Bang!!
The door slammed shut with a deafening crash, startling Koharu Utatane.
Seeing this, Homura Mitokado sighed inwardly. 'So, Danzo's still in Hiruzen's grasp after all.'
He could only hope this lesson would make Danzo behave for once...
"By the way, Hiruzen," Homura suddenly said, frowning as though he had just remembered something. He lowered his voice. "With the village's forces already stretched thin, is it really wise to let Jiraiya roam outside?"
At the mention of Jiraiya,who had left under the pretense of "pursuing Orochimaru", Hiruzen sighed softly, replying in a calm tone:
"He'll return when the time is right."
Homura and Koharu exchanged a glance, seeing that Hiruzen didn't want to discuss it further. They could only shake their heads and take their leave.
Click.
As the office door closed behind them, silence fell.
For a long while, the only sound in the Hokage's office was Hiruzen's quiet breathing.
After some time, he rose stiffly and walked toward the window. The smoke from his pipe curled upward, half-concealing the weary eyes beneath his wrinkled lids.
Rain always made Konoha look clean. Raindrops clung to the eaves, reflecting the sunlight like scattered shards of mirrors, on leaves, lampposts, and glazed walls, all glittering with the village's calm prosperity.
Looking out at the view, Hiruzen's thoughts drifted far.
He thought of the fragile peace Konoha had bought at great cost.
He thought of the growing internal and external crises threatening that peace.
He thought of Orochimaru and Jiraiya, both gone from the village.
He thought of Tsunade, numbing herself in gambling halls.
He thought of the orphan left behind by Minato and Kushina.
He thought of that Hyūga child's eyes, full of hope and admiration, whenever they met his.
Hhhh
His chest rose high as he took in a long, bitter breath, then slowly exhaled. The tip of his pipe glowed red, its ember briefly lighting his weary face before he murmured softly to himself:
"It's fine… No matter what must be sacrificed, I'll protect what peace we have."
At the same time, on the outskirts of Konoha, inside Training Ground 44,the Forest of Death, sunlight filtered through the canopy, casting shifting golden flecks on the two figures below.
"From the ground up, channel your power through the spine… balance hardness with softness,"
"Yahh!!"
The training dummies before Hyūga Arata and Might Guy were both shattered. But while Arata's dummy had burst apart from internal force, Guy's had clearly been pulverized by sheer brute strength.
Watching Guy's wild, forceful movements, his form all power and no control, Arata's usually calm smile faltered slightly.
Whew…
Even Might Guy, who could run laps around the village all day without tiring, was drenched in sweat and panting. Rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, he laughed.
"Arata, your refined version of Gentle Fist is seriously hard to learn."
"Well, you've spent over ten years perfecting Strong Fist, senpai," Arata replied, shaking his head. "It's natural that retraining your body's instincts takes time. Let's call it a day."
During the Chunin Exams, Guy and Rock Lee had once explained that taijutsu could be classified into three types:
Strong Fist, which caused external injury through direct, heavy strikes;
Gentle Fist, which attacked the chakra network and internal organs; and
Nintaijutsu, like Tsunade's or the Fourth Raikage's, which blended chakra techniques with physical combat.
Arata's current goal was to merge the strengths of Strong and Gentle Fist,to create a taijutsu system uniquely his own, one that could eventually complement the Eight Gates.
"All right, then let's-"
Halfway through Guy's sentence, Arata suddenly stiffened.
Every hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
An icy chill crept down his spine.
It was sudden. Silent. Lethal.
In an instant, his body tensed. The veins around his eyes bulged as he activated his Byakugan.
Nothing.
No movement, no presence,nothing out of place.
"No… that's not right!"
Arata's face changed.
"It's the blind spot!"
The Byakugan granted almost full 360° vision, but branch family members, due to the Caged Bird seal, possessed one fatal flaw: a blind spot extending one degree from the upper back of the spine.
At close range, this flaw was negligible.
But from a great distance…
That one degree expanded into a massive wedge of unseen space.
Sss!
As he realized this, a faint tearing sound reached his ears,the sound of something slicing through the air.
An assassination attempt.
A killing strike aimed directly at him.
Too fast. Too close. There was no time to locate the source,no time to dodge.
In that instant, Arata's expression went still.
Then calm.
He closed his eyes.
"If I can't see it…" he thought, "…then I don't need to."
A pulse of invisible energy rippled outward from within him.
The world around him seemed to fall silent.
No wind.
No insects.
No breath.
No heartbeat.
Everything stopped.
And in that timeless stillness, he saw.
Behind him, a kunai wrapped in a razor-thin sheath of wind chakra was streaking through the air.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Blade."
A wind-style jutsu that combined nature and shape transformation, channeling wind chakra into a weapon to make it impossibly sharp.
The assassin had mastered it completely, the kunai moved so fast that even Might Guy hadn't sensed it.
But within Arata's heightened awareness, that deadly weapon appeared to crawl toward him in slow motion, trailing an endless thread through the still air.
He didn't turn around.
He simply lifted his hand, spreading his fingers like the wings of a crane.
His calloused knuckles caught the light, toughened by years of training.
Clang!
His palm closed around the kunai's handle. The wind blade bit into his skin,but stopped dead, as if striking an invisible wall.
Arata opened his eyes.
In their pale reflection, Guy's tense face flickered, along with the faint outline of the forest beyond, dappled by sunlight and drifting leaves.
"Whoever you are…" he said quietly, "Returning the favor is only polite."
He spun sharply, flicking the kunai back with a single smooth motion. His clothes flared as he twisted, the lean muscles of his torso flexing like a drawn bowstring.
Then-
Whoosh!
The kunai shot out, tearing through the air with a piercing shriek. Leaves exploded into dust under the shockwave, the wind spiraling through the clearing.
And almost at once-
Thwack!
A sound echoed from deep within the forest.
The sound of steel slicing into flesh.