After a night’s rest, all of the chakra Iruka had exhausted the previous day had fully recovered.
Just as he had expected, however, his chakra reserves had not changed in the slightest.
They had neither increased nor decreased.
If that were the only problem, it would have been manageable.
More seriously, whenever he used his abilities, he could clearly sense that a portion of his chakra was inexplicably being consumed for reasons he couldn’t understand.
Unless he figured out the cause, he would never be able to grow stronger.
In the worst-case scenario, he might even be reduced to an ordinary person.
For that reason, he had specifically requested a week’s leave.
In any case, the nine brats were covered in injuries after yesterday’s training and definitely wouldn’t be able to resume training anytime soon.
Naruto in particular was still lying in the hospital.
Because Naruto’s injuries had been so severe, Iruka had even received a thorough scolding from the Third Hokage, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Iruka really couldn’t understand why that old man, the Hokage of all people, cared so much about a dead-last student like Naruto.
As for the other students, Iruka wasn’t particularly interested in them for the time being.
Their training programs were already written down on their schedules, and whether they trained or not was entirely up to them.
He couldn’t be bothered to supervise them.
But speaking of those schedules, Iruka suddenly remembered something.
Come to think of it, I still haven’t found yesterday’s training record.
After the training ended yesterday, the Third Hokage had suddenly shown up, given Iruka a harsh lecture about not knowing his limits, and taken all the unconscious children away.
Just as Iruka was preparing to leave, he realized that the training record was missing.
It had probably been blown away by the pressure waves from the impacts.
Iruka had no choice but to drag his exhausted body around the area in search of it.
He searched until the sky gradually began to darken but found nothing.
Then, as he passed an unnamed hillside—
“I certainly got to see quite an incredible sight last night~”
Remembering the particularly memorable scenery he had witnessed, a faint smile appeared on Iruka’s lips.
It had been a chance encounter rare enough to leave an impression on him.
Even so, he had no intention of pursuing that accidental crossing of paths.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have simply walked away.
Entering the mountains alone, Iruka was greeted by a rush of fresh air.
His entire body relaxed, and even his steps became noticeably lighter.
He didn’t stop until he reached a waterfall.
Tossing his backpack aside, Iruka stretched lazily, enjoying the sensation for the first time in what felt like ages.
“All right.
It’s time to begin.”
After warming up, Iruka slowly closed his eyes.
The next moment, a faint blue glow emerged from his body.
As time passed, it gradually formed layers of blue halos that circled around him one after another.
Once his chakra had been fully gathered, Iruka finally opened his eyes and raised his right hand.
Chakra, so dense it had become visible to the naked eye, immediately began converging in his palm.
“Just as I thought.
Vector Control can control the direction of chakra flow.
Unfortunately, it only works on unconscious chakra.
It would be nice if I could control an opponent’s chakra flow as well.”
Iruka shook his head regretfully, but quickly refocused.
He hadn’t come all this way merely to confirm that Vector Control could influence the flow of chakra.
Concentrating again, he compressed all the chakra he had gathered in his hand into a sphere roughly the size of a fist.
He then controlled the dense chakra sphere and lifted it into the air.
Once he supplied enough chakra to keep it suspended in midair, Iruka stopped.
Less than a tenth of his original chakra reserves remained inside his body.
Extracting chakra from his body while maintaining intense concentration, then precisely controlling his force field to compress the chakra outside his body into a sphere, had covered Iruka’s slightly dark face with a fine sheen of sweat.
In that single minute, Iruka felt more exhausted than he had during his brief clash with Itachi.
Unable to endure any longer, he dropped to the ground and casually wiped away the sweat on his face.
It took him quite a while to recover.
The reason he had extracted chakra from his body beforehand was simple.
If he wanted to determine why chakra was mysteriously disappearing whenever he used his abilities, he needed to observe the changes while precisely controlling his chakra.
If his chakra reserves were full, he could only sense a small amount of chakra disappearing and would have no way of discovering the cause.
Iruka had only recently discovered that Vector Control allowed him to freely direct the flow of chakra within his body.
He was quite excited by this discovery.
It meant that in the future, he could deliberately exhaust all his chakra whenever he wanted, stimulating his body to expand its chakra capacity as it replenished itself.
One or two attempts might not make any noticeable difference, but given enough time, quantitative change would eventually lead to qualitative change.
Of course, that was only possible if Iruka could solve the problem preventing his chakra capacity from increasing.
Otherwise, all of it would be meaningless.
After resting for a while, Iruka felt that his physical strength had mostly returned.
He dusted himself off and stood up, glancing regretfully at the chakra sphere floating in the air.
“What a shame.
A large amount of chakra can’t remain outside the human body for very long.
Otherwise, this would be a pretty good way to store chakra for emergencies.”
Shaking his head, Iruka cast aside his scattered thoughts and focused on directing the small amount of chakra remaining within his body.
“Gravity Field!”
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!!!
A small patch of ground in front of Iruka slowly sank as though something were pressing down on it.
Amid a series of strange cracking sounds, a shallow crater soon formed.
Being able to precisely control the range of his technique through thought alone, Iruka had every reason to take pride in his mastery of his ability.
But his attention wasn’t on that now.
He had closed his eyes and was concentrating every ounce of his focus on sensing the changes occurring within his chakra.
His blue chakra was being consumed rapidly.
A technique like the Gravity Field consumed chakra at a rate not much different from directly extracting it from his body.
After only three breaths, Iruka began to feel dizzy and disoriented.
Ordinarily, this was when he should stop supplying chakra.
When the body could no longer withstand the loss of chakra, its self-preservation mechanisms would force the person into unconsciousness.
And he was in the middle of nowhere.
Who knew what might happen if he passed out here?
Iruka hesitated briefly before gritting his teeth and continuing to supply chakra.
He could already feel that something was obstructing the flow of his chakra, and that something was very likely the reason he had been unable to increase his chakra capacity until now.
The dizziness in his head grew increasingly severe.
Iruka could feel that even opening his eyelids was becoming difficult.
Unless he immediately controlled the chakra sphere and used it to replenish the chakra he had severely depleted, he would lose consciousness completely within two breaths at most.
In the end, he bit down hard on his lip, using the pain to stimulate his mind and maintain consciousness.
Only a trace of blue chakra remained.
At that moment, Iruka finally sensed it clearly.
A colorless energy was entangled with that last trace of blue chakra.
Like mortal enemies, the two energies surged violently against one another.
In the end, the severely depleted blue chakra proved slightly weaker.
It was shattered by the colorless energy.
And when the last glimmer of blue disappeared, Iruka suddenly felt a cool sensation spread through his previously unbearably heavy mind, allowing him to regain a small measure of clarity.
A moment later, the Gravity Field finally vanished, and everything returned to stillness.
Iruka’s body swayed twice before he finally collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Although his consciousness had already fallen into endless darkness, the corner of his exhausted face still carried the faintest hint of a smile.