Beyond expectations

"Idiot! What the hell kind of fighting was that?!"

"If that's how you're going to fight, you might as well go home and grow vegetables!"

Tsunade shoved aside a branch blocking her path and strode out of the dense woods.

Her face was livid, her fury barely contained.

She wore a dark green short jacket that day, its sleeves neatly rolled to her elbows. Faint traces of herbal juice still stained her pale fists.

Clearly, she had rushed over from Konoha Hospital without even having time to wash the medicine stains from her hands.

With some time to spare, she had come to watch Nawaki and Amamiya Maki's first assessment spar, quietly leaning against a tree to observe.

Never had she expected to witness something so absurd.

Her own little brother had copied Hashirama Senju's fighting style and taken a Rasengan head-on with his bare body.

No blocking. No dodging.

He had simply stood rooted to the spot and taken the full brunt of the attack.

Capillaries across his chest and abdomen had ruptured extensively. Blood had seeped throughout a palm-sized patch beneath his skin and soaked his training clothes.

The fabric over his abdomen had been torn open, exposing flesh mangled by the Rasengan's rotational force.

Large patches of bruising were visibly darkening to black. The injury was horrifying to look at.

"What happened to the ninjutsu I taught you? Your judgment? Basic common sense?!"

"How many times have I told you not to copy Granduncle's brute-force fighting style? Did every single word go in one ear and out the other?!"

Tsunade's furious scolding rang across the entire training ground, sending the snakes coiled among the branches shrinking beneath the leaves, afraid to poke their heads out.

The longer she looked, the angrier she became. She viciously kicked a loose stone at her feet.

Propelled by terrifying force, it flew more than a dozen meters and embedded itself in a thick tree trunk.

She knew perfectly well that Nawaki had spent years blindly imitating Hashirama Senju.

He copied Hashirama's taijutsu openings, his straightforward approach, and his overbearing style of meeting attacks head-on without ever dodging.

But all he had learned was the deadliest part of that superficial imitation.

Hashirama's invincible Wood Release, his absurd regenerative power, his supreme combat instincts honed through battles to the death-Nawaki had learned none of them.

All he had mastered was that reckless, muscleheaded way of fighting.

And with his status protecting him, no one at the Ninja Academy had ever dared to attack him with truly lethal intent.

With three layers of prestige shielding him, every opponent he faced in taijutsu practice instinctively held back.

Over time, Nawaki had developed an utterly ridiculous habit.

He was convinced that no one would dare to truly hurt him. He did not need to dodge or defend; even taking an attack head-on would leave him unharmed.

Until today, when a single Rasengan from Amamiya Maki had shattered that complacency.

Still, this beating had been worth taking.

The Shinobi World had long since moved beyond the era of brute-force clashes thirty years ago.

Vicious, tricky ninjutsu emerged endlessly: using the Transformation Technique to impersonate an ally and stab someone in the back, feinting with a Shadow Clone before a sneak attack, concealing kunai fitted with explosive tags amid a rain of shuriken... There was no such thing as fair play on a battlefield.

With a nuclear-level ninjutsu like Wood Release to fall back on, Hashirama had every reason to meet his enemies head-on.

But Nawaki had none of that. All he possessed was an enormous amount of chakra. Mindlessly copying Hashirama's fighting style would only get his name carved onto the Memorial Stone sooner or later.

Tsunade suppressed her anger, tore her gaze from the wound, and turned her attention to Amamiya Maki at the edge of the crater.

Her eyes landed precisely on the boy's right hand and lingered there for a moment.

It still held the pose it had been in when the Rasengan dispersed. His fingertips trembled slightly, a classic sign of excessive chakra output over a short period.

She had to admit that this boy's chakra control far surpassed that of his peers.

Nawaki alone remained utterly carefree.

Lying at the bottom of the crater, he looked up at the people gathering around him, then glanced down at the bleeding wound on his abdomen.

"Sis, did you see that?"

"That jutsu was incredible! No hand seals at all, and it hit the instant he used it! It's practically the ultimate weapon for catching people off guard!"

"I've read countless Scrolls of Seals in Master Orochimaru's study, but I've never seen a ninjutsu this interesting or this powerful!"

Nawaki tilted his head toward Amamiya Maki and enthusiastically gave him a big thumbs-up.

"Ahaha, now that's what I call spirit!"

A vein at Tsunade's temple throbbed violently.

She had just unleashed a furious scolding and painstakingly tried to reason with him, yet apparently the brat had not heard a single word.

He was not being rebellious or disobedient. The very concept of self-preservation simply did not exist in his head.

All he had thought the entire time was: That jutsu is strong. My junior is strong.

Apparently, Hashirama Senju's genes had given this child nothing but vast reserves of chakra, without leaving him a shred of combat sense.

"Ahaha, plenty of spirit there!"

A relaxed, teasing voice came from the other end of the training ground.

Jiraiya ambled toward them with Minato Namikaze following behind.

A little toad perched on Minato's shoulder, pawing at the upturned blond hair over his forehead, its puffed cheeks brimming with curiosity.

Jiraiya glanced at the injured Nawaki lying on the ground, then looked at Amamiya Maki's upright figure and composed bearing. A meaningful smile surfaced in his eyes.

On the way over, Minato had already given him a thorough account of Amamiya Maki's abilities.

He consistently placed first in the monthly exams, had mastered the Clone Technique, and had even invented an entirely new ninjutsu that required no seals.

Minato had spoken with pure excitement, without the slightest resentment at being overtaken. Instead, he was full of admiration.

Jiraiya inwardly joked that the boy had inherited his own excellent attitude perfectly.

Though, come to think of it, he had not formally accepted him as a student yet.

"Orochimaru, you really struck gold with this student."

Stroking his chin, Jiraiya kept his gaze fixed on Amamiya Maki, his eyes full of amazement.

"That last attack-the chakra's rotation speed and compression density were both top-notch. But the craziest part was that he used it without seals!"

"Do you know what that means? On the battlefield, an enemy who sees you forming hand seals can anticipate the attack and dodge. They have time to react.

"But this ninjutsu needs zero seals. It launches instantly and catches them off guard, giving them no chance to react at all. It's an outright lethal ambush technique!"

He turned toward Orochimaru, who was slacking off against a tree, his face full of confusion.

"Wait a minute. This kid's fighting style is nothing like yours. You haven't even started teaching him properly yet, have you? Who taught him this unstoppable ninjutsu?"

Orochimaru leaned languidly against the trunk and turned a page in his research notes without so much as raising his head. His voice was indifferent, but a trace of concealed pride lay beneath it.

"He worked it out himself. He spent the entire summer beneath the waterfall refining it. By the time I discovered it, the jutsu was already nearly complete. I merely handled the final assessment."

"He worked it out himself? Created an A-rank, seal-less ninjutsu from scratch with his own two hands?"

Jiraiya's voice instantly rose, his face filled with disbelief.

The sudden shout startled the little toad on Minato's shoulder into jumping straight onto his head.

"Orochimaru, be honest. Is he some secret weapon you've been training for years? You've kept him far too well hidden!"

"His talent has indeed exceeded my expectations."