In his home, Haruto looked at all the medicinal herbs in front of himself.
'This cost quite a bit…'
'Although the scroll says I need freshly picked herbs, a day or two old herbs shouldn't cause too much trouble since Hiruko told me it was alright.'
With that Haruto got to work, he gathered all the herbs in one giant plastic bag and began to beat the shit out of it.
Lacking a big enough grinding bowl in the house, Haruto opted to literally use his feet as a grinding stick and thrash the plastic bag and the herbs in it by jumping on it.
After about an hour of grinding when Haruto checked the contents of the bag he found a consistent paste with no visible chunks of the herbs he'd ground inside it.
There was fresh juice inside the plastic bag which Haruto quickly emptied along with the paste into a tub filled with cold water.
He then stirred the contents of the tub until what was clear water turned a bright blood red. If Haruto hadn't known better he would've assumed that he'd just filled the tub with a bag of pig's blood.
Quickly after that Haruto stripped and got into the tub.
To Haruto the bath felt abnormal. As if he wasn't surrounded by water but a thick silken blanket that glided across his skin without sticking to it.
With the scroll balanced precariously at the edge of the tub Haruto began performing the hand seals required for the jutsu he had to perform to absorb the yang nature chakra within the solution in the tub to nourish his body.
The jutsu was relatively simple, Haruto had practiced before already and learnt the jutsu. This jutsu didn't have any minimum chakra density since it depended on the amount of chakra given to it to activate its effects. If more chakra was poured into the corresponding tenketsu the absorption would be quicker, that's all, no extra benefits.
So Haruto took his time with the jutsu, performing the required handseals even if he didn't need them so that if anyone from Danzo's end was peeking they wouldn't doubt how he was doing such a thing.
Performing the final handseal Haruto fully activated the jutsu.
The effect was instant.
Haruto felt his body suddenly turn into a low pressure vacuum.
All the tenketsu in his body from where chakra was currently circulating began to absorb the yang nature chakra in the solution outside.
Haruto felt a particularly bubbly and warm energy enter his body through his tenketsu. They flowed around in his system with the chakra circulating for a while before dissipating into the cells adjacent to the chakra pathways system.
A warm and light feeling came over Haruto, much like clothes once they'd gone into the dryer or a fluffy blanket in the winter.
He almost felt like he could fly.
Haruto opened his eyes and looked down at the solution and even without keen eyes one could tell that the red in the solution was slowly decreasing, becoming more and more pale by the second as all its energy was absorbed.
'Ah… so much money… gone… just like that…' Haruto nearly cried looking at the way the herbs were being wrung dry.
The water turned nearly clear once again after twenty minutes and the energy flowing into his body stopped but Haruto stayed in the tub for another extra five minutes trying to absorb any remaining energy.
After making sure he collected every last spark of energy he could from the water by squeezing it dry like a loan shark, Haruto finally stepped out of the water and sighed deeply.
Now came the hard part.
He had just absorbed the yang nature chakra into his body, but it would slowly just dissipate if it wasn't given any work to do.
And so Haruto began performing the set of exercises in the scroll, trying to break down all the muscle groups in his body so that the excessive yang energy could bond with the healing tissue and decide to stay in his body forever.
It took Haruto nearly five hours of exercising in his birthday suit to finish the exercises in the scroll.
And by the end Haruto was spent.
Every part of his body ached, sweat pooled on the floor and his limbs felt like they were filled with lead.
Haruto desperately wanted to lie down and rest.
But he managed to drag himself into the shower one last time to take a quick bath to rinse himself off before changing into his night clothes and collapsing into his bed.
It was only then that Haruto let his eyelids snap shut.
The last thought in his mind for the day however was anticipation for tomorrow.
'I wonder who my teammate is…'
***
'It hurts…' Haruto groaned internally as he woke up the next day.
Every part of his body felt like it was on fire.
Haruto had already checked, he had a high fever.
"I knew I shouldn't have trusted Hiruko's words…"
"But Hiruzen said nothing would happen to me too! Strongest Hokage… what a sham…"
In the enigmatic space Tobirama looked at Hiruzen with confusion, "Strongest Hokage?"
Hiruzen simply coughed and ignored Tobirama.
Haruto got dressed as best he could before going out of his house to the I.T department.
Once there, Haruto found Kakashi waiting for him uncharacteristically.
"Ho? Kakashi-san… you're early?" Haruto blurted out without thinking, causing Kakashi to give him a dead eye stare before speaking blandly, "We're going to pick up the second teammate right now."
Haruto nodded and asked a question, "But why couldn't he come here?"
Kakashi coughed lightly and spoke quickly, "He hasn't been informed yet."
"Hmm…?" Haruto felt something was wrong but couldn't put his finger on it.
'Why does it feel like Kakashi is afraid of facing our next teammate?'
Seeing Kakashi's blank face giving nothing, Haruto didn't pry since the next teammate would be revealed in time anyway. Instead Haruto followed Kakashi as they walked through Konoha.
While they were walking, Kakashi gave Haruto a sideways glance and asked casually, "You fell sick?"
"Ehh… it seems so Kakashi-san… I guess I'm not very suitable to forcibly expand my chakra reserves."
Kakashi shook his head, "It's normal to run a fever at least when you're working with physical energy, it's your body's own energy trying to fight against the foreign energy and make it its own."
"Is that soo…" Haruto frowned, "Then why didn't you tell me this before…" Haruto asked with a wry smile causing Kakashi to have to cough and change the topic suddenly. "We have to go to meet Hokage-sama after we pick up our second teammate."
"Oh? Why is that?" Haruto asked, feeling slightly worried about what Danzo had in plan.
"I dunno… the Hokage said so that's why."
Haruto felt slightly stumped at that answer but he quickly reassured himself, 'If Danzo really wanted to do something stupid he wouldn't have assigned me to Kakashi's team… he's probably trying to diplomatically gain the trust of all the new subordinates… good for him… even if no one really trusts him.'
"We're here…" Kakashi said, gulping dryly as he looked at Haruto and then back at the two storey house they were in front of.
"Is this it? What a big house… our teammate surely is rich…" Haruto commented offhandedly.
Kakashi took Haruto and climbed a floor before knocking on the door of the second floor.
Tok… Tok… Tok…
The knocks were pronounced but hesitant, causing Haruto to frown.
'What's gotten into Kakashi?'
'Why's he so afraid?'
That's when Haruto heard a response from inside the house.
"Comming!!!"
It sounded like there was a storm inside the house with all the loud banging and noise before someone stumbled right in front of the door and clicked it open.
"Yes?" A voice said before the door opened to reveal a small boy, smaller than Haruto in size, about six years old, blond hair, three whiskers on his face on each cheek and a pointed nose making him look remarkably like a fox.
The boy was wearing an orange jumper suit with blue accents.
Haruto froze but the boy only smiled seeing visitors, in fact he looked excited as he announced himself, "I'm Naruto dattebayo!! Who're you?"
***
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