Chapter 18: No Chakra? Then Cultivate Natural Energy
"By the way, does the Land of Waves have a daimyo?"
Shiromo suddenly thought of a question.
However, Tazuna had already gone to take care of important business, so Shiromo simply asked one of the villagers Tazuna had left behind to greet them.
"It seems like there used to be one," the older villager recalled.
"So you mean there isn't one now?"
"No."
"That saves a lot of trouble."
Shiromo had just been thinking that if the Land of Waves had a daimyo, this utterly useless piece of trash would have to be dealt with before they could go to the Land of Water.
It turned out the Land of Waves didn't have a daimyo at all.
No wonder Gato, a mere yakuza businessman, could practically control the lifeline of the entire country.
It's not surprising that a small country could lose its daimyo.
For example, Orochimaru's Otogakure, the Land of Rice Fields, is also a small country. Orochimaru later faced a rather humorous accusation: "Bribing the daimyo of the Land of Rice Fields to establish the Sound Village, and then seizing control of the Land of Rice Fields."
The charge of "bribing the daimyo" highlights just how lowly and pathetic the daimyo of the Land of Rice Fields was.
---
Two days later.
Shiromo and his group arrived at the Land of Water by boat.
"Kirigakure, Kirigakure… I thought this was Pandaria, shrouded in thick fog. This environment is quite nice, sunshine, beaches, sea breeze, it would be a perfect tourist destination in peacetime."
Shiromo stretched after disembarking.
Of course, he was joking. Who would dare come to Kirigakure for tourism now? One might be mistaken for a spy and killed by some Blood Mist ninja.
Even in the Boruto era, Kirigakure was only settled after Terumi Mei and Chōjūrō spent over a decade eliminating the troublemaking Blood Mist elders.
"Hmm? What a coincidence."
Shiromo suddenly looked toward the distant woods.
At that moment, Itachi, Kisame, and Zabuza had just disembarked from the ship.
"Are they Kirigakure ninjas?"
Itachi followed Shiromo's gaze, only noticing the movement after a while.
He became even more certain that Shiromo practiced Sage Mode, extraordinary sensory abilities confirmed.
"Yes, and they're one of our targets."
Shiromo, of course, didn't rely on sensory perception. His sensory abilities were stronger than average, but not to the level of Byakugan clairvoyance. He had only seen two minutes into the future.
That's right. Shiromo's ability to erase time had gradually grown from a few tens of seconds to two minutes. This growth was initiated by Shiromo himself, he was conducting an experiment.
First, Itachi's assumptions about Shiromo were consistently wrong. Shiromo did not possess Sage Mode.
As a transmigrator, Shiromo's transmigration was not a soul transmigration, but a physical one. Even if his body had regressed to childhood, he was still physically transmigrated.
As Shiromo previously explained to the Akatsuki members, chakra only came into being after Otsutsuki Kaguya brought the Ten-Tails God Tree. The transmigrated Shiromo did not possess chakra.
This is different from characters like Guy or Rock Lee. They simply lack ninjutsu, but they still have chakra. Even ordinary people haven't refined their chakra, but they still possess it. Shiromo truly had none.
After arriving in Konoha, Shiromo found the orphanage director, Kabuto Yakushi. He planned to have Kabuto take in some orphans from Amegakure. He also wanted Kabuto to examine his own body and see if there was any way he could train.
Shiromo trusted Kabuto, whose personality had been modified by Izanami. The modified Kabuto did not disappoint him: taking in orphans was his duty, and he immediately sent someone to fetch them.
Regarding Shiromo's physical condition, Kabuto studied it for only a day before giving him an answer.
Kabuto showed Shiromo a method for absorbing natural energy, allowing him to train without chakra. He didn't say much more.
Shiromo understood that Kabuto didn't go into detail. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. Kabuto, having undergone personality correction by Izanami, now possessed a high degree of loyalty to Konoha. Even though he was strictly forbidden from conducting experiments, he focused on his orphanage duties.
He wouldn't share discoveries readily with Shiromo, an outsider whose identity and nature were unknown. Therefore, Shiromo didn't pay much attention at the time. After obtaining the method to absorb natural energy, he began training.
In the ninja world, extracting chakra is about balancing body and mind. Sage Mode's Sage Chakra achieves a balance between body, mind, and natural energy. Through substitution, it can also be seen as a combination of one's own chakra and natural energy.
Too little natural energy prevents entry into Sage Mode. Too much natural energy leads to gradual assimilation, a fate worse than death.
Shiromo, however, had no chakra; he absorbed pure natural energy.
Furthermore, his absorption of natural energy showed no abnormalities, seemingly because he didn't need to maintain balance, the most stable state was when only one thing existed.
Why "seems"? Because Shiromo himself didn't fully understand the specifics. Currently, he thought he needed to find an opportunity to absorb Orochimaru back before he could understand his own body. Otherwise, everything remained guesswork.
For example, regarding his time-erasing ability, Shiromo guessed he had come into contact with advanced Otsutsuki techniques, thus gaining the power. But later, he discovered another variable: while gaining the ability, the natural energy stored in his body rapidly diminished, dropping by at least four-fifths.
During this period, after automatically absorbing natural energy, Shiromo attempted to inject it back into the areas of depletion. As expected, his time-erasing ability improved.
---
"Kisame, Zabuza, you two take this path. After quickly dealing with the daimyo, take a boat and leave the Land of Water immediately. Don't wait for us." Shiromo pointed in another direction.
"Understood."
"Then those people are yours."
Kisame and Zabuza left.
"We'll go help the others who came later."
After a brief silence, Shiromo suddenly spoke to Itachi.
He was aware of one of the major upheavals in Kirigakure: the Fourth Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura, being discovered to be under genjutsu control, and then freed by Ao. He hadn't expected it to happen so coincidentally, right in front of them.
On the Kirigakure side, Terumi Mei noticed Yagura acting strangely and suspected he was under genjutsu. She sent Ao, who possessed the Byakugan, to investigate secretly.
Ao used his Byakugan to observe Yagura's chakra and immediately noticed it was disordered, clear evidence that he was under a powerful genjutsu.
They then informed other Kirigakure ninjas with aligned goals, deciding to help Yagura break free.
However, since Yagura was being controlled, he naturally wouldn't simply surrender.
Thus began the great battle in Kirigakure.
(End of this chapter)