Chapter 33:Search for the Slug Princess(FIN)

After leaving the Fire temple, Kakashi and his team now headed to Tazuna Quarters.

While Sasuke and Hinata were discussing in low voices, Shino was lost in thoughts.

'Sasuke chakra was dif-..no his personality also changed...'

Out of curiosity of how 'Gift of the Hermit Group' works, Sasuke forgot to suppress his actual persona when talking with Hinata, and like he assumed previously, Shino realised the difference.

In his previous attempts for the last month, he was the least talkative and gave the impression that he talks if it's important, so Shino and Shikamaru did not think much.

After surviving an A rank mission and doing countless B and C rank missions, they thought he matured because of it where he no longer acts like a sore jerk.

However, now paying attention to his chakra in the Fire Temple and his conversation with Hinata, he actually changed by 180°!

'I expected Sakura and Naruto to change, as they were still children who needed to grow up, but Sasuke.....he was quite unexpected.'

He was someone who saw the depth of hell and was blinded with thirst for revenge.

He matured in the most cruel way, so others who understood his pain, did not take his words personally.

Even if his condition worsens after some years have passed.

But seeing the same person again after a couple of months, Shino wondered what happened to him.

'Looks like the journey was more interesting than I thought.'

***

"Lets rest here tonight, we will continue the search tomorrow." Kakashi said, where the team was unloading stuff from their bag.

They could have stayed at Fire Temple, but Kakashi was not a fan of politics, so he declined despite how much Chiriku was willing to take care of 'their guests'.

Due to the nature of this world, one of them had to stay all night to guard them from potential threats and alert them if they needed to leave or need help to combat strong adversaries.

In war time, it was even more important.

Fortunately Aburama clan members, with their bugs, were well suited for this role, which not only was gave significant QOL for Konoha Shinobis, it played a noticeable contribution especially during First Shinobi World, promoting them to be 3rd Noble clan, having 'equal footing' to Uchiha and Hyūga clan, were the later was also promoted in the middle of the war.

Of course, the 2nd Hokage did not promote them just for that alone.

***

'It seems Shino is asleep.' Sasuke thought, seeing he was not moving.

Sasuke slowly got up from his position and went to the forest, and unzipped his pants so that if he was spotted, he quickly made an excuse that he came here for peeing.

Considering no one was there, he began to concentrate.

After discussing with Hinata on the way, he concluded that 'Gift of the Hermit Group', was actually Senjutsu chakra, considering all of Chiriku's chakra was converted into

'Gift of the Hermit Group', which usually doesn't happen.

There is plenty of external chakra like Tail-beast chakra, Negative Chakra, Star chakra etc but none he recalled can convert regular chakra into their kind of chakra other than senjutsu chakra.

So it has the highest chance to be senjutsu chakra with pigment on Chiriku similar to 1st Hokage.

Of course, after knowing Hinata's perspective, he found a major flaw.

It was extremely slow, where Chiriku, who mastered it, relied on instructors, senior and elders monks in secret to channel their natural energies to him, allowing him to reach perfect Sage mode, which still took 10 minutes.

This kind of explains why there is no risk for their disciplines when practicing it, as there was no way a discipline could take significant amounts of chakra to ever experience side effects, which is good, just

not so impractical in terms of danger, even though other sage mode has strong probability to harm and kill the practitioner.

He wished to say 'my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined' but why would he?

He was grateful that he knew how to create senjutsu and that was enough.

All three Sage regions were elusive and he was wary to step on there region.

Especially the Frog region, where he doesn't trust that Great Frog Sage, though it's mostly because of the gut feeling he has.

So right now, he had to see how much senjutsu chakra he can wield using Fire Temple technique.

So Sasuke opened his base Sharigan and activated Kurama chakra in him to help him.

Sasuke was sure that, tail beast and their chakra have high synergy to Senjutsu chakra, as speed for Naruto to activate perfect sage mode while using KCM-2 was extremely fast.

So while Kurama's chakra was activated, Sasuke began to draw natural energy from his surroundings.

After 15 seconds, he weaved hand signs.

"Sage Art Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu."

He whispered before spewed out a stream of fire to burn away part of the forest to ashes and observed the time it took to burn it.

He repeated the process 4 times and made the average time it took for him to burned them to ashes.

'3 seconds huh...'

Usually it takes around 8 seconds to burn the same area of vegetation with his chakra and around 4 seconds if used with Kurama chakra.

So 1 second difference doesn't seem great, but it does confirm the boost of using senjutsu was still viable.

So he was satisfied with the result considering it was just 15 seconds for drawing natural energies, manageable during intense combat.

Now he just has to practice and see how much senjutsu chakra he would make regularly within 15 seconds.

'Wait....what was the point of me unzipping my pants?' Sasuke thought with his face turning red, feeling ridiculed by his choice.

If he was burning part of the forest in the first place, how can 'I was peeing' excuse ever work?

'I was practicing' excuse would have been perfect.

Sasuke after zipping his pants, quickly went to his sleeping position, hoping no one was seen.

'I know youth can get curious when they grow up, but didn't think you would do it..' Kakashi thought, who saw it, was misunderstanding Sasuke's actions as a weird form of exhibitionism.