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The name of Hayata had spread far and wide—so much so that it even reached the ears of Hanzo the Salamander, the leader of the Hidden Rain Village (Amegakure).
Rain Country had already been wrecked by war—fighting against Konoha, the Sand Shinobi, and the Stone Shinobi. Honestly, it was barely hanging on. Tons of Genin, Chuunin, and even the few precious Jounin they had were killed. So you can imagine just how bad things were.
Eventually, Hanzo couldn't do anything but hide away. He stopped sending out any ninjas, and basically let Konoha, Iwa, and Suna use Rain Country as their personal battlefield.
Now that the fighting in Rain Country was finally over, Konoha had come out on top, and Rain wasn't a war zone anymore. Hanzo could finally breathe a sigh of relief and come out of hiding. Of course, even then, whenever they ran into Konoha ninjas, Hanzo would still order Rain ninja to step aside and let them do whatever they wanted. Better to stay out of their way.
Basically, the war ended, not because of Hanzo, but because everyone else finished fighting in his country. Then once it was safe, he showed his face again.
It was around this time that Hanzo started hearing rumors about Hayata.
Word on the street was, Hayata was insanely strong—a real powerhouse—and he'd also been helping out a lot of civilians and poor folks. But Hanzo didn't care much about that humanitarian stuff. What caught his attention was the part about Hayata being powerful.
With most of his shinobi dead and not enough manpower left, Hanzo was desperate. So the moment he heard about Hayata, he decided to recruit him. He wanted Hayata as one of his subordinates, plain and simple.
So Hanzo sent a squad to go "invite" him. Well, calling it an invitation sounds nice, but really, it was more like an order: bring Hayata in and make him join up.
But at that moment, Hayata had no idea Hanzo was eyeing him. He was still fully focused on his training—pushing himself like a madman, completely ignoring how worn out his body was. Even though he already had Jounin-level strength—and honestly, he was way beyond your average Jounin—he still stuck to his brutal training methods.
Back then, Hayata started out lifting a boulder about the size of a person. Then it grew to something the size of half a house. And now? Now he was lifting a rock bigger than a house.
He grabbed that monstrous stone with both hands, let out a fierce yell, and his ten fingers dug into the surface so hard they left visible marks. Then, just like that, he hoisted it onto his back and started running laps with it—like it was just part of his daily routine.
"Damn! That's insane! Even though I've seen him do this before, it still shocks me every time!" said Yahiko, watching from the sidelines with wide eyes.
"I know, right? He's like a total beast!" Nagato nodded.
Yahiko rolled his eyes at that. "You're calling Hayata a monster? Come on, you're a monster too! You can learn pretty much any jutsu in no time. Konan's been grinding away at the same jutsu for days, and you mastered it in hours. You're the real freak here!"
"Hehe... hehehehe…" Nagato laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. Being a member of the Uzumaki clan gave him a chakra reserve way bigger than normal people, and on top of that, he had those freaky Rinnegan eyes. So of course, basic jutsu were a joke for him.
The two of them kept chatting, but their eyes kept drifting back to Hayata—still amazed and, honestly, kind of jealous.
"You two are spying on Hayata training again! Aren't you ashamed?" Smack!Smack! Two small hands landed right on top of their heads.
"Hehe, what can we say? Hayata's just too awesome! And it's not like he's teaching us how to train, so this is the only way we can learn anything—by watching," Yahiko said, grinning at Konan, who had just caught them.
"Give it up already! Hayata's training style isn't something we can copy anyway!" Konan said, shaking her head in disapproval.
"Yeah… such a waste…" Yahiko sighed. Deep down, he knew Konan was right. Hayata's insane recovery ability was just... unfair. It was the kind of thing people could only dream of having.
...
With a loud roar, Jun Senju threw his arms up and heaved the massive boulder into the air. The rock shot upward, hovered for a second, then started falling back down. As it came crashing down, Jun spread his arms wide, gathered chakra all over his body—especially his arms—and let out another fierce roar. He actually caught the massive boulder mid-air by sheer force, then hurled it back up again.
The huge rock was like a damn football—getting tossed up, caught, and thrown again over and over like some kind of toy.
Nagato and the others, who were already stunned just watching Jun train, were now straight-up shocked by this scene.
Actually, Jun had already noticed they were secretly watching him. Even though he hadn't really learned anything like counter-surveillance techniques or ninja sensing skills, Nagato and his crew hadn't either. On top of that, Jun was way stronger than any of them right now.
And with his insane healing powers, it wouldn't matter how intense his training was—he could recover from anything. Without that kind of body, no matter how hard someone tried to copy his training, it would be totally useless. Heck, they'd probably just end up hurting themselves or even training themselves to death.
Boom!
So honestly, spotting them wasn't even hard.
But Jun didn't care. His training methods were actually really simple and kinda rough. Unless you were someone like him—with special abilities—you wouldn't survive it, let alone benefit from it.
He slammed the rock down onto the ground with a heavy thud, then took a deep breath. Chakra surged into his arms as he darted forward. His fists started pounding the rock nonstop, so fast that to Yahiko and the others, all they could see was a blur of afterimages. They couldn't even tell which arm was real!
Only Nagato, with his Rinnegan, could see clearly. But even then, his strength wasn't anywhere close to keeping up with Jun's ridiculous speed.
Fast! Way too fast!
"....."