Naruto: I Draw Power Into Reality

"It's been a while since we last sparred. I really want to test my strength against yours."

Orochimaru paused his steps, clearly having received the message.

"Let's skip it."

Akaba waved his hand, shaking his head. "Fighting you is just too tiring."

"Well then, to be honest, I don't have confidence in beating you either."

Orochimaru chuckled softly.

The two understood each other perfectly, each waving goodbye.

This meeting was merely for establishing friend-or-foe identification; if there were to be a real fight, it wouldn't be now.

It's still fine to cooperate and exchange information. Although Danzo won't make a move against me now, if he ever develops some twisted plan in the future, at least I'd know ahead of time.

However...

Back at the manga shop, Akaba closed his eyes in thought.

I can't fully trust this either.

If Orochimaru intends to betray me, then this deal could become deadly instead.

"Master, what are you thinking about?"

Sakuma Yunlang felt confused. Ever since returning, Akaba had seemed off, which worried him slightly.

"Nothing much—just thinking about the manga convention."

Akaba stood up and stretched lazily.

For now, everything seems okay. There's no need to worry too much—at least not within this year.

"I'll go home first—"

Just as he was about to leave, he turned his head and saw Inuzuka Ishi and Sakumo Hatake.

"Wow, didn't expect to see you here today, Akaba."

Sakumo gave a slight smile.

Inuzuka Ishi hesitated briefly before finally calling out, "Akaba."

"You guys walking your dogs together?"

Each of them held a ninja hound on a leash. Fang especially raised its head to bark toward Akaba, as though greeting him, while the other one looked at him blankly.

"Hey, Akaba, I heard about that incident from last time..."

"I'm sorry!"

Before Sakumo finished speaking, Inuzuka Ishi bowed first.

Akaba was momentarily taken aback, then shook his head. "You meant well. Actually, I handled that matter poorly myself. There's absolutely no need to take it to heart."

"I see you're buying one each, huh?" Sakumo checked the price and put down 300 ryo.

Sakuma added quickly, "This one's pretty thick, so we've raised the price a bit."

"I understand." Sakumo picked up one volume and started reading by the doorway.

Fang sat atop his head.

It kept looking back and forth between the manga and Akaba.

This ninja hound wasn't as smart as Pakkun, who could understand human speech and even read text. No wonder Fang looked completely confused.

"This large-scale [Hiding in Mist Technique]..." Sakumo frowned slightly. "Is that really possible?"

"It definitely is. I once encountered a jonin who could create an even larger mist than what we previously experienced. However, the larger the area covered, the more chakra it consumes."

Akaba smiled slightly as he continued, "Take your 'clueless kid' in the manga, for example. One use of a technique this big might knock him out cold—or even drain all his chakra and kill him."

...

"What do you mean 'clueless kid'? It was your idea to write him that way!"

Sakumo stiffened, barely suppressing the urge to punch someone.

"Come on! Draining his chakra until he dies? That's way too harsh!"

Inuzuka Ishi muttered under his breath.

That amount of chakra probably wouldn't even surpass a Chūnin. Can someone at this level really become a ninja?

But thinking back to Kakashi's earlier performance, he actually felt like it might be possible after all.

That's seriously messed up?

Inuzuka Ishi felt a bit worried—if Sakumo also had such little chakra, that would truly be pitiful.

"Don't look at me—I have no problem with my chakra!"

Even though Sakumo was usually quiet and reserved, he couldn't help but lose his cool.

He shot Akaba an unhappy glare.

After these few scenes, the Hatake clan's chakra levels were probably going to become the laughingstock of the entire village.

"There's a reason for it—the Sharingan."

Akaba waved his hand dismissively with a smile.

He'd researched Sakumo before; while his chakra reserves weren't impressive, among others of his generation, he was barely middle-tier.

"Tch."

Sakumo turned his head sideways and continued reading onward.

"Come to think of it, the Inuzuka family and the Hatake house are pretty close. Kakashi should've had his own Ninken by now. Akuba, you messed up there."

Inuzuka Ishi suddenly seemed to realize something and grinned proudly.

Dogs aren't affected by fog!

Akaba smiled faintly but firmly refused to spoil things like some tasteless, obnoxious spoiler whore like Jiraiya.

"He probably won't. He already knew I had Ninken."

After Sakumo spoke, he flipped to the next page.

His eyes darted across the page, flipping it within seconds—his reading speed was incredible.

Minutes passed, and Sakumo had already reached the end.

"Woof! Woof! Woof!"

Suddenly, Fang started barking furiously, growing restless on top.

Sakumo paused for a moment, then let him down, running a hand through his fur as he chuckled, "Don't worry, Fang. I only have you. I won't be like this brat here who has so many."

On the screen was a scene of Kakashi unleashing Summoning Technique and calling forth eight Ninken.

"What an intuitive dog."

Akaba blinked, speaking out in mild surprise.

"They're Ninken!"

Inuzuka Ishi declared proudly.

Breeding Ninken was their family specialty—it was their trademark!

Akaba looked from Fang to Ishi's dog, Gammaru, then thoughtfully murmured, asking, "Out of the same image, why didn't it bark? Is it because it's less intelligent, or simply not as aggressive as Fang?"

"What do you mean 'stupid'? Gammaru is very smart too! It's just a gentler breed, unlike Fang, which is quite fierce."

Inuzuka Ishi explained.

When it came to Ninken, their family was undoubtedly the most authoritative.

Nodding slowly, Akaba hurriedly asked again, "Then how about breeds that can speak and read? Preferably not too weak physically, and easy to take care of?"

At first, Inuzuka Ishi found it amusing, but as Akaba grew more serious, beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead.

"Akuba, what you need isn't a Ninken—it's a person."

Sakumo coldly remarked.

"Uh..."

Akaba froze. Perhaps his criteria were indeed excessive.

Thinking for a moment, he asked once more, "How about ones that can talk and recognize words then?"

"There definitely are highly intelligent individuals among Ninken, but they usually require long-term training and aren't suited well for battle roles. Our family doesn't raise such dogs."

Inuzuka Ishi replied hesitantly after a pause.

"Oh, so that is how it works."

After hearing this, Akaba gave up on the idea of raising a ninja hound. Taking care of himself was already tough enough; adding a dog into the mix would be absolutely exhausting.

Still, he couldn't help but sigh as he thought,

If only I had the same fated blessings as the Sannin, I wouldn't have to scheme over getting a ninja hound.

Inuzuka Ishi kept rambling on, not noticing that Sakumo had stopped flipping pages and was just zoning out. Curious, he asked, "Sakumo, why aren't you turning the page anymore?"

"Hmm, this technique..."

Sakumo pointed at [Lightning Cutter], deep in thought.

"Something off with it?"

Ishi felt confused—was there something strange about this jutsu?

"[Lightning Cutter] is an idea I came up with myself," Akaba added, flipping the page. "Unfortunately, since I don't possess lightning nature chakra, I can't test it out and can only sketch it like this."

"This technique must be extremely difficult to achieve because it needs to accomplish both elemental transformation and shape transformation simultaneously," Sakumo said.

"That's right. It requires mastery of both Shape Transformation and Nature Transformation."

"Shape Transformation?"

Sakumo muttered thoughtfully, closed the manga, and fell lost in thought.

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