Chapter 166: Into the Snow

*Author Note*

Another awesome sticker by hikari_izuki

*End of Author Note*

Considering his arms were still frozen because of Yuna, Orochimaru could only agree to Sasuke’s outburst, despite not knowing why Sasuke suddenly started cursing Yuna.

“Why did you suddenly start cursing her?”

Sasuke’s glare shifted to Orochimaru. He really wanted to yell at him, but took a deep breath and calmed down his anger instead. Since Orochimaru is the one who originally designed the seal, Sasuke concluded that he should also be capable of removing whatever Yuna did with it. Moments later, he deactivated the cursed seal and to his relief, he turned back into a man again, instead of a woman.

“I don’t know how she did it, but before I left Konoha she patted my shoulder and modified the seal, so I would transform into a woman when I activate the second level.”

Orochimaru couldn’t help but chuckle when he heard that. Influencing the transformation of the second stage of his cursed seal was impossible, so he could only interpret Sasuke’s words as the ramblings of a child that wasn’t satisfied with what it got. Despite that, he decided to humor Sasuke for now.

“Kukuku, how about you let me take a look at your seal then. I am sure that if someone actually modified it, I could tell what that person did and how to remove it.”

Sasuke heaved a sigh of relief when Orochimaru said that and took off his shirt, so Orochimaru could take a look at his seal. The moment Orochimaru saw Sasuke’s seal, his face stiffened and his eyes widened in surprise. His [Cursed Seal of Heaven] is supposed to have the appearance of three black tomoe that form a triskelion in the middle of them, but now, it turned into three blue snowflakes, arranged in such a way that the outline of a fourth one could be seen between them.

Orochimaru could feel a little bit of cold sweat flow down his back when he realized that he didn’t even understand where to begin with removing this. Considering what he has seen so far from Yuna, he knew that she was very skilled in seals, but considering Sasuke said that she did the modification with just a pat on the shoulder he thought that she would have at best added a little something to mess with Sasuke. Now, however, he was looking at a completely different seal and he wasn’t even sure whether his original is still in there somehow or if it is completely gone.

‘Can I still use this to resurrect myself? I have no clue. Damn, I need to study this to find out if it is still useful to me.’

“*Cough*, It seems like she really messed around with your seal. As I have previously told you, I still can’t move my arms due to an experiment going wrong, but I am sure that I can do something about it as soon as I regain the mobility of my arms.”

Sasuke heaved a sigh of relief when he heard that Orochimaru could fix the seal. The sooner the seal got fixed, the earlier he could get started on mastering his new power.

Back in Konoha, Yuna was still laying on the hospital bed while considering if she should just leave and go home, but considering that Naruto was probably going to fetch Hinata and Anko if they were in the village, Yuna decided to wait for now.

A short while of waiting later, Yuna could feel Hinata approaching her room, and moments later the door was opened rather forcefully and Hinata jumped on Yuna’s bed, giving her a deep kiss. After they finished kissing, Hinata blushed, while a pout appeared on her face.

“I was worried!”

A wide smile appeared on Yuna’s face as she started patting Hinata’s head, causing her expression to loosen, while she started hugging Yuna.

“Sorry about that, I got a little angry and overdid it a little.”

Hinata chuckled when she heard that Yuna claimed that she overdid it a “little”, after all…

*BANG*

With a loud bang, the door to Yuna’s room was kicked out of its hinges, revealing Tsunade on the other side of the entrance.

Although Tsunade could feel Hinata’s killing intent locking onto her for interrupting her time with Yuna, she ignored it completely and instead pointed her finger at Yuna while glaring at her with red eyes.

“You finally woke up! Get your ass out of bed and get rid of that damn snowstorm RIGHT NOW!!!”

A few minutes of travel time later, Yuna, Hinata, and Tsunade stood in front of one of Konoha’s many forests. But contrary to the current sunny weather, there was a powerful snowstorm rampaging all over this part of the forest. Multiple shinobi were standing close by while trying to somehow stop the storm from spreading further towards Konoha with earth and fire-based jutsu.

Yuna chuckled when she saw the spectacle.

“Seems like I overdid it a little.”

Tsunade’s head almost burst from anger when she heard Yuna’s comment. This snowstorm has been creeping closer and closer towards Konoha and no matter what they tried it could barely be slowed down. Although it would still take about a month to reach Konoha, Tsunade wanted it gone as soon as possible. Worst of all, this snowstorm wasn’t “moving”, it was “growing”. Just how much bigger would it become before stopping? Would it ever stop? Tsunade decided that she would rather not know the answer to that, but what she understood was that Yuna was significantly more dangerous than she expected.

Before Tsunade could say anything else, Yuna started casually walking towards the snowstorm. At first, Tsunade wanted to stop her and tell Yuna that the deeper parts of the snowstorm were even for herself barely endurable due to the extreme cold, but she stopped herself when the snowstorm simply parted for Yuna to pass through it. Tsunade couldn’t even begin to understand how that worked, while Hinata couldn’t help but chuckle a little when she saw Tsunade’s dumbfounded face.

When Tsunade realized that Hinata was laughing at her, she started glaring at her with anger in her eyes.

“What is so funny? Are you telling me that you know how this works?”

Hinata became serious when she heard that question and started to ponder about it for a while. First, how Yuna did it, which she was rather sure she understood to some degree, and second, whether she should tell Tsunade about it. After a short while of thinking, Hinata nodded her head. She lifted up her right hand and caused a small orb of water to appear on top of it.

Tsunade squinted her eyes at it, but couldn’t see anything special about that small blob of water. Moments later, however, the water blob started spinning around Hinata while slowly turning into a string and moments later regathering into its first form.

At first, Tsunade had no idea what that demonstration was supposed to show, but moments later she understood what was going on and her eyes widened in surprise.

“You…didn’t use any chakra at all. How is that possible?”

Yet again, Hinata started pondering and moments later simply shrugged her shoulder.

“Only by truly understanding yourself can you overcome the shackles of Fate.”

“…”

“Meditate about yourself and your own Dao will become clear.”

“…”

“Only by aiming above the Heavens can you surpass them.”

“…”

“…Sorry, that’s all I got.”

“I have literally no idea what you were talking about just now.”

“Yeah, me neither, but Yuna occasionally says stuff like that while we are training and sometimes, it clicks for me when I hear what she says. It’s like I know exactly what she is talking about and I feel that it somehow helps me get stronger.”

Although Tsunade couldn’t help but be slightly doubtful about that, she could see that Hinata was serious about what she just said, so she decided to drop the matter.

If Yuna were here, she would scold Hinata for not using her teaching methods properly. Every “ancestor-level” cultivator knew that one of the best ways to grant someone they are training sudden enlightenment was spouting random, profound-sounding garbage about the Dao, Heavens, and Fate at the correct moment. Hinata, however, used all of Yuna’s favorite phrases all at once, which obviously wouldn’t have any effect! It’s all about the timing!