After Chiba Shun laid the groundwork for White Fang's downfall, Yugito had wanted to seek him out immediately. Her mother had stopped her.
In her mother's eyes, Chiba Shun was far too calculating. A man like that was dangerous, especially for a child like Yugito. Worse, Yugito was already viewed as a possible future jinchuriki candidate. If she got too close to someone like Chiba Shun and wound up being influenced by him, who knew what kind of trouble would follow?
Because of that, Yugito had never once stepped into the Ninja Academy.
Today, however, her mother happened to be away, and Yugito had quietly slipped in on her own.
In Yugito's eyes, Chiba Shun was someone special.
He had gone to Konoha, and not long afterward, Konoha's White Fang had died. Yugito had already asked around about the man called White Fang. She knew he was the terrifying villain who had killed her father, a monster so strong that even speaking of him made people lower their voices.
She did not understand the details of Chiba Shun's trip to Konoha. She was too young to grasp the schemes hidden inside such matters. But that did not stop her from admiring him.
Chiba Shun glanced around, instinctively searching for hidden ANBU.
He did not find a single one.
Whether they truly were alone, or whether the hidden guards were simply too skilled for him to detect, he could not tell.
After thinking for a moment, he said, "The village already has plans for your future. I don't think I can officially take you as a disciple."
"But I can still guide your training. If you have questions, you can come ask me. Or you can simply join the Ninja Academy."
He looked at the explosive tags in her hand and added, "Put those away. I'm a teacher here. Guiding the younger generation of the village and helping them inherit the Will of Lightning is part of my duty."
Yugito tilted her head and thought about it seriously.
If she joined the Ninja Academy, then coming to see Chiba Shun would be much easier.
So she nodded at once.
After putting the explosive tags away, she asked, "Then how do I enroll in the Ninja Academy?"
Chiba Shun said, "You don't need to do anything complicated. Just start coming to class. You live nearby anyway. I'll let the teachers know."
Yugito nodded again. She had no idea what the proper procedures were in the first place.
Just when Chiba Shun thought he had successfully sent her on her way, Yugito suddenly asked another question.
"Shun-sensei, I want to learn Fire Release. But my mom said I first have to master Fire Release chakra nature transformation."
"What exactly is Fire Release chakra nature transformation?"
Chiba Shun froze.
This little girl was already learning ninjutsu?
He carefully sensed the aura inside her body again.
Sure enough, Yugito's chakra was astonishingly abundant. She had far more than Ayana or Shosuke, and vastly more than Hayato. Judging from chakra reserves alone, five-year-old Yugito had already reached the standard of an ordinary genin.
But even so, starting ninjutsu training this early was still outrageous.
After a moment of thought, Chiba Shun decided to explain a little. "Sit down," he said. "Let's talk about it slowly."
As he spoke, he used Earth Release to raise two small stools from the ground.
Yugito sat down obediently on one of them.
Chiba Shun took the other and said in an even tone, "There are some things I haven't taught the students at the Ninja Academy yet."
"But you're different. You're a genius. So you can hear some of this in advance."
The moment she heard that, Yugito's eyes lit up. She instinctively straightened her back. It felt as if what Chiba Shun was about to say was something truly important.
Chiba Shun began, "Let's first talk about what chakra actually is."
Yugito immediately raised her hand and blurted out, "I know! Chakra is made by combining physical energy and spiritual energy. My mom already told me that!"
Chiba Shun nodded first, then shook his head.
"What you just said is the method of refining chakra. Through that method, you gain chakra. But that still doesn't answer the deeper questions."
He leaned forward slightly.
"What is chakra, really? What can it do? What is its essence?"
Yugito stared blankly at him.
She had never thought that far.
Chiba Shun smiled faintly. "It's fine if you don't understand yet. You're still young. You have plenty of time."
Then he continued, "Chakra is something extraordinary. In a sense, chakra can do anything."
"It can be used for the five elemental transformations. It can be used for Yin Release, Yang Release, and all sorts of special techniques."
"So why is it that different people's chakra seems to excel in different directions?"
Yugito was even more confused now. No one had ever explained chakra to her this way.
Chiba Shun said, "I have my own theory. I believe chakra is originally all-encompassing. It already contains all kinds of attributes."
"What we call nature transformation isn't about changing chakra into something completely new. It's about drawing out one of the abilities chakra already possesses and making that aspect appear more clearly."
He raised one finger.
"Take Fire Release, for example. Chakra already contains a fire aspect. What you're doing isn't turning chakra into fire from nothing. You're making the fire nature hidden inside it reveal itself."
Kumogakure did not possess any complete theoretical system for Fire Release cultivation.
If a Cloud ninja wanted to learn fire-style techniques, they mostly had to feel their way forward on their own.
Chiba Shun's own secondary affinity was fire, but because the village lacked truly worthwhile high-level Fire Release techniques, he had never invested the time into developing it. His cultivation schedule had always been too packed. There was no room for luxuries.
Still, he had thought about the problem before.
Just as he was about to start explaining his specific ideas on fire-nature transformation, Yugito suddenly sprang up from her stool.
Then, under Chiba Shun's stunned gaze, she rapidly formed more than ten hand seals.
A tiny red fireball burst from her mouth and shot to the side.
Chiba Shun stared at it in silence.
He had not even finished speaking. He had barely gotten to the concept, and she had already understood?
Yugito looked down at her own hands in disbelief, then turned to him with her whole face glowing.
"Shun-sensei, you're amazing!"
"My mom found several elite jonin to guide me before, but I couldn't understand anything they said. You only explained it once, and I got it right away!"
Chiba Shun fell quiet.
What did I even say? he thought. I haven't gotten to the practical method yet.
Then another thought surfaced.
Wasn't Yugito's Fire Release supposed to become blue in the future?
He suppressed that thought. There was no point dwelling on it now.
"Fine," he said at last. "Then you've already grasped the basics of fire-nature transformation."
He paused, then added, "But I still haven't finished. Do you want to keep listening?"
Yugito blinked. "You're not done yet?"
Chiba Shun nodded.
So she sat back down again, more serious than before.
Chiba Shun organized his thoughts. Since she had already grasped the fire aspect, there was no need to explain the practical side of that anymore.
So he moved on.
"We've talked about chakra's uses," he said. "But not yet about its essence."
"In my opinion, the essence of chakra is the imprint of life itself."
Yugito looked completely lost.
An imprint of life? What was that supposed to mean?
Chiba Shun smiled again. "It's normal not to understand. You'll understand later."
"Every living being is different. That difference is reflected in chakra too."
"So if, in the future, you encounter some unusual life-form with very strange chakra, don't be too surprised. It may simply be because its chakra is fundamentally different from ours."
Yugito nodded in a dazed, half-understanding way.
After that, Chiba Shun took Yugito into the Ninja Academy proper and personally told a teacher to keep an eye on her.
Since Yugito was clearly exceptional, he arranged for her to join a class of children one year older than she was.
Beginning the next day, Yugito started attending classes at the Ninja Academy by herself.
From beginning to end, no one came forward to stop Chiba Shun.
And after Yugito's mother learned that Chiba Shun had guided her daughter to complete fire-nature transformation, she stopped opposing Yugito's contact with him.
Once Yugito left, Chiba Shun stood alone in the training ground for a while, deep in thought.
Then, following the instructions from one of the scrolls he had obtained from Danzo, he formed seventeen hand seals.
He opened his mouth and spat.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
His first attempt naturally failed.
Fire was not his primary affinity. Successfully using it was never going to be easy on the first try.
But Chiba Shun did not get discouraged. He continued repeating the hand seals and forcing himself through the process, over and over again.
A short while later-
Boom.
A fireball roughly one meter across burst out at last.
Chiba Shun smiled in satisfaction.
He had not expected that being stimulated by Yugito's sudden breakthrough would allow him to complete his own fire transformation so easily.
Still, he did not continue practicing Fire Release after that. Instead, he returned to his regular schedule, focusing on genjutsu and sensory ninjutsu.
After that day, no one interrupted his training again.
Although he still had not mastered the A-rank illusion technique, his cultivation of B-rank and C-rank genjutsu had been quite effective. Both his hand-seal count and his overall proficiency were steadily improving.
His progress in sensory ninjutsu, however, remained far less impressive.
In the end, it was still only a B-rank sensory technique. No matter how diligently he trained it, he could not change the fact that the base level of the technique was too low.
And with his current ability, he had no way to create a more advanced sensory ninjutsu from scratch.
So Chiba Shun went to find Uzumaki Maki at the hospital.
Maki's talent in medical ninjutsu was indeed exceptional-or rather, her talent in Yang Release was exceptional.
She had already more or less mastered every medical technique currently possessed by Kumogakure.
Her theoretical foundation was still somewhat lacking, which meant she was not yet the strongest medic in the village in terms of refined skill. But inside the hospital, she was already extraordinarily popular.
The reason was simple.
Her chakra reserves were absurd.
Most medics would be exhausted after treating a handful of people. Maki could remain on duty all day without slowing down.
Because of that outstanding natural talent, the hospital had already started giving her special training.
When Chiba Shun found her, she had just finished treating a patient.
Uzumaki Maki, still showing no sign of fatigue, followed him out of the hospital and asked curiously, "Why did you come to me to study sensory ninjutsu?"
"I've never learned sensory ninjutsu."
Chiba Shun said, "You may not have studied it before, but your talent in this area is very high."
Maki frowned. "And how would you know that?"
Chiba Shun answered with a straight face, "I discovered it on our return journey from the Land of Grass."
Maki thought back carefully but still couldn't remember doing anything that would reveal such talent.
Chiba Shun did not give her time to dwell on it. He directly took out the second-stage sensory ninjutsu scroll he had exchanged for her.
That was right-he had spent another hundred thousand ryo at the mission office to obtain it, explicitly stating that the exchange was for Uzumaki Maki.
Maki tried the method recorded in the scroll.
To her surprise, she found it astonishingly easy.
Over the next few days, she quickly mastered the technique.
And what shocked Chiba Shun even more was the range.
His own sensory perception could only extend three hundred to five hundred meters at best.
Maki's range exceeded three thousand meters.
Chiba Shun estimated that this had already reached the threshold of an A-rank sensory technique.
In other words, through sheer talent, Uzumaki Maki had raised the effects of an ordinary B-rank sensory ninjutsu to an entirely different level.
Once she had fully grasped it, Chiba Shun began explaining the bottlenecks and difficulties he had encountered in his own sensory training.
Fortunately, Maki was not an idiot like Naruto.
She was clever, quick, and able to grasp the implications of his questions. Although she could not answer everything with perfect precision, she still managed to point him toward the right direction often enough to be genuinely useful.