A White-Boned Boy Appears in the Northeastern Forest

"He was waiting for someone."

Chiba stood at the edge of the school training ground. The leaf on his forehead fell to the ground, and his right hand pressed against the spot struck by the Gentle Fist yesterday.

Iruka walked to the desk and reached out to examine his arm.

"Do your chakra pathways still hurt?"

"They pause for a moment when I exert force."

"You are not allowed to join taijutsu training today."

Kiba was unwrapping his bandages nearby. Upon hearing that, he immediately turned around.

"He was fine when he fought Neji yesterday. Why does it only hurt today?"

"Gentle Fist chakra may have remained in his chakra points."

Iruka took away Chiba's training record.

"Go to the medical department after school."

"I can recover on my own."

"That is an order."

Naruto leaned over the desk and poked Chiba's right arm.

"Didn't you say Neji's Gentle Fist was useless?"

"I never said that."

"Then why did you just stand there and let him hit you yesterday?"

"To poison him."

Naruto immediately pulled his hand back into his sleeve.

"Do you still have poisonous spores on you?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Where you just touched."

Naruto grabbed his water bottle and poured water over his hand.

Kiba retreated two steps while holding Akamaru.

"You brought poison into the classroom after training?"

Chiba watched their reactions and picked up the leaf from the ground.

"I lied to you."

"Chiba!"

The classroom descended into chaos, yet the Anbu hiding outside the window did not approach.

The feigned discomfort in his chakra pathways had already entered their sight. Even Iruka had decided to accompany him to the medical department.

After school, Chiba completed his examination in the medical class. The report only stated excessive chakra consumption.

By the time he left, the sky had already darkened. Iruka did not turn back until he had escorted him to the entrance of the clan grounds.

"Rest tonight. Don't go train in the cave."

Yakushi Yeyue sat by the courtyard wall, still holding a lunchbox in his hands.

"Iruka-sensei told me to keep an eye on you."

"Can you keep watch over me?"

"I'll call the Anbu."

"Give me the food first."

Yeyue lifted the lid. Inside were sweet rice dumplings.

"If you say the taste is only average again, I won't make them anymore."

Chiba picked one up and bit into it. There was not much sugar, but medicinal powder for restoring stamina had been mixed into the filling.

"It is edible."

"Is that praise?"

"It is."

Yeyue left the lunchbox behind, his gaze falling on the abandoned well.

"No training tonight?"

"My chakra pathways have not recovered."

"Then I'm leaving."

"The eastern road is difficult to walk."

Yeyue closed his empty water bottle.

"I'll go back through the main gate."

After he left, Chiba waited until the Anbu on the rooftops finished changing shifts before entering the cave on the western side.

Fine roots drilled out from the cracks in the rocks, pushing open a narrow exit leading beyond the clan grounds.

This path passed through underground waterways, its end concealed within the forest on Konoha's outskirts.

The watchers behind him did not react.

There was no need to activate Half-Sage Mode. His Sage Body already allowed him to distinguish distant footsteps and traces of chakra in the darkness.

Chiba moved northeast along the woodland, keeping his soles away from the routes patrol ninja commonly used.

The closer he got to his target, the stronger the lingering stench of blood in the soil became.

A pale fragment was embedded beside a tree root. It resembled a broken bone needle, and fresh blood still clung to its surface.

Chiba crouched down without touching it directly.

"Analyze."

[Detected a high-density calcium structure.]

[Residual chakra within. Possesses cellular activity.]

[The sample highly matches the evolution preview.]

"Shikotsumyaku."

Chewing sounds came from the forest ahead.

The rhythm was intermittent, punctuated by the faint sound of teeth striking something hard.

Chiba continued forward along the blood trail. More and more shattered bones lay scattered beneath the trees.

Several of them did not belong to animals.

Kunai scratches marked their surfaces, but new spikes had grown from within the breaks.

Orochimaru had not yet taken in Kimimaro, and the Kaguya clan had not yet reached the point of total destruction.

The only Shikotsumyaku user who could appear in the northeast of the Land of Fire had to be someone from a branch family that had fled the clan grounds early.

"Come out."

The chewing stopped.

The fine roots by Chiba's feet detected no movement. The target remained ahead, merely drawing his chakra deep into his body.

"I can smell blood."

"Get lost."

The voice came from behind a fallen trunk, too dry to determine the speaker's age.

Chiba did not stop walking.

A chunk of raw meat, more than half eaten, was thrown out from behind the tree and landed at his feet.

A bone spike followed immediately after.

Hardening Vine emerged from his sleeve and knocked the bone spike aside, but half the vine was pierced through as well.

"Harder than Iron Ore Vine."

[The target sample is sufficient to advance skeletal reinforcement.]

The person behind the tree trunk stood up.

White hair hung to his shoulders, several strands clumped together with dried blood. His thin body was covered only by a tattered short garment.

The wound at his ribs was slowly closing, but pale tips shifted beneath his skin, making the fabric constantly rise and fall.

The boy held an animal's hind leg in his hand, blood still dripping from the severed end.

"Someone from Konoha?"

"Senju Chiba."

"Never heard of you."

"What is your name?"

The boy did not answer. He raised the raw meat to his mouth and bit off a piece along with its fascia.

As his teeth tore through it, another bone spike pushed out from his shoulder blade.

"Why is someone from the Kaguya clan in the Land of Fire?"

"You know the Kaguya?"

"I know Shikotsumyaku."

The boy spat out the bone fragments in his mouth and touched his right shoulder with his left hand.

"Then you should know that getting close means death."

"Who have you killed?"

"The people chasing me."

"Hidden Mist ninja?"

"And people who wanted to put me in a jar."

Chiba thought of Orochimaru's experimental bases.

There were two kinds of wounds on the target's body.

The outer blade wounds came from ninja pursuing him, while the clusters of needle marks beneath his ribs came from prolonged blood drawing and drug injections.

"You escaped from a laboratory."

The boy took half a step back, his heel snapping a dead branch.

"Who told you that?"

"Your wounds."

"You want my blood too?"

"I do."

Chiba answered without hesitation.

The boy tossed the raw meat aside. The bones beneath his skin simultaneously gathered toward his shoulders.

"So you are all the same."

"I am different from them."

"Everyone says that."

"They wanted to capture me alive."

Chiba raised his right hand, and Hardening Vine coiled into a short spear in his palm.

"I do not mind taking away a corpse."

The boy stared at the vine spear. His breathing changed from ragged to even, and the bones in his legs pushed outward along his skin.

"You came alone?"

"That is enough."

"Wood cannot stop my bones."

"We will know after trying."

The roots beneath the forest had already surrounded the fallen tree. Paralysis Vine and Scorch Vine burrowed into opposite sides separately.

Yet the boy did not direct his attention toward the ground.

His right hand gripped the exposed joint of his shoulder blade, then his arm pulled forward.

An entire bone was ripped from his flesh, and the muscles around the wound immediately closed.

The pale bone sword was longer than his arm, its edges lined with fine serrations formed from newly grown bone.

Moonlight passed through the leaves and fell upon the shattered bones and fresh blood covering the ground.

The boy pointed the sword tip at Chiba. The remaining bone spikes along his ribs pierced through his clothes one by one.

"Kaguya Shuo Ya."

"This is a name the dead should remember."

The vine spear in Chiba's palm rose forward, and the dark-white branches upon the World Tree lit up to their very ends.

"Get stronger. Let me see the limits of Shikotsumyaku."

The next instant, the white bone and wooden spear pierced through the tree trunk between them at the same time.