The hairstyle of the strong

At the foot of the conference room wall, the sun bleached the surface white.

Seeing that Setsuna showed no fear even with a blade at his throat, Gengetsu raised an eyebrow in mild surprise.

Setsuna rolled his eyes and spat out one word: "Boring."

Gengetsu withdrew his sword, twirled it, and neatly slid it into its sheath.

He crouched beside Setsuna and studied the little head gleaming in the sunlight, his lips curving into a teasing smile.

"Last time I saw you, you were a spiky little sea urchin. How'd you turn into a little bald monk in just a few days?"

Expressionless, Setsuna held one hand upright before his chest and drew out the words in his childish voice. "Amitabha-please forgive this foolish human."

Gengetsu choked, the corner of his mouth twitching. "You know that fierce look in your eyes really clashes with 'Amitabha,' right?"

Setsuna pictured his current appearance.

A pale boiled egg with facial features.

Who did that look like?

Obviously, the strongest man on earth-Saitama!

Failing that, he was at least Tien Shinhan or Krillin from Dragon Ball.

He raised his chin and declared as though it were obvious, "This is the hairstyle of the strong. Haven't you heard, 'I went bald, but I got stronger'?"

Gengetsu blinked in confusion. "What hairstyle of the strong?"

Setsuna rolled his eyes and spoke with the air of the only sober man in a drunken crowd. "You wouldn't understand even if I explained."

Such was the loneliness of a game character!

Setsuna gazed skyward at a forty-five-degree angle, trying to create an atmosphere of poignant melancholy.

Gengetsu decided to drop the subject.

He crouched down and held out his hand to Setsuna, his tone turning more formal. "Hagoromo Gengetsu, captain of the Third Assault Squad."

Setsuna proudly raised his chin and reached out his little hand to shake it. "Uchiha Setsuna, the man who's going to string up Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju and beat them both."

Gengetsu's smile froze.

His eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the bald child who didn't even reach his waist.

He wondered whether something was wrong with his ears. Who introduced themselves by declaring that their life's goal was to string up their own clan leader and beat him?

"What... are you saying?"

"What about you?" Setsuna asked, tilting his head. "What's your goal?"

"Huh? Me?" Gengetsu pointed at himself.

He had never considered that question.

Throughout his sixteen years of life, he had always been told to get stronger. Getting stronger meant surviving, and only by surviving could he keep getting stronger.

Goals? Only those who survived had the luxury of thinking about those.

For a moment, he felt that compared with this little baldy's wild declaration of "stringing up Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju and beating them," he didn't have a goal that would sound impressive out loud.

Gengetsu answered hesitantly, "To help Lord Shōgatsu bring glory to the Hagoromo Clan and make it the greatest clan in the Shinobi World!"

"Tch." Setsuna snorted in disdain.

Gengetsu's face immediately reddened, and he raised his voice. "At least my goal is something I can keep working toward! Yours is an impossible delusion!"

Setsuna lifted his eyelids to look at him. "How do you know it's impossible?"

Gengetsu faltered, opening his mouth.

He wanted to say, "How could a little baldy like you possibly stand against those two?" He wanted to say, "They're the two strongest people in the Shinobi World." He wanted to say, "You have no idea how terrifying they are."

But when the words reached his lips, that earnest gaze pushed them all back.

"How could a little baldy like you... possibly stand against those two?" Gengetsu's voice unconsciously softened. "You're dreaming."

Setsuna folded his arms. "If you're going to dream, dream big. If you don't even dare to dream, you'll never dare to make it happen."

Gengetsu's eyes widened. He wanted to argue, but couldn't find the words.

"Then what kind of dream would you call a good one?"

Setsuna pondered. "Something like... becoming the second Sage of Six Paths..."

He shamelessly stole Obito's dream.

"No, maybe it should be stringing up the Sage of Six Paths and beating him!" Setsuna solemnly rubbed his chin, his eyes lighting up as he spoke.

"Huh?" Gengetsu was utterly bewildered.

The Sage of Six Paths was the progenitor of ninja, a godlike being. Saying you wanted to string him up and beat him was like saying you wanted to do the same to the Buddha.

A Chunin arriving with a report finally broke through Gengetsu's awkwardness.

Gengetsu immediately wiped that foolish expression off his face and asked seriously, "What happened?"

The Chunin knelt on one knee. "Lord Sarutobi Sasuke has arrived at the Second Settlement."

Sarutobi Sasuke.

The name made Setsuna's eyebrow twitch. He shared a given name with Sasuke Uchiha, but this man belonged to the Sarutobi Clan.

Setsuna knew from the game's backstory that this man was Sasuke Uchiha's namesake. Fugaku had hoped his son would become a hero like Sarutobi Sasuke.

Gengetsu glanced at the still-ongoing meeting, then turned to instruct the ninja guarding the conference room door. "Report this to Lord Shōgatsu as soon as he comes out. I'll go receive our guest first."

With that, he made to leave.

But someone tugged on the hem of his clothes.

Gengetsu looked down and met a pair of unusually bright Sanpaku Eyes.

"I'm coming too."

Setsuna's logic was simple. Rather than crouch here waiting for a meeting whose outcome he might never be told, he might as well take the initiative and gather new information.

The only Sarutobi Clan members he knew were Hiruzen Sarutobi, the future Third Hokage, along with his son Asuma and grandson Konohamaru.

Overall, the clan's performance in the game was mediocre. They weren't particularly strong.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's Enma, however, was a powerful and loyal summon. Setsuna's player brought him along every match.

"Besides acting as intermediaries between the clans, the Sarutobi Clan also trades in intelligence," Gengetsu said, looking at him helplessly. "Are you that eager to hand them information about yourself?"

Setsuna's eyes shifted as an idea struck him.

"So it'll be fine as long as I don't give the Sarutobi Clan accurate information about me, right?"

Gengetsu patted his little bald head. "You don't think you stand out enough already?"

Fair point.

A bald head, Sanpaku Eyes, and a tiny kid from the Uchiha Clan—to anyone paying attention, that appearance was practically a walking intelligence jackpot. He might as well wear a label reading, "Uchiha child prodigy. Gather data now."

But Setsuna didn't back down in the slightest.

He raised his chin and tossed out a matter-of-fact declaration.

"I can dress as a girl."

Gengetsu choked.

His mouth hung open as his brain briefly crashed for a second.

That possibility had never occurred to him. As a man, he had a natural aversion to dressing as a woman; it would make him feel less manly.

And Setsuna?

He had absolutely no mental hang-ups about it.

In fact, deep down, he was even vaguely looking forward to dressing as a girl.

In the game, all the best-selling skins seemed to have something to do with cross-dressing. Madara Uchiha's bunny girl skin, Sasuke's angel maid skin-which of them wasn't a permanent fixture on the sales charts?

Players cursed, "You planners are pure evil," while tearfully spending money. Their mouths said no, but their actions were utterly honest.

Cross-dressing meant popularity, and popularity meant premium.

That set of values, along with the players' countless ridiculous memes, had long since been buried deep in Setsuna's underlying code.

"As a ninja clan, you must have disguise supplies, right?" Setsuna's tone had shifted from a suggestion to an urging, with a hint of eager anticipation. "Just tell them I'm your little sister."

Gengetsu looked at the little baldy before him and tried to imagine him in girls' clothes.

Sanpaku Eyes, a bald head, that "I'm the greatest in the world" expression, paired with a skirt—the image was so spectacular that he didn't dare think any further.

"...Are you sure?"

"Obviously. Hurry up and stop dragging your feet."

Gengetsu took a deep breath and decided to stop arguing with this little lunatic.

He bent down, scooped Setsuna up, and leaped away, skimming across the rooftops toward the Second Settlement. "We'll find disguise supplies at the settlement first. Think of a name on the way, and don't blow your cover."

"Just call me Mako," Setsuna said without a moment's thought.

"...Are you serious?"

"Mako means the female version of Gengetsu."

"Don't take liberties with my name." Gengetsu tightened his arms, expressionless.

"Then Moon Princess."

"That still sounds like I've turned into a woman!"

"Then pick one yourself."

"...Take your time thinking of one."

Gengetsu sped through the trees with Setsuna in his arms, glancing down at his bald head with mixed feelings.

This kid really wasn't on the same wavelength as normal people.

Never mind that Setsuna had dared chase Senju Clan ninja all the way to a cliff alone.

Before the subsequent prebattle briefing had even finished, this little baldy had brought up a dust explosion, assembling three types of elemental ninjutsu like building blocks into a tactic Gengetsu had never seen before.

Lord Shōgatsu hadn't said anything at the time, but after returning, whenever he thought back on it, he would praise it as "a brilliant idea."

And now this.

To keep the Sarutobi Clan from obtaining accurate intelligence, a normal person would, at most, disguise their identity, change their name, and wear a conical hat to hide their face.

But this kid had gone straight to, "I can dress as a girl."

Didn't he know normal men would find that embarrassing?

No, he definitely knew. He just didn't care.

Something like personal dignity seemed not to exist for this little baldy.

As long as he achieved his goal, he didn't care what means he used.

To put it kindly, that mindset showed exceptional mental resilience. To put it unkindly, his skin was thick enough to stop a Kunai.

But Gengetsu had to admit that those who cared too much about their dignity often died first.