Chapter 217: Separate Calculations

Baki closed the door behind him.

Gaara, Temari, and Kankurō sat inside the room, considering everything they had seen during the examination.

"We learned why Konoha's genin possess so much combat experience," Baki said. "Tobitake Tonbo is responsible."

Kankurō frowned. "Can experience be gained through a shortcut?"

He had always understood it as the result of missions and repeated battles. Even clan heirs with dedicated partners required years to accumulate it. Yet many of Konoha's youngest candidates reacted with an ease that time alone should have denied them.

They had seen it in the forest and throughout the preliminaries. Konoha teams recognized ambush patterns, adjusted after failed attacks, and used combinations that usually appeared only after comrades survived several dangerous missions together. The improvement was too broad to belong to a handful of famous clans.

"Tonbo is considered Konoha's finest genjutsu specialist," Baki explained. "He created an illusion that reproduces combat and used it to train the new generation."

The intelligence changed the nature of Tonbo's threat. Personal strength could be answered by several jōnin or a prepared trap. A man capable of raising the combat ability of an entire generation offered Konoha something other villages could not reproduce.

Every class trained through his illusion would enter real missions with mistakes already spent inside genjutsu. In time, Konoha could field more survivors, more experienced chūnin, and more instructors able to pass the same advantage onward. Baki judged that long consequence more dangerous than one powerful technique.

"If an opportunity appears," Baki said, "we cannot allow him to remain an enemy."

Temari considered the report. "Capturing him would serve Sunagakure better than killing him. We could interrogate him and obtain the training method."

"The opportunity is unlikely," Kankurō said. "He rarely accepts missions outside Konoha, and the missions he does accept are confidential. Our agents cannot predict his routes."

Gaara's sand shifted around his ankles.

"After the plan succeeds, he will have no village in which to stand. Capture him then."

Baki nodded. Konoha's fall would remove Tonbo's defenses and create the only opening they were likely to receive. For the moment, his students needed to prepare for the finals. Opportunities vanished quickly, and strength determined who could use them.

Temari and Kankurō accepted the instruction. Gaara remained harder to direct, but the prospect of the coming plan held his attention. Baki ended the discussion before curiosity about Tonbo encouraged any of them to approach the man inside his own village.

In a corridor elsewhere, Kabuto met Orochimaru.

"Tonbo is not easy to handle," Kabuto said, pushing up his glasses. "If the plan proceeds while he remains free, he may interfere."

Orochimaru leaned against a pillar and smiled. "Someone else will move that obstacle aside."

Kabuto saw the confidence behind the vague answer. Danzō's arrangements would remove Tonbo at the critical time.

"As expected of Orochimaru-sama."

"What did you learn about Sasuke?"

"He meets every standard for your reincarnation. It is unfortunate that I have not found a cure for Kimimaro's illness. Otherwise, Kimimaro's body might suit you even better."

"Sasuke may prove superior."

Orochimaru remembered the Sharingan, the boy's talent, and the body that suppressed the first surge of the cursed seal. Desire entered the movement of his tongue across his lips.

"Continue gathering information."

"Many people protect him now. Approaching will not be easy."

"No one exceeds your talent for such work, Kabuto."

"You think too highly of me."

Kabuto's humility concealed the calculation already beginning. Kakashi guarded Sasuke, hospital staff watched the cursed seal, and Tonbo had taken a personal interest in the mark. Gathering more would require a role that allowed him to stand nearby without appearing to seek the Uchiha.

Kabuto left with a modest smile. Orochimaru watched him go. Among all the people he had trained or studied, Kabuto's mind satisfied him most. The limitation lay in the physical vessel. Intelligence alone could not meet the aspirations Orochimaru intended to carry through his next body.

At the training ground, ugly notes rang from Sakura's and Ino's spheres.

The noise made concentration difficult even for Tenyu, Maki, and Jun.

"Try harder," Tenyu complained. "That sounds so awful any man would flee."

Both spheres went silent.

Sakura and Ino looked at one another. Then the next notes came louder and harsher.

Each had reached the same conclusion: mastering the exercise before the other would prove something to Sasuke.

The actual sounds no longer mattered. Sakura heard Ino complete one interval and increased her output. Ino heard Sakura recover and refused to rest. Every attempt to win made their control worse, but neither cared while the other remained within earshot.

"They're frightening," Maki whispered. "We should stop distracting them."

Jun remembered a passage from Tonbo's sword notes. Love, kindness, and hatred were among the forces a blade could not sever. He had understood the sentence as theory. Watching Sakura and Ino compete made the power of one of them easier to believe.

Tonbo noticed their behavior and approved. Healthy competition meant they supervised each other. By using information about their feelings for Sasuke, he had created motivation that continued without his attention.

He swallowed another specially prepared military ration pill.

The faster his body evolved, the more energy it required. Food and concentrated nutrients had become part of the process. Tonbo returned his attention to the structure collected from Sasuke's cursed seal.

Cells could not change without material. The pill provided dense fuel in a form his altered digestion converted almost as soon as it reached his stomach. Warmth spread through muscle and blood while Inner Archive held the target structure steady.

The unusual enzyme passively resonated with natural energy and responded more strongly when chakra stimulated it. Tonbo assigned its development as the second sequence of his body's next evolution.

The first sequence remained chakra quantity. Sage Mode required enough personal chakra to balance and suppress the natural energy taken inside. Tonbo did not yet know whether the altered enzyme could neutralize every harmful effect, but several years remained before he expected either sequence to mature. Their order could overlap.

Increasing sensitivity before increasing reserves carried obvious danger if perception tempted him into absorption. Tonbo separated the goals. The enzyme could evolve now; actual use would wait until his chakra gave him a force capable of opposing what entered.

The ration pill broke down rapidly. Nutrients spread through Tonbo's body, feeding cells already changing under Contact Evolution.

The first small portion of the new enzyme developed.

For one instant, Tonbo perceived an endless field of energy surrounding him. It did not flow from a person or technique. It existed in the soil, air, trees, and empty space.

The sensation vanished almost immediately.

Tonbo opened his eyes. The amount of enzyme was too small to explain such clear perception by itself. His existing senses and extraordinary concentration had amplified the result. Entering meditation came as easily to him as turning a hand.

The contact had lasted only a moment, but natural energy was no longer an abstraction.