"Sasuke!"
At the Uchiha clan compound, inside Sasuke's home,
Mikoto and Sasuke had been eating breakfast together when they both felt the temperature around them begin to rise. Then, seeing the blinding light outside, mother and son stepped out of the house at the same time.
The moment they saw the sun hanging overhead—and the figure standing at its center—Mikoto suddenly spoke.
"What is it, Mother?"
Sasuke was still too stunned by the sight of Uchiha Chizumi turning into a literal sun. It took him a couple of seconds to come back to himself after hearing his mother's voice.
"Promise me. Learn justice properly, and absolutely, absolutely do not let yourself develop any extreme ideas, all right?"
Mikoto barely looked at the blazing sun in the sky. Instead, she turned to Sasuke and spoke to him one word at a time, deadly serious.
"I understand…"
By now, Sasuke had realized what she meant. Mikoto was clearly afraid that he might end up going down the same crooked path as his father and his brother, and be executed by justice too.
Honestly, anyone would panic a little with a sun hanging over their head, radiating terrifying heat and blazing light without restraint.
"But Mother, what kind of power is this?"
"Is it a new bloodline limit from Chizumi-sensei, or is it some kind of Fire Release unique to our Uchiha clan?"
After giving her his promise, Sasuke voiced the question on his mind.
And he wasn't the only one. There were probably plenty of people all across Konoha wondering the exact same thing.
For example, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Tsunade, who had been in the middle of discussing Hokage matters. They had only just finished being shocked by Hinata's sudden outburst of Tenseigan chakra—only to have their attention snatched away an instant later by whatever Uchiha Chizumi was doing now.
"Is that the power of a bloodline limit?"
"No… a normal bloodline limit shouldn't be able to do something like this. Or… could it be a kekkei tōta?"
Hiruzen was, after all, the Professor. His understanding of the five chakra natures had reached the highest possible level. The only thing he lacked was the exact chakra ratios needed for specific bloodline limits. Otherwise, he might well have become the source of a kekkei genkai for the Sarutobi clan himself.
"A kekkei tōta?"
"If I remember right, the Tsuchikage of Iwagakure, Onoki, uses a kekkei tōta called Dust Release, doesn't he?"
"And when Granduncle Tobirama was researching Grandpa Hashirama's Wood Release, didn't he say Wood Release shouldn't really count as a normal bloodline limit at all, but more like a kekkei tōta—something that required Yang Release in addition to Water and Earth?"
"You're saying Uchiha Chizumi has developed another kekkei tōta?"
Watching the sun climb higher and higher, high enough to light not only all of Konoha but even the land for hundreds of miles around it, Tsunade couldn't help voicing her doubt.
"Lord Second said Wood Release was the fusion of three chakra natures?"
Hiruzen completely ignored Tsunade's question and instead stared at her in disbelief.
He had once tacitly allowed Danzō and Orochimaru to research Wood Release. To do it, they had nearly exhausted every possible combination of Water and Earth chakra. And now Tsunade was telling him that Wood Release was actually the fusion of three chakra types?
But that didn't make sense either.
Hiruzen clearly remembered that Orochimaru and Danzō had successfully produced one test subject—Yamato.
"So Yamato's Wood Release lacked the power of the First Hokage because it was missing Yang Release?"
Hiruzen began thinking it through.
He wanted to be angry with Tsunade for hiding something this important, but then he remembered how he had once silently permitted Orochimaru and Danzō to experiment on the First Hokage's remains, and the words died in his throat.
Maybe Tsunade had already decided to protect the secret of Wood Release back when she first learned it.
And now, with Orochimaru and Danzō both already reunited in the Pure Land, and with his own time as Hokage coming to an end, even if she told him these secrets now, there wasn't really anything he could do with them.
"If this really is a new kekkei tōta, then Chizumi's powers finally make sense."
"I've suspected for a long time that there was something strange about the way Chizumi gained Wood Release. At first I thought he must have implanted the First Hokage's cells, but the power of his Wood Release is practically on par with the First himself."
"But if Chizumi actually recreated Wood Release on his own through chakra nature transformation, then that would finally explain it."
Hiruzen let out a sigh.
The fact that Uchiha Chizumi possessed Wood Release was no secret in the shinobi world. What nobody understood was how he had gotten it.
But after today, once this news spread, the entire shinobi world would probably realize that Uchiha Chizumi's strength had come entirely from himself.
"Come to think of it, I never asked you—Chizumi shouldn't originally have had Lava Release, right?"
"The Uchiha and Senju fought each other for a thousand years, and there's never been any record in the Senju archives of an Uchiha ever possessing Lava Release. So his Lava Release should also be something he created himself."
Tsunade, for her part, wasn't especially shocked that Uchiha Chizumi had created a new kekkei tōta. After reviewing the Senju clan's records, she had already started leaning toward the idea that Chizumi simply had an extraordinary talent for fusing bloodline limits, and that he had stumbled into recreating Wood Release that way.
What he was doing now only deepened that suspicion.
"A new kekkei tōta…"
"Chizumi's Lava Release was already terrifyingly strong before. Add in the Uchiha clan's Mangekyō Sharingan. Now on top of that, this new kekkei tōta of his—and Wood Release too."
"Chizumi may truly have surpassed all the Hokage who came before him."
Looking up at the figure in the sky that resembled a sun god, Hiruzen couldn't help letting out a long sigh.
He too had once been praised as the Professor of Ninjutsu. So why was it that he had never managed to develop a kekkei tōta like this?
And over at the Ninja Academy, Fukasaku and Shima were in no better shape than Jiraiya. Even with how long the two toad sages had lived, this was still a kind of power they had never seen before.
The shinobi world already had no shortage of strange and terrifying powers, sure—but wasn't a power that let someone turn into the sun a little too much?
That level of heat, and the constant eruptions happening inside it, almost made people want to kneel and worship it.
"So… how about we stop looking for the Child of Prophecy?"
"Honestly, if Uchiha Chizumi wants to, I feel like he could probably bring peace to the shinobi world by himself."
Looking at Fukasaku and Shima on his shoulders, Jiraiya couldn't help quietly trying to persuade them.
There was no deeper reason.
He had simply been scared half to death by the sun in the sky.
He could feel it—if that sun did nothing but remain suspended overhead, it could slowly turn the entire Land of Fire into a desert.
And if Uchiha Chizumi actually brought it down…