even secret techniques all depend on chakra."
"But people's bodies are different. Some can extract chakra in a week, while others need a month or even half a year. So if you want to learn ninjutsu, you have to learn to persevere!"
"Chakra is extracted from the body's one trillion cells. You draw on the energy within your cells and combine it with your own spiritual energy to form chakra..."
"..."
Yakushi Nonō sat in the middle of the group and carefully explained how to cultivate chakra. The other children gathered around her, sitting cross-legged just like she did, then tried to extract chakra as she had described.
For children around three or four, it was no different from listening to a foreign language. Even the older ones, eleven or twelve, only half understood. Without ninja families or an environment that exposed them to such things, it was genuinely difficult for them to understand these complicated concepts.
Sato Hideaka sat cross-legged on the wooden floor with his eyes tightly shut. In his previous life, he had been seventeen when stomach cancer took his life and he was reborn in this world. At seventeen, his comprehension and mental strength far surpassed those of all the children here.
As he listened to Yakushi Nonō explain chakra, Sato Hideaka felt as if every cell in his body had come alive. He felt he could control every part of his body—his limbs, organs, tissues, even every single cell. Guided by his mental strength, he drew out the power within his cells—
He combined his physical energy and mental energy in the right proportions, forming threads of blue chakra finer than silk. He gathered them in his chakra pathways, where they seemed to form a flowing blue stream.
A faint aura emanated from Sato Hideaka's young body!
Yakushi Nonō shuddered. She felt the pulse of chakra. Someone had managed to refine chakra in barely half an hour.
How was that possible?
It was Hideaka—Sato Hideaka!
Looking toward the source of the chakra, Yakushi Nonō saw Sato Hideaka sitting cross-legged among the children. His young body was giving off the pulse of someone who had refined chakra, a strange fluctuation of mental energy and physical energy.
"Sister Nonō, your lesson is so complicated. We don't understand any of it!"
"Yeah, yeah! What exactly are cells? And what's chadola?"
"Can you eat chadola? Mai's tummy is already full from eating earlier. She doesn't want anything else!"
When Yakushi Nonō stopped teaching, the children, who had been sitting cross-legged on the floor for quite a while, finally couldn't hold back. Their restless, playful nature got the better of them. They started looking around and peppering each other with questions.
"Shh, shh... Everyone, quiet down. Don't disturb Hideaka..."
Yakushi Nonō put her right index finger to her lips and gestured for the children sitting around her to be quiet. Then she carefully went over to Sato Hideaka and stood guard beside him.
When refining chakra, the worst thing was to be interrupted. If chakra slipped out of control inside the body, even a moment's carelessness could cause injury. Yakushi Nonō didn't know why Sato Hideaka had been able to gather chakra after hearing the explanation of the Chakra Refinement Technique just once, but they could talk about all that after he finished refining it.
Ten minutes later, Sato Hideaka felt waves of soreness in the muscles throughout his body. It was a sign that his muscle cells were exhausted, so he slowly stopped cultivating and opened his gemlike blue eyes.
The first things he saw were Yakushi Nonō's beautiful, gentle face and a pair of eyes after pair of eyes quietly watching him...
"Why is everyone suddenly crowding around me?"
Sato Hideaka took half a step back, puzzled. The children were much too close, and Yakushi Nonō's gaze was strange too... Everything about this was strange.
"Hideaka, did you gather chakra?" Nonō asked expectantly.
Sato Hideaka nodded. "Yeah. Sister Nonō, didn't you tell us how? I just followed your instructions and refined chakra..."
"Hideaka, do you know how long it took me to gather chakra?" Seeing how unconcerned Sato Hideaka looked, Yakushi Nonō said, somewhat disheartened, "It took me half a month. I struggled for half a month before I managed to gather even a little chakra."
"Huh? If you know how to cultivate chakra, can't you just cultivate it?"
Sato Hideaka was astonished. Refining chakra had felt easy. If his body hadn't been unable to handle any more, he could have kept gathering it indefinitely!
So why did it sound like gathering chakra was much harder than that, judging by what Yakushi Nonō said?