"Children should not speak of their parents' faults," muttered the Sage of the Six Paths, his grip tightening instinctively on the Sage's Staff. This brat really deserved a thrashing.
"You made a mistake, yet you refuse to admit it at all. You're truly such an old-fashioned geezer, old man!" Indra curled his lip disdainfully. This stubborn old man always insisted on being right.
"Rebellious child! I'll beat you to death!"
Furious, the Sage of the Six Paths turned pale with rage, raising the Sage's Staff and charging toward Indra.
"Father, please don't be angry, don't be angry," Asura quickly stepped in front of Indra. "Brother, just admit fault slightly so we can pacify Father first!"
"Asura, I can clearly hear what you are saying!" The Sage of the Six Paths gritted his teeth, barely managing to hold back from swinging the Sage's Staff.
Watching the chaos between the Sage of the Six Paths and his two sons, Sakura couldn't help but mentally groan at the absurdity of it all. A stubborn and headstrong Sage of the Six Paths, Indra—the ancestor embodying the Uchiha clan's tsundere traits—who called "brother" more affectionately than anyone else yet struck with more force than any enemy, and Asura, who called him "brother" with such warmth yet hit harder than anyone. Not one of them was remotely normal.
For Naruto, today was undoubtedly an incredibly happy day. Learning about his biological parents and now being able to chat joyfully with them made Naruto feel as if he were living inside a dream.
Compared to Naruto's happiness, however, Sasuke found himself clenching his teeth while feeling delighted. Thinking back about the promise he'd been tricked into making by Sakura filled him with the urge to kill someone. He would never, ever forgive Sakura as long as he lived.
"Kakashi, when are you going grave-digging?"
After leaving [Inner Space], Sakura directly blocked out the noise made by the quarreling Sage family within and turned to ask Kakashi.
"I'll retrieve Rin's body tonight first," Kakashi replied. "As for my teacher's remains, I need to investigate first. There must be protective barriers around his tomb."
Kakashi looked up at the sky. Who could have predicted that The Copy Ninja of Konoha would fall so far as to become a grave robber? Such a disgraceful fate.
Chapter 122: The Third's Disappointment
That night, Kakashi stealthily made his way to Sakura's home and handed over the scroll containing Rin's corpse. Fortunately, Rin hadn't been cremated back then; otherwise Kakashi would only have brought ashes instead.
"Minato-sensei's body and Kushina's still require more time—they're under guard. I need to figure out the shift patterns before I can extract them!"
Kakashi's eyes darted around nervously. Probably psychological, but along the entire path here, he kept sensing like something invisible and dirty had been following him.
"It's fine, Kakashi; you can handle it however you see fit. After all, I'm not in any hurry!" Sakura shrugged indifferently. Just as Kakashi began to relax slightly, she added casually, "At worst, maybe Minato and Kushina might haunt your dreams with complaints—but they won't actually hurt you!"
"Don't! I'll try my best to retrieve the bodies as soon as possible, okay?"
Kakashi wore a bitter expression. If he truly needed to have Minato Namikaze and Kushina appear in his dreams as spiritual guides, he'd probably be scared to death sooner or later.
When leaving the house, Kakashi's back was noticeably hunched, as though carrying some heavy pressure upon his shoulders. Digging up the graves of the Hokage and his wife openly was simply too extreme—if caught, he might as well prepare to die.
The next day, Kakashi—who had been up all night worrying—went with Sakura and the others to fill out the ninja registration forms, dark circles under his eyes. Starting today, Sakura and her team officially became Genin of Konoha.
"Grandpa Third, you called for us!"
They hadn't even got the photo developed yet when the Third called Sakura and her team into the Hokage Office.
"Umm…Sakura, regarding that Kekkei Genkai ability you used yesterday…"
After hesitating over how to phrase it, he still couldn't find appropriate words. Kekkei Genkai were always kept strictly secret by each clan. Even if someone wanted to research them, they would only do so secretly. Straight-up inquiries about these closely guarded secrets never happened.
"Oh, Grandpa Third, there's no need to think too much about it! The ability I displayed yesterday—the switching between different Kekkei Genkai—is something usable exclusively by me. Others won't be able to copy it!" Sakura immediately understood what the Third was thinking. If everyone could freely combine chakra natures like she did, then Konoha would practically be unstoppable. Put a couple of compatible ninjas together and boom—you'd instantly gain multiple Kekkei Genkai.
"Truly no way at all?" The Third felt disappointed. Seeing an opportunity to strengthen Konoha's power yet being unable to use it left him feeling extremely uneasy—like having his heart scratched constantly by a cat's paw.
"Nope. It's because I can fully control chakra and mix it in perfect proportions that I'm able to create new Kekkei Genkai. For others to reach such mastery is practically impossible!"
Shaking her head, Sakura added mentally that without the Power Stone, she wouldn't be capable of such precise chakra manipulation either. Of course, besides this fusion issue, another fatal problem existed.
"Plus, the chakra I used to synthesize my artificial Kekkei Genkai was actually mixed with Naruto's and Sasuke's chakra. Forget about the difficulty of controlling someone else's chakra, just altering its donor-recipient state—connecting your own chakra with another person's—is already something very few people can achieve."
Throughout the entire history of the shinobi world, besides Naruto changing the donor-recipient relationship with Nine-Tails' chakra during the Fourth Great Ninja War to distribute tailed beast chakra among Allied Ninja Forces, only two other instances had ever occurred: one was when the Sage of Six Paths loaned chakra from everyone to Asura during his duel against Indra, and another was when Sakura connected her Strength of a Hundred Technique to Obito in order to save Sasuke. Other than those three times, almost no one else had ever demonstrated the capability of sharing chakra.
"I see…that's indeed unfortunate," the Third muttered with a sigh, puffing moodily on his pipe. A glimmer of hope had just shown itself…only to disappear like smoke in the wind.
"That reminds me, Sakura—just what exactly was that Wood Release technique you used?" Suddenly remembering Sakura's usage of Wood Release earlier, the elderly Hokage asked, clearly fascinated.
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