The Hakimaster of Naruto

Chapter 264 264: The Immortal Body

In the heightened state of Kenbunshoku's perception, the world around Ragnar had undergone a seismic shift. Invisible to the naked eye, torrents of natural energy poured into his body in endless, coursing streams. They filled every limb. Every organ. Every cell. The air around him thickened with an invisible pressure, dense with power that existed just beyond the reach of ordinary sight.

But what the eyes could not see, other senses could feel.

It was like the wind. No one had ever seen the wind's shape. But everyone had heard its howl. Everyone had felt its caress against their skin. The force of nature worked the same way. Everything in creation—every tree, every stone, every drop of rain—possessed its own rhythm, its own pulse of life. With patience. With stillness. With absolute attention... one could find traces of its presence.

Konan, Yahiko, and Nagato stirred from their meditative state.

"Konan. Nagato." Yahiko stretched his arms high above his head, a contented sigh escaping his lips. "Do you feel that? It's... really comfortable. Like soaking in a hot spring."

The rich natural energy bathing the clearing was, in moderate amounts, deeply beneficial to the human body. It soothed the spirit. Revitalized the flesh. It was only in excess that it became dangerous—a lesson written in the tragic fate of Jūgo and his clan.

But Konan and Yahiko were different. They were not Sages. They could not perceive natural energy, not consciously. To them, being immersed in this field was like being a fish in a river. The fish did not question the water. It simply lived within it.

And besides—who had ever heard of a fish drowning?

Only one among them could truly see.

Nagato. Descendant of the Uzumaki bloodline. Born with a half-immortal body. Bearer of the Rinnegan. His chakra possessed every nature affinity. His talent was a thing of legend.

And through the divine pupils of the Rinnegan, he could pierce the veil of the material world. He could see the essence beneath the surface.

He saw the natural energy now.

It swirled around them in massive, slow-moving currents—dark blue streams of raw power, denser and purer than any chakra a human body could produce. Human chakra was blue, yes. But this was something deeper. Something older. Something more.

Nagato's eyes traced the currents back to their source.

And he froze.

Sitting at the origin point—the eye of the storm—was Ragnar.

Under the Rinnegan's gaze, the scene was almost terrifying. Ragnar sat motionless on his stone, but around him, the dark blue energy had nearly materialized into physical form. It spun in a vast, silent vortex, a whirlpool of creation drawing power from every direction. The sheer volume was staggering. The density was beyond anything Nagato had ever witnessed.

This power... it's not much weaker than the Five-Tails' chakra.

And that was the most frightening comparison of all. A Tailed Beast was, by its very nature, a living aggregation of chakra. It was power given form. And yet, the energy swirling around his teacher approached that same magnitude. Not borrowed. Not sealed. Simply... gathered.

Nagato's heart stirred with a flicker of understanding. He still did not fully comprehend what natural energy was. But he grasped enough. This was the power of the world itself. The lifeblood of the planet. Perhaps... even a force more fundamental than chakra.

The teacher reached the pinnacle of the ninja world at such a young age. It was never a coincidence.

A pang of something—not jealousy, not quite, but something adjacent to it—tugged at Nagato's chest. Admiration, sharpened to a point. If he could reach even a fraction of this power... if he could stand at such heights... then he could control his own destiny. He could help Yahiko fulfill their shared dream. Change the world. Build a future where kindness and love were not weaknesses, but foundations.

His resolve hardened.

He would train harder. Push further. He would not be left behind.

"It's the sound of the teacher training," Yahiko said, his voice tinged with simple, uncomplicated awe.

"You may not be able to sense it," Nagato said quietly, "but the power gathering around the teacher... to my eyes, it is truly terrifying."

Yahiko did not fully understand. But hearing those words from Nagato—Nagato, who never exaggerated—a strange, solemn feeling settled over him.

Konan said nothing at all. Her beautiful eyes were fixed on Ragnar's still figure, and within those eyes swirled emotions she could not name. Emotions she was not yet ready to examine.

At the edge of the clearing, Kokuō had abandoned all pretense of sleep.

Her round, dolphin-like eyes were locked onto Ragnar with an intensity that bordered on disbelief.

"Such a majestic concentration of natural energy..."

"Is Rakshasa truly an ordinary human?"

As a Tailed Beast who had survived since the age of the Sage of Six Paths, Kokuō recognized natural energy immediately. The old man—the Sage—had wielded this same power. He had commanded it with a mastery that made even Ragnar's current display seem modest by comparison. But that was the Sage. The founder of the ninja world. The closest thing to a god this world had ever produced.

Ragnar was not the Sage. And yet—

With his current absorption rate? The sheer density of natural force he was pulling into his body?

Among all the humans who had ever lived, Kokuō could count on one paw the number who had reached this level. The Sage. Perhaps the shinobi who had once conquered the world with his Wood Release Buddha. And... that was it. The list ended there.

"But why isn't he transforming?"

Kokuō's brow furrowed. The question nagged at her.

With this much Senjutsu chakra swirling through his system, Ragnar should have already entered that state—the one humans called Sage Mode. The eyes. The markings. The qualitative leap in power. The signs should be unmistakable. And yet, as far as Kokuō could tell, Ragnar was only accumulating natural energy. He was not cycling it through the proper pathways. He was not undergoing the transformation.

"Could it be...?"

A wild, almost laughable idea bloomed in Kokuō's mind.

"Does Rakshasa not know the cultivation method for Sage Mode?"

The more she considered it, the more it made sense. The Sage Mode cultivation techniques were among the most closely guarded secrets in the shinobi world. The Ryūchi Cave snakes taught one version. Mount Myōboku's toads taught another. The Slugs of Shikkotsu Forest had their own path. Beyond those three sacred places, the method was essentially unknown.

So Ragnar—this monstrous, terrifying, incomprehensible human—had simply... brute-forced his way into absorbing natural energy? No technique. No training. No ancient contract with a sage lineage. Just talent. A physique so attuned to the natural world that the energy flowed into him as easily as breath.

"That's insane! Even the old man wouldn't dare to be so reckless! Is he not afraid of overloading his body and exploding?!"

Human bodies were fragile things. They could barely contain Tailed Beast chakra without a Jinchūriki seal. The only force that could truly rival a Tailed Beast's power was Senjutsu chakra—the fusion of natural energy with human spirit. But raw natural energy, unrefined and unconverted, was poison. Absorb too much, and you petrified. Absorb it wrong, and you mutated into something less than human.

But Ragnar was swallowing natural energy like a Tailed Beast swallowed chakra.

And he was fine.

"Is this even something humans can do? Unbelievable..."

Kokuō decided to wait. To watch. Ragnar seemed stable, at least for now. If he reached his limit, she would know. And if he didn't... well. That would be even more interesting.

Her gaze drifted to a small, pale form that had materialized near Ragnar's feet.

A fat caterpillar.

A very familiar fat caterpillar.

Kokuō squinted. "Is that... a Six-Tails larva? It looks just like Saiken when it was small..."

The tiny slug-creature had apparently sensed the banquet of natural energy and emerged to bask in the overflow. Kokuō watched it wiggle contentedly, absorbing stray wisps of power. She snorted. Typical. If there was free energy to be had, of course the little slug would show up.

Ragnar, for his part, had noticed the creature's presence. But it was a trivial matter. Not worth his attention.

Because something far more significant was happening inside his body.

The Senjutsu chakra reached critical saturation.

And then—kept going.

Normally, once a Sage's reserves hit their limit, the absorption process would halt. The body could hold no more. To push further was to court petrification. But Ragnar's body did not stop. The natural energy continued to pour in, drawn by the vortex of his Kenbunshoku-enhanced presence. And instead of converting into more Senjutsu chakra, it began to do something else.

It found the Haki.

Kenbunshoku Haki. The Color of Observation. It had always been intangible. Formless. Invisible and impossible to touch. It was a sense, not a substance. A perception, not a power that could be held in the hand.

But after reaching Level 5, something had changed.

For the first time, the Haki had condensed into a mysterious substance within Ragnar's body. A seed of something new. Something that had never existed before.

And the natural energy, rich and abundant, recognized it.

The two forces—one of this world, one from beyond it—began to merge.

The result was not Senjutsu chakra.

It was something else entirely.

A new power bloomed within Ragnar's core, beginning in his abdomen and radiating outward. It was pale green in color—the green of new leaves, of spring growth, of life itself. It carried none of the volatile intensity of Senjutsu chakra. Instead, it was warm. Nurturing. Full of vital essence.

It flowed through his limbs. His organs. His very cells.

Everywhere it passed, it left behind a trail of revitalization. Muscles that had been pushed to exhaustion in countless battles loosened and strengthened. Micro-tears in tissue knitted themselves together seamlessly. Old scars—remnants of close calls and near-fatal wounds—faded ever so slightly. Even the deep, invisible wear of accumulated stress and adrenaline began to dissolve.

Ragnar felt... good.

No. More than good.

He felt perfect.

Every cell in his body was singing. Every fiber of his being was more alive than it had ever been. It was as if his body was being rewritten, upgraded, pushed toward some higher state of existence.

He knew this sensation. He had read about it. Dreamed of it.

"Could this be... the beginning of the Immortal Body?"

The term surfaced from the depths of his memory—a concept drawn from the later arcs of the story he had once watched. The body of a true Sage. The vessel that could withstand divine power without breaking. It was the foundation upon which all Six Paths-level abilities were built.

But he had no formal method. No ancient scroll. No toad sage to guide him through the transformation.

And yet—

His body was evolving all on its own.

The green energy continued to spread, suffusing him completely. And at the center of it all, the condensed core of Kenbunshoku Haki pulsed like a second heart, beating in rhythm with the natural world.

Whatever was happening to him... it was far from over.

End of Chapter

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