Accompanied by the distinct sound of the Summoning Technique, Uchiha Hikari arrived at Mount Myōboku under Jiraiya's escort.
"Oh, so this is the Uchiha Jiraiya was talking about?"
The one greeting them wasn't one of the Great Toad Sages, but Gamabunta himself—pipe in mouth, face fierce and imposing.
Hearing the disrespectful tone, Uchiha Hikari's brows furrowed sharply. She suddenly turned her head toward Gamabunta, and an overwhelming killing intent burst forth, engulfing the giant toad in an instant. Instinctively, he gripped the short blade strapped to his back.
"Not bad... you actually managed to scare me for a second."
However, Gamabunta quickly regained his composure. Realizing this kid was no ordinary human, his tone softened considerably.
This girl... she scared Gamabunta back with just a glance.
Jiraiya's sense of dread toward Uchiha Hikari deepened even more.
Indeed, this walking time bomb should stay by Takeshi's side—if she's going to explode, she should only blow up that annoying kid.
Under Gamabunta's lead, Uchiha Hikari soon caught sight of Takeshi, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground.
It had been over a month since Takeshi arrived at Mount Myōboku. Nagato's Sage Mode had already taken shape, yet Takeshi remained exactly as he had been on the first day—absorbing natural energy endlessly without ever awakening.
"What's he doing?"
After watching from a distance for a while, Uchiha Hikari turned her head toward Jiraiya.
"He's absorbing natural energy. My guess is he's trying to merge the chakra flow patterns of Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest, to make his Sage Art more destructive."
By now, Jiraiya had already deduced Takeshi's goal. He suspected the boy was attempting to unify the training methods of the three Great Sage Lands.
And indeed, that was precisely what Takeshi was doing.
At this moment, Takeshi was squatting in his inner consciousness space, bored out of his mind as he circulated natural energy through his body.
"Sigh... as expected, success doesn't come that easily."
He yawned, carefully guiding the energy through his network of meridians.
But luck wasn't on his side—every attempt so far had ended in failure.
"Hm?"
Suddenly, Takeshi's brow twitched. He sensed a familiar chakra presence appear nearby and instantly recognized who it belonged to.
"What the—? She came here? Wait, I didn't even tell her I'd left!"
A bad feeling shot through him. In his panic, he accidentally guided the natural energy into the wrong meridians.
"Oh no—this is bad! Fukasaku! I need to return to reality!"
Takeshi sprang up from atop Fukasaku's head in alarm, ready to abort the training immediately.
This was no joke—if he let the natural energy run wild inside him, he could very well go berserk like in a cultivation novel and explode from within.
"Hm? What did you just do?"
Fukasaku blinked, only now realizing Takeshi's sudden panic.
But as Takeshi fumbled to stabilize himself, he noticed something strange—the situation inside his body wasn't nearly as bad as he'd feared.
In fact, the natural energy seemed to be flowing quite smoothly. Though there was a brief sting at first, once the cycle began, the energy quickly blended with his chakra, forming Sage Chakra.
"Oh? Did it... work?"
Fukasaku, who had been instructing Nagato nearby, turned his head abruptly. A pleased smile crossed his face.
This kid truly had exceptional talent.
In their combined field of vision, the markings on Takeshi's face deepened, yellow eye-shadow formed beneath his eyes, and when he finally opened them, a single horizontal "—" pattern appeared in his pupils.
A brand new Sage Mode.
"Hah!"
Takeshi thrust his palm forward. An invisible force shot from his hand, piercing through a massive boulder in the distance and leaving behind a deep hole.
"This technique resembles the Frog Kata. It gathers natural energy into the palm and releases it outward—the range of attack far exceeds that of regular Frog Kata."
Fukasaku immediately discerned the secret behind the move.
"Not bad, little Takeshi. I thought you'd need much longer to—"
He leapt onto Takeshi's shoulder, about to praise him, when he noticed the boy's expression turn oddly stiff.
Following Takeshi's gaze, Fukasaku spotted the Uchiha girl Jiraiya had mentioned.
"You?! What are you doing here?!"
Takeshi hadn't expected Uchiha Hikari to show up in this place—and even less that her sudden appearance would somehow help him find the correct energy pathway.
"Hmph, obviously I came to watch you fail miserably at your training."
Uchiha Hikari's tone was as sharp and mocking as ever.
Their interactions always seemed to spark arguments.
"Ahem, fail? As if! If anyone's going to fail, it'd be you!"
Takeshi stiffened his neck and shot back, unwilling to lose face.
"Heh, we'll see about that. I heard you almost died in the Land of Snow? What a pity—I missed the chance to see you groveling in defeat."
"Ha! The Land of Snow? There's no one there capable of beating me. Even that so-called strongest artificial human—I turned him into scrap!"
"Oh really? Then that guy who got shot through the knee not long ago, the one I had to rescue... that wasn't you, right?"
"You—!"
Watching the two bicker, Jiraiya's lips twitched.
He suddenly felt that all his previous wariness toward Uchiha Hikari had been utterly pointless.