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[Konoha2] Chapter 43: The Direction of Wood Release!
🕑 Added 2025-05-18 09:12:46 +0000 UTCThe Sky Ninja Village was in chaos once again!
Hajime’s six wooden clones, empowered by the Steel Body status, were being used like his actual body. With their overwhelming defense, he was virtually unstoppable.
It wasn’t until one clone was countered by Lightning Style that the Sky Ninja found a way to fight back. Relying on sheer numbers and lightning techniques, they managed to eliminate the clones one by one.
However—
Though the six clones were gradually destroyed, the atmosphere of fear among the Sky Ninja only grew heavier.
Because none of them had been the real body.
Meanwhile, their sensory ninja had suffered heavy casualties, which meant it would be even harder to locate the actual enemy.
To them, Hajime had become a blade hanging over the head of every single Sky Ninja.
Even an elite jonin like Kogetsu Daisei was no exception. His nerves were stretched taut—he didn’t dare relax for even a second.
Although they had discovered the assassin’s weakness, they were effectively blind in the dark—unable to find the shadow lurking among them.
Which only made the fear worse.
——
Hospital.
Watching the steady stream of wounded being brought in, hearing the chaos outside, Yakushi Nonō ’s heart was pounding uncontrollably.
Onii-chan is back!
Nonō felt a surge of excitement.
Her big brother hadn’t truly abandoned her in this place after all.
In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to rush home and tell Hajime the secret she’d discovered.
But suppressing the excitement in her heart, Nonō forced herself to stay focused and continued working with a heavy expression.
——
Elsewhere—
As the memories of the destroyed clones returned to him, Hajime couldn’t help but sigh, “So there really is no perfect ability…”
Steel Body was strong—no one had yet managed to break through it directly.
Unfortunately, it was countered by Lightning Style.
While ordinary Lightning Jutsu couldn’t fatally injure him, it could restrict his movement.
And that created the possibility of his defenses being broken.
Moreover, Steel Body couldn’t ignore poison either.
Out of the six clones, four had been taken down by poison.
Even though the Sky Ninja had limited options to break through the Steel Body directly—despite using Lightning Style to pin him down—they had ultimately turned to poison to finish the job.
Still, even though the enemy had discovered how to counter him, Hajime had already achieved his objective.
He had wiped out all of the stronger sensory ninja among the Sky Ninja.
“Now… they can enjoy living in fear.”
A smile crept onto Hajime’s face as he formed hand seals.
Three more wooden clones emerged from his back and disappeared into the shadows.
Night had fallen.
Hajime sat cross-legged on the floor, pondering Wood Release.
Up until now, his use of Wood Release had been step-by-step—practicing and mastering the Wood Release techniques left behind by Hashirama Senju.
And the results had been impressive.
Especially techniques with high chakra consumption, like Deep Forest Emergence.
But as someone with extensive knowledge of the world, Hajime couldn’t help but compare himself with others.
And through comparison, he realized that his understanding and use of Wood Release—and his exploitation of Hashirama cells—was still quite shallow.
Of course—
For most people, just those secret techniques alone would be enough for a lifetime.
But he wasn’t a native like Yamato.
With full knowledge of the plot, it was only natural that his ambitions would grow beyond that.
Hajime wanted more.
“Wood Release is essentially a fusion of Earth and Water nature transformations, activated by using chakra as a source of life.”
That was a line left behind by Hashirama Senju.
The very essence of Wood Release.
In the past, Hajime had believed that Hashirama’s Wood Release was a Kekkei Tōta—Earth + Water + Yang Release.
That would explain why his Wood Release was so powerful, capable of suppressing the Nine-Tails and even patting it on the head like a pet.
But clearly, that understanding was flawed.
Hajime lowered his gaze and pondered silently:
“Yin Release represents spiritual power—it can create form from the formless.”
“Yang Release represents physical power—it breathes life into form.”
“And chakra itself is refined from physical and spiritual energy. Which means, in truth, every elemental nature contains both Yin and Yang: the power to create form and give it life.”
“Hence the five basic nature transformations: Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning, and Wind.”
Chakra could produce fire, water, soil and rock, electricity, and air currents to create wind—this was all about creating physical forms.
Hajime believed that understanding the five basic chakra nature transformations absolutely couldn’t be separated from the Yin-Yang attributes.
After all, the essence of chakra was the fusion of physical and spiritual energy—the combination of Yang and Yin.
Therefore, chakra was capable of anything.
Because Yin and Yang had the power to create worlds—and to destroy them.
“So, in theory, any kind of ninjutsu should be able to absorb chakra.”
That was the conclusion Hajime came to.
From what he currently knew, techniques capable of absorbing chakra included Wood Release, the Rinnegan, and Kisame’s Water Style.
Of course, when it came to ninja tools, aside from the Samehada, there were likely others—he just couldn’t recall them at the moment.
But just from the Rinnegan, Wood Release, and Kisame’s Water Style, it was enough to support Hajime’s theory.
It was just… extremely difficult to achieve.
“Wood Release is a combination of creating form and infusing life. That’s what makes it unique.”
Hajime pondered.
Wood Release could use chakra to directly create vines and wood, or it could inject chakra as a life source into the ground and force the growth of existing trees.
He’d done just that before, deep in the forest, manipulating already-grown trees to fight.
This was similar in principle to Water Style techniques that controlled existing water sources.
“From the essence of chakra, anyone’s chakra—whether raw or altered by nature transformation—contains the power of life. It’s only a matter of how strong it is.”
Hajime felt this was the theoretical basis for Wood Release’s ability to absorb chakra from others.
The key was figuring out how to make it work.
Theory was one thing—practical application was another.
“I’ll have to experiment slowly…”
Hajime thought.
If he could manage to absorb enemy chakra using Wood Release, then he wouldn’t be far off from developing a technique like White Zetsu’s spore jutsu.
And likewise, techniques like White Zetsu’s chakra-absorbing transformation would no longer be difficult to replicate.
Time passed little by little.
Hajime’s clones were moving through the Sky Ninja Village, and every so often, a Sky Ninja corpse would be discovered.
Sometimes, major battles would erupt.
If it had been anyone else, even an elite jonin, they wouldn’t have posed such a threat to the Sky Ninja.
But Hajime was different. He had the Steel Body. He had Wood Release. He had Hashirama cells.
At the same time—
Outside the Sky Ninja Village, Danzo and his Root operatives were also carrying out assassinations against the Sky Ninja.
- Land of Lightning, Kumogakure. -
Inside the Raikage’s office.
The Third Raikage frowned as he studied the intelligence just delivered to him.
Konoha had made a move against the Sky Ninja Village. A unit had already been deployed to the border between the Land of the Moon and the Land of Lightning.
The Third Raikage had long been aware of Konoha’s hostility toward the Sky Ninja.
But for them to outright start a war—that had caught him off guard.
Previously, he hadn’t believed Konoha was ready for war.
The Third Raikage turned to Dodai. “How long can the Sky Ninja hold out?”
Dodai immediately replied, “I don’t believe they can last more than seven days.”
“Konoha may not be fully prepared for war, that’s true. It’ll take them time to mobilize.”
The Third Raikage stood up abruptly. “Seven days is enough!”
Dodai quickly said, “Raikage-sama, with all due respect, now isn’t the time to go to war with Konoha.”
“Even if we act alone, it’s unlikely we’ll gain much from them.”
The Third Raikage was clearly displeased but understood the truth in those words.
Konoha was powerful—the strongest of the Five Great Ninja Villages. That was a fact he couldn’t deny.
“But doing nothing isn’t an option. If we sit on our hands, our allies might start raising questions.”
The Third Raikage barked.
Dodai nodded. “That’s true.”
“I believe our goal should be to weaken Konoha.”
“We can tie down part of their forces, let the Sky Ninja exhaust them a bit.”
“These past years, all the great villages have been expanding their militaries. Even Hanzo of the Rain is stirring. I believe Konoha will be the first to lose patience—they won’t allow Hanzo to realize his ambitions.”
“That would be a second opportunity to weaken them.”
“The weaker Konoha becomes, the better it is for us. Then we can intervene at the right moment to claim our share of the spoils.”
The Third Raikage was pleased with the analysis. Though he was itching to march south and clash with Konoha himself, he restrained the impulse and said, “In that case, Dodai, you’ll lead the team south.”
“Understood!”
Dodai bowed deeply and left to carry out the order.
(End of Chapter)
