After hearing this, Takeshi Aoki's eyes widened, his short, thick eyebrows twitching furiously.It was clear that Rian Hayashi's words had struck a nerve.
Aoki had spent years forcing himself to avoid such thoughts, trying to convince himself—almost hypnotise himself—that being Kazekage was far better than remaining a jōnin.But now the day had finally arrived, and standing before Hayashi as a rival, he realised something he had never dared admit: he was afraid.
Afraid of what might happen if he became Kazekage.Afraid of ending up like the First and Second—dying in battle against powerful enemies.More afraid still that one day, while sitting safely in the Kazekage's seat, he might be assassinated without warning by some unseen hand…Like the Third Kazekage, whose body was never found—vanished as if he had never existed at all.
The more Aoki had experienced war, the deeper his fear had grown. He had once believed he would charge forward without hesitation… yet now, facing the prospect of another great conflict, he found himself dreading it.
Hayashi studied him without expression.Slowly, he shook his head.This man lacked the resolve to be Kazekage.
Even Rasa—the Fourth Kazekage with the worst reputation among the shinobi nations—had been willing to give everything for Sunagakure. Whether it was sacrificing Pakura, sealing Shukaku inside Gaara, or personally taking the enormous risk of launching the Konoha Crush with little hope of success…His results had been questionable, but his intent had always been for the good of the village.
Aoki, however, radiated no such willingness to sacrifice.
Even Hayashi, who could not imagine himself going that far, at least intended to serve the village with every fibre of his being. He was confident he could do the job dozens of times better than Aoki.
With that thought, Hayashi locked eyes with him and spoke, each word measured:
"It seems you crave the power, but lack the awareness to bear the responsibility of Kazekage.""You are not worthy of the title."
"What the hell did you just say?!" Aoki's voice thundered, his fear drowned in anger and pride. "A brat who's never fought a real war dares question my resolve and qualifications?!"
He slammed his calloused left hand against his chest.
"At the end of the First Great War, I went to the battlefield myself—breathing the stench, risking disease and death—to collect the bodies of my comrades. I was five years old! You weren't even born!""When the Second War began, I led a team deep behind enemy lines, cutting off their retreat and killing ten chūnin and two jōnin!"
Throwing his head back, arms outstretched, he turned to address the shinobi gathered on the surrounding dunes, his voice hoarse but fierce:
"That's why the Second Kazekage himself promoted me to jōnin at seventeen! You hadn't even drawn your first breath back then!Born in the closing years of the Second War—what gives you the right to judge whether I can lead Sunagakure?!"
Silence swept across the dunes.The younger shinobi stared at Aoki wide-eyed, as if seeing him for the first time.The older veterans—those who had fought in the Second War—looked on with awe, almost as if a new sun had risen before them.
Their gazes snapped to Hayashi, eager to see if shame or retreat would show on his face.But Hayashi's expression remained calm.
With a faintly weary look, he shook his head:
"So what? At the end of the First War, there were hardly any men left in the village. I've read the records—the Second Kazekage had just taken office and ordered every boy over five to help collect the dead."That was an order, not some voluntary heroism."
His voice stayed even.
"Perhaps time has clouded your memory, but the original records are still preserved in the archives."
The crowd blinked in surprise.No one had expected that the story Aoki told so proudly could be undercut so easily.But Hayashi's claim was verifiable, and every shinobi there knew it.
Aoki froze.He had been counting on the decades that had passed—on the fact that few survivors from the First War remained, and that even they would not recall details clearly.He never imagined Hayashi would have actually researched the old records.
In truth, Hayashi hadn't set foot in the archives. Everything he knew had been in the intelligence report handed to him by Akari Hongyue the day before—every scrap of Aoki's life, from boyhood to now, with her own notes appended.
Aoki opened his mouth to speak again, but Hayashi cut him off.
"I'll admit—you did go deep behind enemy lines in the Second War and take down two jōnin. But you're not the only one with a record like that."If a Third War broke out right now, I could do the same—and several times better than you."
The blunt truth left Aoki momentarily speechless. Then fury erupted. His roar carried for kilometres.
"You arrogant little bastard! How dare you insult me like this!"
"You think making me angry will give you an advantage?"
He didn't wait for an answer. His left hand swept behind him and the scrolls on his back flew into the air.
With a muffled bang, thick mist billowed out, swallowing him from sight.
Hayashi's left hand twitched—then stilled. He decided to call forth his golden sand for defence, keeping his trump card for later.
"Magnetic Style—Gold Sand!"
At his command, the sand around him surged, shaping itself into dozens of spinning, rectangular golden shields—two metres thick, three high—whirling protectively in a tight orbit. The sand beneath his feet condensed, lifting him high above the ground.
From the dunes, a scarred veteran jōnin nodded appreciatively.
"Not bad. Rotating shield defence—blocks ninety percent of incoming attacks."
A young chūnin added quickly:
"And he's much faster at sand control than before—shield formed in under a breath, over a radius of dozens of metres. That's at least three times his previous speed."
Hayashi stopped ten metres up, eyes fixed on the thinning fog below.
Suddenly—
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Hundreds of shuriken burst from the mist, spinning faster and faster until they blurred into streaks of steel, slamming toward his rotating shields.
Hayashi frowned. This was brute-force swarming—eventually, sheer numbers could exploit a gap. But a senior jōnin wouldn't rely on luck alone.
He decided to play along.
The front shield halted abruptly, locking into place with the others to form a wall.
The storm of shuriken slammed into it with metallic shrieks, embedding only half a metre deep before stopping cold.
Then—
Boom!
The uppermost shuriken exploded into smoke—revealing six humanoid puppets, each armed and armoured in jet-black lacquer.
In a blink, they vaulted over the shield toward Hayashi.
He flicked his hand; the sand surged faster, cocooning the puppets. Impacts thudded from within, then went still as the cocoons shrank tight—
BOOM!
A deafening detonation cracked them open. Hayashi reinforced the shells with more sand—only to sense another puppet hurtling at him from below.
His eyes narrowed. Seven puppets? Aoki was only known to control six.
Sand poured downward, intercepting it—while the ground sagged five metres under the strain.
From the dunes, astonished whispers rippled.
"That's… at least three thousand tons of sand! How does he have that much chakra?"
"Last record—half a year ago—he could only control a thousand tons in two hundred metres. That's a five- or six-fold jump!"
One female jōnin murmured to herself, eyes half-lidded:
"Even the Third Kazekage at his peak only commanded tens of thousands of tons over a kilometre… Hayashi's doing this effortlessly. If he got serious, he could double it."
The extra puppet turned to smoke, scattering a cloud of poisoned needles—and behind it, another puppet hurled kunai wreathed in toxic black mist.
On the dunes, Hongyue stiffened, hand twitching to signal the Shadow Guard—but froze as Hayashi shook his head at her.
He turned back to the choking fog, understanding Aoki's ploy: either his real body was hidden within… or it was yet another decoy.
Fine sand rose into a thirty-metre wave, smashing through the cloud and burying the weapons within. Silence followed.
Hayashi scanned the field. Had he guessed wrong? Where was Aoki?
Then—laughter.
"Hah! Stronger than I expected… but the old fox always wins!"
From the settling sand, a figure shimmered into view, ripples distorting the air. With a stomp, he sank the ground metres deep, then blurred toward Hayashi—twin shuriken spinning in his hands, each wreathed in wind chakra.
"Wind-style chakra armour?" Hayashi noted.
Aoki lunged for his throat, sneering:
"All the chakra in the world won't save you—you never thought I'd hide inside the sandstorm itself!"
But his gloating froze as he realised his hands were no longer moving. The shuriken hung limp in his grip.
Hayashi's gaze was flat as the surrounding sandworms dispersed—then surged again, binding Aoki tight.
From the dunes, shinobi watched in a mix of jealousy, admiration, and grudging respect.There was no denying it now—Hayashi was destined to be the Fourth Kazekage.
The captured puppets floated to stand behind him.
Aoki's voice cracked in disbelief.
"Impossible! You're not a puppeteer!"
Hayashi grimaced at the shrillness.
"Curious why you couldn't throw those shuriken?"
He twitched his fingers, and the blades tore free from Aoki's grip, swinging back to aim at him.
Aoki's pupils shrank.
"No… it can't be…"