Dashing through the streets of Heiankyo, Chizuki and Sakura didn't stop running ever since they left Aokigahara. They would've flew over to the capital but Chizuki was afraid the burst of chakra she emits when she flies would harm Uehara. So both chose to internally reinforce their bodies and run.
Sakura led Chizuki through the gates of the daimyo's palace. With how fast they were, the shinobi and martial artists secretly guarding the area didn't notice them. Moving over to the servant residence, Sakura hastily led Chizuki to a lone house situated by the palace walls. It was small and there was a little garden behind it with cherry-blossom trees grown in it as well as cabbages around them.
Knocking on the door, Sakura screamed.
"Baa-san! Baa-san, open up! Please! I need help!"
It wasn't long before a middle-aged woman with dark-red hair and a few wrinkles on her face appeared. She was dressed in a simple red robe with black undergarments. Seeing how frantic Sakura was and seeing Chizuki carrying a gravely injured Uehara, she naturally understood what needed to be done.
Moving out of the way, she commanded Sakura.
"Sakura, go get my bag! You, place him on the mat right there!"
With such authority in her voice, both of the girls immediately did what she commanded. Chizuki gently placed Uehara on the tatami mat. Sakura soon returned with the bag and gave it to the woman. Kneeling down besides Uehara, the woman observed his condition carefully.
The atmosphere in the room was tense. Chizuki eye's were emotionless but Sakura knew if the news was grave, Chizuki wouldn't hesitate to kill the whole world in hopes of finding a cure or kill herself in order to reunite with her master.
While she herself wasn't as distraught as Chizuki, she was also very scared of losing Uehara. After all, she had come to view him as more than just a replacement for her brother. He was already an integral part of her life.
Feeling the tears she'd been holding back run down her face, she turned to Chizuki.
[Oh no. If I'm like this, then how is nee-san right now?]
Chizuki's eyes were bloodshot as the wait drew longer. Although she wasn't showing much outside, Sakura could clearly sense how her chakra was in total disarray.
Shikibu, the middle-aged woman felt the tense atmosphere in the room but she ignored it as she fully focused on analysing Uehara. After a while, her eyebrows creased when she finally noticed what was plaguing him. She swiftly opened her medicine back and slapped a talisman with the characters for "nature"on his chest.
Chizuki felt her heart shatter when she saw how the woman slapped his chest. She unconsciously began drawing in nature energy and was about to enter sage mode when Sakura shouted.
"Stop Chizuki! Baa-san knows what she's doing!"
Unfortunately, she didn't calm down. Her mind was already in such a complex state of emotions that when she saw someone harm her master, anger took over. As she was about to rush in, the woman simply glanced at her. A wave of wind chakra struck her and Chizuki was sent careening through the walls of the house to the hard ground outside.
Righting herself in an instant, she was about to charge back inside when she saw a giant flame palm strike her on the chest. She tumbled over the ground a few times and landed on her stomach. Trying to push herself up with her hands, she suddenly felt like her chest was on fire. With her focus gone, she soon lost her sage mode and regressed back to her normal state.
The moonlight illuminated her blue eyes that were glaring dangerously at Shikibu as she ignored the pain in her chest and stood up. She was about to try entering sage mode again when the burning pain in her chest intensified. The black tear marks that were forming on her face from absorbing nature energy slowly disappeared as the nature energy she had gathered was ejected.
Shikibu calmly walked out of the house through the broken wall.
"Girl. Before you brand your fists against others, isn't it natural to know who you're facing first?"
Sakura arrived at Chizuki's side and frowned.
"Stop it nee-san!"
She helped her up.
"This is Lady Murasaki Shikibu. She was my teacher for the past three years you and Aoki-sama were gone. Here in the palace, she has a really special identity and I can't tell you much but even the daimyo himself doesn't anger her."
Shikibu was the reason Sakura was able to kill so many noble scions, buy almost an entire district and have her own personal army so easily.
She then looked to Shikibu with a shy look.
"Obaa-san. Please forgive nee-san. She really...cares about master."
Shikibu didn't reply and simply walked back to her small house. After taking a few steps, she snapped her fingers and all the rubble went back to reform the wall. Looking back at Chizuki, she scoffed.
"Causing trouble in the daimyo's palace? You're lucky I have a silencing barrier put up or you would've been dragged away to the dungeons."
With Shikibu's vast experience in wind chakra, she had already mastered its deviant element of sound and was able to put up a self-functioning sound barrier that would block noise coming in or going out.
Then with a gentle smile, she turned her head towards Sakura.
"The boy will live. The talisman on his chest will slowly resolve the chaotic mess his chakra is in. He will wake up in a month at most."
Sakura immediately bowed her head.
"Thank you obaa-san."
She turned to Chizuki who was using her as support.
"Let's go nee-san. Aoki-sama will be fine here."
Chizuki's eyes became bloodshot.
"Leave master?! You want me to leave master alone?!?!"
Sakura tried to console her.
"It's only temporary nee-san. Baa-san knows what she's doing and we'll only be a hindrance if we stay here."
Chizuki originally intended to fight but after remembering how powerless she was when she found him, she grit her teeth.
"F-fine!"
She looked at Shikibu with an almost begging, but unyielding expression.
"Lady Murasaki. Please inform us when master wakes up."
Looking at the room where her master was and feeling how weak his life-force was, She clenched her fists as tears threatened to come out.
"Please."
After saying those words, she immediately vanished, not wishing to break down in front of some woman she didn't know.
Sakura looked at the empty spot with a blank gaze. She then nervously looked at Shikibu but she noticed that she was already disappearing inside the house. Not having the guts to talk to her in her 'angered' state, Sakura shouted.
"I'll see you in a month obaa-san!"
Without wasting time, she vanished as well. However, Shikibu wasn't able to pay attention to Sakura since when she entered her house, she stumbled upon a very dense bone cocoon.
It was reasonable for her to be confused. It was after all, Uehara's instinctual reaction. With Chizuki far away from him, he would naturally wake up but since he couldn't, he instinctually covered himself in a dense bone the moment she vanished. The cocoon would last until his consciousness can recover or until Chizuki comes back.
However, when Shikibu looked at the density of the bone, her eyes widened.
"Dragon?! Aren't they supposed to be extinct?!"
Calming down her thoughts, she carefully analysed the bone covering Uehara.
"I'm not wrong. This bone density is definitely that of a dragon."
She placed a hand on her head.
"I thought that girl was lying when she said her master was a dragon."
Looking at him, a slight smile formed on her face.
"However, such a young drake can use nature energy and teach it to others? I'm getting more interested in you, young dragon."
…
While the bone cocoon certainly would protect Uehara from outside elements, it certainly couldn't protect him from his father.
"What did I say to you?"
A punch landed on Uehara's face, sending him crashing across the ground. Volkarin looked at Uehara with a calm, but clearly angry expression.
"When I, your father, tells you, my son, to not rush and master each technique slowly, what did you do?"
Uehara weakly stood up. It's already been an hour since he got the beating of his life from Volkarin. The moment he appeared here, Volkarin didn't say anything and simply started beating him. Although Volkarin stayed in his son's mindscape, he never bothered to monitor what he said, thought or his actions.
It was only after he felt the mindscape crack did he hastily fix it and bring Uehara's consciousness here. After scanning Uehara's entire body, he instantly became enraged.
"Jumping from fire to water. How 'clever' my son is."
He beat him again, sending him skidding through the stream to the other side.
"I clearly told you that you were not ready for combining opposing elements, yet my son ignored the advice of his father, who's lived for millions of years and instead chose to take a path that would've killed him were it not for pure dumb luck."
He beat him again, sending him high into the sky before sending him crashing to the ground again.
"Do you not realise how close to death you were?!"
This time, he kicked him, sending him skidding a few metres away.
"Answer me!"
Uehara slowly stood up with his head lowered.
"This son asks father for forgiveness."
Uehara was naturally aware of his fault. He had vastly underestimated the intense reaction that would occur if he were to try to forcefully merge water and fire. Normally, the elements would've canceled each other out but because he channeled nature energy into them, he thought it would mediate the situation but that only applied for the short term. In the long term, it actually resulted in a dangerous explosion.
It was like putting a barrier between two mortal enemies. Although the barrier would separate them, if they kept having contact with each other, they would come to hate each other more and more and would intensely try to break through the barrier to kill the other.
That is exactly what happened. Although the nature energy which acted as a barrier managed to pacify the elements of water and fire, it only worked for the short term. When Uehara continuously tried to merge the two of them together, the result was the barrier of nature energy breaking apart and the opposing forces of fire and water clashing with each other. If one element was stronger then he would've suffered less backlash, but because both elements were of the same strength, they suffered mutual destruction and the aftermath of their impact resulted in the massive explosion that nearly killed Uehara.
What was even worse was that the nature energy which had manifested itself as the golden lightning streaks around him was acting as a barrier that would keep the remnant colliding elements of fire and water inside his body. That's why Shikibu immediately put a talisman that would absorb the nature energy surrounding his body so that the water and fire chakra in his body would naturally disperse.
Volkarin stood in front of his son and spoke through gritted teeth.
"You make me so 'proud' of you son. So proud, that I'm going to THOROUGHLY retrain you again."
Uehara shuddered.
"Yes…father."