After discovering the chakra seed, Hikaru naturally had no intention of letting such an opportunity slip away.
Even if he didn't plan to plant it immediately, he could still store the seed for later use.
Once his chakra reserves increased enough—or once he decided to stop cultivating a certain type of seed—he could always nurture it then.
Hikaru's method of extracting seeds was actually very simple: he relied on the "Senju Secret Art" that came with his bloodline development.
To be honest, even now he still hadn't figured out why his so-called Senju Secret Art was essentially a technique for extracting life force from trees.
"What's wrong, Captain?"
Kakashi's voice suddenly rang out. "Have you come up with a solution?"
"Not yet," Hikaru replied, snapping out of his thoughts and shaking his head.
"But for now, let's just bind him first. Especially his hands. If you want, you can break his fingers as well.
Then find something to stuff into his mouth—he can't be allowed to speak, or bite off his own tongue."
Binding the hands was to prevent him from forming hand seals.
Breaking the fingers would completely eliminate any remaining chance.
Stuffing his mouth served two purposes: preventing suicide, and preventing techniques that could be activated orally.
Some sealing techniques were engraved on teeth or the tongue—this man was ANBU, and ANBU always required extra caution.
Kakashi didn't object. In fact, he felt slightly embarrassed—he genuinely didn't know how to handle this situation himself.
This was the first time he truly realized just how important sealing techniques were.
No wonder his captain, despite being so strong, still placed such importance on studying fūinjutsu.
And thinking about it carefully… his own teacher had been the same.
Maybe I should start learning sealing techniques too, Kakashi thought.
Even if he couldn't master them, being able to deal with special situations would already be invaluable.
With his orders given, Hikaru no longer needed to do anything personally.
Kakashi quickly dragged Yashamaru away, apparently intending to place him together with the two Sand ninjas they had captured earlier.
Once Kakashi left, Hikaru immediately stood up and turned his gaze back toward the tree he had leaned against earlier.
It looked completely ordinary.
No different from the trees he had previously extracted seeds from.
That made Hikaru sigh quietly.
To this day, he still hadn't figured out what criteria his system used to determine what kind of seed could be extracted from a plant.
He had even tried cultivating ordinary trees from seeds taken from previously harvested plants—only to find that actively absorbing life force from them yielded absolutely nothing.
"Well, whatever," he muttered to himself.
"As long as I get what I need."
Hikaru began forming hand seals, and a strange chakra surged through his body.
A faint blue chakra membrane gradually enveloped him—eerily similar to the scene when Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama were revived, and Tobirama prepared to strike Sasuke.
Reaching out with his right hand, Hikaru pressed his palm against the tree.
In that instant, he could see its life force.
A pale green energy, brimming with vitality—something that instinctively drew people toward it.
Under the guidance of Hikaru's blue chakra, that energy instantly became unstable, then surged wildly toward him as if it had found its rightful owner.
Before his eyes, the tree rapidly withered.
Its leaves turned yellow, then drifted to the ground one by one.
In no time, every trace of life force within the tree had been completely drained.
Though it still stood upright, it was unmistakably dead.
The green energy gathered inside Hikaru's body, compressing again and again, until it finally condensed into a tiny point of light.
When Hikaru raised his hand, a soft glow rotated in his palm.
As the light fully stabilized, a pale green seed appeared.
"So this is a Wind Release chakra seed…"
Feeling the faint, breeze-like sensation emanating from it, Hikaru smiled.
He then retrieved a sealing scroll from his ninja pouch.
This type of scroll could only be opened using the owner's chakra.
With a single-handed seal, his chakra flowed into the scroll, and a puff of white smoke appeared.
A slightly worn notebook emerged.
This notebook contained everything Hikaru remembered about the Naruto world, along with his analyses.
It was his most important possession.
This seed was just as important—it represented his future.
He placed the seed inside the notebook, then sealed it away once more and returned the scroll to his pouch.
Only then did Hikaru finally relax and walk toward Kakashi.
But when he arrived, the sight before him made him freeze.
"You… what exactly did you do…?" Hikaru stared at Kakashi—and more precisely, at the captured Sand ninjas.
Kakashi shouldn't have read Icha Icha Paradise yet, right?
Or perhaps Jiraiya hadn't even started writing those books yet.
At this point, Jiraiya was still focused on writing inspirational biographies, trying to spread his wildly unrealistic ideals.
His ideals, truthfully speaking, came from the Sage of Six Paths, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo—naive, pure, and childish.
Yet in a world driven by interests, despair, and endless conflict, they still shone like a faint glimmer of hope.
Hikaru shook his head.
He genuinely respected idealists—especially someone like Jiraiya, who not only believed, but acted.
"Still… that guy is also a massive pervert," Hikaru thought.
"Otherwise, he wouldn't have written those books."
Then his gaze finally settled on Kakashi.
"And this one too," Hikaru added mentally.
"A textbook case of repressed perversion."
At that moment, every single Sand ninja was tightly bound—but the binding method was… questionable.
Each of their mouths was stuffed with a small iron ball.
The balls were even tied with cloth strips and secured behind their heads.
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