Konoha: The Absolute Justice of the Uchiha.

Chapter 406 Infrasound Side Effects

This information isn't in the intelligence from Kirigakure; we need to find clues ourselves before we set off.

"Where do we find it?" Tian Tian asked.

Chi Quan tapped his cane on the step below the stairs and began to walk down.

His shadow was stretched long under the dim light in the stairwell, cast on the wet steps.

"The hospital," he said, "the underground archives of Konoha Hospital."

Three years ago, I participated in a medical collaboration project sent by the Hidden Mist Anbu. The project involved studying an unusual chakra waveform—the source of which was a fisherman who was found unconscious in the eastern waters of Hidden Mist.

The fisherman's chakra waveform did not match any known creature.

At the time, Kirigakure suspected it was some kind of unknown underwater creature and sent it to Konoha for sample analysis.

The project was terminated halfway through because the fisherman remembered nothing after waking up, and his chakra waveform returned to normal.

But the project files are still there—including the original data of that abnormal waveform.

He stopped at the corner and turned his head to look at the three people above the stairs.

The lenses of the glasses reflected two small square spots of light under the dim yellow light.

"If the abnormal waveform data is similar to the chakra waveform of the container on the island, we can identify its weakness before we set off."

Three days—that's enough.

The entrance to the underground archives of Konoha Hospital is on the second basement level of the inpatient building, behind an iron gate at the end of the corridor that reads "Restricted Archives, No Entry Without Permission".

The iron gate was painted a dark green, and the edges had been worn down to their original metallic color from countless pushes and pulls. A sign made of twisted wire hung on the doorknob, with the words "Lighting failure, bring your own flashlight" written in marker.

Chi Quan took out his key and opened the door. He extended his cane forward in the darkness and touched the ground.

The air in the archives room is completely different from the air in the outside corridor. The outside air smells of disinfectant and laundry detergent, while the inside air has a dry, dusty paper smell, like a bookshelf forgotten for many years in a corner of an old bookstore.

Neji followed Izumi in, his Byakugan automatically activating in the darkness, and faint bluish-white lines appeared around his pupils.

"The third shelf on the left, the fourth row from the top," Chi Quan said.

His voice was compressed tightly between the dense file shelves, with no echo.

Neji walked up to the shelf, his Byakugan's X-ray vision penetrating the cardboard of the file box, and found the document numbered MW-037 in a row of file boxes labeled "International Medical Cooperation Project".

He pulled out the file box and blew off the layer of dust.

The dust particles, illuminated by the dim white light, resembled a swarm of tiny flying insects, churning briefly in the darkness before settling down.

"MW-037." Neji read out the number on the spine of the file box, "Land of Water, Hidden Mist, Unknown Source Chakra Waveform Analysis - This project has a low level of confidentiality."

"Because the analysis at the time yielded no results." Chi Quan took the file box, walked to a dusty tin table in the corner of the archives, leaned his cane against the table, and opened the file box.

The documents inside were few: a project application, a medical examination report of the subject sent by the Hidden Mist Dark Division, a stack of chakra waveform charts, and a project termination notice.

He picked up the bottom waveform chart and examined it closely against the faint light emanating from Neji's Byakugan.

The graph is a long strip of thermal paper with two waveform curves printed on it.

The waveform above is the standard waveform of normal human chakra—smooth, regular, and with amplitude fluctuating within the normal range.

The waveform below is an abnormal waveform detected from the unconscious fisherman's body. Its amplitude fluctuates, with a series of dense, irregular secondary oscillations between the peaks and troughs, like a snake desperately writhing as if being chased by something.

"What is the frequency of this secondary oscillation?" Neji leaned closer and pointed to the series of jagged peaks on the waveform graph.

Chi Quan pulled out a data record sheet from the file box, on which waveform analysis data was densely written in pencil.

His finger slid down the numbers and stopped at the seventh line.

The numbers are handwritten and somewhat illegible, but legible—secondary oscillation peak frequency: 7.31 Hz.

As Neji read the numbers aloud, the fluorescent light tube above the metal table suddenly flickered—not lit, but a very brief, dark red wisp of light emitted when there is a poor circuit connection.

The light filament flickered in the tube for less than half a second before going out, but that was enough for them to see the expressions on each other's faces.

Neji's brows furrowed deeply, and the white light in his pupils shrank to the size of a pinhead.

Chi Quan's expression did not change, but his finger stopped on the data record sheet, his fingertip pressing on the number "7.31", causing a small dent in the paper.

7.31 Hz.

"The fundamental frequency of the main root of the sacred tree is 7.3 Hz." Chi Quan placed the data recording sheet next to the graph, with the two items placed side by side on the tin table. "A deviation of 0.01 Hz is within the measurement error range."

Three years ago, in the eastern waters of the Land of Water, an abnormal waveform was detected in a fisherman's body that was highly consistent with the fundamental frequency of the Divine Tree's chakra.

Then he woke up, the waveform disappeared, and the project was terminated.

"Where did he go after he woke up?" Neji asked.

Chi Quan opened the project termination notice.

The last page of the notification was stamped with the seal of the Hidden Mist Village's Anbu. Below the seal was a handwritten note in very small characters, as if the writer did not want others to see it—"The subject left Hidden Mist Village on his own on the seventh day after waking up, claiming that he wanted to return to his hometown."

Hometown address: Poche Island, in the eastern sea area of ​​the Land of Water.

Poche Island.

Chi Quan took out the sea chart he had brought from Tsunade's office from his pocket and spread it out on the metal table.

The island names on the nautical chart were marked in extremely small font. He searched one by one among the islands that looked like shards of pottery in the eastern waters of the Land of Water for Ichigetsu Island, Shiodome Island, Akasaki Island, and Hakake Island.

Poche Island is located southeast of the unnamed island, about twelve kilometers away as the crow flies, with a narrow strait separating the two islands.

"The fishermen's home is on Poche Island."

He was found unconscious in the eastern sea, adrift at sea.

Kabuto's experimental field is on an unnamed island.

"The twelve-kilometer stretch of sea between these two islands—" Neji drew a line between the two islands on the nautical chart, "is exactly the reasonable range for the Divine Tree's chakra field to spread across the seabed."

If Kabuto builds an experimental field underground on the nameless island, the chakra generated by the Divine Tree cells will spread outward through the seabed rock layers and the underground water system.

The chakra concentration had spread to the waters near Pochi Island, twelve kilometers away, and had been diluted to a level that was not fatal but sufficient to affect the human body.

The fisherman may have accidentally entered a zone of high chakra concentration while fishing at sea.

"He inhaled or came into contact with the Divine Tree cells." Chi Quan continued Neji's reasoning, speaking a little faster than usual. It wasn't that he was in a hurry, but rather that his thoughts were involuntarily accelerating when they touched on a key point. "After the Divine Tree cells entered his body, they began to construct a chakra field, which produced that abnormal waveform in his body."

However, his immune system was not suppressed by Dou's immunosuppressive factors, so the Divine Tree cells could not complete the full transformation in his body—a rejection reaction eventually cleared out the foreign cells, he woke up, and his waveform returned to normal.

This process is equivalent to spontaneously completing an unsuccessful experiment of transplanting sacred tree cells within a single person's body.

""

He survived.

His body expelled the divine tree cells.

What does this tell us?

"This indicates that Dou's Divine Tree Cell Transplantation Technology has a key flaw—the lack of immunosuppressive factors means that Divine Tree Cells cannot survive for more than a week in a normal human body."

The fisherman recovered because his immune system was still functioning. Chi Quan closed the file box and tapped the lid twice with his fingers. "The subjects in the culture tanks we saw on the third basement level of Chiyu Valley were all injected with immunosuppressive factors extracted from Shirazuki's body."

The subject's immune system must be put into a dormant state to ensure that the Shenshu cells are not rejected.

This means that there must also be a large amount of immunosuppressive factors within his container on the nameless island, and these factors must be continuously replenished. Once the supply of immunosuppressive factors is interrupted, the container's body will begin to reject the Divine Tree cells, and the chakra field will fluctuate.

"What are the symptoms of rejection?" Neji asked.

Chi Quan straightened up in front of the tin table and put his cane back in his hand.

The fluorescent light tube on the ceiling of the archives flickered again, this time for a shorter time. The dark red light flashed briefly inside the tube and then disappeared, like an eye opening and closing.

"High fever, visceral edema, bleeding of the skin and mucous membranes, and spasms of the chakra meridians," Chi Quan said, each word as clean and crisp as a scalpel cutting into tissue. "During the rejection process, the Divine Tree cells release a large amount of chakra toxins, which first attack the liver and kidneys, and then the cardiopulmonary function."

When the rejection reaction is at its most intense, the host's chakra meridians will experience intermittent spasms—the frequency of which is irregular and completely different from the normal chakra flow frequency.

If our resonance attack can precisely strike the container's chakra pathways, disrupting its pathway vibration frequency from the 7.3 Hz of the Divine Tree cells to its own rejection response frequency, "

"Use resonance to trigger rejection." A flash of white light appeared in Neji's pupils, not the chakra light of the Byakugan, but the physiological pupil contraction that occurs when one's mind is illuminated. "It's not about directly destroying it with resonance, but about using resonance to awaken the rejection reaction within its body."

Let its own body attack the Divine Tree cells.

"The container's immune system was suppressed by the use of immunosuppressive factors."

However, immunosuppression is not immune deletion—the immune system simply goes into a dormant state, not dies.

If we can create a breach in the immune system of this container, the rejection reaction will spread like an avalanche.

During the process of rejection of the Divine Tree cells, more chakra toxins are released, which further stimulate the immune system, forming a positive feedback loop.

Once that critical point is reached, we don't need to continue attacking; its body will do the rest for us.

Chi Quan tucked the file box under his arm and walked towards the entrance of the archives room, leaning on his cane.

Neji followed behind him, the faint light of his Byakugan moving through the dark archives room, illuminating the densely packed file shelves on both sides, casting the shadows of the file boxes on the opposite wall, layer upon layer, like a city that has been folded many times.

Stepping out of the archives, the fluorescent lights in the corridor were blindingly bright.

Chi Quan squinted, and in the light, two tiny scratches appeared on his glasses lenses. They were old wounds, not noticeable unless you looked closely.

He took a few steps toward the stairs, then suddenly stopped.

"Fishermen," he said.

"What?" Neji stopped behind him.

"That fisherman."

After he returns to Bochi Island, if the Divine Tree cells left any traces in his body—such as antibodies or residual damage to the chakra meridians—then his blood sample would be the closest biological sample to the container that we could find before we set off.

Using his blood sample, I can verify the critical conditions that trigger the rejection reaction.

"Are you going to Pocher Island to find that fisherman?"

"Boche Island is 12 kilometers away from the unnamed island."

We'll depart from Konoha and head to the Land of Water, stopping at Pokémon Island along the way.

There is a Fog Shadow contact station on Poche Island. Find the fisherman through the contact station, draw a vial of blood, do antibody testing and meridian imaging, and then go to the Nameless Island after obtaining the data.

"Adding a stop will add four hours to the total trip." Chi Quan tapped his cane on the steps. "Four hours to exchange for a biological sample data value that can increase our chances of winning from 30% to over 50%."

"The premise is that he is still alive."

And it's on Bocher Island.

"Fishermen don't easily leave their islands." Chi Quan started climbing the stairs, his cane tapping a short, dry sound on each step. "Especially for a fisherman who has had an accident at sea and almost lost his life."

He won't go too far.

The third day of joint training took place at Konoha's third training ground.

The third training ground is located at the foot of the mountain to the east of the village, some distance from the main training area. It is surrounded by a mixed forest, and the ground is compacted yellow soil that feels hard underfoot.

At the edge of the training field were some old targets and wooden stakes, some of which were cracked and covered with moss, indicating that the training field was not usually frequented.

Kaiban chose this location because the combined resonance array produces a special low-frequency noise—not very loud, but extremely penetrating, which can cause dizziness and nausea in a confined space.

Chi Quan called this noise "infrasound side effects," and he gave everyone a pair of medical earplugs before training began.

"Put them on." He placed the earplugs in Kai's palm. "The 7.3 Hz resonance will produce infrasound in the air, and the frequency is exactly within the resonance frequency range of the human internal organs."

If you expose yourself to the sun without earplugs for more than fifteen minutes, your stomach will start to cramp.

Kai put the earplugs in his ears, and the sounds of the wind and birdsong from the surrounding mixed forest suddenly faded into the distance, replaced by a muffled feeling, like being submerged in water.

Tenten and Neji also put on earplugs, and the three of them stood in the center of the training field, forming an equilateral triangle with sides of about ten meters.