Chapter 232: The Nature of Snow

On the ship's deck, Riku finally asked the question troubling all three chūnin.

"Captain, did Miss Fujikaze know you before this mission? She reacted as if she recognized you the first time she saw you."

It was understandable for Tonbo to know a famous actor. Koyuki's instant familiarity with him was far harder to explain.

Saiji adjusted his goggles with sudden confidence. "The captain is Konoha's greatest genjutsu master. He must have placed her under an illusion. It may violate professional ethics, but that is what happened, isn't it?"

"I thought so too," Shikun said. "His seals were too fast for us to notice."

They had watched Tonbo throughout the first meeting and never saw him bring both hands together.

"One-handed seals," Tonbo admitted. "I kept the hand out of view."

He had remembered that Koyuki was notoriously difficult to persuade. Rather than spend the journey fighting her refusal, he implanted a temporary memory in which thieves attacked her and Tonbo rescued her. A second layer of genjutsu lowered her guard and turned that invented rescue into immediate affection.

It was an unethical technique to use against the mission's own employer. Tonbo acknowledged that without pretending otherwise. Shinobi professional ethics had never been famous for surviving contact with necessity.

The false memory contained no elaborate history. Koyuki remembered sketching outdoors, the approach of thieves, and Tonbo arriving before they could harm her. He shaped the emotional residue as carefully as the images: fear followed by relief, then safety associated with his face and voice. By the time the real escort introduced itself, her mind had already supplied a reason to trust its captain.

Tonbo had not needed to repeat the technique aboard the ship. The implanted event continued to guide Koyuki's choices, which was exactly why a subtle illusion could be more useful than obvious control. She believed the attraction and courage were entirely her own.

Saiji looked impressed instead of disturbed. "You made her accept it without realizing anything."

"It simplifies our work," Riku said. "Now we only need to understand the enemy. How strong are Snow's shinobi?"

The three had held chūnin rank for only a year. Their experience of foreign nations remained narrow, and nothing at the Academy had prepared them for this country.

"Most of our opponents will be Snow-nin," Tonbo said. "Their techniques largely imitate Ice Release. Compared with the variety of clan arts outside Snow, their repertoire may look monotonous. Do not mistake monotony for weakness."

Ice Release could be terrifying. Even the strongest shinobi would rather avoid a battlefield that multiplied its advantages.

"All of them possess Ice Release?" Riku asked.

Shikun stared at Tonbo. "A whole country of shinobi with the same kekkei genkai? How are fifteen Imperial Guards supposed to fight that?"

Saiji considered himself well read and had never heard of an entire national force sharing one bloodline. If that were true, Snow Country's alliance would be worth far more than the mission papers suggested.

Tonbo laughed. "You are frightening yourselves. Their Ice Release comes from Snow's environment. Outside this region, most of those techniques cannot form completely. They do not all possess an inherited bloodline."

A true kekkei genkai combined wind and water within the shinobi's own chakra. Haku could create ice wherever those natures could be shaped. Snow's troops instead depended upon the country around them. Cold, moisture, prepared terrain, and the region's unusual energy completed a transformation their bodies did not carry alone.

If a population that large truly shared power on the scale of the Uzumaki clan, Snow would have become a sixth great nation. It would not remain trapped among frozen mountains while importing much of its food.

The three relaxed.

"That only means they weaken outside Snow," Tonbo continued. "We are sailing into their territory. Here, their techniques may rival a true Ice Release bloodline. A gifted master could be even stronger."

Their relief vanished.

Tonbo felt the change before land became visible. Cold spread across his skin, carrying a pressure distinct from ordinary temperature. His research into cursed seals had taught him to recognize the edge of natural energy. The power in this region leaned toward cold and altered how water-nature chakra behaved.

"Snow's environment contains a form of ice-aligned natural energy," he said. "Their ninjutsu uses it indirectly. That is why similar techniques lose structure elsewhere and become stronger here."

The Snow-nin had discovered repeatable patterns that drew on the region without necessarily understanding Sage Mode. They could shape false Ice Release while remaining unable to absorb natural energy safely into their bodies.

That limitation did not make their practice primitive. A method refined across generations could exploit the same environmental current without ever naming its source. Hand seals, armor channels, and established technique forms might protect the user by keeping the foreign energy outside the chakra network. The result was indirect senjutsu in function, even if no Snow-nin would describe it that way.

Knowledge of natural energy was not as rare as Tonbo once assumed. His memory of the familiar story had misled him. The Earth Spider clan had used the village-destroying sage art Furious God's Wrath during the Third Shinobi World War. The stone figures at Mount Myōboku were proof that many people had tried to master such forces and failed. What remained rare was a stable Sage Mode.

Tonbo tested the current with his senses and stopped there. Every instinct warned him not to absorb it. The danger was unclear, but uncertainty did not make it safe. At most, he would allow techniques to interact with the regional energy as Snow's shinobi did.

Perhaps the cold current would freeze tissue, disrupt chakra circulation, or impose a transformation peculiar to Snow. Mount Myōboku's natural energy turned failed practitioners to stone; other concentrations could carry entirely different consequences. Tonbo refused to discover this one's price by letting curiosity enter his body.

"Natural energy?" Saiji asked.

"It exists in the sky, the earth, and every living environment. Anyone who can wield it deserves caution."

The three absorbed that warning in silence. None had encountered the subject in the Academy.

"Do not try to draw it into yourselves," Tonbo added. "Talent will not protect you from an unknown transformation. Snow's people may know how to use this region indirectly, but that does not mean the energy accepts a human body."

Riku groaned. "There is more, isn't there?"

"Technology is Snow's best-known advantage. More than ten years ago, its engineers had already developed chakra amplifiers. Some techniques can reach ordinary output with half the chakra, or release far greater force at the usual cost. The same shinobi can therefore attack more often and at strengths an observer may misjudge."

Snow's chakra armor interested Tonbo even more. His own reserves were already increasing rapidly. If he could obtain several working suits and learn how their amplification functioned, his margin for error in later battles would grow again.

He imagined separating the amplifier from its defensive shell, testing how efficiently it converted ordinary chakra, and adapting the principle to his Living Weave constructs. Even a modest reduction in cost would let him sustain more bodies, barriers, or seals at once. If the armor also resisted genjutsu and physical attacks, a complete specimen might expose several technologies worth rebuilding.

That interest did not mean the equipment was invincible. An amplifier had to receive chakra, direct it, and survive its own output. Each step offered a possible weakness. Their first battle would reveal whether Snow's shinobi understood those limits better than the foreigners sent to defeat them.

Ahead, frost began to form along the ship's shaded rail. Snow Country was still beyond the horizon, but its nature had already reached them.