Wood Release Test Subject? Let Me Show You the Real Deal!

That hand had five fingers.

But something was wrong. The proportions were wrong. The index finger was twice as thick as the thumb, an extra joint protruded where the pinky should have been, and the fingernails were nothing but grayish-white woody shells.

When the entire arm pulled itself out of the ground, it brought up half a ton of dirt.

Then came the shoulder, then the head—if that thing could still be called a head.

There was no nose. No eye sockets. Only a mouth split all the way to its ears, filled with uneven teeth—some bone, some wooden spikes.

It stood over three meters tall. Its entire torso resembled a dead tree struck by lightning, covered in swollen burls that constantly sprouted tiny branches.

It stood in the pit, its head tilted as its eyeless face turned toward Nawaki.

"Wood Release... devour..."

Its mouth spat out blurry syllables. Its vocal cords clearly no longer belonged to a human.

Kushina Uzumaki's rice cracker fell to the ground.

"Wh-what is that—"

Nawaki shoved her three steps back with one hand and stopped Mikoto, who was about to draw her blade, with the other.

"Don't move. The chakra inside that thing is unstable. Getting close could get you caught in the blast."

Mikoto's Sharingan was fully activated, its red glow reflecting off the malformed body.

"Nawaki, its chakra pathways... they're all shattered. It's like power that didn't belong to it was forcibly injected into it."

"I know."

Nawaki stared at the woody tissue spreading across the monster's right arm. He knew that pattern all too well.

It was almost identical to the wood grain he produced with his own Wood Release—but far cruder. Like a child copying a master's painting with crayons.

"That old dog Danzō." Nawaki's voice was flat. "He really treats the First Hokage's cells like cabbages."

The monster gave him no time to dwell on it.

The instant its roar exploded, its right arm suddenly swelled. The woody burls split open, and a sharp three-meter wooden spear extended from within.

Fast.

Half a beat faster than the taijutsu speed of an average jonin.

The wooden spear shot straight at Nawaki's chest with a shriek of tearing air. Two trees thick enough to require several people to encircle were grazed along the way, their trunks snapping in half as their upper portions spun through the air.

Kushina screamed.

Mikoto's hand was already on her sword hilt.

Nawaki did not move his feet.

He raised his right hand, spread his fingers, and met it head-on.

Boom!

The blast wave erupted from the point of impact, sweeping all the fallen leaves around them into the air.

Nawaki's right hand firmly gripped the tip of the wooden spear.

He had not retreated even half a step.

The pressure cracked the earth beneath his feet like a spiderweb, but his hand did not tremble in the slightest.

The monster let out a confused howl. Its instincts told it to absorb—to drain the chakra of the man before it.

Grayish-white rootlets began seeping from the surface of the wooden spear, trying to burrow through Nawaki's palm and into his chakra pathways.

Nawaki lowered his eyes at those tiny roots.

"Absorb?"

The corner of his mouth curled up.

Chakra from his Sage Body surged forth from his core, flowing in reverse through his right arm and into the wooden spear.

The instant those invading roots touched the authentic chakra of a Sage Body, they all stopped wriggling.

Then they began to retract.

They were not retreating of their own accord—they were being forced back.

Nawaki's chakra crushed its way along the wooden spear, from tip to shaft to the monster's arm, like boiling water poured into an anthill.

The monster screamed.

The crude fragments of First Hokage cells within its body, upon encountering the chakra of a true Sage Body, were like a ragtag militia facing a regular army—it was not a matter of whether they could win, but of genetic submission.

The wooden burls on the monster began growing madly.

Completely out of control.

The growths spread from its chest to its neck, from its shoulders to its waist, bursting through its flesh like parasites and swelling wildly outward.

Its own body was devouring itself.

"Pitiful." Nawaki released the spear and stepped back twice. "Forcibly stuffing First Hokage cells into living people, then sending them out before they can even suppress the rejection... Danzō really doesn't see people as people."

The monster had already lost its ability to attack. It rolled on the ground clutching its own body, letting out garbled wails. The wooden burls grew faster and larger, swelling its torso into an irregular sphere.

Nawaki brought his hands together.

"I'll put you out of your misery."

"Wood Release: Wood Dragon Technique."

The ground exploded.

A wooden dragon over ten meters long burst from the earth, its scales distinct and whiskers flying. It was a full size larger than the one he had used in the valley.

The wooden dragon opened its jaws, bit down on the monster's waist, then tightened.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

A series of splintering sounds rang out.

The wooden burls, bones, and remaining organs were all crushed beneath the Wood Dragon's constricting force. The monster's howl abruptly ceased as its entire body was ground into flying wood chips and scraps of flesh.

The Wood Dragon released its bite, circled Nawaki once, and sank back into the ground.

Silence fell.

Kushina stood with her mouth half open, not even noticing the rice cracker crumbs stuck to the corner of her lips.

Mikoto slowly deactivated her Sharingan. She had not blinked once, etching Nawaki's every movement into her dojutsu memory.

From the monster emerging from the ground to its destruction, less than forty seconds had passed.

Thirty of those seconds had been Nawaki talking.

"Nawaki... what exactly was that thing...?" Kushina's voice was tight.

"A person." Nawaki crouched and rummaged through the remains. "A living person who was modified. First Hokage cells were forcibly transplanted into them to give an ordinary person Wood Release—the price was becoming this."

Kushina's face went pale.

Mikoto walked over and pointed at something amid the wreckage. "There."

Nawaki pushed aside the splintered wood and pulled out a black sealing scroll.

The scroll was small. Its surface bore the unique suppression patterns of Root, while its tip had been coated with a special chakra-sensing paint.

He unrolled the scroll.

There was only a single line of text and a formation diagram inside.

The writing was tiny. Nawaki said nothing after reading it.

Mikoto noticed that his expression had changed.

It was not anger, nor a cold sneer.

It was something she had never seen from him before—urgency.

"What is it?"

Nawaki clenched the scroll and rose to his feet.

"This test subject wasn't sent to kill me."

"What do you mean?"

"It was bait." Nawaki lowered his voice, his words suddenly quickening. "This formation diagram is a simplified version of a six-layer seal, designed specifically to lock down targets with overwhelming chakra. Danzō knows I'm taking the Forest of Death exam. He knows Tsunade is at the clan compound today."

Mikoto's pupils contracted.

Kushina was half a beat slower, but she understood the most crucial part.

"Big Sis Tsunade—"

"A diversion." Nawaki turned and left. He was not heading toward the central tower. He was heading back the way they had come.

He took three steps, then stopped.

He looked back at the two of them.

"Keep up. Forget the exam."

He formed a hand seal. The ground beneath his feet split open, and a thick tree trunk burst from the earth, stretching crookedly toward the forest exit—a temporary Wood Release expressway.

Nawaki stepped onto the trunk and drove his chakra at full force, shooting away in an instant.

The wind howled into his ears.

He gritted his teeth and cursed inwardly.

That old dog Danzō—losing an arm only made him more willing to go all out.

Three hundred meters away, within a thicket, a strip of white snakeskin silently slid out from beneath the dead leaves and slithered toward the central tower.

Central Tower Surveillance Room.

Orochimaru licked his lips.

The Third Hokage asked, "What happened to the test subject?"

"Dead." Orochimaru's tone was as casual as if he were commenting on the weather. "In less than a minute. The chakra of a true Sage Body really is beyond anything artificial... I really want to cut him open and examine what's inside."

The Third Hokage ignored his peculiar fixation. He stared at the direction Nawaki was racing in within the crystal ball.

He was not heading for the central tower.

He was returning to the village.

The Third Hokage abruptly rose to his feet.

"Danzō—!"

The image in the crystal ball shifted. In the direction of the Senju Clan Compound, seventeen chakra signatures were rapidly approaching the perimeter of the Four Red Yang Formation.

The one at the front had only one arm.