Half a Year of Minor Cultivation, School Urgently Recruits.

In the mountain stream cabin, the three sat together.

Tōka stated his purpose but didn't get the answer he wanted.

Instead, the atmosphere fell into an eerie silence.

Might Duy wasn't a stingy person; Tōka only wanted to train in taijutsu with him.

Why did Might Duy seem to want to refuse me?

Tōka was very perceptive—Might Duy's eyes told him he seemed unwilling.

What was going on here?

Why wasn't this following the script?

Shouldn't they be hugging excitedly, shouting: "Look, this is youth!"

"Tōka, are you really sure you want to train in taijutsu with me?" Might Duy asked solemnly.

"Yes, please grant my request." Tōka nodded, a resolute gleam in his eyes.

In his heart, only Might Duy and Might Guy in Konoha had the strongest taijutsu.

Learning the Eight Inner Gates or not didn't matter, but Tōka wanted to build up his body.

Might Duy remained silent; he could see the sincerity in Tōka's eyes.

But...

This kid was too "delicate."

When Might Duy first saw Tōka, he even thought he was a girl!

"Dad!!" Guy urged from the side, his face full of anxiety.

Few of his classmates acknowledged him; it was rare for a new student on his first day to want to train taijutsu with him!

"Guy, you don't understand!" Might Duy scolded sternly.

Guy was his son, raised from childhood with inhuman, demonic training.

The hardship was something ordinary people couldn't comprehend or endure.

Might Duy worried Tōka wouldn't be able to persist, and besides...

In Might Duy's bowed silence, Tōka broke the quiet first.

"I know all your concerns."

"Oh? You know?"

"First, you're worried I can't persevere—you don't need to worry about that."

Tōka raised one finger and shook his head. His current situation was fraught with danger; he could invite lethal trouble at any moment.

Especially now, in Konoha during this war-torn era, it wasn't much safer than anywhere else.

Though Tōka was somewhat lazy, he'd rather sweat than bleed.

"Second, you're worried my body can't handle high-intensity training and will leave lasting damage." Tōka raised a second finger and said calmly.

Guy had no talent for ninjutsu or genjutsu, so he had no choice but to forcibly overload his body with taijutsu training.

Constantly pushing his physical limits, surpassing them.

Doing this easily leaves hidden injuries in the body, which become very apparent after age fifty or sixty.

But in this era of war, the average lifespan of a shinobi didn't exceed thirty.

Fifty or sixty seemed distant.

Might Duy could tell that Tōka wasn't a useless person who couldn't use ninjutsu or genjutsu.

For some reason, he just sensed it.

"Since you know all this, then please give up." Might Duy rarely said such things, but he believed it was for Tōka's good.

Training the Eight Inner Gates was less like training and more like self-torture.

Self-torture to push the body's limits, self-torture to break through them.

Might Duy wasn't good with words and didn't know how to persuade Tōka to drop the idea.

The room fell into silence again.

Finally, Tōka slowly stood up.

"Tōka..." Guy's face was full of apology; he thought Tōka would be disappointed—he must be disappointed.

"Then I'll take my leave." Tōka gave a slight nod, not forcing Might Duy to teach him.

With those words, before either of them could say more, Tōka walked toward the door.

Guy puffed out his cheeks in frustration, looking at Might Duy. "Dad, you..."

Creak!~

Tōka stepped out of the house, one hand resting on the wooden door as he made to close it.

The wooden door slowly shut...

Until only Tōka's body was visible, he suddenly turned his head to look at Gai.

"Gai, tomorrow I'll come find you to train together!"

As the words rang out, Tōka curled his lips, revealing a single gleaming white tooth.

Ding!!

A white, cross-shaped spark flashed, illuminating Gai's eyes.

"Alright!" Gai raised his thumb, the upward curve of his mouth revealing an even whiter, more dazzling tooth.

Half a year later, in a certain forest behind Konoha.

Tōka sat cross-legged atop a stream. It was clearly visible that the water flowed beneath his body without wetting his pants.

Faintly, a layer of energy as thin as paper separated them.

As a direct descendant of Kaguya Otsutsuki, Tōka's precision in controlling Chakra was terrifyingly refined.

Take a Great Fireball of the same power. If a normal person used ten units of Chakra to cast it, then Tōka only needed three units of Chakra to unleash it.

For the past six months, aside from training in taijutsu with Gai, Tōka had devoted himself entirely to studying the secret technique, All-Killing Ash Bones.

More skills don't weigh one down, but this was the Ninja World.

It was a world where people killed people. There was no need for so many techniques to show off.

Here, the priority was to stay alive. Wasting too much time and energy learning too many ninjutsu was worse than focusing on mastering a single art.

And All-Killing Ash Bones was a Kekkei Mōra, surpassing Kekkei Genkai and Kekkei Tōta.

Tōka believed that mastering All-Killing Ash Bones would be enough to sweep the world.

Krak, krak, krak!!

Tōka extended one hand flat, and a gray bone rod slowly protruded from the center of his palm.

Then, his gaze sharpened, and explosive force surged in his hand.

The bone rod in his palm shot out with a whoosh, leaving his hand.

Bam!

The bone rod embedded itself into a large tree across the river. The tree instantly crumbled and collapsed, turning into pieces of decayed paper that vanished into nothing.

This was the result of Tōka's training over the past six months.

A bone rod as thick as a pinky finger could now be shot from his palm, like throwing a kunai.

The speed was acceptable, and within a hundred paces, it could pierce flesh, even two or three layers of wood.

"Hah!" Tōka exhaled a mouthful of turbid air and slowly stood up.

"Not bad. No feeling of weakness after using All-Killing Ash Bones for the first time."

Judging by his current physical strength and Chakra reserves, the consumption of this attack, while not negligible, no longer affected his body's movement.

It seemed the physical training over these six months had yielded unexpected results.

Tōka looked at his hands with satisfaction. A pale yellow, healthy color.

Compared to the snow-white, smooth skin of half a year ago, Tōka preferred his current self.

Yellow-skinned people should be this color!

He clenched his fist tightly. Power was growing bit by bit.

But it still wasn't strong enough!!

"Tōka! Tōka!"

Suddenly, a loud, high-pitched shout rang through the forest.

Tōka's eye twitched. No need to guess—it was Green-Clad Gai.

Even though they had trained together for half a year, Tōka still couldn't face that flamboyant green outfit directly.

After all, it was Gai-sama's battle robe. It was only natural that ordinary people couldn't understand it.

"Gai, I'm over here!" Tōka leaped up from the river with a single bound, landing steadily on the bank.

Whoosh, whoosh!!

Gai's figure flickered rapidly through the forest, appearing before Tōka in an instant.

"Carrying such terrifying weights and you're still faster than me!" Tōka's pupils sharply contracted, shocked by Gai's taijutsu.

But he wasn't discouraged. After all, he had only trained for half a year.

While Gai had trained since childhood, day after day, year after year, never stopping through wind or rain.

This is the strength Gai should possess!

"What's the rush? What do you need me for?" Tōka asked.

"It's Daisuke-sensei..." Gai gasped, a thin layer of sweat on his face. It looked like he'd run straight from the school to the back mountain.

"Furuya Daisuke?" Tōka raised an eyebrow. Over the past six months, he could count on his fingers the number of times he'd set foot in the school.

Furuya Daisuke didn't want to be hands-off; he was powerless.

For one, Tōka lived alone, and Daisuke often ran to his house only to find no one there.

For another, even if he reported Tōka's "misdeeds" up to the Third Hokage, they'd get suppressed.

As time passed, the Elite Class of the sixth grade at the Ninja Academy seemed to have forgotten Tōka even existed.

If not for Gai remembering to bring him important news now and then, he'd probably have been expelled long ago.

"Word is war's broken out, so our graduation exam's been moved up," Gai said gravely.

"Oh?" A glint of sharp light flashed in Tōka's eyes. Even the village's genin were being prepared to join the fight?

The Third War was the bloodiest in history.

Not just the five great nations—Fire, Lightning, Wind, Water, Earth—but many smaller ones were involved too.

"When's the exam set for?" Tōka pressed.

"Tomorrow at eight, assemble at the main gate. The location'll be announced then, and the exam content too." Gai frowned, puzzled why even the place was kept secret.

"Is that so? Nothing but the time?" Tōka made a mental note.

He looked at the sky; it was about lunchtime.

In other words, he had one afternoon to prepare.

Tōka didn't plan to linger at the Ninja Academy. Even if he stayed, it'd be pointless.

Because from this graduating class until the birth of the Twelve Little Strong, the only one worth noting at the Academy was Itachi Uchiha.

Everyone else Tōka wrote off as extras—no interest at all.

"Thanks for telling me, Gai." Tōka smiled faintly.

"We're lifelong friends and rivals!" Gai flashed a mouthful of white teeth, gleaming with blinding light.

Tōka's smile stiffened. To avoid the scene of a sunset over the ocean, he decided to redirect Gai's attention!

"Come on, I'll treat you to a meal!" As an "orphan," Tōka received a stipend until he became a ninja.

Most of the time, he trained in the forest.

He ate and drank from what the woods provided, so the stipend was basically untouched.

It wasn't a lot of money, but treating Gai to a bowl of ramen was no problem!

Gai was happy too—not because Tōka was buying, but because he was eating with a friend.

"Great! Today, a large Miso Ramen!" Gai clenched his fists and let out a strange yell.

"I'll have Soy Sauce Ramen," Tōka replied almost automatically.

One lively and restless, the other calm and steady, the two gradually disappeared into the depths of the forest.

In a corner of Konoha, a modest, unadorned shop hung a sign—Ichiraku Ramen.

"Oh, it's Tōka and Gai!" Teuchi greeted them with a warm smile.

Tōka liked this place; Gai did too.

The ramen was great, but more than that, they liked Teuchi's warmth.

His face never seemed to run out of smiles—not a fake grin or a hollow laugh, but a genuine smile from the heart, warmly welcoming his customers.

"Teuchi, I'll take a large Miso Ramen!" Gai plopped onto a round stool, raising both hands and shouting.

"Just a regular Soy Sauce Ramen," Tōka said flatly.

"One large Miso Ramen, one Soy Sauce Ramen!" Teuchi called out loudly, then cheerfully set to preparing the noodles.

Glancing at Teuchi's busy figure, Gai turned back.

"Tōka, eating that little won't help you grow."

"Eating more doesn't mean growing more." Tōka rolled his eyes.

"How could it not? Eat more, grow more!" Gai rolled up his sleeve and flexed his bicep.

"Eat more, and you'll just crap more." Tōka pursed his lips.

Everything in moderation; too much is as bad as too little.

Tōka always believed that no matter what, you had to know your limits.

Charging in headfirst with nothing but hot blood would likely leave him battered and bloody.

So more often than not, Tōka chose to use his brain first, then fall back on force.

Just then, Teuchi the big tree set two bowls of ramen down in front of them with a beaming smile.

"Here we are—Gai's large Miso Ramen and Tōka's Soy Sauce Ramen."

The aroma wafting up was like a teasing little hand, stirring the hunger in their bellies.

Slap!

Slap!

They pressed their palms together, chopsticks pinched between their thumbs.

"Let's eat!"

They said in unison.

After parting ways with Gai, Tōka headed alone to the shopping district.

With tomorrow's exam in mind, he decided to make some battle preparations.

A wartime genin exam would absolutely not be something as basic as the Clone Technique from the Three Transformations.

It would most likely be a live combat drill—maybe even drawing blood...

Tōka didn't need shuriken or kunai; Gray Bone could replace them entirely.

But Explosive Tags were indispensable—he had to keep a few on hand.

Beyond that, Tōka also needed suitable clothing.

Training clothes were fine loose and comfortable, but for real combat, baggy garments wouldn't do.

They had to fit snugly—a Ninja Vest would be the most appropriate.

Still, Tōka thought they looked ugly, all green.

And besides, he wasn't a ninja yet, so there was no way he could get gear like a Ninja Vest.

Tōka stepped into a clothing shop, and the proprietress immediately greeted him.

"Oh my, what an adorable little boy. What are you looking to buy?"

"Just a few well-fitting clothes." Tōka took a small step back.

Women were like tigers—truly terrifying...

After a moment, he added another sentence.

"Casual. Normal."

"Alright, little boy, wait just a moment." The proprietress pinched Tōka's cheek with a grin and headed into the store.

Tōka's face was full of speechless exasperation, but the little worm hadn't grown yet—he'd endure for now!

When the stormy night came and the little worm transformed into a dragon, he'd make these women know...

Who was the real man!!

Before long, the proprietress came back with two older sisters.

At a glance, each of them was carrying at least ten pieces of clothing.

Tōka's expression shifted drastically—what the hell, why were there even skirts? With lace trim?!

"This place is no good to linger!"

Quick-eyed and quick-handed, Tōka grabbed a few random wearable pieces, left the money, and vanished from the spot in a flash.

His speed rivaled Gai-sama with all Eight Gates open!

At the shop entrance, only three women stood with their mouths slightly open.

As if they couldn't believe what they'd just seen.

That little boy... was so fast!~