Sixth Gate! Blue Steam!

Chakra surged into her meridians like a tsunami.

First Gate: Gate of Opening.

It was familiar territory. The limits on her brain lifted, and the world grew sharp and clear.

Second Gate: Gate of Healing.

Her fatigue vanished. With her Strength of a Hundred Seal active, her body was an inexhaustible furnace.

Third Gate: Gate of Life.

Her skin reddened, and veins bulged. Her strength and speed rose another notch.

But this time was different.

The power surging through her body was several times greater than before.

The vast reserves of chakra released by the Strength of a Hundred Seal resonated with the Eight Gates' explosive power.

It was like throwing a nuclear bomb into a reactor.

"Keep going."

Fourth Gate: Gate of Pain—open!

Dark red spread across her body. Green steam erupted from her skin.

Last time, opening four gates had set off alarm bells throughout her body.

This time?

Tsunade rolled her neck.

She felt nothing.

The Strength of a Hundred had driven her cells' vitality to its peak. Tiny tears in her muscle fibers healed the instant they formed.

The side effects of the fourth gate were completely canceled out.

"Just as I thought."

Tsunade took a deep breath.

"Fifth Gate: Gate of Limit—open!!"

Voom—!

The steam around her body suddenly grew three times thicker.

The ground beneath her feet collapsed into a web of cracks.

Her power soared again.

Flickers of blue flame even appeared around her.

Tsunade could feel the chakra inside her burning furiously.

But the reserves in her Strength of a Hundred Seal had barely budged.

The cost of five gates was almost nothing to her now!

"At this rate..."

Tsunade looked at her hands, wrapped in green steam, and her heart raced.

Can I keep going?

Last time, four gates had been her limit.

Back then, she had judged that her body could barely manage five gates. Six would be difficult.

But that was without the Strength of a Hundred.

Things were different now.

With the Strength of a Hundred fully active, her Hashirama-level cellular vitality gave her body a buffer of nearly limitless endurance.

The strain of six gates?

She could take it.

"Let's do it!"

Tsunade's eyes widened as she drove her chakra to its limit!

"Sixth Gate: Gate of View—open!!"

Boom!!!

It was a real explosion.

With Tsunade at its center, the ground within a ten-meter radius blew apart!

Rocks, dirt, and grass flew skyward in a visible shock wave!

The color of her skin shifted from dark red to deep crimson, and then—

It changed.

Tsunade froze.

The thick green steam around her body was changing color.

From emerald green.

To turquoise.

To azure.

Finally, it became a deep blue flame that enveloped her whole body!

Blue Steam.

Tsunade's eyes went wide.

"That can't be right."

She rapidly searched her memory of the Eight Gates.

Might Guy only entered the Blue Steam state after opening seven gates.

It was the mark of the seventh gate, the Gate of Wonder.

She had only opened six.

Six gates!

Why was she already surrounded by Blue Steam?!

Deep blue flames burned around her.

Heat haze warped everything in sight.

The earth beneath her feet began to crack, dry out, and char.

Tsunade looked down at herself.

Blue light covered her body, and power seethed in every cell.

Suddenly, she understood.

"The color of the steam... depends on the concentration of burning chakra and the vitality of the cells."

Might Guy had an ordinary human body.

He had to open seven gates to reach the threshold where his chakra steam changed color.

But she was different.

Senju constitution. Uzumaki bloodline. The Strength of a Hundred fully active. Hashirama-level cellular vitality.

Even though she had only opened six gates,

the concentration and intensity of the chakra burning inside her had already surpassed what an ordinary person could achieve with seven!

"So... my sixth gate can hit as hard as someone else's seventh?"

Tsunade grinned.

"Ridiculous."

It felt incredible.

But in that same instant, she realized there was a problem.

She had too much power.

So much that she didn't know where to put it.

Every muscle in her body screamed to let loose.

To explode.

To destroy.

She was like a balloon inflated to its limit. If she didn't release some pressure, she would burst.

No... I need somewhere to let it out...

Tsunade gritted her teeth and pushed off with both legs.

Whoosh!!

She vanished.

At the speed of her Blue Steam state with six gates open, the naked eye could no longer track her.

Ten seconds later.

Deep in Konoha's Back Mountain, in an empty valley.

Tsunade appeared in the middle of the valley as if from nowhere.

She couldn't hold back any longer.

"Hyaaah—!!"

One punch.

Straight at the cliff face before her.

Boom!!!!!

The entire cliff face—a wall of rock dozens of meters high and wide—

crumbled beneath her punch like a biscuit crushed under a giant's foot.

Cracks spread from the point of impact in a flash.

The next second, the entire cliff face caved inward!

Rubble poured down like a waterfall, and dust billowed into the sky.

Still not enough.

Tsunade turned and charged at the opposite cliff.

"Again!!"

One punch. Two. Three.

Every blow triggered a small earthquake.

The valley rapidly widened under her onslaught.

She forced the cliffs on both sides back more than ten meters. Dense clusters of deep craters pocked the ground.

The whole thing lasted less than a minute.

But during that minute, in Konoha's residential district—

"Huh? An earthquake?!"

A woman out buying groceries early that morning stopped short. The ground was clearly shaking beneath her feet.

"Mom! The table's shaking!"

"Earthquake! Run!"

On Konoha's main street, pedestrians crouched and covered their heads.

Vendors' goods tumbled to the ground.

Roof tiles clattered down.

Even the stone faces of the three Hokage on Hokage Rock trembled slightly.

In the Hokage's office,

Hiruzen Sarutobi had just lit his pipe and was about to tackle his first document of the day.

Then the shaking reached him.

The teacup in his hand rattled twice, spilling tea.

"Hm?"

The Third Hokage frowned.

An earthquake? No. That rhythm and force... It wasn't natural.

Someone was causing it.

He set down his teacup and walked to the window, looking toward the source of the tremors.

The Back Mountain.

"Someone, come here."

A masked figure appeared without a sound.

"Investigate. The Back Mountain."

"Yes."

The figure vanished.

The Third Hokage's gaze grew distant. His pipe remained between his teeth, untouched.

Who in Konoha could cause tremors like that?

The ANBU operative soon returned.

"Lord Third."

The ANBU operative knelt on one knee, obvious hesitation in his voice.

"Who was it?"

"...Lady Tsunade."

Hiruzen Sarutobi nearly dropped his pipe.

"What?"

"The valley on the east side of the Back Mountain. Lady Tsunade is there alone. The valley has been..."

The ANBU operative paused, apparently searching for the right words.

"The terrain had been reshaped."

Hiruzen Sarutobi fell silent for three seconds.

Then he set his pipe on the desk.

"Lead the way."

When the Third Hokage stood at the edge of the valley and looked down, he fell silent again.

The once-narrow V-shaped valley had become a broad U.

The exposed faces of the cliffs were too smooth to look as though fists had struck them. They looked more like something had been gnawing at them.

The valley floor was a wreck.

Deep craters, fissures, heaps of rubble.

Not a single patch of ground within a hundred-meter radius remained intact.

And in the middle of it all, Tsunade sat on a broken rock.

The Blue Steam had dispersed, and the markings of the Strength of a Hundred had receded.

She was leisurely shaking out her wrists and loosening up.

A satisfied smile rested on her face.

Hiruzen Sarutobi took a deep breath and jumped down.

"Tsunade."

"Hey, old man." Tsunade looked up with a grin, not surprised in the slightest. "You got here pretty fast."

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at the devastation around them, then at Tsunade.

He opened his mouth, but in the end, he asked only one question.

"Since when could you do something like this?"

Tsunade tilted her head and thought for a moment.

"About... ten minutes ago?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi: "..."

He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

First thing in the morning.

An eighteen-year-old girl had blasted Back Mountain apart.

And she was the First's granddaughter.

Hiruzen Sarutobi opened his eyes again, his gaze sharpening.

"This matter..."

"I know, I know." Tsunade waved a hand, cutting him off.

"No one else can find out."

She stood and brushed the dust off her backside.

"Relax. I'm not an idiot."

Hiruzen Sarutobi studied her.

There was none of the uncertainty one would expect from an eighteen-year-old in her eyes.

Only clarity and certainty.

After a moment's silence, the Third Hokage turned and gave the ANBU an order.

"As far as the public is concerned, today's disturbance on Back Mountain was a landslide caused by a shift in the underground water channels."

"Silence every witness. S-rank confidentiality."

"Yes, sir."

The ANBU vanished.

Hiruzen Sarutobi turned back to Tsunade, looking as though he wanted to say something.

In the end, he merely put his pipe back in his mouth and slowly exhaled a stream of white smoke.

"Tsunade."

"Hmm?"

"If the First were still here, he'd be very happy."

Tsunade froze for an instant.

Then the corners of her mouth slowly lifted.

"Of course he would."

She stretched and started walking back.

"After all, I'm the woman who's going to become the Fourth Hokage."

Hiruzen Sarutobi watched her go.

Smoke curled from his pipe into the sky.

Something suddenly occurred to him.

A few days earlier, Danzo had come to him wanting to put Tsunade on Root's surveillance list.

He had refused at the time.

But now...

Perhaps he needed to reconsider that decision.

Not because Tsunade belonged on the list.

Because Danzo absolutely could not learn what had happened today.

Hiruzen Sarutobi took a long drag on his pipe and turned to leave.

His steps were noticeably quicker than when he had arrived.