Hokage: Ryo’s Path

Chapter 89: Snake Sage Mode

It’s been more than a month since the battle against the Hidden Rock, and over the course of most of it, Ryo was helping Anko practice Sage mode.

The first problem to be solved was getting her to absorb natural energy safely.

To that end, Ryo went to Mount Myoboku, and asked Fakasaku about the mechanism of extraction of natural energy with his staff.

Fukasaku explained that knocking someone with that staff used a double mechanism: On one hand, it relied on the pain to interrupt the state of understanding one had with Natural Energy, and the other, the staff itself extracts the energy from the body.

After learning the principle, Ryo tried it and found that he could do it. So after consulting with Orochimaru, Anko started her new training.

Unlike the time when Ryo practiced Sage Mode, Anko had no access to Toad Oil. Although she could feel Natural energy, she could not absorb it. Ryo calmed her down and told her to try to feel nature and become one with it.

But Anko was only an 11-year-old child, with a very “lively” character. She didn’t sit still for 5 minutes before starting to look around and scratch her head.

Ryo could only call Orochimaru. Orochimaru, being her Sensei, had much more control over her. For now, they could at least keep her motionless.

Ten minutes later, the two looked at her with their faces blue. They were thinking that she was practicing serious, when suddenly the started drooling, making them realize that she had fallen asleep.

“Ryo kun, wake her up.” Orochimaru pointed to Ryo’s staff.

Ryo approached her, got close to her ear and hit her on the head with his stick.

“Hey! It hurts! What are you doing Ryo?!”

“Sorry to interrupt your drooling… But please, can’t you take this a bit more seriously?” Ryo said helplessly.

Anko smiled and looked at the stern eyes of her teacher, then immediately closed her eyes and sat down in focus.

This time, she didn’t fall asleep; she began to gradually blend into nature by perceiving natural energy and mimicking its fluctuations.

This way, Anko completed the 1st step in her training. Over the following days, Ryo continued to teach her about Sage Mode training, while she kept training seriously under the watchful eyes of Orochimaru.

After practicing Sage Mode for half a month, Anko finally had a break through.

Natural energy surrounding her with its regular circulation suddenly started fluctuating, and a little of it flowed into her body.

That faint passage was like the key that opened the door between her and between natural energy.

Now her body established a connection with that energy, she became a part of the cycle of nature, and it started to flow into her body naturally.

Ryo witnessed a strange sight! Anko absorbed so much natural energy! yet, for some reason, her body wasn’t being taken over by it, and it didn’t show any kind of metamorphosis anywhere.

Anko suddenly opened up her eyes, and slammed into Ryo! While her body wasn’t taken over, and did not turn into stone, she became extremely violent!

Ryo opened his Sharingan, and found that the natural energy was wondering within her body crazily. She could not mentally control this immense power! So it made her go berserk, similarly to Jugo.

After discovering the reason why she acted that way, He told Orochimaru to control her movements. Then he used the stick from Mount Myoboku to knock the natural energy out of her.

The remaining natural energy in her body wasn’t much. Observing her innate power level, Ryo extracted enough natural energy out of her to get all three types in her body in a ratio of 1:1:1.

For ninjas, distinguishing between physical and natural energy is common. Anko had the added advantage of being naturally able to be sensitive to natural energy.

This all helped her with the most important step towards achieving Sage Mode, which is blending the Senjutsu Chakra.

In consequence, he developed a unique horn on her head, a purple eye shadow appearing underneath her eyes, and whiter pale skin. She also had some subtle scales on her body.

Ryo sensed clearly the newly found strong vitality coming out of her body.

Anko’s Sage Mode was obviously different from Ryo’s. She was a contractor of the Ryuchi Cave, and her Sage Mode was somewhat similar to that of Kabuto, but with a single horn instead of two.

Anko slowly opened her eyes, initially being confused, and then looked at the world around her with surprise.

Seeing that she was awake, Ryo went ahead and said: “So Anko, what do you think?”

“I feel so good, everything around me is clearer, and I feel like I have infinite energy in my body.” Anko said excitedly.

“Anko, let’s have a fight.” Ryo wanted to see how much her strength had increased with the Snake Sage Mode.

In the Manga, Kabuto gave the two Uchiha Brother a hard time, and the outcome of that fight wasn’t certain to be what it was if it wasn’t for Itachi’s use of Izanami.

“I don’t want to! You’re Kage tier, and I’m at best Chunin tier. Are you just looking for someone to bullu?” Anko decisively rejected Ryo’s proposal.

Ryo had to use his ultimate power against her, getting the help of Orochimaru!

The latter was also extremely interested in Anko’s Sage Mode, and ordered her to face Ryo. Anko could only fight with a bitter look on her face.

Since she couldn’t run, she decided to go all out, to at least make her loss look less ugly. Anko went ahead and used [Fire Release: Dragon Flame Jutsu]

After her Jutsu was released, she found to be off target, as her power was so immense. However, it was as if her Jutsu was brought to life, almost becoming a true fire dragon!

Ryo condensed the ice in the air into an Ice Wall, but the Dragon went straight through it, going directly towards him! He was shocked and quickly used [Raikiri] to split it in half.

Sage Mode is known to make all Jutsus be more powerful. The fact that the Snake Sage Mode had life giving-like effect on Jutsus gave Ryo a bit of surprise.

Anko was greatly excited looking at Ryo. She found out that after absorbing Natural Energy, not only was her Ninjutsu improved, her insight and physical power were also increased.

While she was ready to continue attacking, she suddenly left Sage Mode.

“So for now, you can only last two minutes?” With her appearance change, Ryo stopped fighting.

“Ryo, this energy seemed to have left my body by itself! What happened?”

“Natural energy is a special kind of energy that continually circulates in the world. After a while, it would just leave your body and return to its natural cycle.

Anko had many more questions, but she was interrupted by Ryo:

“The issue with Anko’s Sage Mode can be discussed later. Now, we need to entertain our “guest”!