Yoruha had once consulted Hinata about a theory.
If chakra fusion couldn't happen inside the body,
then what about fusing outside the body?
To explore the idea further, Hinata had asked her father, Hiashi Hyuga, for guidance.
Hiashi explained that a senior member of the Hyuga clan had once attempted the same concept Yoruha proposed.
But—
If one wanted to fuse elemental chakra outside the body to create a Kekkei Genkai (Bloodline Limit), the purity of the chakra needed to be extremely high.
That Hyuga senior had spent his entire life training in chakra refinement.
Eventually, he succeeded in producing a bloodline-limit chakra fusion…
However—
Because the fusion occurred outside the body, it couldn't be used to perform standard ninjutsu.
The only way he could channel that power was by releasing it through his tenketsu (chakra points), in a method similar to Gentle Fist techniques like the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm.
And while the resulting power wasn't weak at all…
The drawback was clear.
That elder focused so heavily on refining chakra that his overall combat ability was actually worse than the average Hyuga who didn't train in elemental techniques at all.
This was the very reason the Hyuga clan now focused exclusively on Gentle Fist Taijutsu and avoided chakra nature transformations altogether.
But Yoruha was in a different league.
His elemental chakra natures didn't come from painstaking cultivation over decades.
They came from system rewards.
He could earn them through sign-in missions, and even upgrade them the same way.
So, theoretically—
As long as he could extract chakra of the required purity,
Yoruha could eventually unlock any Kekkei Genkai.
As for the issue of externally fused chakra being unusable in jutsu?
No big deal.
Yoruha could simply develop new ways to weaponize it.
He took a breath and focused.
After some thought, Yoruha clenched his right fist and raised his thumb.
Buzz!
A stream of Wind Release chakra surged from the tip of his thumb—pure and stable.
Then he extended his index finger.
A spark of Fire Release chakra flickered to life at the tip.
"Now comes the fusion..."
He carefully pressed his thumb and index finger together,
guiding the Wind chakra toward the Fire chakra.
Whoosh!
The moment they neared each other, the wind pressure fanned the fire intensely, causing the temperature to spike.
Burning Release?
No—
This didn't feel like Pakura's Burning Release at all.
It lacked the depth, balance, and stability of a fully realized fused chakra.
"So... the mastery level of my elemental chakra isn't high enough to meet fusion standards."
This time, the attempt failed.
But Yoruha wasn't discouraged.
After all—
His elemental abilities could all be upgraded through sign-ins.
So long as the fusion method worked in theory,
he was absolutely confident he could master multi-nature fusion in the future.
And he'd already figured out a direction for developing new techniques:
Finger Gun Style.
Short-range melee? Use the sword.
Mid-to-long range? Use spear-like projections.
It sounded cool just thinking about it!
Three years later.
Yoruha was now thirteen.
On paper, he was still just a child.
But with his daily physical training, medicinal baths, and chakra refinement...
His physique and bearing made him look more like fifteen or sixteen.
In those three years, Konoha Village had stayed relatively peaceful.
The Uchiha massacre was old news.
Kumogakure had increased military pressure at the Land of Fire's border, and there had been a few tense skirmishes…
But no real war broke out.
And within the village itself,
it was almost as if the Uchiha clan had never existed.
As for Uchiha Sasuke...
He became more withdrawn than ever.
He'd never had many friends to begin with.
Now, only Yoruha and the others would still speak to him.
Even the girls who once idolized him—the "Sasuke fan club"—had mostly moved on.
Thanks to Yoruha's presence, the cold and distant Sasuke had lost much of his charm in their eyes.
"Hey… we're about to graduate soon," Ino said with a sigh, sitting beside Hinata during a break.
Hinata nodded, her eyes lowered.
"We won't get to spend time together like this anymore… It's kind of sad."
The two girls sat quietly, the mood reflective.