After a good while, the room fell quiet again.
Xuandou sat upright in an armchair. Opposite him, his three disciples sat in a row on a long bench draped with a red velvet blanket.
Hinata, Sakura, and Ino.
Hinata sat at the innermost end, looking aggrieved, a small tear in the front of her clothes revealing a glimpse of skin.
Sakura sat in the middle, looking exactly as she had before. Not even her carefully styled short pink hair was out of place.
Instead, Ino, who had always been the liveliest and most restless, had changed out of her purple bandeau dress into a white shirt that covered her navel.
She sat shyly at the outermost end.
Xuandou swept his gaze across their faces.
He handed the three of them the mission scroll for retrieving the Hexagonal Crystal.
"All right, all right. I have an S-rank mission in the Land of Whirlpools for you."
"Get ready to set out and complete it over the next few days!"
"We'll complete the mission without fail!"
The three exchanged glances and answered in unison.
Early the next morning, Xuandou found a deserted stretch of coast.
A card shimmering with pale golden light appeared out of thin air in his hand.
This was the S-Rank Ninjutsu Creation Card the clan system had awarded him when Shiwa was born.
It was precisely because of this creation card.
That was why Xuandou had chosen the S-S-rank side quest to create a Water Release resurrection technique.
Although the S-Rank Ninjutsu Creation Card would tailor an S-rank ninjutsu to Xuandou's condition, Xuandou possessed the Ōtsutsuki bloodline, the origin of chakra and ninjutsu.
His bloodline was second only to that of the Ōtsutsuki Clan's progenitor.
He was naturally compatible with every ninjutsu in the Shinobi World that involved