Hatake Style Swordsmanship

At the training ground.

Moonlight Sharoro stood sideways, holding her blade before her chest with both hands. Her knees were slightly bent, her center of gravity lowered.

"Thrust!"

There were no unnecessary movements, only the simplest thrust, yet Hayato was genuinely startled.

It was too fast.

One second she was still as a mountain; the next, she moved like a hare.

One second she stood at the edge of the field; the next, she was already in its center.

Sharoro's hand holding the blade seemed motionless, but in reality, it had thrust and withdrawn in an instant. Her short sword pierced a hole through the air, forming a vortex.

"Rapid Thrusts!"

Sharoro flashed a sly smile, spun around, and aimed at Hayato.

Huh?!

By the time Hayato reacted, the tip of her blade was already at the end of his nose.

Bang!

"Cicada Molting Technique!"

The chakra shell dispersed, and his real body appeared behind it.

"Fang-Chasing Thrust!"

Sharoro's blade followed him like a shadow, never more than three inches from Hayato. With no other choice, Hayato fled while trying to come up with a countermeasure.

Before he could think of one, Sharoro stopped on her own.

"Impressive, right?" Sharoro grinned smugly, panting hard. This move apparently consumed a great deal of stamina.

"It is impressive." Hayato nodded helplessly and used both hands to fix his hair. "What was that? My hairstyle's a mess now."

For some reason, that struck Moonlight Sharoro as hilarious. She giggled, her chest heaving violently.

Hayato glanced over, then hurriedly looked away. This girl wasn't getting any taller—had all her nutrition gone straight to her chest?

After a while, Sharoro finally caught her breath. Hayato asked, "What kind of swordsmanship was that?"

"Hatake Style Swordsmanship," Sharoro replied. "You've heard of that school, right?"

"Yeah." Hayato nodded. Konoha's White Fang—Hatake Sakumo—had a reputation that even surpassed the Konoha Sannin.

Unfortunately, Hatake Sakumo had taken his own life. Although his son, Hatake Kakashi, was an extraordinary genius, the impact of Sakumo's suicide had led him to abandon the family swordsmanship.

As a result, many in Konoha had heard of Hatake Style Swordsmanship, but few had ever seen it. It existed like a ghost.

In the Hyuga Clan archives, Hatake Style Swordsmanship was described as—thrusts of ultimate speed, traceless dashes, unending cuts, flawless sweeps, and unstoppable cleaves.

Hatake Sakumo was the first person to truly cultivate "thrust" to the ultimate speed, without predecessor or successor.

On the battlefield, as long as Hatake Sakumo was present, the enemy commander's real body would never dare appear on the front lines. In the ninja world, Hatake Sakumo had achieved the feat of taking an enemy general's head amid ten thousand troops. His speed was even more impossible to counter than Minato Namikaze's Flying Raijin.

If Might Guy with the Eight Gates represented the pinnacle of strength, then Hatake Sakumo represented the pinnacle of speed.

Unfortunately, such a powerful man had died because of rumors and slander.

Of course, it wasn't the first or second time Konoha's higher-ups had done something stupid.

ANBU was short for the Special Assassination Tactics Squad, but its duties went far beyond assassination. It was also responsible for protecting the Hokage, preventing enemy invasions, scouting enemy intelligence, and fighting during invasions. Assassinating and hunting rogue ninja were only part of its responsibilities.

For newcomers like Hayato, whose strength and loyalty had yet to be tested, they could only handle errands. Still, compared to ordinary genin, at least they did not have to clear garbage, find cats, or catch dogs.

During his month in ANBU, Hayato had completed two relatively high-level missions.

One had been secretly escorting a batch of village supplies to a border outpost in the Land of Fire. The journey had passed without incident. Though there had been bandits and highwaymen, the moment they saw Konoha's insignia, they kept far away, clearly knowing better than to provoke them. The occasional fool was easily handled by the ninja team out in the open, so Hayato's group of three never had to intervene.

The mission had taken Hayato's team nearly ten days.

There had been no fighting, the scenery along the way had been nice, and they had treated it as a trip. In the end, they even received ten thousand ryo as mission pay.

What was there to complain about?

The other mission had been helping guard and interrogate prisoners at Konoha Prison.

The system had also issued a mission: pacify the Thunder God Brothers.

The Thunder God Brothers were oddballs in Konoha Prison, nothing but muscle from head to toe—including their brains. These brothers had unusual constitutions. Though their brain capacity did not permit them to think about anything besides food, they were born with immense strength and thick hides. Even ordinary chunin were no match for them. Thus, aside from being prisoners, they were also subjects of the Science Division—there to be studied.

The Thunder God Brothers' logic was simple. Whoever gave them food was a good person; whoever did not was a bad person. They were more simple-minded than kindergarteners.

Therefore, before heading to Konoha Prison, Hayato had casually bought a sackful of food at the market.

As for how it tasted? Heh, the Thunder God Brothers' diet only distinguished between edible and inedible, not tasty and untasty.

The mission was exceptionally easy, and the reward was average as well: a pair of chakra-sealing handcuffs. For Hayato, who had been born into the Hyuga Clan, they were even more useless.

Feeding the Thunder God Brothers was the first task.

Second, Hayato participated in interrogating prisoners.

The prisoner was a wandering ninja who had illegally entered the Death Forest again.

The interrogator was Ibiki Morino.

When Ibiki Morino summoned the Torture Chamber Summoning, the prisoner was already crying as he confessed even such vile acts as peeping on the auntie next door while she bathed.

Third was another prisoner interrogation, but the chief interrogator was switched to a member of the Yamanaka Clan, Yamanaka San.

Yamanaka San's interrogation was far more straightforward than Ibiki Morino's. He merely placed one hand on the prisoner's head. A moment later, Yamanaka San obtained the intelligence he wanted, while the prisoner drooled and grinned foolishly as he begged for milk.

This mission lasted three days, and the payment was six thousand ryo. The main gain was that Hayato's mental resilience had improved considerably.

Being a ninja had never been a romantic profession. It was dangerous and tedious, especially when practicing ninjutsu. Without sufficient patience and perseverance, it was difficult to accomplish anything. More cruelly, many ninjutsu could not be learned through patience and perseverance alone.

Hayato had lived through these tedious gray days for over ten years. Don't ask how he felt about it. He had simply gotten used to it.

Over the past month, Hayato's proficiency in Five-Colored Strings, Bullet String, and Overheat had each reached one hundred percent.

Five-Colored Strings had not increased much in power, but its range had expanded to twenty meters, and he could now use both hands at once.

Bullet String's range and power were the same, but after reaching one hundred percent proficiency, all five fingers could fire thin strings simultaneously.

Overheat's power had increased significantly. It was still within the scope of an A-rank ninjutsu, but its attack range was in an entirely different league. Hayato's full-power Overheat could effectively kill enemies over a kilometer away. Combined with the Byakugan's telescopic vision, it was practically a sniper rifle.

The proficiency of Gentle Fist Art: Thirty-Two Beasts Wave Palm had also risen to 80.86%. Raising this ninjutsu's proficiency did not improve his acupuncture-point striking ability; it only increased its physical damage. With one palm strike, the wind blades wrapped around his hand were as sharp as steel knives.

Those were the system's fused skills.

Without the system, it might have taken Hayato several years to master them and raise them to such a level.

The progress of Hayato's self-developed "Moon Step" and "Eight Trigrams Palm: Rotation" was relatively slow. He was confident that he could master Eight Trigrams Palm: Rotation within two months and put it into actual combat.

Moon Step's goal was to walk through the air. The method was to release chakra from the soles of his feet dozens of times in an extremely short span, generating an upward reactive force.

The idea was beautiful, but putting it into practice was difficult.

He would leave it to fate.

After obtaining the String-String Fruit, Hayato no longer had such an urgent need for aerial mobility.

It was another new day.

As usual, Hayato was grinding skills at the training ground.

He had only been there a short while when Hatake Kaito appeared at the edge of the field.

"The Hokage wants to see you," Hatake Kaito said in a low voice, though the excitement in his eyes was impossible to suppress.

Ordinary missions were relayed by other ANBU members. Only relatively special or major missions would be delivered personally by the Hokage.

"Really?!" Sharoro's eyes widened.

Hatake Kaito smiled without saying a word. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he would not be able to stop himself from laughing.

For someone who possessed the skill to slay dragons, what was the greatest fear?

It was not that the dragon was powerful, but that there were no dragons in the world, leaving heroes with nowhere to use their talents.

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