The White-Haired Blind Merchant of Tanzaku Town

Six years had passed in the blink of an eye.

Land of Fire, Tanzaku Town.

Afternoons were always bustling.

Gamblers shouted, dice clattered crisply against their bowls, and the scent of sake drifted from izakayas, mingling with the faintly warm breeze of early summer as it flowed through this entertainment-famous street of the Land of Fire.

On the second floor of a ninja tool shop at the corner, beneath a wooden sign reading "Yamada-ya," the boy by the window tapped his fingers lightly against the table.

Twelve-year-old Kaguya Yama, now known to the public as Yamada Soji, carried a calmness far beyond his years.

His short silver-white hair was neat and sharp, gleaming with an almost metallic chill beneath the sunlight.

The childish roundness had long faded from his face, leaving behind handsome, defined features.

Most eye-catching of all was the black cloth tightly wrapped around his eyes. Tied into a simple knot behind his head, it lent him an added air of mystery and distance.

Beneath the black cloth, the Six Eyes operated at their lowest possible output.

Even shut, even covered, these eyes from another world continued functioning without pause.

The dealer's faintly trembling fingers in the gambling house across the street, chakra fluctuations atop a roof three hundred meters away, the path of water droplets leaking from pipes three meters underground...

That overwhelming flood of information poured into Kaguya Yama's mind.

The first time, the system had protected him, so he had not felt much discomfort. But when he activated the Six Eyes for the second time, the endless stream of information had nearly driven him mad.

His brain had felt as though it were about to burst, every second searing with the pain of being pushed beyond its limits.

The old physician from the merchant caravan had taught him to calm himself with herbs, while countless near-death battles had taught him control. It was only three years ago that he had finally mastered the art of filtering information.

But he still could not shut them off completely.

The Six Eyes were like organs grown upon his soul. They could only remain open, forever watching. The black cloth offered only the slightest bit of relief.

At that moment, Kaguya Yama tilted his head slightly. The Six Eyes instantly pierced through the wall and caught the conversation downstairs.

"...The steel on this batch of kunai is certainly good, but could the price perhaps be lowered..."

"Sorry, these are premium goods supplied directly from the Land of Iron. The cost alone..."

A clerk was negotiating with a purchasing representative from some minor shinobi clan.

He never involved himself in business matters, leaving them entirely to the manager Achun had trained.

After the rogue ninja attack six years ago, Achun's merchant caravan had taken him in, and he had repaid that kindness with both strength and intelligence.

He had single-handedly crushed several assassination attempts against the caravan, and he had carved out seven new trade routes through sheer force.

Three years ago, he had suggested moving their base to Tanzaku Town in the Land of Fire.

The reasons were sound. In the current Shinobi World, the Land of Fire was the most prosperous and peaceful, while Tanzaku Town was the largest entertainment center within its borders.

There was a huge flow of people here, information traveled quickly, and money came even faster.

Yet he kept the deeper reason to himself. This was one of the places where Tsunade, one of the Legendary Sannin, would appear, and it was also the starting point of many future events.

Tap—

His fingers suddenly stopped. Kaguya Yama summoned the pale blue interface that only he could see from the depths of his consciousness.

[Jujutsu System · Personal Interface]

Name: Kaguya Yama

Age: 12

Status: Early symptoms of mild Bloodline Disease. Bone regeneration speed slowed. Occasionally accompanied by neuralgia.

Overall Strength Rating: Special Jonin ~ Elite Jōnin (fluctuating)

[Core Ability System]

① Total Chakra: Jonin level

[After six years of extreme training, both quality and quantity have reached the average Jonin standard of the Five Great Nations]

Chakra Nature Transformations: Wind (proficient), Water (skilled), Earth (beginner)

Kekkei Genkai: Shikotsumyaku (proficient)

[Rating standards: beginner, skilled, proficient, master, legend]

Techniques mastered under normal conditions: Ten-Finger Bullet Barrage

(Maximum projectile speed: 368 meters per second. Effective range: 500 meters.)

Dance of the Willow, Dance of the Camellia, Dance of the Larch (taijutsu combat styles)

Dance of the Clematis (an offensive and defensive technique)

Dance of the Bracken Fern (a large-scale attack within a 150-meter radius)

Bone Vein Secret Art: Hollow Bone Shockwave (self-created, uses high-frequency vibrations between bones to unleash extreme destructive force at close to mid-range)

Special Application: Subcutaneous Bone Armor (automatic defense, full-body coverage)

Bone Marrow Activation (can greatly enhance physical abilities for a short time, but worsens Bloodline Disease)

② Total Cursed Energy / (Grade 2 level)

❶ Six Eyes

Effect: Omnidirectional vision, energy penetration, technique and ninjutsu analysis, long-range perception, prediction of minute movements and energy flow.

Side Effect: Continuous information overload (the burden can be reduced through training)

❷ Innate Technique: Ice Formation

Effect: Converts Cursed Energy into absolute low temperatures, capable of freezing matter, energy flow, and even conceptual things.

❸ Black Flash

Effect: When Cursed Energy, chakra, and physical impact fall within an error of one second, it produces destructive power five times the maximum output.

Activation Probability: Reliably mastered, but requires entering the Six Eyes' overclocked state.

The interface gradually faded away. Kaguya Yama picked up the chilled tea at his side and took a sip.

Eight hundred seventy-three people.

He remembered that number clearly.

Rogue ninja, missing-nin, bandits, guards from hostile merchant caravans... ninjas who had died by his hand over the past six years.

With every kill, his Cursed Energy had increased to varying degrees. The system had no emotions. It merely recorded and accumulated coldly, granting him power from the world of jujutsu through a draw whenever he crossed a threshold.

The first reward had come four years ago, when he faced a thirteen-man squad of defectors from Kusagakure and obtained [Black Flash].

The black lightning unleashed by that punch had even warped space, tearing the leading Elite Chunin apart along with dozens of massive trees that took three people to encircle.

The second time had been two years ago, when he encountered a Kirigakure pursuit force at the border of the Land of Iron.

The whereabouts of a Kaguya Clan survivor had not been difficult for spies from a major nation to trace.

In that battle, he killed seven Hidden Mist ANBU. When his Cursed Energy broke through, he obtained [Innate Technique: Ice Formation] through a draw. After freezing three corpses, he slipped away without a sound.

He was already very strong. At twelve, he had reached the level of an Elite Jōnin. In any ninja village, that would make him a genius among geniuses.

But for Kaguya Yama, it was not enough!

His fingers lightly pressed beneath his left ribs. The Six Eyes' internal vision allowed him to clearly see the microscopic structure of his own bones.

Those tiny cracks, the lattice misalignments that appeared during regeneration—only he could sense them. They were lesions slowly eroding the source of his life.

Shikotsumyaku Bloodline Disease.

A curse the Kaguya Clan could not escape.

Even a genius like Kimimaro had begun suffering a complete onset around the age of fifteen, ultimately dying with no cure available.

If he counted the years, that boy whom Orochimaru had taken away should already be showing mild symptoms by now, shouldn't he?

Still, he was luckier than Kimimaro. The Six Eyes allowed him to detect the lesions in advance, and Cursed Energy, an energy system from another world, could delay the disease's progression.

But completely curing it? He could not do that yet. Looking across the entire Shinobi World, only one person might be capable of solving this problem.

"Tsunade..."

Kaguya Yama quietly spoke her name.

On the surface, settling in Tanzaku Town three years ago had been for the merchant caravan's development. In truth, it had been to wait for that woman.

One of the Legendary Sannin, the pinnacle of Medical Ninjutsu, and the developer of Creation Rebirth.

If even she could not cure Bloodline Disease, then perhaps no one in this world could.

But Tsunade's whereabouts were unpredictable. She was addicted to gambling, and after the deaths of her younger brother and lover, she had developed severe Hemophobia. She had long since left the front lines of medical practice.

Seeking treatment directly? That was probably impossible.

Still, he could wait. He only needed to wait for an opportunity—an opportunity to approach her, move her, and make her willing to act.