Chapter 52: Cellular Depletion
A month had passed since Gōenji returned to Konoha.
At that moment, he was undergoing another examination at Konoha Hospital.
"Your body has recovered considerably. Using chakra normally shouldn't be a problem anymore, but you absolutely must not overexert yourself. Otherwise, the damage to your cells could become even worse."
The doctor spoke with the gentle tone of an older sister as she carefully reminded him of the risks.
Gōenji nodded.
Just as he had expected, he could use chakra again.
But forcibly extracting chakra had severely depleted the energy of his cells. For a shinobi, that was nothing short of disastrous.
According to the hospital's examination, the forced extraction had cost him at least ten years of his lifespan. His aging would accelerate in the future, and his chakra growth would also slow down.
In other words, at his current age, his chakra should still have been entering a period of rapid growth.
Originally, that period might have lasted another three or four years.
Now, however, it had been shortened considerably.
The doctors estimated that he had only about two years left before his chakra reached its natural limit.
What a pain.
The Uchiha have enormous chakra reserves, but I've effectively shortened my own golden period.
In another two years, my chakra should reach its limit. If I want to increase it beyond that point, I'll have to rely on other methods.
Gōenji felt a headache coming on.
This wasn't a minor issue.
It directly affected his physical strength.
At present, his strength among the jōnin was still quite respectable. He wasn't weak by any means.
But if he wanted to develop increasingly powerful ninjutsu, chakra was indispensable.
He wasn't particularly concerned about losing ten years of his life. To him, living to ninety or a hundred didn't make much difference.
The real problem was that a shortened lifespan meant that the vitality of his cells was declining.
This wasn't simply a matter of losing the final decade of his life.
It meant that the overall energy and vitality of his cells had been diminished, creating a chain reaction throughout his body.
After all, cells represented the body's physical energy, and physical energy was directly connected to chakra.
That was precisely why the Ninja Academy warned students not to refine chakra on their own when they first began learning how to do so.
Without sufficient familiarity, it was incredibly easy to injure themselves.
Only after becoming proficient were students permitted to refine chakra without supervision.
Even then, every year there were plenty of students who ignored the warnings and ended up damaging their bodies.
For Gōenji, the consequences were particularly troublesome.
It meant that the amount of chakra available for experimenting with new techniques had been reduced considerably.
That was a huge loss.
"Doctor, can this cellular depletion be restored?"
Gōenji wasn't willing to give up.
This wasn't his field of expertise.
His attention had been focused on developing Fire Release, and although he was proficient in ninjutsu, he hadn't seriously studied this particular area.
His knowledge simply wasn't broad enough yet.
However, according to what he knew from the original story, there should be methods capable of achieving something like this.
The problem was that such methods seemed to be concentrated in the hands of a very small number of exceptional individuals.
Konoha Hospital should have inherited some of Tsunade's medical knowledge as well. That knowledge ought to have been passed down.
The doctor rolled her eyes at him.
"This concerns cellular vitality. If it could simply be restored, everyone would live longer. Do you really think a method like that could exist?"
She paused before adding, "Though, if you could find Lady Tsunade, she might have a way to treat you. Lady Tsunade is incredibly powerful, after all. Unfortunately..."
She sighed.
"Lady Tsunade's whereabouts are currently unknown."
Obviously I know Tsunade should have a way. Or at least some ideas.
Gōenji rolled his eyes internally.
He also knew that Orochimaru, Kabuto, and Danzō might eventually develop methods capable of achieving something similar.
Those people possessed some of the most advanced biological and medical knowledge in the shinobi world.
Forget it.
I'll go back for now.
Since I can use chakra again, it's time to begin the first stage of the Blade of the Rising Sun experiment.
Gōenji sighed and left the hospital.
As he walked down the corridor—
"Ah! It hurts!"
He heard nurses rushing past with several injured comrades, their cries echoing through the hallway.
Hearing their screams somehow made his own body ache.
Gōenji hated pain.
Very much.
So hearing others cry out in agony made him instinctively imagine what they were experiencing.
No. I'm getting involved again.
I'd better leave quickly.
He immediately increased his pace and left the hospital.
...
Uchiha Training Grounds
Uchiha Itachi was already there.
After hearing that his teacher was developing a new ninjutsu, he had hurried over to watch.
"The technique Teacher is developing..."
Itachi's eyes were filled with anticipation.
"He said its power is extremely great. I wonder if it can become as powerful as the Great Fireball Technique."
A scene from his memories flashed through his mind.
His father had once practiced at these very training grounds.
A gigantic fireball had engulfed everything ahead of him, leaving only scorched earth behind. Every target had been reduced to ash.
At the time, Itachi had thought it was incredibly powerful.
But what his teacher was describing now sounded even more fascinating.
Itachi had read about ninjutsu in books.
To develop a new technique, one needed an extremely deep understanding of ninjutsu. Furthermore, every technique required different applications of Nature Transformation, meaning that an enormous amount of knowledge had to be mastered.
In his mind, anyone capable of developing a completely new ninjutsu had to be extremely powerful.
And his teacher, Uchiha Gōenji, was exactly that kind of person.
Itachi's young, adorable face was filled with admiration as he watched him.
"F = C × T × S. P = (C × T) / V. E = C × (T + K)... High-temperature compression, Nature Transformation, Shape Transformation... The coefficients are..."
Gōenji muttered to himself as he worked through the formulas.
"Nature Transformation produces the high temperature. High-temperature compression concentrates the heat. Shape Transformation maintains control over the technique..."
He frowned.
"The lever principle won't work here."
"This technique needs to be pure. It only needs to compress the flame's energy into the smallest possible area and produce an extremely high temperature..."
Gōenji held a wooden sword in one hand.
He wasn't using Ryōma's ninja sword.
Instead, he used his free hand to form seals and assist in controlling the technique.
Since this was his first experiment, he couldn't afford to speed up his hand seals.
He had to perform them one by one, carefully, using each seal to assist with the practical application of the technique.
Forty seals.
The first version of the first stage of the Blade of the Rising Sun required forty hand seals.
That was only four fewer than the Water Dragon Bullet used by Kirigakure shinobi.
Finally, the last seal was completed.
Gōenji's eyes turned crimson as his Sharingan activated.
Dense chakra enveloped the wooden sword.
Then flames spread across the blade like liquid.
The fire grew stronger.
And stronger.
Then—
Poof.
The wooden sword instantly turned to ash.
A small pile of charred wood was all that remained on the ground.
Within a radius of roughly three inches around where the wooden sword had been, the air itself visibly distorted from the heat.
The flames in Gōenji's hand vanished almost immediately afterward.
"Uh..."
Gōenji glanced at the pile of ash.
"My shape control wasn't good enough the first time. I accidentally destroyed the wooden sword itself."
He looked toward Itachi, feeling slightly embarrassed.
He had thought his chakra control and precision would allow him to handle the technique smoothly.
He hadn't expected the first attempt to be so difficult.
Just like anything else, a first attempt was always harder than expected.
Gōenji picked up another wooden sword.
That feeling just now...
Itachi stared without blinking.
The instant the wooden sword disappeared, he had felt a wave of heat brush against his skin.
It was like standing too close to a stove in winter.
Amazing.
Even though the technique failed, its power is already this incredible.
If this ninjutsu is completed, just how powerful will it become?
Although he was still very young, Itachi couldn't help but marvel inwardly.
His tiny fists tightened with excitement.
It wasn't even finished yet, and it already possessed such destructive power.
Once his teacher completed it...
It would surely become even more astonishing.