The Necklace

In the rain.

Tsunade was completely dumbfounded.

What happened next shocked her even more.

Suddenly.

Whoosh.

Dan stretched his left arm out from beneath his cloak, holding it parallel to the ground.

That massive arm was thicker than Tsunade's thigh. Its middle deltoid bulged like a tire, its biceps were full and rounded like lotus roots, its triceps were powerfully defined, and its forearm was as solid as steel.

Perfect lines. Overwhelming strength.

This arm was a work of muscular art.

The next second, Dan opened his palm, and a blue Crystal Necklace dropped into view.

This necklace... looked so familiar.

Tsunade looked sharply down. Her chest was bare, and she realized the necklace she usually wore had somehow vanished.

It was in Dan's hand.

The Crystal Necklace was a keepsake of the First Hokage. It held Chakra he had sealed inside, and possessed enough power to suppress the Nine-Tails.

It was one of Tsunade's most treasured possessions.

Now, her chest ached faintly. It seemed someone had violently yanked the necklace off her and stolen it.

"How is this possible?!"

When she saw the Crystal Necklace,

Tsunade was stunned. Her mind buzzed, and she couldn't understand what had happened.

"This is your final warning. If you keep coming after me, I won't hold back again."

As he spoke, Dan put away the Crystal Necklace, treating it like a trophy.

He wasn't someone who killed the innocent, and he had no particular grudge against Tsunade. He had started their fight by provoking her, so she wasn't to blame.

But if she wanted to get herself killed, Dan would have no choice but to oblige her.

"..."

Tsunade fell silent, her eyes fixed on Dan's back. She still looked defiant, but her body told another story.

Under Dan's warning, she didn't dare move a muscle.

A few seconds passed.

Under Tsunade's watchful gaze, Dan, who had kept his back to her, finally turned around.

This time, he walked toward her one step at a time.

Wherever Dan went, the rain parted on its own. Not a single drop landed on him.

Gulp.

Tsunade swallowed, instinctively clenching her fists. She didn't blink, her entire body taut with tension.

Ten meters. Five meters. One meter.

Until they were right next to each other.

In the downpour, Dan looked straight ahead without so much as glancing at Tsunade, and passed her by.

In the end, Tsunade still didn't dare attack. She only turned her stiff neck at that moment and caught a fleeting glimpse of Dan's profile beneath his Bamboo Hat.

And the purple, five-pointed star-shaped birthmark below the left side of his neck.

Dan left, vanishing into the rain and the depths of the woods.

Tsunade slowly turned around. She could no longer see Dan or sense his presence.

Thump.

At last, she relaxed and collapsed onto the ground, letting the rain continue to beat against her.

The Land of Fire border.

Boom!

In a canyon, an Explosive Tag went off, and flames surged into the sky.

Just as the Third Hokage had predicted, the Hannya Corps of the Land of Forests had betrayed Konoha. After Might Guy saw through them, the two sides broke into a fight.

Team Guy was already quite capable, and Kakashi's Anbu had joined them as well.

The battle was a foregone conclusion. One side was completely outmatched, and it was over in no time.

In an open clearing,

as Guy watched in shock, Itachi silently went around with a Ninja Sword, finishing off the enemies lying on the ground one by one. Their piercing screams rang out as he left no one alive.

Killing every enemy without mercy—that was the Anbu's mission.

Guy, with his sunny and kindhearted nature, couldn't do such a thing. But Itachi, who had started killing at the age of four, was long used to it.

Itachi would never forget what he had seen as a child, when his father had taken him to the battlefield:

Ninjas from different villages, all with equally twisted corpses; bodies strewn across the land, rivers of blood, a scene straight out of hell.

In that moment, the young Itachi had been deeply shaken.

From then on, he had dreamed of becoming the finest ninja—the Hokage—so he could change the world and put an end to war.

And now, a war between the Uchiha and the village seemed imminent.

Itachi calculated the time. If he headed back now, he should still make it to the Clan Meeting.

At the thought, he breathed a sigh of relief.

On the way back,

Itachi suddenly asked Kakashi,

"Captain, you aren't an Uchiha, but you have a Sharingan and can use the Uchiha's power. So which side do you think you're really on?"

The Uchiha's side, or the village's?

At that moment, Itachi wasn't just asking Kakashi. He was asking himself, too.

"I've never thought about it that way."

Kakashi shook his head. He had no interest in choosing sides. He only said, "A friend entrusted this Sharingan to me. It reminds me not to forget what matters most: never let my comrades be killed."

Itachi pondered his words.

He had heard that Kakashi would even kill his comrades to complete a mission, but it seemed that might not be true.

Still,

without an answer from Kakashi about the Uchiha and Konoha—or about his own identity and allegiance—Itachi remained confused.

Konoha.

Dan entered the familiar alley and saw from a distance that the Fitness Gym had already opened for the day.

As usual, though, there were hardly any customers.

He pushed open the door and went inside.

"Gym Director, you're back." Samui looked delighted.

"Did anything happen while I was away?" Dan asked casually.

"No, everything's fine."

"Mm." Dan nodded.

He had expected that after Danzo's people failed to kill him, Danzo might kidnap Samui, an employee of his, to threaten him—or simply kill her out of spite.

Now it seemed Danzo had a little class after all, though not much.

After asking, Dan picked up the box of cash and headed for his room. But after only a couple of steps, he stopped and turned to ask Samui,

"Is your birthday coming up?"

"Yes, it's in three days. Thank you for thinking of me, Gym Director." Samui bowed.

Dan thought it over, took out the Crystal Necklace he had stolen from Tsunade, and casually handed it to Samui as a birthday present.

Samui was taken aback. She hurriedly held it out to him with both hands.

"Gym Director, this is far too valuable. I can't accept it."

She could tell at a glance that the necklace was made from rare crystal ore and crafted with great care.

"I just picked it up by the roadside. It's not worth much."

Dan made up an excuse and walked away before Samui could say anything.

He knew the necklace had once belonged to Hashirama Senju, and that it held Wood Style Chakra capable of suppressing a Jinchuriki.

It was extremely precious.

But Dan also knew that Tsunade had given it to her younger brother and her lover in turn, and both of them had died.

The necklace seemed to carry some kind of death curse.

Dan wanted to know if that was true. So, on a whim, he decided to use Samui as an experiment, under the pretext of giving her a gift.

After all, she was a spy from the Cloud Hidden Village. When it came down to it, she wasn't one of his own.

Samui had no idea of Dan's sinister motives.

She went to the mirror and carefully put on the necklace. As she watched the blue crystal sink into her chest, she felt a slight chill.

She quite liked it.

"Could the Gym Director really be trying to court me?"

Samui toyed with the necklace as she murmured to herself, her thoughts suddenly complicated.

Thanks to Nanfeng Beima for the 500 Qidian Coins!