Chapter 216: Training Paths

Sakura and Ino watched the children finish an entire game with chakra pieces.

The display seemed absurd. Maintaining one shape outside the body required precision. Maki held a three-dimensional board while Tenyu and Jun created, moved, and replaced dozens of distinct pieces upon it.

Tonbo had not expected them to become so inventive. Many jōnin could not maintain control at the same level.

"Well?" Tenyu asked. "Do you still think chakra control ends with standing on water?"

The three children had worked relentlessly to remain ahead of Konohamaru. Their pride now filled the clearing.

"Excellent," Tonbo said. "I will teach you something even more entertaining next."

Then he turned to Sakura and Ino. Neither repeated her earlier claim.

"Your training goal is to approach this degree of control."

"Understood," they said, still staring at the board.

Tonbo removed two palm-sized spheres from his pouch.

"These are training tools. Chakra makes each sphere produce sound. The amount and character of the input determine the pitch. Your first objective is to play this entire score."

The seals inside the tools divided a narrow range of chakra into many audible steps. A difference too small to notice in water walking became a different note. Sudden force changed the instrument entirely, turning a bell into a chime or a flat knock.

He handed them a stack of music three centimeters thick.

Sakura weighed it. "That is all?"

Music had formed part of their espionage education. Changing the instrument did not sound impossible.

Tenyu adopted the voice of an experienced instructor. "We needed a long time to play one complete piece."

"The difference between notes can be this small," Tonbo said, pressing the nails of his thumb and forefinger almost together.

Sakura and Ino sent chakra into the spheres. Bells, chimes, and dull knocks answered. The pitch changed whenever emotion altered their flow.

Sakura produced a clear note, glanced at Ino, and drove it sharp. Ino tried to correct too quickly and changed the timbre instead. The tools made every flicker of rivalry audible to the entire clearing.

"It is that sensitive?" Ino asked.

"Careful women attract boys like Sasuke," Tonbo said. "Control strong enough for the score can also do this."

Lightning crackled above one palm while water rose from the other. Both elements formed lifelike flowers without destroying each other.

At Sasuke's name, Sakura and Ino looked at one another. Sparks seemed to pass between them.

"We will master it," they said.

Tonbo assigned Tenyu, Maki, and Jun their third-stage work, the final exercise in control and simultaneous nature transformation. He called the adapted technique Elastic Chakra Weave, removing the foreign name attached to the source from which he had taken its function.

The exercise demanded chakra that could extend, contract, and alter its elemental property without losing its connection to the user. Tonbo did not expect mastery soon. The children had earned the right to begin discovering how much more difficult control became when shape and nature changed together.

Across Konoha, Naruto's lesson with Ebisu began badly.

"Pervert."

"I am not a pervert," Ebisu said. "I am one of Konoha's elite instructors. My private lessons cost more than you understand. Training under me is a privilege."

"I want Kakashi-sensei."

Their argument followed them to the hot springs. Naruto stood upon the water while Ebisu corrected the chakra flowing through his feet.

Naruto's vast reserves made every correction exaggerated. He pushed too much through one foot, compensated through the other, and turned a stable surface into a contest against his own output. Ebisu insisted that another advanced technique would only magnify the same weakness.

"There is a pervert," Naruto said, pointing behind him.

The distraction broke his control, and he fell into the hot water.

Ebisu turned. A white-haired old man peered through a gap in the wooden wall and laughed to himself.

He pushed up his glasses. "Konoha's elite instructor will punish this criminal."

Ebisu attacked and lost before Naruto climbed from the pool. The white-haired stranger knocked him down with contemptuous ease.

Jiraiya had noticed the approaching teacher in the reflection upon the water. One turn carried him outside the strike, and a short counter sent Ebisu across the boards. The elite instructor landed unconscious before he understood whom he had challenged.

Naruto pointed. "You bastard. What did you do to the pervert teacher? Who are you?"

The stranger's eyes brightened. He climbed onto a summoned toad and struck a pose meant for a grand entrance.

"You have asked, so hear the answer. Traveler of the shinobi world, sage of Mount Myōboku, master of toads and tales—the white-haired Jiraiya stands before you."

The toad croaked at the proper moment.

Naruto stared. "Perverted Hermit."

Jiraiya's pose collapsed. The boy had ignored every ounce of dignity in the introduction.

At Konoha Hospital, Lee faced worse news.

His arm remained in a sling. Multiple comminuted fractures had spread through his body, and bone fragments pressed near important spinal nerves. Konoha's current medical staff could not promise to restore him to training.

Ordinary healing could close tissue and set simple breaks. Lee's injuries required fragments to be removed or repositioned without damaging the nerves beside them. One error could end more than his shinobi career, and leaving the fragments untouched offered little chance of returning to the taijutsu that defined him.

"Guy-sensei," Lee said through tears, "can I never prove that effort defeats genius?"

Guy's own pain showed behind his smile. "Youth does not abandon those who work. Tonbo said the damage is serious, but not hopeless. We must find Lady Tsunade."

Neither Tonbo nor the hospital's medical-nin could repair Lee safely. Tonbo had used detailed medical illustrations and scans to prepare a complete record of Lee's body for Tsunade. The hospital estimated that, with those records and her skill, the chance of full recovery could reach eighty percent.

"Once we find her, she can attempt the operation with all the information already prepared," Guy said. "Do not surrender yet."

Lee wiped his eyes. "Then I will wait for Lady Tsunade."

In another bed, Chōji slept sprawled across the mattress and murmured about potato chips, barbecue, and cumin seasoning. Saliva ran from the corner of his mouth.

Farther down the ward, Hana stood beside Kiba while a medic examined him. Akamaru rested nearby.

"What is his condition?" she asked.

The doctor wiped his nose, still baffled. "He inhaled methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and several other gases together. It resembles being trapped for some time in a sealed room filled with flatulence. Medically, the combination is remarkable."

Kiba's lungs would recover with air and rest, but his nose had amplified the experience far beyond what the other spectators suffered. Akamaru had been close enough to share the exposure and remained weak despite never trading a blow.

Hana had no answer.

An Inuzuka's extraordinary sense of smell was a weapon under most conditions. In Naruto's arena, it had become the reason Kiba collapsed first.