16 The Divine Tree

I activated my sharingan and averted my eyes to the branch that the tree had given me. It was still in the same position, thus it was probably unable to move independently once separated from the rest of its 'body'.

The chakra within the branch was not diminishing, it… grew in quantity actually – talking about greedy – as it drew energy from nature. Aside from that, my eyes did not pick up anything unusual. (Oh how I longed to be able to see on a cellular level like Sasuke's future eyes did, that way I wouldn't have to bring a microscope everywhere.)

I attentively touched the branch with my little finger, then moved to touch the sap, feeling encouraged when contact with the bark produced no harmful reaction whatsoever. As I suspected, the sap was similar to kino, but not quite. The crystallized sap was hard and durable – unlike kino, whose crystallization time could take hours and still produced a brittle sap, which could easily be rubbed into powder with fingers.

So far was fine, the crystallized sap did me no harm. But what about the fresh liquid sap? Was it as safe as its solid counterpart?

I know I should not even be thinking about experimenting with a potentially dangerous chemical. However, the more I tried to convince myself that I was being reckless and compromising my own well-being, the more tempted I was to snap the damn branch and watched as the blood-red sap leaked into the ground.

Before I knew it, I already clamped the thin branch beneath my right armpit whilst my left hand tried to snap the surprisingly sturdy wood. It took more force than I expected, but it eventually worked. However, the crimson sap leaked faster than I expected. Some of it even dripped into the grazes in my palm. I felt alarmed at first, but it quickly turned into amazement as I watched the sap evaporate upon contact with the wounds, leaving an unblemished skin in its wake.

Good God...

I immediately peeled the Band-Aid from my knee, activated my sharingan, and attentively dripped the excess sap from my palm into the wound.

The result was immediate. I giddily watched with perfect clarity as new granular skin tissues generated at the edges of the wound and worked their way towards the center at an astounding rate until they had covered the entirety of the lesion before they differentiated into corneocytes and returned into a normal and healthy skin. It was amazing how all of that process happened in less than five seconds, leaving not even a single scar tissue. It was literally cell regeneration on steroids.

Once my knee was completely healed, I continued to do the same thing with my right hand. Like the others, the wounds in my hand healed completely, although there were faint red lines in few places that suffered from the worst damage, barely noticeable once I deactivated my sharingan. They should naturally disappear on their own.

I exhaled a breath and closed my eyes, feeling the familiar dull, aching sensation behind my eyes after prolonged use of sharingan – and what I meant by prolonged barely scratched fifteen minutes mark, nothing in comparison with my fellow sharingan user that could activate them for hours and still did not break any sweat, which if I ignored the age and chakra reserve factors was just plain pathetic.

I twirled the tree stem on my hand, watching as the sap crystallized at the fracture points. Technically I could plant this at home – because there was no way that Fugaku would let me out again once he saw how disastrous a simple trip to the park could be – its sap would be very useful for future use.

Its appearance was fairly average, nothing in comparison with the beautiful plants that Mikoto kept in her garden, thus no one should really notice it. However, there were the matters of how to feed it and how to keep it hidden in plain sight. If I could see its real appearance, then so did half of the village, especially once it started to grow, and God forbid, eat random passerby.

I made up my mind not a second later by rising up to my feet and shoved the stem into my pocket. I inwardly shook my head at my own behavior, the things I do for science.

My eyes fell at the tree again, for some reason I could not suppress my smile. Never in a million years would I ever think that I would meet such a morbidly fascinating specimen. However, as much as I liked to stay here for a few more hours, I really needed to go home. The longer I stayed here, the further my distance from Sasuke would be, and with my awful navigation skill and limited sensing range, it would be in my best interest to follow Sasuke before the boy completely disappeared from my radar.

"So… I will return home now," I announced. I did not know why. "It's a... pleasure, to meet you. Thank you for the sap, I've healed well. I hope this," I gestured to my pocket, "can grow well too."

I fidgeted under the silence that greeted me. The sounds of birds' chirping in the background did not make it any less awkward. It was only now that I finally registered just how demented I must have looked.

"Anyway, once again…" I glanced upwards, towards the thick branches and the copious amount of lush leaves that decorated the tree – searching for something, anything, that could make me stay a bit longer.

I did not find any.

All right. "Thank you for everything. Good luck, and… goodbye."

I gave the tree a big wave and jogged into Sasuke's direction, following the blue ball of energy that I saw in my head. The thought of being lost and unable to eat spurred me to run even faster.

Halfway into my journey, just as I was getting closer into Sasuke, something unexpected happened.

The tree answered.

Just as I no longer cared about its consciousness, just as I pushed the thought about the blood-eating tree into the back of my mind, the goddamn tree finally answered.

"You're welcome, Meister," it rasped inside my head.

I could not help it,

I laughed.