Three Thousand Worries

The man before him had no special techniques. He rarely even used the five basic nature transformations. He relied solely on his seasoned swordsmanship, repeatedly interrupting Minato Namikaze at crucial moments and making every step a struggle.

The man didn't look much older than Minato, yet he seemed to have endured a century of bloodshed. He was a killing machine that had never stopped.

Only that kind of life could hone such keen reflexes and combat instincts.

Minato had seen those qualities in the shinobi who had somehow survived the Warring States period.

Unfortunately, even those old warriors couldn't withstand the ravages of time. They had become dull blades: full of experience, but weakened in body. Their experience was merely an embellishment, compensating for their decaying physiques.

But the man before him was a sharp blade, honed by immense experience.

The speed people called "fast" wasn't the kind of speed that let Minato transcend space. It was speed that came at precisely the right moment.

Minato had absolute confidence in his own speed. On any battlefield where he could throw a Kunai, he could catch up to light itself if he wished.

But so what?

Even when his space-time movement was fast enough to make him seem to appear in different places at once, visible to the naked eye, it was still only an illusion left behind by his spatial displacement—a deception of the eyes and brain.

Yet Uchiha Tenshen didn't even need to watch him. He could find Minato's landing point with his eyes closed.

A lifetime of fighting to the death had etched the experience into his muscles. They guided Tenshen's blade to land exactly where Minato had to defend.

How terrifying was that? Just how many people had he fought to the death to develop such a dreadful instinct?

Minato figured that the man before him must have been killing ever since he was old enough to hold a sword.

No one so young could have that kind of experience. And anyone who did must have spent their life killing.

What Minato didn't know was that Uchiha Tenshen was already an old man in his seventies or eighties. A rare talent had simply let him retain his youth.

Still, Minato wasn't far off in his other deductions.

Yes, Tenshen was a shinobi who had spent his entire life fighting others.

But talent like that hadn't earned him a place above the others under Uchiha Kei.

As one of the Iga Ten, Tenshen wasn't the only one with a lifetime of combat experience. In the world of Naruto, where even traditional shinobi were considered extraordinary, his narrow specialization in swordsmanship gave him little advantage.

As one of the first shinobi to come under Kei's command, Tenshen had once challenged the late Hatake Sakumo in private, hoping to earn his recognition.

He had lost that fight. Though the man known as the White Fang of the Leaf had called it a draw, Uchiha Tenshen knew the truth: if his body hadn't been able to heal until it wore down Hatake Sakumo's blade, he would have been the first of Kei's shinobi to fall.

In other words, if Sakumo had had a good sword—even just a Chakra Blade—he could have cut Tenshen to pieces.

Kei, who had witnessed the fight, joked that Tenshen was a "five-five" kind of fighter. Whether he faced Kage Level shinobi like Sakumo or Minato, or an ordinary elite jonin, it made no difference to him.

He couldn't win, but he couldn't lose, either.

Hearing Kei's assessment, the eighty-year-old man had been deeply embarrassed. But the white-haired man had been delighted, rubbing his head as he praised Kei's take on Tenshen.

"Five-five, huh? Sounds pretty impressive. Maybe I should give Kakashi a new name."

Don't misunderstand. Sakumo wasn't a sore loser who'd fought someone for a day and a night without winning, then resorted to an incest joke.

The custom here was to show admiration for someone by giving a close younger relative a name that matched or was related to theirs.

Like Fugaku's younger son, Sasuke, who had been named after Sarutobi's father.

It seemed that after a full day of fighting, Sakumo had come to admire Tenshen.

Now, that stoic yet hearty man had passed away. And Tenshen, who had fought Hatake for a day and a night, wanted to see what the man known as the White Fang's equal could do.

Even though the White Fang was dead, Tenshen hoped politics wouldn't tarnish the man's reputation.

He hadn't been able to save him because of where he stood. But preserving his reputation was a matter of honor between men.

The Flash had been called the White Fang's equal. Naturally, he had to possess the strength to live up to the name.

A flash of steel knocked away the Kunai Minato had thrown, his attempt to use the constant pressure of battle to gradually probe the limits of the Flying Thunder God.

"Sakumo, if you'd wanted, I could have sent you off myself. You didn't have to die by suicide in such a disgraceful way."

The image of that white-haired man, whose eyes narrowed when he smiled, surfaced in Tenshen's mind.

Tenshen swung his blade. It flashed white, striking the Kunai where Minato was about to land.

Minato barely evaded the slash with a movement that defied the limits of the human body. Even so, the blade cut through his clothes.

That wasn't what frightened him. What did was that he had only been struck once, yet two slashes marked his body.

"How terrifying! It's like the force of his blade has trapped me!"

The first slash cut his clothes. He had no idea what caused the second mark, but it left a cut across his abdomen.

It wasn't that his slash was weak. I was just fast enough to dodge it.

Minato was astonished.

Even more astonishing was that he could have used the Flying Thunder God to avoid that slash, but the pressure of Tenshen's blade had made him instinctively rely on his body's reflexes instead.

In other words, when danger struck, he had fallen into even greater danger. He hadn't made the right choice.

"Your swordsmanship resembles Senior Sakumo's. You're truly impressive, sir. His blade gave people no way to evade!"

Minato recognized it. This was the White Fang's swordsmanship.

Memories of his old friend sent Tenshen into a strange, transcendent state.

The Iga Clan, who worshipped the Future Buddha, had finally found a bright future. It was something Tenshen would give his life to achieve.

But even after gaining a beautiful life, troubles still came.

This world had never been a Pure Land. At long last, Tenshen had found a close friend in this world—someone who didn't care about the darkness he had carried in the past. Yet his friend had still died through persecution.

Just like the fate of the Iga and Koga, he had been toyed with and persecuted by those in power.

Was this what the filthy world was like?

Tenshen had lived in darkness and thought he was used to it, ready to start anew. But when injustice found him once more, he still felt that Heaven was merciless.

People liked those who were completely different from themselves.

Tenshen was a man who would do anything for the Iga. For the sake of the Iga Clan, he had once tried to rape Oboro and had brutally murdered Kagerou.

Those things belonged to his previous life, but the memories made it impossible for him to fit in with these companions and former enemies who had been given a new life.

Even his adopted son, Koshiro, feared him more than he respected him.

They all knew that Tenshen had once been willing to do anything for the Iga. Now, he was willing to do anything for Uchiha Kei, too.

And the thought of what "anything" might mean was terrifying.

Then, a man without guile, but with tremendous strength, entered Tenshen's life.

He fought Tenshen, admired his experience in battle, and shared his fighting techniques without holding anything back.

They drank together because they'd fought, and fought because they'd been drinking.

Now, that man was gone.

Then let me carry on his swordsmanship, Tenshen vowed. Let the world tremble.

Bang.

One slash.

A slash that caught up with space itself.

Tenshen's Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun rapidly. Even a [-] appeared in its center, and Minato's Forehead Protector fluttered away with his yellow hair.

A voice rang through the air.

"White Fang Secret Technique: Three Thousand Worries!"

"Cut."