The deeper groove was the chakra needle.
The shallower one—
Chakra threads?
The short one had to be the soldier pills.
The difference in depth had to come down to how much impact each one carried, and beyond that, sharing knowledge and understanding with others was what fed the bodhi seed, letting it slowly grow.
Two grooves confirmed the pattern.
Chiba let out a breath.
Now that he’d worked out the underlying rule, the path forward suddenly looked a lot clearer.
He thought it over and began weighing the two techniques he’d shared so far.
From a purely technical standpoint, the chakra needle carried enormous potential—but the difficulty was brutal to match.
A+ was steep enough to scare off the vast majority of shinobi outright, and even simplified, it would still sit at A-rank at minimum.
Chakra threads, by contrast, had a much lower ceiling of influence—after all, Sunagakure had already run the concept of controlling weapons and puppets into the ground years ago.
But that also meant the difficulty was manageable, and it could spread widely.
By that logic, chakra threads are actually the more practical choice for wide distribution right now.
Just not sure how many grooves it’ll take before the seed shifts again.
Chiba understood clearly enough that taijutsu had its ceiling, and so did ninjutsu, whatever form it took.
Even if he was lucky enough to master senjutsu someday, standing against someone like Madara or Kaguya Ōtsutsuki would still be a brutal proposition.
If he wanted real peace of mind, the seed that had come with him across worlds was the thing to lean on.
Let’s try chakra threads first.
That one’s simple enough.
Whether it was manipulating weapons or puppetry, Sunagakure had already worked out the fundamentals—imitating what they’d done wouldn’t be difficult.
Konoha, meanwhile, had nothing in this area at all.
Jōnin might not think much of it, but shinobi below that rank would be thrilled to have a technique like this added to the village’s repertoire.
He turned the idea over and settled on it as his second target.
Good thing I don’t have to sit through class anymore.
Even I couldn’t juggle all of this on top of that.
Chiba let out a silent sigh.
He couldn’t drop taijutsu.
Medical knowledge still needed work—he’d barely scratched the surface of it, at least by his own standard.
And now he needed to dig into puppetry as well.
Busy didn’t begin to cover it.
Chiba got up, stretched, and worked a little stiffness out of his joints.
He’d half-expected the “two grooves” to come with some kind of tangible benefit, but as far as he could tell after testing himself, nothing about his body had changed much.
Mentally—well, he’d woken up feeling clear-headed, but it was hard to tell in the moment whether that meant real improvement.
The mind was a strange, slippery thing to measure.
In Konoha, only the Yamanaka clan really specialized in that domain, and their techniques were closely guarded secrets—nothing about it existed in the library’s collection.
Still, checking his chakra reserves later might tell him something concrete, at least.
Never mind.
No rush on that front for now.
Draining his chakra the way he had yesterday was the exception, not the rule.
Under normal circumstances, what he had was more than enough.
“Heh.
Awake, are you?”
Hm?
Chiba startled.
That voice—
Why was he here too?
“Lord Hokage.”
“Ahem.
Just came to check on you.
Good thing you got to that Nara boy in time—he’s out of danger now.
Shikaku and I happened to be at the hospital already, so we thought we’d stop by and see if you’d woken up yet.”
Hiruzen explained.
Chiba turned toward the voice and only then noticed someone standing behind Hiruzen.
The man stepped forward once Hiruzen finished speaking.
“If it weren’t for you, my boy Shikae would never have been able to work as a shinobi again.
The Nara clan owes you a debt we can’t repay.”
“Lord Shikaku, please, there’s no need.
I just did what I could.”
Chiba hurried to wave it off.
Shikaku wasn’t having it, though—he bowed formally, then turned to Hiruzen with a nod.
“Lord Hokage, I’ll go check on Shikae now.”
“Go ahead.”
Hiruzen nodded.
Chiba watched him go, then felt a flicker of something odd settle over him.
They’d surely already seen Nara Shikae in person.
So.
Did Hiruzen have something he wanted to say to him privately?
He thought it over, then asked, “Lord Hokage, that chūnin—he made it?”
“Mm.
He’s kept his arm, barely, though his taijutsu will suffer for it going forward.
Fortunately he’s a Nara—the clan doesn’t lean heavily on taijutsu to begin with, so he’ll manage fine as a shinobi.”
Hiruzen’s expression held a warm smile.
“That’s good to hear.”
Chiba let out a breath of relief.
As long as the man had pulled through, that was what mattered—otherwise all of it would have been for nothing.
If anything, the whole ordeal had proven just how vicious exploding tags really were in practice.
Even a rope-and-tree barrier couldn’t hold against them, and even an elite chūnin could end up crippled, if not worse.
“Kanpō tells me your technique proved invaluable—that the man’s survival came down entirely to your ninjutsu.
If you’re willing to formally submit it to the village, the village won’t leave that unacknowledged.” Hiruzen, seeing that Chiba hadn’t raised the subject himself, brought it up directly.
“What would you like in return?”
“I’ve heard you keep an extensive personal library, Lord Hokage.
I’d like to borrow a few books, if I could.”
Chiba had had his eye on Hiruzen’s library for a good while now.
Getting Guy to mention him to the Hokage in the first place had partly been about laying groundwork for exactly this—a chance to get into Hiruzen’s private collection.
Now that the opening had actually arrived, there was no way he was letting it slip past.
No point being coy about a request like this.
Acting evasive would only invite suspicion.
Hiruzen’s smile widened, and he nodded readily.
“Of course.
Feel free to come by the Hokage’s building and read whenever you like.
And while you’re at it, there are some ninjutsu scrolls worth your time too—your talent for nature transformation may be weak, but effort can grind through weak talent eventually.”
“Yes, sir.
Thank you for the guidance.”
Chiba knew the offer came from genuine goodwill, but—
His inability to use ninjutsu had nothing to do with talent.
It came down to the bodhi seed lodged in his head, and he still had no idea what that thing actually was or why it worked the way it did.
All he could do was hope for an answer eventually.
Still, Hiruzen had a point.
Nature transformation might be out of reach for him, but plenty of other techniques could be learned by drawing parallels—he didn’t have to limit himself strictly to untyped ninjutsu.
Either way, he was getting his hands on that old man’s books.
That much was settled.
“If you run into anything you don’t understand while you’re reading, feel free to come find me in my office.
No need to stand on ceremony—I’m old, my memory isn’t what it was, but I still know a thing or two.”
Hiruzen said a few more words after that before finally taking his leave.
Chiba couldn’t shake the feeling that—
Did Hiruzen have some kind of particular interest in him?
He mulled it over and decided it wasn’t so strange, really.
Talent like his wasn’t exactly common, and it wasn’t likely to come around again for years.
It made sense the old man would take notice.
He thought about it a moment longer, then shook his head, deciding it wasn’t worth dwelling on further.
Better to focus on his own affairs first.
I’ve been lying around all day.
No more reading today—rest up properly, and after I eat, go out for a run.
It was midday now, which meant he could still catch a meal at the hospital cafeteria.
A number of people greeted him along the way.
Asking around, Chiba discovered he’d become something of a name around the hospital—twelve years old, leading a surgery himself, no less.
Plenty of staff had already started comparing him privately to Tsunade, which left him more than a little embarrassed.
After all, Tsunade could do everything—full medical ninjutsu included—while he had, at best, a steady hand and precise aim with a blade.
Yesterday’s success didn’t change the fact that his actual medical knowledge was still thin, to say nothing of medical ninjutsu itself, which remained completely beyond him.
He tried explaining that a few times, then eventually gave up bothering.
Apparently—
Workplace gossip was unavoidable, whether in his old life or in the shinobi world.
He grumbled about it privately.
Over the meal, he happened to run into Kitayama Sho and mentioned he’d be taking the rest of the day off.
She agreed without hesitation.
Once he’d finished eating, he headed out to stretch his legs and train a little.
After lying around half the day, he felt like he was rusting solid.
Getting outside to move again felt fantastic.