He rested briefly, raised his Spirit Bow, and began practicing... Three days later.
In the dense forest, Aokawa Hyuga stood on the crown of a large tree, holding a fiery red Spirit Bow, the bowstring drawn fully, his gaze fixed into the distance.
"Fire Release: Hundred Consecutive Explosive Flame Arrows!"
The Spirit Bow emitted a dazzling red light. Countless red Chakra Arrows, crawling with explosive Seal patterns, swarmed out like locusts, speeding towards the forest ahead.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The area covered by all the arrows erupted in dense, overlapping explosions.
For a moment, dazzling bursts of fire bloomed one after another across the entire area, violent explosions thundering nonstop.
When Aokawa Hyuga finally stopped, the scene before him left him dumbstruck.
Even though he had deliberately held back, limiting the coverage area, it still resulted in all the trees within a radius of over twenty meters turning to powder, the ground covered in densely packed large craters.
Seeing the firelight around the area growing increasingly intense, already beginning to spread outward.
"Oh no, this is a disaster!" Aokawa Hyuga's heart jolted, and he hurriedly Body Flickered over.
Fiercely refining a mouthful of Chakra, he clapped his hands together.
"Water Release: Exploding Water Shockwave!"
A powerful Water Release surged forth like a tidal wave, submerging the area. The forest fire sizzled and smoked under the deluge.
For a moment, steam rose everywhere in the forest.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Before he could catch his breath, the sound of Ninjas Body Flickering came one after another from the surrounding mist.
Immediately after, a serious, wary voice reached Aokawa Hyuga's ears.
"Ninja in the forest, please raise your hands above your head, cease all Chakra condensation, and await our identity verification."
"Inabi! It's me, Aokawa!" Seeing Uchiha Inabi and the other two on the treetop looking as if facing a great enemy, Aokawa Hyuga smiled slightly and shouted loudly.
After speaking, before Uchiha Inabi could reply, he released a Wind Release jutsu to disperse the surrounding steam.
As the mist cleared, Uchiha Inabi saw Aokawa Hyuga below with his hands raised high and a smile on his face, and immediately felt a surge of anger.
He Body Flickered to his side and slapped down his raised hands: "Enough! You just finished using Wind Release, and now you're still holding your hands up high. Who are you trying to mock!"
"I'm just cooperating enthusiastically," Aokawa Hyuga laughed.
Kurenai Yuhi and Uchiha Tetsubi soon arrived before them.
"Aokawa!" Kurenai Yuhi called out affectionately.
Aokawa Hyuga looked at her flushed cheeks and reached out to ruffle her smooth hair.
"What were you doing here? With all that fire and explosions?" Uchiha Inabi asked.
"Experimenting with a jutsu!"
"Experimenting with a jutsu?" Uchiha Inabi widened his eyes, pointing at the wreckage spanning over twenty meters in radius, exclaiming, "You call *that* experimenting with a jutsu?"
"If you hadn't said so, I would have thought it was some unregulated explosive tag workshop secretly making tags here that had an accident and exploded."
Such incidents were commonplace in the Ninja World. There were always small workshops that had accidents and explosions due to incomplete explosive Seal formulas they obtained or poor management.
"You have quite the imagination!" Aokawa Hyuga laughed it off.
The three chatted for a while. Uchiha Inabi and the others continued their patrol, while Aokawa Hyuga returned to the camp... Aokawa Hyuga waited a full three more days, finally waiting for the time of Orochimaru's frontal assault.
The three of them were already fully prepared. Without a moment's delay, they left the Yunagi Pass.
The ground beneath their feet had been ravaged repeatedly by war, the air mixed with the smell of gunpowder and the earthy scent of soil.
They skirted the frontline combat zone and, relying on the terrain knowledge accumulated from a month of patrolling, moved swiftly through dense forests and hills.
Following the small path Uchiha Hachidai had mentioned earlier, the three of them reached the "Abandoned Mine" marked in the intelligence before nightfall.
The mine entrance was pitch black, surrounded by scattered Abandoned Mine carts and tools. A few guards stood scattered outside.
The veins at the corners of Aokawa Hyuga's eyes bulged as he activated his Byakugan.
His vision penetrated the rock and the barrier, the internal structure of the mine clearly presenting itself in his mind.
The mine shaft was damp, covered in moss. Some of the already somewhat rotten supports couldn't quite hold up the earth and stones of the ceiling, and small pebbles fell from time to time.
Just as he was about to continue exploring further inside, a barrier jutsu unique to the Hidden Cloud Village blocked his vision.
His Reishi Network sensed only a few faint traces of Chakra within the barrier.
"Something's wrong..."
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