A Blessing in Disguise

Takuma slowly opened his eyes. As expected... the Senju Clan really is hard to kill.

The air was filled with the scent of disinfectant mixed with a faint herbal aroma. He must be in Konoha Hospital.

The door pushed open just as Takuma was trying to move his fingers.

The person who entered was the Medical Corps Captain, a middle-aged female ninja wearing round-rimmed glasses.

She paused when she saw Takuma's eyes open, then quickly regained her professional, calm expression and walked to the bedside to check the data displayed on the instruments.

"You have been in a coma for three days," the Medical Corps Captain said. Her voice was efficient, her fingers recording rapidly on a medical chart. "During that time, your vital signs dropped to critical levels three times, you showed signs of chakra overload twice, and you suffered one instance of cardiac arrest."

"Sounds pretty intense," Takuma said. "Too bad I didn't get to see it myself."

The doctor put down the chart, extended her index finger, and pressed it against Takuma's forehead. A pale green light of medical chakra bloomed from her fingertip.

The pale green chakra began at his forehead and slowly permeated every corner of his body.

He could feel that gentle power traveling through his blood vessels, muscles, and bones, like a cautious tentacle checking the cargo for damage.

She withdrew her finger and pushed up her glasses, seemingly organizing her words. "The Cursed Seal has not disappeared."

"But the spread of the Cursed Seal has been completely contained," the Medical Corps Captain continued, a hint of disbelief in her tone. "It is now restricted to a three-inch radius around the bite mark on the back of your neck, in a... dormant state. Your body has actively suppressed the power of the Cursed Seal."

"That's not a bad thing, right?"

"Whether it's bad or not depends on how you look at it." The Medical Corps Captain picked up the chart and flipped to a new page to record. "The power of the Cursed Seal hasn't vanished, but it has lost its ability to actively erode you. Furthermore—"

She paused. "In the process of suppressing the Cursed Seal, your body underwent a certain degree of change."

Takuma tilted his head slightly, waiting for her to continue.

"Your cellular activity has increased by about three times compared to before your admission. Your chakra reserves have at least doubled, and your physical strength has also significantly improved."

"Simply put, you have found a blessing in disguise."

Takuma was silent for a moment, then asked, "What about the Cursed Seal itself? Since it's in a dormant state, can it still be activated?"

"Theoretically, yes. But based on its current state, even if you activate the Cursed Seal, your body will no longer be eroded on a large scale as it was before. It will become a controllable power—the price being that the fatigue and chakra consumption after activation will be very severe."

"In other words, I can now actively use the Cursed Seal without worrying about becoming Orochimaru's puppet?"

"In the short term, yes," the Medical Corps Captain emphasized. "But the essence of the Cursed Seal is the residual chakra of Orochimaru. Whether long-term, frequent use will have other effects is currently impossible to determine. My advice is—use it as little as possible."

Takuma nodded, taking this advice to heart.

The Medical Corps Captain gave a few more instructions and then left the ward.

The ward door was pushed open again.

Mori Kazuki walked in quickly.

His eyes were dark, his face unshaven, and the usual calm and composed demeanor of the bookstore owner was gone.

He was carrying an insulated lunch box. When he saw Takuma looking at him with open eyes, he froze in the doorway.

"You're awake?" Mori Kazuki's voice trembled slightly.

"I'm awake," Takuma replied.

Mori Kazuki walked to the bedside, placed the lunch box on the cabinet, and sat down on the chair.

He reached out, took hold of Takuma's wrist, and pressed his thumb against his pulse.

"The pulse is steady," Mori Kazuki said, his voice finally returning to normal. "Much stronger than when you were admitted. The Senju Bloodline within you... has been completely activated."

"The price was having Orochimaru grab my throat and plant a Cursed Seal," Takuma said. "I wouldn't call that a good deal."

"People of the Senju Clan never make good deals," Mori Kazuki let go of his hand, the expression on his face relaxing, a hint of a smile even appearing at the corners of his mouth. "We only make deals to survive. As long as we survive, it's not a loss."

"Does Mom know?"

Mori Kazuki's smile froze.

Takuma read the answer from his father's changing expression.

"She knows I'm at the hospital," Mori Kazuki said with difficulty. "But she doesn't know about the Senju Clan, nor does she know about the Cursed Seal. I only told her you suffered a minor injury during the Chunin Exams and needed to stay in the hospital for observation for a few days."

"And you've been guarding the hallway for three days without going home?" Takuma raised an eyebrow. "Mom didn't suspect anything?"

"Your mother suspects everything." Mori Kazuki sighed, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, then remembered this was a hospital ward and shoved them back in frustration. "She came to the hospital to see you yesterday, but you were still in a coma. She sat for a while and then left. Before she left, she said one thing to me."

"What did she say?"

"'Don't think I don't know you and our son are hiding something from me,'" Mori Kazuki mimicked his wife's tone, his expression bitter. "'When he's discharged, you two are coming home to explain it to me clearly.'"

Takuma closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He was done for.

His mother was an ordinary person, yes, but her intuition was more accurate than any sensory ninja.

From childhood to now, all the things he and his father had done behind her back—his father smoking, him skipping class, the two of them practicing Senju Secret Arts in the backyard—not a single thing had managed to hide from his mother for more than three days.

Now, add the Cursed Seal and the awakening of the Senju Bloodline to the mix...

"Can I not be discharged?" Takuma asked sincerely. "I feel like I could lie here for another month."

"Don't you dare." Mori Kazuki stood up and patted his son's shoulder. "I'll handle your mother. What you need to do now is get your body back in shape—and one more thing."

His expression became serious.

"The Third Hokage visited you personally yesterday."

Takuma was stunned.

The Third Hokage personally visiting a Genin? Even if he was a descendant of the Senju, this treatment was too high.

"The Hokage said something very strange," Mori Kazuki said slowly. "He said: 'The Senju Clan truly is a bloodline of miracles.' Then he looked at you in your coma, was silent for a long time, and finally said four words—"

"'Get stronger as soon as possible.'"

The ward went quiet.

Takuma stared at the ceiling, savoring the meaning of those four words.

The Third Hokage wouldn't say such things without a reason.

Orochimaru's Konoha Crush Plan had already surfaced, the final rounds of the Chunin Exams were about to begin, and the joint forces of the Sunagakure Ninja and Otogakure Ninja were gathering in the shadows—the Third Hokage knew better than anyone that a storm was coming.

At a time like this, his saying "get stronger as soon as possible" was very straightforward.

Konoha needed everyone who could fight.

"I understand," Takuma said.

Mori Kazuki nodded, saying nothing more.

He walked to the window and pushed it open, letting fresh air pour in. The sunlight outside finally pierced through the clouds, casting a patch of golden light on the hospital floor.

Takuma looked at that patch of light and suddenly remembered something.

He had been in a coma for three days; had the system reacted at all?

He sank his consciousness into the system interface, where a notification message had been waiting for a long time.

[Witnessed "The Trial and Rebirth of the Cursed Seal" completed, obtained a lottery chance.]

Takuma silently initiated the draw.

The familiar wheel began to spin, and a black object appeared in the lottery space.

A pair of sunglasses.

Pure black frames, slender temples, lenses as dark as ink, shimmering with a cold light.

Takuma looked at these sunglasses, already mentally prepared to draw another useless item.

[The Matrix Neo's Sunglasses: After putting them on, you can see the flow trajectory of chakra.]

[Note: Appearance adjusts automatically, cannot be damaged, no charging required.]

Takuma was stunned for three seconds.

Then he took the sunglasses out.

The physical object had more texture than it did in the consciousness space.

The frames were made of some unknown lightweight metal, cool and smooth to the touch, and the lenses were as dark as ink but had excellent light transmission.

Looking at his father standing by the window through the glasses, a layer of pale blue light hovered around his body—the manifestation of naturally radiating chakra.

The concentration of the light was focused on his dantian, extending upward along his meridians to his limbs.

The chakra flow was abundant and stable, like a wide, calm river.

He looked at himself.

He raised his arm and saw pale blue chakra flowing through his meridians, with a flow rate and volume much more active than his father's.

"What are you looking at?" Mori Kazuki noticed his son's movements.

Takuma took off the sunglasses, folded the temples, spun them on his fingertip, and said, "Looking at the world."

Mori Kazuki's expression was complex, thinking to himself, My son has been in a coma for three days, and now that he's awake, he's acting a bit strange. Should I call the doctor to check him again?

Takuma didn't explain. He hung the sunglasses on his collar and looked at the sunlight pouring in from outside the window, a genuine, heartfelt smile finally appearing on his lips.

A blessing in disguise.

The Wolverine Healing Factor and the Senju Bloodline had deeply fused, his chakra reserves had doubled, the Cursed Seal was suppressed within a controllable range, and he had even picked up a pair of The Matrix sunglasses that could see through the flow of chakra.

This account—although the process was indeed brutal (he never wanted to experience being grabbed by the throat by Orochimaru and having a Cursed Seal planted again)—was definitely not a loss.

One could even say he had profited.

Of course, that was assuming he could survive the upcoming Konoha Crush Plan.