The Despair Ahead
"...Konoha has grown soft, too. If that man were still alive, he would never have allowed this."
The implication was that the Second Hokage was incompetent. The man's expression twisted with displeasure.
Duy silently endured the man's words.
It was infuriating to hear the Hokage he respected being belittled, but there was no way he could talk back to this man.
Duy could only desperately suppress his trembling body.
It was the greatest show of bravado he could manage as he teetered on the verge of giving in to fear.
"Since you're a Konoha ninja, you must know Senju Hashirama, don't you...? What's wrong? Are you shaking so badly you can't even speak?"
Looking down at the silent Duy, the man spoke the name of a certain man with theatrical emphasis.
It was the name of the First, who had died young ten years ago.
There was no way Duy didn't know it.
Not just in Konoha—even across the entire Shinobi World, there shouldn't be anyone who didn't know the First.
Senju Hashirama was the man known as the God of Shinobi.
He was a remarkable figure whose sudden death had been mourned even by his former enemies.
His heroic name had spread across the Shinobi World like "common knowledge."
Yet the man's words seemed to carry something beyond merely "confirming what everyone knew."
He seemed arrogantly convinced that he, of all people, knew Senju Hashirama best.
"Well, never mind. There's no time to chat... Kid, let me ask you something. Have you... seen anyone with a Sharingan around here?"
Duy was first relieved that the man wasn't looking for Senju Diejian.
But what did he mean by someone with a Sharingan? Duy wondered repeatedly.
The Sharingan was the Kekkei Genkai passed down through the Uchiha Clan of Konoha, one of the Three Great Dojutsu.
Since the Jonin assigned to Duy's friend, Senju Diejian, and his teammates were all members of the Uchiha Clan, Duy had seen them a few times from a distance.
Then he realized.
The appearance of the Wood Dragon and the man's search for someone with a Sharingan—taken together, they meant this man was plotting to steal the Sharingan from Uchiha Shuri or Kagami Uchiha, both of whom were connected to Diejian. It was an unforgivable scheme.
Moreover, this man had once been a fiend who tried to destroy the village during the reign of the First, Senju Hashirama.
If left alone, he would surely become a force of darkness hostile to Konoha.
Perhaps he was searching for the Sharingan to increase his fighting strength...
(Diejian must have learned about this man somehow and tried to stop him. These desolate lands really are scars left by battle...! But this man is still searching for someone with a "Sharingan" as if nothing happened. Could it be... Diejian...)
Duy's reasoning was not wrong.
Though he had misunderstood a great deal, he had grasped the heart of the matter.
The terrible news about his friend shook Duy.
Once, every ninja in Konoha had branded Duy talentless and mocked his "pointless" efforts.
Unable to use ninjutsu, he was nothing but a burden in battle, and he had no shining talent for Taijutsu, either.
The insults calling him "useless" and the jeers calling him a "dead last" were facts he couldn't deny.
In that environment, Diejian alone had recognized not Duy's strength, but his noble spirit, and called him a friend.
For Duy, struggling through the darkness without being able to see the way ahead, that became the light he had to pursue.
During the final battle of the Chunin Ninja Exams, Diejian had sacrificed himself to protect his comrades and lead them to victory.
It was a deed worthy of praise from any ninja.
But at the time, Duy had wondered:
Then who would protect Diejian?
Once that thought crossed his mind, his path forward was decided.
Duy quietly clenched his calloused fist.
Knobby and covered in scars, it bore the marks of striking hundreds of bundles of straw during training. It was also a record of the youthful days he had spent running alongside his friend.
"You won't say anything...? Well, never mind. You'll talk sooner or later."
Noticing the change in Duy, the man raised an eyebrow.
His eyes turned red, and three Tomoe appeared in them.
He intended to use the Sharingan's genjutsu to pry the words from Duy's mouth.
Duy gave no answer.
He closed his eyes and turned his attention inward.
Somewhere along the way, his ragged breathing from fear had calmed, and the sweat that had beaded on his skin had dried.
Then he simply gazed quietly at the youth sleeping within his heart.
And then—
"What is this...?"
The man sounded surprised.
Duy's Chakra surged out, transforming in an instant.
First, the veins at Duy's temples bulged.
Second, the muscles in his arms and legs swelled explosively.
Third, his wild Chakra turned his skin red.
He forcibly opened the Eight Gates.
This was the secret and forbidden art of Konoha Style Taijutsu: a technique that sacrificed the user's body to forcibly draw out every possibility contained within.
Duy had learned the technique from Diejian. He had honed it alongside his own rules, preparing for the day when "that moment" would finally arrive.
The figure he had once sworn to stand beside had vanished, becoming an illusion he could never reach.
Duy's heart surged.
A maddening sorrow, an anger that seared his body, and a trembling hatred all truly existed within him.
But that wasn't all.
Fear of the man still smoldered in his heart, and despair burned in his chest.
But none of that mattered.
The force stirring Duy's heart wasn't that kind of "dark will."
Nor were negative emotions what drove his body.
It was the power of a steadfast will, rousing itself to stop an unprecedented crisis from descending upon Konoha.
It was the pulse of a mission he had to fulfill, even at the cost of his life, to carry on his friend's legacy: to tell the one man who could stand against this threat that the Second Hokage was still alive.
It was the cry of a noble soul that lay beyond fear, the heart of a man who cared for his comrades.
In other words, it was—
"Fourth Gate—Gate of Pain, open!!"
Fourth, the color drained from Duy's eyes.
But his heart shone with the blue radiance of youth.
Even through days of merciless words, as he struggled on amid insults and mockery, there had never been a shadow in Duy's heart.
His heart had always been one with the Will of Fire.
Hayate.
With a gust of wind sweeping across the grassland, Duy vanished.
The man showed interest and surprise at Duy's sudden transformation and disappearance.
"Such a drastic change in appearance, a torrent of Chakra running wild... Is this the rumored Eight Inner Gates? How interesting—"
Before he could finish speaking, a blow struck the man's chin.
His neck snapped backward, and his body rose into the air.
Crouched beneath him, Duy drew back the leg he had driven upward, then pushed off the ground with both hands...
Kick, kick, kick.
Using his arms as a pivot, Duy sprang upside down after the man and kicked him repeatedly in midair, sending him higher and higher.
After the fourth kick, Duy vanished again.
By the time the man realized what had happened, Duy was pressed tightly against his back as he arched backward in midair.
"Shadow Dance, huh? Pretty nimble for someone without a Sharingan."
Still leaning backward, the man only turned his eyes toward the space behind him where Duy might be.
Duy still didn't answer. He silently unwound the bandages wrapped around his arms.
The next moment, the bandages moved as if alive, binding the man's body along with his arms.
Then Duy clung tightly to him.
It was an embrace of death. Duy spun rapidly, plunging toward the ground as if to crush the man's skull.
"Front Lotus!!"
The secret technique of Konoha Style Taijutsu, the Front Lotus.
It was a move in which the user pursued an enemy sent flying with Shadow Dance, bound him, and slammed him into the ground.
"Good, just like that—"
"—Don't be in such a hurry."
The moment the man crashed violently into the ground, Duy immediately sprang away from him and turned in midair.
He was heading for Konohagakure.
But the man suddenly appeared in front of Duy.
Duy's eyes widened in surprise.
He hadn't thought he had defeated his opponent.
But he hadn't expected he wouldn't even gain the tiniest bit of time.
The man wore a contemptuous smile, his voice still full of mockery.
Duy's face twisted with frustration, but he immediately tried to get away from the man, attempting to rush past him—
"I told you to wait."
The man was in front of him again.
"Impossible... He's this fast..."
Fast.
Too fast.
To the man, Duy's full strength was child's play.
Every attack must have been neutralized the instant it landed, its power reduced.
The gap in skill and strength was simply that enormous.
The overwhelming difference, from which there was no escape, seeped despair into Duy's heart.
But Duy clenched his fists and took a stance.
He couldn't give up.
Duy punched at the man's face while kicking toward his torso.
Then he pushed off with his supporting leg.
His body soared into the air, becoming a leaf of Konoha.
"Leaf Hurricane!!"
A flurry of kicks unleashed in midair.
Every attack in the series was a full-speed strike made possible by the Gate of Opening.
"Eight Inner Gates—and this is all you've got?"
The man saw through every one of Duy's full-speed attacks.
He tracked Duy's attacks, the movement of his muscles—everything—with his eyes.
An astonishing Dojutsu.
The man didn't even bother to block. With the slightest shift of his body, he dodged every attack by a hair's breadth.
"Kid, open the Gate of Death. I'll wait until you do."
The man shook his head in boredom. As he dodged Duy's attacks with an air of leisure, he spoke as if he knew all about it.
The Gate of Death was the essence of the Eight Inner Gates—and the true taboo.
It granted power far beyond the Hokage's, but death was inevitable. It wasn't some simple realm one could reach merely by giving up one's life.
It was a divine realm that only someone who had spent decades reaching the Seventh Gate could finally touch.
No matter how hard Duy tried, he couldn't reach it at this stage.
Duy remained silent, but released the Fifth Gate, the Gate of Limit.
This was the furthest Duy could go at that moment.
"Konoha Strong Hurricane!!"
"Oh?"
That was all the man said.
Duy had backed himself into a corner, letting his opponent grow accustomed to the speed of the Gate of Pain. Then, with the sudden acceleration of the Gate of Limit, he launched a strike.
The man dodged it completely, accompanying his evasion with that one word.
"Aaaaaah!!"
Duy roared.
His punches and kicks all missed.
Powerless to touch his opponent despite attacking with everything he had, Duy let out a shout.
"You're not going to open it? How disappointing. In the end, trash is trash... As I thought, the only one who can be my opponent is Hashirama."
"Gah—"
Between Dai's attacks, the man effortlessly stopped him.
The man's outstretched hand seized Dai by the throat with perfect accuracy. Dai let out a groan and went still, dangling in midair.
"—Now, let's hear it."
The man drew a Kunai and brought its tip close to Dai's eyeball.
"You can close your eyes if you want, but cutting off your eyelids would have the same result. Honestly, you're better off just telling me."
Dai struggled in silence as the man expressionlessly brought the Kunai closer—.
"OOOOOOOHHHHHHH—!!"
A dragon's roar suddenly rang across the heavens, piercing the sky.
The enormous Wood Dragon, which had been lying across the ground ever since swallowing Kakuzu, raised its head.
The giant dragon's face twisted with fury as it hurled its roar at the "enemy" who dared threaten its master's friend.
"A Wood Dragon...? There's only one person alive who can use Wood Release. Could it be...?"
The man felt no fear at the dragon's roar. Instead, in the lingering image of a long-missed "friend," he saw a scene from the past.
Joy and anticipation mingled with distrust in his complicated expression, but the "formidable foe" before him made it impossible to hide his delight.
"Hashirama—!!"
As if tossing aside a toy he had lost interest in, the man casually flung away the "thing" in his hand.
Dai landed with a cough, clutching his aching throat. He glanced at the man, who was trembling slightly before him, and felt a chill at the sight of that ominous smile brimming with ecstatic delight.
The man kicked off the ground and charged toward the Wood Dragon.
The Wood Dragon twisted its massive body with surprising agility, coiling its long frame around the man as he moved through the air.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu."
The man formed a flurry of hand seals too quickly for the eye to follow, then tried to burn the Wood Dragon's body to ash with the Explosive Flame he spewed from his mouth.
But only the surface of its thick body charred. The burnt wood crumbled away, and fresh wood immediately covered the exposed area.
Using the dragon's body as a foothold, the man surged upward and closed in on its head.
The next moment, the Wood Dragon's head snapped back with a terrifying impact.
A kick. It was only a kick.
The man's kick carried such horrifying force that the Wood Dragon's massive body reeled backward.
"Oh? It still absorbs Chakra."
It had happened the instant the man's foot touched the Wood Dragon.
The amount was slight, but Chakra had indeed flowed from his body into the dragon.
The man had experienced that strange sensation before.
Realizing he couldn't touch it directly, the man landed on the ground and folded his arms with a solemn air.
The Wood Dragon regained its balance and charged at him, as if to say, "My turn."
It opened its massive jaws to swallow him, repeating the same attack with which it had devoured Kakuzu.
—The Wood Dragon's head went flying.
"As I thought... this isn't Hashirama's Wood Dragon. Whoever made it, what a disappointment."
The man glanced at the dragon's head as it hit the ground with a thud.
A translucent, blue-white Chakra Armor—Susanoo—unfurled around him.
A gigantic blade formed of Chakra pointed at the Wood Dragon.
The man, now cloaked in ominous Chakra, looked nothing like he had before. His face darkened with disappointment.
"I can't use its complete or perfect form right now... but this 'shell' will be more than enough."
A new head sprouted from the Wood Dragon's severed neck.
The Wood Dragon roared again and tried to swallow the man.
The man's description of it as a "shell" was perfectly apt.
The Wood Dragon had already fulfilled its function as a jutsu. In other words, it had become a giant object.
That it could move again at all was an impossible miracle.
The faint Chakra and will of Diejian, dwelling within the Wood Dragon, had flared up once more in response to his friend's danger.
The Wood Dragon, desperately clinging on with what little fuel remained, was proof of the youth their friendship had summoned.
But—
"How pathetic..."
Once again, the dragon's head went flying.
To the man, the Wood Dragon before him was an unforgivable sight.
The strongest technique wielded by the strongest man, Hashirama, had been reduced to a copy, stripped of both dignity and power.
To a man who saw Hashirama as one of a kind, the existence of such an inferior imitation was intolerable.
The Wood Dragon regenerated its head again, but its body was gradually shrinking.
The Chakra it lost with each regeneration was no longer enough to sustain it.
"Pathetic..."
The man's murmur was directed at the roaring Wood Dragon.
Disappointment hollowed him out after his immense expectations had come to nothing.
But his sigh, born of genuine boredom, was precisely his "lapse."
The Wood Dragon, carrying Diejian's will, would never let such an opening pass.
"What...?"
Grass sprang up from beneath the man's feet and wrapped around his legs.
The blades grew at an astonishing rate, transforming into tiny dragons that surged over the man and drained his Chakra.
"A cheap trick. Disappear, Hashirama's imitation—"
Indeed, it was a cheap trick.
Against a man with an enormous amount of Chakra, even a perfect Wood Dragon might not have been enough.
The tiny dragons, made from scraps, could hardly absorb more than a negligible amount of Chakra.
But the point wasn't to drain his Chakra.
What mattered was that they had touched his body.
The next instant, before he could finish speaking, the man's body lifted sideways into the air.
The vines wrapped around his ankles grew at lightning speed and dragged him out of Susanoo.
The man rolled across the ground, then immediately tried to right himself—but his body was struck by an impact.
A tremor traveled through the air, and his body was hurled into the sky again.
Impact after impact after impact after impact after impact after impact.
The blows showed no sign of stopping.
His stomach, his face, his back—struck over and over, the man's body flew wildly through the air, as if crashing into invisible walls.
"OOOOOOOHHHHHH!!"
Enduring the pain tearing through his body, Might Duy let out a roar.
Warm droplets misted away in the air before they could run down his cheeks.
After the fight between the Wood Dragon and the man began, a tiny Wood Dragon had appeared beneath Dai, who had retreated a short distance.
Though small, it carried a great deal of Chakra and offered it to Dai.
That warm Chakra had suddenly suppressed the pain and bodily destruction caused by releasing the Eight Inner Gates. As Dai expressed his gratitude, tears dampened his cheeks.
From that "warmth," Dai became certain that Diejian was still alive.
But he also understood that the Chakra was so faint it could vanish at any moment. This was no situation he could simply leave alone.
So Dai hadn't treated the Wood Dragon's fight as a chance to "buy time" and run off by himself. He had stayed here, waiting for an opportunity to "act."
And now, that moment had come.
"The Lotus of Konoha blooms twice."
Now, Dai was about to prove it.
"Remember this—the pulse of youth!!—Hidden Lotus!!"
The ultimate form of the "Lotus," the secret technique of Konoha Style Taijutsu: the Hidden Lotus.
A lethal strike that followed a lightning-fast series of attacks using high-speed Taijutsu.
The enemy's body was bound with cloth and driven into a strike impossible to evade. It was Dai's strongest attack.
With a thunderous boom, the man's body slammed into the ground.
"Wait for me, Diejian!"
Dai landed swiftly and immediately ran toward the place where Diejian lay asleep.
When he touched the Wood Dragon, he had already sensed where Diejian was.
He would escape the man, take Diejian with him, and bring his friend home—.
It would be difficult, but he had to do it—
"That last move surprised me a little. 'One-Eye' was just right for dealing with 'trash,' I suppose... but this is where it ends."
Slowly, a figure stirred in the dust.
"So even that wasn't enough? Damn it, hurry up—"
"I'm getting bored. Let's finish this."
As soon as he spotted the man, Dai picked up speed.
The man spoke in a leisurely tone, but the killing intent in his voice belonged to an absolute ruler.
Starting at a jog, he gradually accelerated, chasing Dai as if toying with him.
"—ROOOOOOHHHHHH!!"
Sensing his friend was in danger, the Wood Dragon roared again, trying to block the man as he chased after Dai.
But—
"That's enough. You're annoying. Disappear, you wretched snake."
—Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer Flame.
The Wood Dragon that tried to block the man was cut down in an instant.
It tried to regenerate, but the man gave it no chance. The Explosive Flame produced by his Fire Release swallowed it whole, and it vanished into ash.
"He's too strong..."
Dai murmured.
Faced with an insurmountable reality, he could do nothing.
His heart nearly broke, but the man's words rekindled the flames within him.
"First you, the man who uses the Eight Inner Gates. Then I'll find the ninja using a part of Hashirama's power, despite putting on such an ugly 'display,' and kill him."
"—What did you say...?"
The man's words made Dai stop in his tracks.
Those words were impossible to ignore, and they ignited a fierce fighting spirit within him.
Hearing his friend's death pronounced so plainly again awakened Dai's true resolve.
The resolve to step into a realm beyond his limits.
Dai turned and stared at the man.
The only change after all those battles was that his clothes had been dirtied with mud.
The man stood there, completely unharmed and utterly at ease.
The difference in their strength was overwhelming.
What Dai was about to do wasn't some act of despair, like "I'm going to die anyway—"
He didn't care if it destroyed him.
If there was even the slightest chance of saving his friend, he would stake everything to seize it. That was the proof of courage chosen by Dai's ninja way.
"Until now, I've kept working toward the 'right moment'—"
"What's this? You suddenly stopped. Has fear driven you mad?"
With Dai standing still, the man slowly approached.
Dai clenched his fists, taking in the words of his ninja way.
He gripped them so tightly that the skin on his palms split and began to bleed.
Dai fixed his sharp gaze on the man.
There was no fear in his eyes.
Only flames, as if they were burning.
The fire of youth.
The budding Will of Fire—.
"—The 'moment' I've been preparing for is now!! The moment to stake my life on protecting someone important—to follow my ninja way and protect them to the very end!! Eight Inner Gates, Sixth Gate: Gate of View, open!!"
Might Duy was a self-proclaimed and universally recognized dead last.
But now, he had reached a deeper realm.
Though his body wasn't strong enough to withstand the Sixth Gate, Dai forced it open anyway.
From the instant he opened the Gate of View, the muscles throughout Dai's body began to break down.
He knew he couldn't withstand it.
This was a gate he had been "unable to open" until now.
Dai himself didn't understand why he could open it now.
But when he heard the man's words, for some reason, he had "felt he could do it."
Some said that power was a phenomenon brought about by matter.
Then what should they call what Dai was showing now?
Without a doubt, it was the "Will of Fire" and the "power of the will" inherited from Senju Hashirama.
Regret, sorrow, pain—time and again, countless "difficulties" had tried to devour Dai's heart.
But the reason he had endured all of it, the reason he could endure all of it, was to protect the people who mattered to him.
A gale swept across the grassland.
The man's body took the impact.
But unlike before, he wasn't blown away.
Impact, impact, impact, impact, impact, impact, impact.
Dai's fist, wrapped in flames as it broke through the wall of air, unleashed a terrifying shock wave.
The punches landed without the slightest pause, not because Dai had grown countless arms.
It was an illusion born from each punch exceeding the speed of sound, surpassing human perception.
Dai's astonishingly refined Taijutsu, which could physically unleash Fire Release and genjutsu, was a "power to protect," no matter what heights it reached.
"—Morning Peacock!!"
The hundreds of punches came to an end.
Dai's full-force strike crumpled the man on the spot.
At the same time, the man's body was sent flying at a terrifying speed.
He smashed through scattered pieces of wood, still hurtling forward without slowing, and struck a distant cliff face, triggering a landslide.
"I did it..."
Breathing hard, Dai turned his attention to his own body.
The gates he had forcibly pried open had slipped beyond his control, their power running wild.
The destruction of his muscle tissue showed no sign of stopping, and unimaginable pain continued without end.
Though he was trapped in the hellish agony of feeling as if his body were being disassembled while he was still alive, Dai had no regrets.
Dai wore the expression of a man who had given everything—
"Gwahahaha! I nearly... disappeared there. It's been a long time since I've had so much fun, user of the Eight Inner Gates."
"Y-you're still alive... Damn it... damn it..."
The man had appeared from nowhere and now stood before Dai, who lay on the ground.
Unable to move through the unrelenting pain of his ruined muscles, Dai still tried to rise, forcing strength into his whole body.
But his body only trembled in spasms. He couldn't get up.
Dai's body had long since been wrecked beyond its absolute limits. The fact that he was still conscious was a miracle in itself.
But Dai cursed his own weakness.
He blamed his lack of talent—though he had pushed himself beyond his limits, he still hadn't become a "protector."
Every curse he uttered was directed at himself.
Dai berated himself for failing to live by his ninja way, for being unable to protect even his friend.
He bit down hard on his lip, and blood ran along the outline of his face.
But there was no changing what had happened.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
—Might Duy had lost.
That was an unchangeable reality.
Overwhelmed by regret, tears fell one after another.
"As thanks for giving me such a good time for the first time in ages, I'll ask your name. Tell me who you are."
The man drew a blade from his waist, gripped it in reverse, and raised it upright, pointing it at Dai.
Its tip aimed precisely at Dai's heart.
Dai understood what awaited him, but he didn't close his eyes. He glared at the man.
Dai showed one last defiance, refusing to give in to fear.
"Hmph, those are good eyes. —Then farewell, nameless ninja."
Realizing Dai wouldn't give his name, the man raised his arm high.
With his Sharingan trained on Dai's heart, the man brought his arm down with force.
And then—.
—The discordant clang of metal rang out, and the man before Dai disappeared.
"W-what..."
When Dai came to his senses, the man with the Sharingan was gone. Another man stood in his place.
Dai hadn't noticed when that man had appeared.
There had been no presence, no sound—he was simply standing there, as if he had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
"Are you all right? Your name is... Dai, right?"
"Ah... ah..."
A voice came from behind him.
Dai knew that voice.
He recognized that broad back.
The moment he realized who it was, Dai felt a deep sense of relief, and tears mingled with other emotions spilled out all the more fiercely.
"Don't cry, kid. You're a Konoha ninja, aren't you? But you did well. —Leave the rest to me."
"Yes... yes!!"
With tears smearing his face, Dai nodded again and again.
—Silver hair swayed in the gale.
Before you continue