Time flowed on, and a month passed quietly. Konoha's 51st year was about to come to an end.
The northern climate in mid-December was cold, and the land was covered in silver, with little trace of vibrant color to be seen.
Even the shinobi, whose bodies had always been resistant to the cold, had one after another put on thick, specially made hooded cloaks.
The shinobi world's warm winters, which had lasted for several years, had come to an end, and temperatures had plunged sharply. According to older shinobi with experience, the next few years would all be winters like this. At its coldest, even though Konoha was located relatively far south, heavy snow would still fall in winter.
This world was very strange. Besides the normal cycle of the four seasons, it also had slight traits of long nights and long summers, practically a bargain-bin version of the continent of Westeros.
The good news was that it was only a bargain-bin version. There were no White Walkers in the north, no Night King, and no god of cold in the sky.
The bad news was that there really were White Zetsu underground in the north, and the Rabbit Goddess who created them was still imprisoned on the moon. Right now, she only wanted to slip out of prison and mow down all humanity in one sweep.
None of these gods really regarded humans as much of anything.
Fortunately, there were still sixteen or seventeen years left before the goddess descended. Makoto had not yet decided whether he should stop it ahead of time, because everything was still changing, including the rapid changes in his own strength.
Because of his appearance, this world had already begun to become completely unrecognizable.
Everything had to be taken one step at a time, adapting to circumstances as they came.
After the intelligence-gathering mission on Kumogakure was completed that day, Nara Suzaku contacted Konoha's higher-ups and explained the situation. In the end, it was decided that Hayate and the other two would go back and continue their work in the Shadow Guard, while Makoto himself would remain stationed on the northern front.
There was no large-scale war at present, so Konoha was not short on manpower for the time being. There was no need for young shinobi like Yūgao to stay behind; returning to the village to study under the Fourth Hokage was the correct decision.
The higher-ups naturally knew that Minato was teaching the Flying Thunder God Technique to the Shadow Guard platoon. With Makoto's successful example already there, they also hoped to have a few more flashes of different colors on their side.
This ninjutsu was basically like scratching lottery tickets. Right now, Minato and Makoto were already the grand prizes that had been won. Although the odds for the others were not high, what if one of them hit it big?
As for Makoto, those old men in the upper ranks did not think his age and experience qualified him to serve as the decision-making commander of one front, but they absolutely trusted his strength, so he was just right to be stationed in the north to stabilize morale.
Hiruzen truly did not want to go looking for those three troublesome disciples of his. Every single one of them gave him a headache.
...
In the northern part of the Land of Hot Water, the continuous heavy snow finally stopped after falling for a full week.
That morning, the warm sun shone brightly. It had been clear and sunny these past few days, but the temperatures in the mornings and evenings had dropped instead of rising.
It is colder when the snow melts than when it snows; no world can escape that rule.
In a forest far from the Konoha camp, Makoto was quietly training. Most of the time, nothing much happened on the front lines, so immersing himself in training had become part of his daily routine.
The path he walked was just a tiny bit different from that of ordinary shinobi, but it still followed the three-system framework he had summarized early on.
The first system was the core white natural energy training. This was the foundation that allowed him to keep growing stronger without relying on the growth cheat of a traditional bloodline.
But ever since the night of the Nine-Tails incident, after entering the third-stage constant Sage Mode, he no longer needed to train it deliberately. Absorbing white natural energy had shifted from active to passive.
In other words, the current Makoto was absorbing white natural energy at every moment. And if he entered that special state of the consciousness body, the rate of absorption would become even faster.
If he could go a step further, he was very much looking forward to seeing what the fourth stage would be like.
The second system was chakra control training. Ever since entering constant Sage Mode, as his body grew stronger day by day, and as he removed the chakra containing foreign will, his control training had also begun to improve passively.
He himself had temporarily divided this training into three stages as well.
For ordinary shinobi, the chakra they refine contains equal parts physical energy and spiritual energy, with yin and yang in balance. That is the first stage.
Changing the fusion ratio of those two energies within one's chakra and pushing it toward either yin or yang is the second stage, namely the training of yin and yang attributes. If an ordinary shinobi does not train in medical ninjutsu, genjutsu, or special secret techniques, they generally will never enter this stage.
Even if civilian shinobi do train in it, there will still be an inborn limit blocking their way.
As for shinobi with bloodline talent or clans that inherit secret techniques, they are born in this stage, and their limits are higher than those of civilian shinobi.
Once that limit is exceeded, one's strength enters a new domain. But the price of yin-yang imbalance is damage to one's own body, along with the risk of a bloodline disease breaking out.
Makoto did not need to worry about that. He had white natural energy supporting him, and his body had already entered constant Sage Mode. His chakra control training was also advancing on both the yin and yang ends at the same time, so there would be no imbalance.
At present, he had already begun pushing the ratio toward the utmost ends of both extremes. Once he reached that point, he would enter the third stage: the extremity of yin and yang attributes, stepping into the domain of Yin-Yang Release that ordinary shinobi could never touch.
The third system was naturally the training of shape transformation and nature transformation for the five chakra attributes.
Shape transformation was relatively simple. With his current precision in chakra control, shape transformation no longer posed any difficulty at all; he could mold it as he pleased.
What he had been researching deeply all along was nature transformation.
What he was most familiar with were naturally the three innate attributes he had from birth: wind, water, and earth. Among them, his understanding of wind had reached the deepest level, with water and earth coming next. As for fire and lightning, for now he was still only at the level of an ordinary shinobi, merely able to cast ninjutsu without wasting chakra.
As for composite kekkei genkai, including the Ice Release he had already mastered and the Wood Release he was currently researching, all of them served the purpose of mastering chakra nature transformation.
In the future, he might even try to develop Iwagakure's kekkei tōta, Dust Release, or create new fused bloodlines.
But all of that training existed only to help him gain a deeper grasp of chakra's nature. He would not use it often in battle, since it did not really fit the fighting style he had already grown accustomed to.
By now, he had already established that the core of his training lay in the first and second systems.
As for the third system? Ordinary ninjutsu or bloodline ninjutsu might look cool, but aside from looking cool, what could they really do?
Before Yin-Yang Release, all chakra-based ninjutsu were nothing but chickens and dogs made of mud and tile.
Except for all-powerful sealing techniques. Praise Uzumaki Kushina.
Based on his own unique traits, and combined with the sealing knowledge that already existed in the shinobi world, he would continue walking the path of developing his own unique sealing system.
If one day he ran into something beyond all normal standards, and I can't beat you, I can still seal you.
...
In the forest, Makoto flew through it as freely as a bird.
He was not dressed very heavily, yet the cold wind rushing straight at him seemed to have no effect on him at all.
What a joke. Makoto could use Ice Release. His cold resistance was several levels higher than that of other shinobi. What was a mere temperature of less than ten degrees below zero?
Just look at that little pretty boy from the Yuki Clan named Haku. Before awakening Ice Release, he wore just a single outfit in the dead of winter. After awakening Ice Release and giving his dear old father and the villagers a round of ice-filled sorrow, he wandered barefoot in the middle of winter for so long wearing only two tattered pieces of clothing. Aside from going hungry, absolutely nothing happened to him. His cold resistance had been maxed out on the spot.
Makoto was much stronger than that little pretty boy. If he went back to his previous life now, he could run naked to Antarctica and discuss Patreon tiers with penguins.
Among his own innate wind, water, and earth attributes, what Makoto had studied most deeply was the flowing nature of wind.
Ever since entering constant Sage Mode and removing the foreign-will chakra from his body, his control over chakra had advanced another step.
Especially when it came to the flowing nature of wind.
After this period of training, the Wind Release flight ninjutsu he had developed had finally, after Lightness Technique and Levitation Technique, successfully entered its third stage: Wind Release: Dancing Sky Technique.
At this moment, his whole body seemed to merge into the wind. He could go wherever he wanted, accelerate or stop exactly as he pleased, and controlling his own flight felt as though it had become an instinct.
Compared to the previous Levitation Technique, which had only barely allowed flight, Dancing Sky Technique not only reined in wind-attribute chakra to an extreme degree, causing very little disturbance around him, but also did not consume much chakra.
From now on, he too could drift around all day like that old bastard Ōnoki, the Tsuchikage.
If his current state were to be summed up using a concept that people of the shinobi world could understand, then it should be a kind of Wind Release Chakra Mode, just like the Lightning Release Chakra Mode of the Raikage of Kumogakure.
Right now, he, Makoto, was the greatest master of Wind Release in the entire shinobi world. If anyone disagreed, then please, let them fly and show him.
...
Only a few days after the young lord of the Land of Hot Water was attacked, the old daimyō finally kicked the bucket in bitterness and went to report to the Pure Land.
Even at the moment of death, he had failed to wait for news of the Jashin Cult's successful immortal body. His dream of eternal life ultimately came to nothing, leaving behind a bunch of lunatics to keep tormenting the common people of his country.
The young lord, Genko, inherited the position of daimyō of the Land of Hot Water while dragging along his weakened body.
On the very day he became daimyō, he ran to the prison and viciously tortured his own younger brother. Genshin, now already crippled, did not receive release. His dear elder brother did not choose to kill him, but instead made him continue living a life worse than death.
His Lordship the Daimyō hated Kumogakure, which had nearly killed him, with a passion, and along with that, he also lost trust in Yugakure, his own country's hidden village.
While expressing to Konoha through correspondence that he would maintain their allied relationship, the daimyō also issued a fixed commission, hiring several teams of Konoha shinobi on a long-term basis to protect his safety.
Because Konoha had saved his life, he had an almost baffling degree of trust in Konoha's shinobi.
As for this, the leader of Yugakure, Senzō, and all of its shinobi were extremely embarrassed. By the end of it all, they had managed to become people who belonged nowhere, inside or out.
After Kumogakure's attempt to win over the Land of Hot Water failed, they did not withdraw. Instead, they remained at the border and continued their daily friction with Konoha shinobi.
Shinobi from both sides stayed active in the northern part of the Land of Hot Water. There was no major war, but small-scale clashes kept breaking out from time to time.
Until they had probed out the truth of Konoha's situation, they would not withdraw their troops. They looked every bit like they intended to drag their opponent down through attrition.
As for the Land of Hot Water, they simply did not take it seriously at all. If you have the guts, then bite us.
The weak Land of Hot Water had no way to deal with the savage Kumogakure.
But Konoha did. They really would take a fierce bite out of those black-skinned barbarians.
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