"Because..."
Fū hesitated for a moment beneath everyone's expectant, curious gazes before finally making up her mind.
Everyone here was one of their own.
It was not as though admitting the truth would be the end of the world.
"Back when I was still in Takigakure, I was on my way to meet a friend when, all of a sudden, that... happened.
"It had never happened to me before. When I saw how much blood there was, I thought I was dying, so I tried to stop it with my hand... And then... then... then..."
Fū repeated "then" several times without ever actually reaching the end of the story.
But she had already said enough.
There was no need to finish. Everyone exchanged knowing looks and faint, awkward smiles.
Basically, one innocent, panicked mistake during a 'biological milestone' had led her down a road from which there was no return.
As luck would have it, Naruto's degenerate Sage Mode shortcut required that exact, highly specific skill.
Fū had already practiced enough over the years that she mastered the shortcut almost instantly.
"..."
Makoto was utterly speechless too.
Fū was a jinchūriki with a cheerful, innocent personality who loved making friends.
She was practically the female version of Naruto!
What Makoto had not expected was that, just as Naruto had somehow discovered his own shameless solo hobby without anyone teaching him, Fū had also figured out her own private extracurriculars without needing a beginner's guide.
"Whatever. If you've mastered it, then you've mastered it." Makoto waved dismissively, ready to drop the subject.
"No! I still want to train properly with everyone else!" Fū's face was burning bright red, but she stubbornly raised her head.
Clearly, she did not possess Naruto's complete and utter lack of shame.
With the enormous chakra reserves of a jinchūriki, she could easily use the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique and follow Naruto's original quantity-over-quality approach to enter the proper tranquil state quickly.
But she would still have to perform the physical "shortcut" on the spot to make it work.
Even if she found somewhere private to hide first, it was simply too humiliating.
Fū only used the shortcut because she had yet to master Baryon Mode.
She desperately wanted enough strength to protect the friends she cared about, so she chose to improve her combat power as quickly as possible.
No one knew when the enemy might appear.
Her original plan had been to master senjutsu through the shortcut first, then gradually retrain herself to enter Sage Mode normally.
"Fine. Do whatever you like. You can retrain yourself using the proper method or go back to working on Baryon Mode. It's entirely up to you."
Makoto did not pursue the embarrassing subject any further. Instead, he turned to address the rest of the group.
"Since everyone is here, I might as well explain something. Naruto's method isn't the only way to obtain senjutsu."
Makoto broke down the current landscape of Sage Mode development:
The Cheating & Technological Methods (Makoto & Orochimaru): These ranked first and second in terms of cost-effectiveness.
They provided massive power and immediate results with minimal training.
However, they were strictly "limited editions."
They could technically be mass-produced, but every single copy had to be personally handcrafted.
Makoto had to forge each stone himself, while Orochimaru had to personally execute the genetic modifications.
The Shortcut Method (Naruto): This method ranked lower in overall efficiency, but it had one enormous, world-changing advantage—infinite scalability.
One person could teach ten, those ten could teach a hundred, and there were no logistical restrictions on how fast it could spread.
"Fū had exceptional natural talent and already possessed the necessary... experience," Makoto continued, clearing his throat.
"She was probably also desperate to gain enough power to protect others, which led her down the wrong path. But under normal circumstances, whether you use one of my Keystones, Orochimaru's genetic modification, or Naruto's shortcut, the overall payoff is about the same."
The group continued chatting afterward.
Uchiha Hikari's team had already begun constructing a virtual-reality game capable of passively absorbing chakra from the entire shinobi world.
At present, the ambitious project still faced several massive logistical difficulties.
After all, the original version of that VR game only appeared during the Boruto era, when the necessary modern technology already existed.
Civilians owned computers, video games were a widespread cultural norm, and someone with malicious intentions simply exploited the existing digital infrastructure.
Right now, nearly all of the shinobi world's most advanced technology was heavily concentrated in Amegakure.
Konoha had shown clunky devices resembling computers even during the original Shippuden era, but those archaic machines could not compare to proper personal desktops.
In other words, before Hikari's team could complete the game, they first needed to solve a massive physical hardware bottleneck.
Fortunately, technological development in the shinobi world lacked true boundaries.
During peacetime, once a genius had the right inspiration, breakthroughs could happen almost overnight.
It was not an insurmountable obstacle.
Makoto was also relatively free at the moment.
They had entered a calm period focused mainly on infrastructure and preparation.
The only reason he was considering taking immediate action now was to stop the degenerate trend Naruto started from sweeping across the entire globe.
Otherwise, Kaguya—who had once willingly sacrificed an arm and returned to her seal for Makoto—might eventually emerge and discover that everyone in the shinobi world had become a shameless degenerate.
At that point, she might reasonably conclude that completely destroying the planet was the better, more hygienic option.
It was just like in the original timeline, when Naruto boldly used the Reverse Harem Jutsu against her and then declared with absolute, righteous conviction: "This is the history of shinobi!"
After hearing that, Kaguya probably lost the very last trace of affection she still held for humanity.
A world that depraved truly was better off destroyed!
...
Several days later, in Kumogakure.
Motoi finally mastered Sage Mode and stumbled back into the village with massive dark circles beneath his eyes, looking as though his body had been completely and utterly drained.
Well... perhaps "looking as though" was unnecessary.
The Raikage was delighted and immediately decided to make a grand public announcement to the entire village.
He openly revealed that Konoha had come to share a highly classified Sage Mode training method, and that Kumogakure would gradually begin training its elite forces under Motoi's direct guidance.
If they wanted the method to spread efficiently, this public announcement was unavoidable.
Rather than wait until the public discovered the bizarre training practices and then scramble to explain the situation afterward, it was much better to control the narrative from the very beginning.
The Raikage also invited Kakashi onto the stage to give a long, diplomatic, and mostly meaningless speech, officially proving that representatives from Konoha had genuinely come to Kumogakure in good faith.
Afterward, the Raikage thought for a moment and decided to add another passionate speech aimed at publicly easing relations with Iwagakure.
Part of the reason was to corner Kakashi and ensure he could not change his mind about visiting Iwagakure next.
The other part was that the Raikage genuinely wanted to contribute to long-term peace in the shinobi world.
The Third Raikage had been killed by an army of Iwagakure shinobi, making the village directly responsible for the death of the Fourth Raikage's father.
But that did not mean the Fourth Raikage was the only person in Kumogakure who harbored deep hatred for Iwagakure.
When two ninja villages fought, countless people died on both sides.
The bloody chains of hatred between them had long since become tangled beyond recognition.
More importantly, Kumogakure and Iwagakure had both adopted heavy structural reforms based on the system Makoto introduced in Amegakure.
The resources they could mobilize were no longer limited to their individual, isolated ninja villages.
They now drew upon the massive economic and industrial strength of their entire respective countries.
Even setting aside the existential threat of the alien Ōtsutsuki, any future war under these new conditions would be exponentially larger and more devastating than before.
It was the exact same progression that began when Senju Hashirama established the hidden-village system.
Wars that once took place between small mercenary clans evolved into catastrophic wars between entire ninja villages.
With every step forward, the scale of destruction only grew larger.
Stepping up to the podium, the Raikage's booming voice echoed across the massive crowd:
"People of Kumogakure! I know all of you are proud sons and daughters who love this village and the Land of Lightning! But I want you to understand one vital truth today—Patriotism is not measured by how fiercely you hate foreigners. It is measured by how deeply you love your own people!"
After delivering his final, resounding line, the Raikage raised his right fist high into the air.
Thunderous, deafening applause immediately erupted from the massive crowd below.
Naruto was crouching on a nearby rooftop, secretly watching the entire spectacle play out.
The sight of one single person calling out and receiving the roaring support of an entire village filled his heart with intense envy and admiration.
He couldn't help but begin imagining the day when he, too, would finally stand upon a high platform in Konoha and deliver a magnificent speech of his own as Hokage!