In the Ninja World, there were many taboos—things you simply didn't do unless you had a death wish. Eating ramen without finishing the broth? Borderline criminal. Forgetting your kunai before a mission? Grounds for eternal ridicule.
But above them all, one rule stood supreme: never, ever spy on your comrades. Especially not those from your own village.
That was basically the shinobi equivalent of trying to lick a lightning blade—dangerous, stupid, and guaranteed to end badly.
Even Konoha, a village armed with the all-seeing Byakugan, couldn't sniff out every little issue lurking in its streets.
Explosive tags had been sitting in dusty corners for decades, and no one noticed. Why? Because spying on your own was forbidden, and the Hyūga clan wasn't about to waste their pride on peeking at laundry lines.
But Sarutobi Hiruzen was… special.
The kind of special that made people roll their eyes but not complain, because what could they do?
He was the Hokage. The Professor. The "Shinobi Hero." Which basically meant he could stick his nose into whatever business he wanted, and everyone else had to smile, bow, and pretend not to notice.
So when Azula and Hatake Sakumo started interacting again, Hiruzen conveniently 'forgot' his paperwork.
Instead, he, without big ceremony, used his most beloved Telescope Jutsu after receiving the ANBU report.
Of course, in his defense, it wasn't entirely nosiness. It was also because he was smugly confident they wouldn't detect him. If you can't spy without getting caught, are you really the Hokage?
Truthfully, his curiosity about Azula had been gnawing at him for years.
On paper, she was 'a bit above the average chūnin,' proficient in Fire and Lightning Release, and occasionally guilty of giving Tsunade headaches by inventing new jutsu in the morning like it was arts-and-crafts hour.
But Hiruzen didn't know the full extent. And there was no way in hell he was going to snoop on her training when Mito Uzumaki herself supervised.
Mito was the referee of Azula's duels with Tsunade, and you didn't cross Mito. You didn't even breathe too loud in her presence without getting side-eyed into oblivion.
If Hiruzen dared to spy under her watchful gaze, the Senju (who had already renounced their family name but still packed enough political firepower to bury him) and the Uchiha (never ones to pass up on ganging up against authority) would unite to roast him alive.
He'd go from 'Hokage' to 'Former Hokage' faster than you could say 'Hokage.'
But today was different. Today, Azula was sparring with Sakumo in a private Uchiha training ground on the outskirts of Konoha. No barriers. No Uzumaki referee. No death glare of doom. Just two prodigies about to clash—and one nosy old man gleefully watching.
At first, Hiruzen was pleased. He observed Azula's interactions with Sakumo and noticed something rare.
Her expressions, her tone—there was genuine respect there. Not the cold, arrogant sort the Uchiha usually reserved for their own, or sometimes the Senju. No, this was village-wide respect.
She was acknowledging Sakumo, not just some outsider. For Hiruzen, that was like watching a cat voluntarily take a bath: unheard of, but delightful.
But then… things escalated.
Handseal-less ninjutsu? Sure. That was impressive but survivable. Inventing a brand-new, high-ranked jutsu before graduation? Concerning, but manageable.
Flying?
Flying was where Hiruzen had to physically stop himself from choking on his pipe.
He, the Hokage, the man with access to every scroll and dusty forbidden manual Konoha possessed, couldn't fly.
Tobirama, a man who was feeling lazy and accidentally invented teleportation, couldn't fly. And yet here was an eight-year-old child, soaring through the air like she'd just decided gravity was beneath her.
"It seems I still underestimated you, little Azula," he muttered, a flicker of helplessness sneaking into his eyes before he could stop it.
The realization hit him like a ton of shuriken: in ten years, by the time she was barely eighteen, Azula wouldn't just rival him—she'd surpass him.
Even without awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan, she was on track to reach Tobirama's level. And if she did awaken it?
She'd climb straight into the Madara tier—the legendary warrior who could duel Hashirama Senju on equal footing. In the current shinobi world, that would make her utterly unmatched.
And Azula wasn't just any Uchiha, she represented the extreme troublemaker among the Uchiha. According to Tobirama's opinion, Uchiha were 'emotional super cats with chakra eyeballs.' Which meant once her Sharingan inevitably awakened, she'd become more extreme.
And if the Mangekyō followed, well… good luck, Konoha.
He could already imagine the disaster scenarios. What if Azula got angry one day and decided the Daimyō system was outdated? What if she simply walked up to the Fire Daimyō, declared 'No more kings,' and fireballed him on the spot?
The political shockwaves would make the entire shinobi world implode.
And just when he thought he'd seen her limit, she did that.
Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
Kumo's secret trump card, their crown jewel of taijutsu amplification—and here was Azula, bursting with lightning, moving with a speed and strength that let her stand toe-to-toe with jōnin-level shinobi.
At that point, Hiruzen stopped pretending to be calm. He exhaled, rubbed his temple, and quietly summoned an ANBU operative.
"Go," he said, his voice low and serious. "Call Danzō."
Because if there was one thing scarier than an Uchiha prodigy inventing new jutsu every other week—it was an Uchiha prodigy doing it while laughing in the face of gravity.
...
...
...
The clash between Azula and Sakumo wasn't so much a quiet spar as it was a neighborhood-disturbing, 'did-you-hear-that?' level spectacle.
It was the kind of commotion that typically sends every busybody with a pair of binoculars and a chūnin vest into a spying frenzy. However, this time, the village's collective curiosity was met with a firm, bureaucratic wall.
Azula had already papered the entire relevant chain of command with memos.
The Uchiha clan members had been notified, the Police Force had received a politely worded heads-up, and over at the Hokage Tower, Hiruzen's ANBU had gotten their instructions the moment the two combatants had agreed to meet.
The message was clear: This is a sanctioned, above-board, please-don't-spy-on-us event. Especially you, Danzō.
So, while the thunderous cracks of lightning and the shrieking of displaced air certainly turned heads, no one intervened.
No one, of course, except the Third Hokage himself, who was probably watching through his crystal ball.
Credit where it's due, the two fighters also showed remarkable restraint. Well, to be precise, Sakumo showed restraint.
Azula showed a fiery passion that was politely contained within the agreed-upon boundaries, like a tiger playing by the rules of chess.
Sakumo, a man who valued peace and quiet almost as much as a good technique, had zero desire to explain to a council why he'd accidentally turned the training grounds of the Uchiha into a new public swimming pool via excessive lightning.
Frankly, Sakumo was gobsmacked. His original assessment of Azula had pegged her at a solid chūnin level, and he'd thought that was him being generous.
He never expected to be staring down a veritable force of nature, a fighter who could tango with a jōnin, albeit powered by what looked like a temporary super-mode.
Once the dust settled and the last sparks fizzled out, Sakumo, looking like a man who'd just tried to wrestle a thunderstorm, approached her with a question burning brighter than a misplaced Fireball Jutsu.
"If possible," he began, trying to sound casual and not like an overeager academy student, "I would like to know how you managed to create the Lightning Release Chakra Mode?"
As a specialist in Lightning Release, he knew this wasn't some simple trick. It's not like you just wake up one day, decide to coat your body in lightning, and hope for the best.
That's a one-way ticket to becoming a charred statistic. Lightning is wild, untamable, and notoriously lacking in sentimentality. It doesn't care that the chakra generating it is your own; it has no sense of familial pity. The question isn't if it will pulverize your cells, but how quickly.
Coincidentally, Azula was equally intrigued by Sakumo's unique chakra. She could sense a novel chakra nature at play, something sharp and focused.
And with her surgeon-level chakra control, she was confident she could reverse-engineer it. But a lady doesn't just shamelessly ask for a man's secret techniques—it's terribly uncouth.
However, if he asks first… well, that's not a request, it's an invitation for a scholarly exchange! A perfect, face-saving transaction.
She also agreed to this chat because she'd noticed something important: the creepy old-man vibe from the Hokage's telescope had vanished.
Hiruzen was likely no longer watching, probably already in a panicked meeting with his paranoid 'work husband,' to discuss this alarming display of cooperative power that didn't directly involve them.
With a smirk that suggested she'd already won the negotiation before it began, Azula laid her cards on the table.
"How about this," she said, her tone smooth as silk. "I can write detailed notes on the principles of the Lightning Release Chakra Mode—a step-by-step guide, but," she paused for effect, "I'm fascinated by your own… situation. I'd like to know about the technique you're developing."
She even threw in a bonus offer, like a saleswoman pitching a premium package. "In fact, I can sense it's incomplete. Perhaps I can help you refine it. I have a feeling we're looking at the birth of a secret technique that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Nara's Shadow Imitation or the Akimichi's Multi-Size Jutsu."
Now, the thing Azula had completely overlooked. From her perspective, Sakumo was a theoretical genius, an early prototype of Kakashi—a man who could spin gold from intellectual inspiration, like her manga. The reality was far funnier.
Sakumo was not a bookworm. He was a practical man, a scion of a samurai family who ran on instinct, gut feelings, and a 'let's-see-if-this-works' attitude.
His chakra education was more 'on-the-job training' than formal study. He'd read about breathing techniques in her comics, his gut said "I can do that," and after some tinkering that mostly involved a lot of grunting and concentration… voilà!
He'd stumbled upon a method to double his physical strength. He didn't have a grand theory; he had a result.
Consequently, he had no idea how earth-shattering his 'incomplete technique' truly was. In a world used to Uchiha who control you with a glance, Nara who trap you with your own shadow, and Uzumaki who have more chakra before breakfast than he'd have in a week, a simple power boost that required a day of recovery afterward seemed… quaint.
Almost humble, at least he thought so.
So, when Azula compared his clumsy, instinct-born trick to the legendary arts of clans only a step below the Senju and Uchiha, his heart swelled with a pride he hadn't known he was missing.
A wide, genuine grin spread across his face. "No problem," he said, the picture of enthusiastic cooperation. "I hope through our collaboration, we can actually figure out what I did—and make it even better."
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
So, what do you think about Sukumo's technique? Basically, his chakra naturally converts into Lightning Release chakra. That means he can't really use other chakra natures anymore once completed. On the flip side, though, any Lightning Release attack from outside gets completely neutralized by his chakra. The only reason his own lightning techniques affect him is because it's still his own chakra doing the damage.
And don't forget to vote guys, and by the way, for those willing and with the powers to support, welcome to my Patreon with eight advanced chapters now.
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