Mitarashi Anko—one of Konoha's legendary "Sannin" Orochimaru's former apprentice—once held a distinguished position. But after Orochimaru betrayed the village and used shinobi for forbidden experiments, her situation became awkward.
Anko—born in Konoha's Year 40, like Shuji—attended the academy at the same time but in a different class. Their original selves were mere acquaintances, not friends.
After being held by Root for several months and cleared of danger, Anko was freed—though only as a formality. Orochimaru's crimes—murdering fellow villagers and experimenting on them—were too grievous even Hiruzen Sarutobi could not conceal.
When ninja clans gathered to form a village over fifty years ago, they agreed to a basic rule: no clan would harm another. That fragile peace enabled them to coexist.
Orochimaru shattered that pact; he was intolerable in the village. Yet his contributions as one of the Sannin and decades as the Hokage's student complicated matters. Hiruzen spared his life, chastised him, then allowed him to roam—and the official pursuit of rogue shinobi followed.
If Orochimaru himself received such leniency, so too did his former subordinates, treated with relative mercy. Otherwise, Konoha as a military power would have unleashed a cleansing storm, not this thunderous yet drizzling outcome.
For Shuji, the squad's makeup was now complex: two members—one too young, the other newly cleared—both with tangled backgrounds. At this point, fretting served no purpose.
The Third Hokage's summons for the evaluation still awaited notice, as the examiners were on another mission. Shuji therefore focused on training.
Deep in the old forest behind the Senju estate, Shuji sat cross-legged. Through recent meditation and trial, he had sharpened his perception of Wood Release ripples—subtle spatial tremors when nature's energy was disturbed.
Those ripples were no longer vague waves but a rhythm filled with primal energy, detectable by his mental tendrils like silent currents in the deep sea.
Now he could attempt to absorb that natural energy.
Directly touching it with his body would be playing with fire—there were no sage-mode shinobi to watch over him. A single mistake could leave him an eternal stone statue.
In the original legend, Naruto trained sage mode with shadow clones to draw in nature's energy. Shuji had an even greater advantage: as a Wood Release user, he could form wood clones.
Unlike shadow clones, wood clones inherit the original's strength and share its senses. They need not be dispersed for the original to receive their memories. This meant Shuji could send a wood clone to draw natural energy; if it petrified, only the clone would be lost, not himself.
With this insight, he split a wood clone from himself.
Shuji closed his eyes, his spirit drawn taut as a bowstring. He wove his perception into the wood clone, sharing every sensory fiber. His intent was clear: perceive, guide, and absorb the ambient natural energy!
The clone obeyed. At first, the forest stayed silent except for rustling leaves. Then a heavy, indescribable stillness settled around it. Even the sunlight through the canopy seemed to slow.
Through their shared senses, Shuji felt it—a living sea of energy, gentle yet immense, enveloping the clone.
Countless tiny energy particles, like transparent stardust, flowed slowly around the clone. It cautiously reached out, using its chakra as a guide to touch one stream…
At the moment that natural energy entered the wood clone—
A surge both brimming with life and laced with corrosive force exploded within it!
Like scalding sap poured into cold bark, the clone shuddered violently as its chakra structure buckled!
Astonishingly, bark-like textures appeared on its surface, as if ancient wood grain was overtaking living flesh, and the clone's form twisted and bulged. Its joints crackled with new growth, the body rapidly transforming into a tree!
"Ugh!" Shuji murmured, face pale at the shared shock—the violent force felt as if his own limbs were being reshaped, woodfied!
He gritted his teeth against the pain, watching the metamorphosis closely.
Just as the clone was about to lose all humanity, turning into a gnarled wooden monstrosity, a grayish petrification spread like a plague from the new bark! Icy stillness quenched the burgeoning life. As the stone hue threatened to engulf the twisted form…
Shuji willed it: "Release!"
Boom!
With a muffled crack, the half-tree, half-stone grotesque collapsed into a charred root cluster, then crumbled into drifting energy and dust.
Shuji opened his eyes slowly, exhaling in relief and wiping sweat from his brow.
It was a failure—but a monumental discovery.
The clone's sudden "woodening" and collapse showed that natural energy amplifies according to its vessel's fundamental nature, not indiscriminately.
Just as toad sages or dragon sages receive power aligned with their species, his wood clone—rooted in Wood Release—prioritized strengthening the "wood" essence, causing runaway growth and transformation until the body could not contain it.
Staring at the charred remnant, Shuji's eyes gleamed with insight.
As he pondered, a black-feathered hawk—an avian silhouette against the night—glided silently to a low branch before him, its eyes fixed on him. In its beak was a small wooden scroll tube.
Inside was a simple Hokage Office red-seal letter:
"Shuji, the examiners have returned. Three days hence, at noon, Third Training Field."
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