Practical Combat Assessment

"Has the intelligence been sent back?"

"It was delivered to the village immediately, Lord Danzo."

"Good."

Danzo had already left Konoha and arrived at the border of the Land of Fire.

As the Pot Kage, he had an even heavier workload than Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Friction between the Shinobi Village and the Shinobi Village was growing more intense, and Hiruzen Sarutobi needed Danzo to oversee the border in person.

Since arriving, Danzo had commanded his forces in intercepting and killing several groups of scouts.

He had lived through the Second Shinobi World War. He knew these clashes would not disappear. They would only escalate until war broke out in full.

"At this rate, the Third Shinobi World War is inevitable. We should strike first and hit the other Shinobi Villages hard."

The intelligence he sent back to Konoha laid out the situation at the border and urged Hiruzen Sarutobi to act at once.

But Danzo knew that the weak-willed Hiruzen Sarutobi would keep pondering how to settle the disputes. If necessary, he would even sacrifice the village's interests.

Danzo would never allow that. He took a much harder line than Hiruzen Sarutobi.

He even wanted to concentrate their forces, launch an all-out attack, and crush one of the Shinobi Villages!

That would keep them from being surrounded by four major Shinobi Villages as they had been in the First Shinobi World War.

But he was not the Hokage. In the end, he was not the Hokage!

All because he had been a step too slow back then, failing to step forward at once. It had become a thorn in his heart.

Danzo's thoughts returned to the year he had accompanied his teacher, the Second Hokage Tobirama Senju, to Kumogakure to forge an alliance and sign a ceasefire agreement.

On the way back to the village, they had been ambushed by Kinkaku and Ginkaku.

With no time to spare, Tobirama Senju had made a decision. He asked which of his disciples would stay behind to cover the others' escape.

Everyone knew staying behind meant death. There was no chance of survival.

Danzo had kept telling himself, Say it. Say it. Offer to stay behind so the teacher and the others can get home safely.

In the end, Hiruzen Sarutobi had spoken first, volunteering to stay behind and die.

That single moment of hesitation had cost Danzo the Hokage Position.

Their teacher had already decided to stay behind alone. His question had only been a test to see who was worthy of succeeding him.

Deep down, Danzo might not have needed to become Hokage. What stung more was his own weakness back then, and that he had lacked Hiruzen Sarutobi's resolve.

After that, Danzo had grown. He had taken on Konoha's darkness and become a formidable shinobi who resembled his teacher. Meanwhile, the brave Hiruzen Sarutobi of those days had had his edge worn away by a false peace.

Danzo was better suited to be Konoha's Hokage now.

"Sarutobi, you're no longer fit to lead Konoha. Only I can lead it back to the heights it reached under the First Hokage!"

As he brooded, a Root Ninja wearing an oni mask brought him the latest news from the village.

"That boy defeated Kakashi, then the prodigies of the Uchiha and Hyuga Clans."

"Hm?"

Danzo froze, surprise flashing in his eyes.

That brat who practiced only Taijutsu, whose temperament Danzo had deemed unsuitable for Root, possessed such talent?

Danzo understood that Kakashi's defeat could have been due to outside factors. It did not necessarily mean the child named Kazan was that strong.

But with both an Uchiha and a Hyuga defeated as well, the matter deserved serious thought.

"What a shame."

Danzo's gaze quickly returned to its usual calm.

He had misjudged the boy and missed out on two of this generation's finest talents. Still, he had recruited plenty of fresh blood from other shinobi clans.

A small loss hardly counted as a loss!

Meanwhile.

On the mountain behind the Hokage's office, Kazan had stopped throwing punches.

He sat cross-legged on the ground and created another Shadow Clone.

Neither spoke. One glance at each other was enough for them to understand what the other had in mind.

A moment later...

Bam!

Kazan went flying and rolled several times across the ground before coming to a stop.

He rubbed his face. It hurt. As expected of his own Shadow Clone, those fists were hard.

"Again!"

He gritted his teeth and kept going, determined to master Observation Haki and Armament Haki as soon as possible.

Kazan had Garp's memories of training. When it came to Observation Haki, his approach was much the same as that of Rayleigh, that mediocre teacher who led his students astray.

He would learn by getting beaten up—the crudest, most direct method.

At a time like this, Kazan almost wished he had a great teacher like Kaido beside him.

One clubbing for Ryuo, two for Conqueror's Coating, three for Awakening on the spot!

What a method!

Would that just kill me outright?

I've got the Monkey family template. I can bounce back from a beating too. No problem.

Still, he could only dream about it.

"Again!"

Kazan got up, closed his eyes, and turned his back on his Shadow Clone to take another beating.

The Ninja Academy's graduation exam was fast approaching. In other words, he would soon leave the safety of the village and see the outside world.

He had to master Observation Haki while he could.

In the world of the Hokage, Genjutsu was a sinister thing.

It was practically the bane of Taijutsu users. If he wanted to avoid being killed before he knew what hit him, mastering Observation Haki was urgent.

Elsewhere.

With the graduation exam approaching, this year's students faced a heavier workload.

Lately, every one of them had gritted their teeth and turned into Might Guy, secretly spending most of their free time on extra training. They hoped to pass the graduation assessment and become proud Genin.

The teachers also held tests every few days, hoping to help the students find and fix their weaknesses.

Today was a practical combat test, a comprehensive assessment of the students' current abilities.

But then...

Before the Chunin teacher could call for the test to begin, the proud Uchiha and Hyuga students stepped forward.

"Kazan, I challenge you!"

"Kazan, I'm going to beat you this time!"

The two approached Kazan almost simultaneously.

They wanted the same thing: to avenge their defeats.

Both had the painful memory of being thrashed by Kazan. They had even spent some time as fellow patients.

They could not accept losing to a commoner who relied solely on Taijutsu.

Jing Uchiha took it especially badly.

After leaving the hospital, he had tried to catch Kazan alone. But that damned brat had somehow stopped staying after school to train. Worse, he left the school so fast that Jing could never find a trace of him.

Jing considered his last defeat an accident. Though he had come to acknowledge Kazan's strength, he still refused to believe he would lose again.

During his hospital stay, he had gone over the fight again and again. He was certain he would win if he used Genjutsu.

But after lying in wait for Kazan several times, he had never caught him.

Jing had challenged Kazan at school, but Kazan would not accept. Gone was the bravado of a boy who had declared that "a real man never backs down from a challenge."

And with those classmates mocking him day after day, Jing was so furious he was about to awaken his Sharingan, damn it!