This time, the Ninja Academy had suffered terrible losses.
Those children had no real combat experience. When they rushed in to help Chiba Shun, none of them thought to spread out. They stayed packed too tightly together, and when the explosive tag detonated, a horrifying number of them were swallowed by the blast all at once.
But sacrifice did not always lead to despair.
For the students of the Ninja Academy, that night became a lesson carved into their bones. Before, they had only heard about Konoha's evil and malice from other people. It had always sounded distant, like something that belonged to another world, another battlefield, another life.
Now it was no longer distant.
They had felt that explosion with their own bodies. They had smelled the smoke, seen the blood, heard the screams. For many of them, that blast would remain a nightmare they would never fully escape.
Fortunately, Chiba Shun had seized the moment.
With one speech, he took what should have become a crushing blow to morale and turned it into fuel. Fear became anger. Grief became resolve. What should have left the academy shaken to its core instead ignited an even fiercer hunger to train.
The next day, Aoki Shuuichi, who had also gone the entire night without rest, summoned Chiba Shun to his office.
The moment Chiba stepped inside, Aoki gave him a long, strange look.
He still could not understand how Chiba Shun's brain worked.
Last night, Aoki had returned to the academy filled with cold rage. He had been ready to deal with the dead, the wounded, the outrage, the panic, the consequences of the assassination attempt. Yet before the academy could sink into fear, Chiba Shun had already used the attack itself as material for another round of indoctrination.
Without question, that speech had been the most effective one yet.
Even now, outside on the school grounds, there were students training with red eyes and clenched teeth, as if the whole academy had gone slightly mad overnight.
Aoki placed a bundle down and said, "You killed two intelligence ninjas last night. This is the village's reward, and there's also a B-rank ninjutsu."
Then he narrowed his eyes.
"Do you have any guess where those two came from?"
Chiba Shun nodded while checking the reward. "It should be Root from Konoha. After all, we forced Matsuda Sane to her death not long ago."
Then he counted the money properly, and his eyes brightened.
"Aoki-senpai… this much?"
A beat later, he paused.
"Wait. Two? I only killed one."
This time, the village had given him one hundred and thirty thousand ryo. For a B-rank mission, that was already a very high reward. On top of that, he was also being allowed to learn a B-rank ninjutsu for free.
In the Hidden Cloud Village, where money was always tight and the Land of Lightning was hardly rich, B-rank missions rarely paid that generously.
Aoki said, "The one the Raikage killed is also being counted under your name. That makes it another B-rank mission."
Then his expression shifted.
"As for the B-rank ninjutsu… the Raikage said that the fact a group of children managed to hold off a Special Jonin proves your previous 'teaching' was very effective. This is your reward for that too."
He did not sound especially happy saying it.
After a short pause, Aoki set the reward aside and spoke more quietly.
"It looks like you're on Root's kill list now. Be careful from here on."
Chiba Shun nodded, helpless.
He truly only wanted to stay inside the Ninja Academy, build up his foundation, improve his nutrition, condition his body, and quietly practice ninjutsu. But Root kept coming for him again and again, as though they refused to let him live in peace.
From that angle, what he had said to the students last night had not been wrong at all.
Konoha really was the source of this chaos.
At that moment, Aoki continued, "This intrusion had a huge impact on the school. A lot of people are already questioning whether it's even safe to let their children study here."
He folded his arms, his face dark.
"This time they came to assassinate you. Next time, they might simply massacre everyone."
"With so many children gathered together, the academy is too conspicuous. Not only Konoha. Other villages might also decide it's worth the price to slaughter them all."
"I've already been approached by ninjas who want to pull their children out of the academy."
Then he looked directly at Chiba.
"Do you have any ideas?"
Chiba Shun fell silent.
This was not something that could be solved with slogans. No one could realistically expect ninjas to stand guard around the academy twenty-four hours a day. Even if that were possible, the academy could never afford the cost. Kumogakure was not Konoha. The village was not rich. And even now, the Ninja Academy was far from being accepted by everyone.
A great many people in the village still disliked it.
They felt the school was swallowing up resources that should have gone elsewhere. They believed it was trampling over existing interests, overturning old systems, and wasting money that should have served more immediate needs.
Only the Third Raikage's personal support had kept that resentment from boiling over.
If the academy showed weakness now, there would absolutely be people eager to give it a push toward collapse.
After thinking for a while, Chiba Shun finally said, "Could we arrange for some Jonin to move closer to the academy?"
Aoki frowned slightly, so Chiba continued.
"If strong ninjas are living around the school, then even if no one sees them directly, outsiders won't know who's home and who isn't. That uncertainty alone would act as a deterrent."
Aoki understood the logic immediately.
He himself could help, yes, but he was only one person. He could not remain in the academy forever. But if multiple powerful ninjas lived nearby, then any would-be assassin would have to assume they might be walking into a nest of predators.
The real problem was influence.
Aoki Yuuichi did not think he had enough pull to persuade enough Jonin to relocate for the academy's sake alone.
Seeing that, Chiba added, "Try approaching Jonin who already have children."
He leaned forward slightly.
"Offer to teach their children for free. And if necessary… we can bribe them with ninjutsu."
Aoki's eyes lit up at once.
That was different.
Even a Jonin was not good at everything. Everyone had a weakness somewhere. If they were offered a technique they lacked, or one they had no easy way of obtaining, that might be enough to move them.
Of course, Chiba knew perfectly well this was dangerous territory. The inheritance of ninjutsu was treated seriously in every ninja village and every clan. Passing techniques down within a squad was one thing - that was part of the accepted structure of the village. Giving techniques to outsiders was another matter entirely.
If ninjutsu was handed around carelessly, how would its creators profit? How would the village profit? What happened to the rules protecting the value of secret techniques?
That was not something Chiba needed to worry about personally. Aoki would handle the negotiations.
So Chiba took the reward money and went to the hospital.
He could not keep all of it for himself.
Most of the children who died had been orphans. But the wounded survivors still deserved compensation. Whatever the village had officially rewarded him with, he knew in his heart that without those children throwing themselves in to help, he would have died that night.
By the unspoken logic of the ninja world, that was no different from leading them on a mission.
And on a mission, subordinates were owed their share.
Out of the one hundred and thirty thousand ryo, Chiba Shun took seventy thousand and divided it among the seven wounded children. Ten thousand each. For ordinary orphans, that was an astonishing amount of money. They did not need to pay their medical fees - treatment for ninja injuries was covered by the village hospital - so this money was truly theirs.
He went from bed to bed, speaking to them one by one.
He comforted them. He praised them. He promised that the academy, and the village, would remember what they had done.
And he had no intention of letting it end there.
Later, he would absolutely make sure the other students heard about it. And not just them - the whole village, if possible.
The message was simple.
The Ninja Academy treated its students well.
If you sent your children here, the village would not forget them.
The seven children, most of them orphans, counted their money right there in front of him with trembling hands. They had never held that much in their lives. Some were still pale from blood loss, but the moment the money touched their fingers, their pain visibly seemed to lessen.
Watching them, Chiba Shun felt a quiet, complicated emotion stir inside him.
Medical ninjutsu really was extraordinary.
Kumogakure's medical arts were far inferior to Konoha's, but even so, after only a single night the children's conditions had already stabilized. Aside from the two who had been crippled, the others would recover without harming their future cultivation.
For the two disabled children, Chiba promised there would be work for them at the Ninja Academy in the future.
For the others, he urged them to heal properly, then come back and train harder than ever.
Only after finishing all that did he finally leave to eat.
He was starving. Yesterday's battle had drained him, and the speech after it had wrung out whatever remained. After spending several hundred ryo on a proper meal and filling his empty stomach, Chiba Shun finally headed off to collect the B-rank ninjutsu the village had promised him.
At the Kumogakure administrative building, after his identity was verified, he was brought before one of the village's advisors.
The man was a broad, muscular elder in his fifties named Yukio. The moment Chiba stepped in, he could feel the man's dislike like cold steel laid against his throat.
Yukio's expression was hard. His tone was worse.
"What B-rank ninjutsu do you want?"
He had already sensed Chiba Shun's chakra affinity, and the displeasure on his face deepened.
Earth.
Not lightning.
As far as Yukio was concerned, that alone was bad enough. And the Hidden Cloud Village did not even have many worthwhile B-rank earth-style techniques to offer. In his eyes, Chiba Shun had already failed at being a proper Cloud ninja before he had even answered the question.
Chiba did not dare reveal the slightest bit of dissatisfaction. He lowered his head respectfully and said, "Advisor, I would like to exchange it for a sensory ninjutsu."
Yukio frowned as if he had just smelled something rotten.
A sensory ninjutsu?
He already disliked Chiba Shun. Now he disliked him even more.
Fine - if the brat did not have lightning affinity, that was one thing. But after finally earning the right to choose a B-rank technique, instead of taking a powerful offensive ninjutsu, he was choosing sensory arts?
In Yukio's eyes, that was almost offensive.
Still, he did not argue. He gave a cold snort, fetched a sensory ninjutsu scroll himself, and tossed it over.
"Return the scroll tomorrow."
Chiba caught it with both hands and bowed deeply.
"Thank you, Advisor."
Then he left the building.
On the walk back, he thought carefully about Yukio's attitude.
Maybe the old man hated the idea of sensory ninjutsu. Maybe he was disappointed that Chiba was not a lightning-style ninja. But Chiba suspected those were only surface reasons.
The deeper reason was much simpler.
He had helped Aoki Yuuichi revitalize the Ninja Academy.
And that had clearly threatened somebody's interests.
Chiba Shun sighed inwardly.
He truly only wanted to remain in the academy, train in peace, and slowly grow stronger.
Why did something so simple always have to become so difficult?
Once back at the academy, he immediately memorized the entire contents of the sensory ninjutsu scroll. Only after fixing every line firmly in his mind did he begin trying to practice it.
Sensory ninjutsu was difficult to classify cleanly.
It was not part of the five basic elemental styles. Neither was it purely Yin-Yang Release. At most, it touched those areas indirectly. Perception often related to the strength of the soul, so in a broad sense it had some connection to Yin Release. But only some. Not all.
Chiba Shun had no real understanding of his own talent in Yin Release. He had even less understanding of his talent in sensory ninjutsu. He had never come across anything like this before.
And this was only B-rank.
Even then, he had no idea whether he would be able to learn it at all.