Yahiko was the first of the three to refine Chakra.
Nagato was the second.
On the evening of the second day after Yahiko’s success, he also quietly sensed the energy within his body.
He did not shout excitedly like Yahiko; he just opened his eyes, looked at his own hands, and then let out a soft “Mn.”
Luna noticed that the moment Nagato refined Chakra, his gaze subconsciously glanced at the wall carved with Uzumaki runes.
As for Konan…
Konan was the last one.
It was not because her talent was inferior to Yahiko and Nagato’s, but because she was too serious.
When Yahiko and Nagato refined Chakra, they both carried a “let’s give it a try” mindset—success would be best, but failure didn’t matter.
But Konan was different.
She sat there with her eyes closed, her brows slightly furrowed, focusing as intensely as if she were doing something extremely important.
Luna saw this and did not rush her.
She knew Konan’s personality—gentle on the outside but strong on the inside, wanting to do her best at everything.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t refine it; she simply set very high standards for herself.
Sure enough, on the evening of the third day, when Luna was organizing the dried wild vegetables at the entrance of the shrine, she suddenly heard an extremely faint exclamation from inside.
Luna put down the wild vegetables in her hand and walked in quickly.
She saw Konan sitting by the campfire, looking down at her own hands with a gleam of surprise and joy in her eyes.
“I succeeded.”
Konan raised her head, her voice carrying an irrepressible excitement, “Luna, I felt it… that warm energy.”
Luna couldn’t help smiling: “Congratulations.”
Konan smiled along with her, her brows curving like a newly blossomed flower.
…
After Konan refined Chakra, Luna began teaching them how to apply Chakra to physical reinforcement.
This was the most basic application, requiring no Ninjutsu knowledge; as long as one had a sufficient amount of Chakra and met the control standards, it could be achieved.
Yahiko learned the fastest.
He was naturally active and had the strongest desire for power; in less than two days, he was able to condense Chakra onto his fists, punching a shallow dent into the wooden pillar of the shrine.
He ran around the shrine three times in excitement. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Nagato learned the most steadily.
He did not pursue speed and power, instead focusing on the fine control of Chakra.
Luna taught him to condense Chakra on the soles of his feet to adhere to walls; after practicing for a day, he could walk three or four steps on the wall of the shrine.
Although he fell down in the end, he didn’t make a sound, patted the dust off his body, and continued practicing.
As for Konan…
Konan took a path that no one expected.
That afternoon, Luna was cultivating in the open space at the back when she suddenly heard Konan calling her.
She returned to the shrine and found Konan sitting in the corner where she usually folded paper, holding a paper flower in her hands.
That paper flower looked very ordinary, with no difference from the ones they usually folded.
But Luna noticed that between Konan’s fingers, a faint, extremely weak blue light was flickering.
Luna’s footsteps stopped.
“Luna,” Konan raised her head, her eyes carrying an expression of both confusion and curiosity, “I just tried to inject Chakra… into this flower… and then…”
She let go of her hand.
That paper flower did not fall.
It floated in the air.
Although it was only for a fleeting moment, about a second or so, that paper flower truly detached from her hand, stayed in the air for a moment, and then fluttered down to the ground.
Luna’s mind went “buzz.”
Her first reaction was: Paper Release.
Konan’s Paper Release.
In the original work, Konan’s Paper Release secret technique was a unique Ninjutsu she developed herself.
She combined Chakra with paper to create the art of Paper Release capable of transforming, splitting, attacking, and defending.
And now, Konan, a seven-year-old girl who had refined Chakra for less than a week, had intuitively touched that threshold.
Although it was only making the paper flower float for a second, this was a signal.
An unspeakable excitement surged within Luna’s heart, but she forcibly suppressed it, not wanting to frighten Konan.
“You… how did you think of injecting Chakra into the paper?” Luna asked.
Konan looked down at the paper flower that had fallen to the ground, thought for a moment, and said: “I don’t know either… I just felt that since Chakra can reinforce the body, it should be able to reinforce other things too, right? The thing I use most comfortably is paper, so I just gave it a try…” Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
She raised her head and looked at Luna somewhat uncertainly: “Using it like this… is it right?”
Luna took a deep breath.
Then she squatted down, picked up the paper flower, placed it into the palm of Konan’s hand, and looked seriously into her eyes:
“Right.”
She said.
“Very right.”
Konan blinked, and then the corners of her mouth slowly curled up, revealing a happy smile carrying a small sense of accomplishment.
Looking at that smile of hers, an idea suddenly surged into Luna’s heart.
Perhaps she didn’t need to wait for Jiraiya to appear.
Konan would bloom with her own brilliance even earlier than in the original work.
…
That night, Luna sat at the entrance of the shrine, holding the old map captured from the Iwagakure Ninja in her hand.
Her gaze fell on the four red circles on the map.
She had already gone to check the first red circle; there were only corpses there, nothing else.
But there were still three red circles.
She could roughly guess what places two of them were.
They might be material storage points, reconnaissance strongholds, or even traces left behind by the battlefield.
But the third red circle…
The location marked by the third red circle was at the very edge of the map, close to the direction of the Land of Fire.
Luna stared at that red circle, having a vague guess in her heart, but she still dared not be certain.
She put away the map, raised her head, and looked toward the distant skyline through the sparse rain curtain.
In the Land of Rain amidst the night, there was only endless darkness and the sound of rain.
Jiraiya.
When will you arrive?