"Sai?" Shinsei's face was covered in smiles, as though he had never forgotten Sai on the battlefield.
Sai was smiling with narrowed eyes too, showing no intention of mentioning how Shinsei and Hashihime had secretly used shadow clones and kept him in the dark.
"I'm off." Shinsei waved at him. "I'm on leave. Ask Big Sister Hashihime if you have any questions!"
As he watched Shinsei leave without a care, Sai kept a smile plastered on his face, while Hashihime raised her slender eyebrows beside him. We clearly don't trust you, yet you act as though you don't know and show no reaction at all. How is anyone supposed to trust you like this?
Inside a room, the Third Hokage stared blankly as he smoked his pipe, puff after puff.
Creak~
The door was pushed open without anyone announcing the visitor, and Hiruzen Sarutobi did not look up.
"This is the result of your indulgence!" The visitor's voice was deep. White bandages covered his head and right arm, leaving only one eye exposed. "He already has such destructive power at this age! Sooner or later, he'll become another Orochimaru."
Whoosh~~
Hiruzen Sarutobi exhaled a mouthful of pipe smoke and said helplessly, "Danzo, we're already old."
"He's a member of the Senju Clan! Do you want to watch the Hokage position become hereditary in the Senju Clan?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi continued smoking without a word, puffing away in a daze.
Shimura Danzō slammed his left hand onto the desk and said angrily, "Just keep indulging him. Sooner or later, you'll regret it!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi raised his eyelids and said gravely, "I know what I'm doing. Besides, Danzo, you've forgotten-I'm the Hokage!"
Bang!
The door slammed shut with a muffled thud, and the Third Hokage withdrew his gaze. His eyes were complicated. He opened his mouth to say something, but in the end, all that escaped was a sigh.
After greeting his father at the door, Shinsei called upstairs:
"Mom, I'm home!"
Riya poked her head out for a look. Seeing nothing wrong, she said, "Dinner's almost ready. Don't go running around!"
Only then did Shinsei's anxious heart finally settle.
Playing mind games with a bunch of top-tier big shots really was exhausting. Shinsei was not someone who enjoyed mind games either. He preferred steamrolling everything with strength. But he clearly lacked the strength right now, so he could only make do with his inadequate emotional intelligence.
After dinner, he went to the hospital to see Naruto. The kid was fine, but Sakura had forcibly kept him in the hospital, insisting on at least a day of observation.
Fortunately, Naruto's suffering had not been for nothing: it had helped Sasuke awaken his two-tomoe Sharingan. Only now did Shinsei remember that Uchiha Sasuke should originally have awakened his two tomoe back in the Land of Waves, but Shinsei had beaten Zabuza Momochi so badly that he had lost his courage. Naturally, Sasuke had never gotten another chance to awaken his Sharingan.
Shinsei had been there the entire time Naruto was injured this time, ready to provide support at any moment, but ultimately had not intervened. For one thing, constantly playing babysitter would hinder Naruto's and Sasuke's growth. Without the tempering of battle, even someone as strong as Otsutsuki Kaguya could come a cropper.
For another, he had wanted to see whether Sasuke could awaken his eyes. In any case, people in the Shinobi World were not as fragile as those in his previous life. For instance, Tsunade could shatter a small hill with one punch, but Jiraiya had taken one and only been severely injured, let alone someone with Naruto's extraordinary recovery abilities.
In the basement, Shinsei took out pen and paper as usual to review this battle.
First was his current strongest ninjutsu, Water Release: Kirin. This technique consumed far too much in places without water, and the control it required was astonishing. This was also one reason Shinsei did not mind letting the Third Hokage record it in the Scroll of Seals. The other reason, of course, was that he could not beat him.
He currently had about ten Kakashis' worth of chakra. If he used ordinary ninjutsu, such as Kakashi's Chidori, he could unleash dozens in one go. But with Water Release: Kirin, he could only use it once in a battle. It consumed around seven to eight Kakashis' worth, depending on how big he wanted it to be. If he spent too little chakra on this technique, the resulting Water Release: Kirin would be too small and lose its inherent power. Moreover, the technique kept consuming chakra continuously. Each time it spat water in particular, it used roughly two Chidoris' worth of chakra.
This battle had also revealed some ways to optimize Water Release: Kirin. With more experimentation and development, it would become more flexible.
As for taijutsu, now that he had the two seal-less ninjutsu, Water Release: Water Sword and Lightning Release: Lightning Sword, he basically had no fear of facing anyone in taijutsu. Lightning Release in particular made up for his lack of speed. There was still further potential to explore in this technique. In terms of speed, for example, the Fourth Raikage was the ceiling for this type.
If he successfully mastered Flying Thunder God in the future, Shinsei dared say he would have a place in the Shinobi World. After all, among all the ninjutsu under heaven, nothing was indestructible, but speed alone could not be countered.
The Third Hokage had agreed to let him choose a ninjutsu from the Scroll of Seals. He would have to look through it carefully when the time came. This was a good opportunity too.
There was also sensory ninjutsu. His own development had hit a bottleneck; this technique was far harder to come by than he had imagined. Fortunately, the Third Hokage had agreed to help. He would look at his first before deciding what to do next.
His ninjutsu already covered attack, defense, and speed. All he lacked now were sensing and medical techniques.
He had a direction for developing sensing. Medical techniques could wait until Tsunade returned to the village.
Shinsei quickly thought things through, sorting out his path ahead.
In terms of chakra reserves, he far exceeded other ninja his age. Even if he stopped meditating to cultivate now and simply let his body grow naturally, he should have around fifty to sixty Kakashis' worth of chakra by the age of sixteen. That was roughly half of what Naruto had at twelve or thirteen. These reserves were already astonishing, placing him among those with large chakra reserves even at Kage level.
Logically, he should have been satisfied, but Shinsei's future opponents would all be inhuman beings. If he did not want to be a mere bystander during the Fourth Shinobi World War, he would have to keep working hard.
If he succeeded in developing Storm Release, his body's cells should undergo another round of optimization. As for how much improvement that would bring, he currently had no point of reference.
There was also Sage Mode. That would be his top priority in the future.
At present, only the Three Great Sage Lands-Mount Myōboku, Shikkotsu Forest, and Ryūchi Cave-had senjutsu legacies. Those at Mount Myōboku and Ryūchi Cave had already been confirmed to exist. Shikkotsu Forest's senjutsu legacy was unknown, but he suspected it most likely had one. Otherwise, it could not stand alongside the others as a sage land. Besides, Hashirama Senju knew Sage Mode, and his was far stronger than Naruto's so-called perfect Sage Mode.
His conjecture was that once he opened the inner and outer heavenly circuits, he would connect with nature and thus naturally sense natural energy. But there was a problem: the natural energy of the Shinobi World was not something one could connect with casually. It posed serious dangers.
The natural energy absorbed through Mount Myōboku's toad oil would turn people to stone. The side effects of Ryūchi Cave and Shikkotsu Forest were unknown, but they should differ from Mount Myōboku's. In the original story, the sage transformation of Sasuke's later teammate, Jūgo, was clearly different from Mount Myōboku's.
Although this battle had been hasty and brief, its outcome had given Shinsei a great deal of confidence. Although a shadow clone had fought Orochimaru the entire time, his real body was actually stronger. Shinsei had simply confirmed one thing: he had already touched the threshold of Kage level, though his entry came with some caveats.
As long as he used Water Release: Kirin and had not exhausted his chakra, its powerful attacks and defense without blind spots gave him Kage-level combat strength. The duration was a little short, though. Orochimaru, for example, had decisively recognized his insufficient chakra reserves and adopted a strategy of attrition. He also had to fear certain bizarre abilities, such as Uchiha Itachi's Tsukuyomi.
But the confidence he had gained this time made Shinsei less fearful of Danzo. In the novels he had read in his previous life, others developed an invincible heart through countless life-and-death trials. Shinsei knew his own situation: for someone as cautious about survival as him, developing an invincible heart would probably be difficult.
Compared with an invincible heart, he preferred being the Sword God of Ten-Mile Slope, invincible the moment he ventured out into the world.
He copied out the construction method for Lightning Release: Lightning Sword once more on the white paper.
He had a new idea for this technique.