Chapter 11

This was only the border. If they went any farther in, the conditions would only get worse.

He had heard that more than ninety percent of this country's land was nothing but useless sand.

Xuan Zhe muttered to himself, "Every time I see the lousy places other countries have, I realize how great the Land of Fire really is."

Orochimaru turned to him with a faint smile. "Hehe, of course. The Land of Fire occupies the most fertile territory in the entire Shinobi World. We have the foundations laid by the First Hokage to thank for that."

Xuan Zhe laughed. "But now everyone in Konoha only knows the Third as the 'strongest Hokage.' Who still remembers the First, who ended the age of chaos and founded Konoha?"

Orochimaru said nothing and merely smiled.

He had flipped through the Ninja Academy's textbooks when he was bored. Their accounts of Hashirama Senju barely mentioned him in passing. Tobirama Senju had a few more achievements listed because of his connection to their teacher.

But most of the book was devoted to singing the praises of the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Orochimaru had nearly laughed out loud at the time.

Still, that sort of propaganda worked quite well on the rank-and-file fodder.

At some point, their Teacher Sarutobi had been elevated to the position of "strongest Hokage."

Hashirama Senju and Tobirama Senju had almost been forgotten, never mind Madara Uchiha.

"By the way, Xuan Zhe, is that wound on your neck all right?"

Orochimaru stared at the teeth marks on Xuan Zhe's neck, his voice carrying a hint of teasing.

He knew who had done it without being told.

Speechless, Xuan Zhe tugged his collar higher.

Last night, he had joked that she was "still shaped like me," and Tsunade had gone wild and bitten him several times.

She had even drawn blood.

"It's coming!!"

Below them, Hyuga Hiashi suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs.

On the battlefield of yellow sand, veins bulged beside Hyuga Hiashi's eyes as he pushed his Byakugan's vision to its limit.

The next second, the entire ground began to shake violently.

Almost the instant his words fell, the desert beneath the Konoha Army seemed to come alive.

In barely ten breaths, a towering wave of sand more than twenty meters high came crashing toward them like a frenzied beast.

Xuan Zhe narrowed his eyes.

He knew this sight all too well-it worked just like Gaara's Quicksand Waterfall.

According to the intelligence Orochimaru had provided yesterday, this technique should have been the work of Bunpuku, Shukaku's jinchūriki.

His abilities really were exactly like Gaara's.

"The biggest headache in this battle is Bunpuku."

Orochimaru turned toward the approaching wall of sand without a trace of panic on his face.

Xuan Zhe, standing beside him, was just as absurdly calm.

On Konoha's side, they were the only two who could maintain such expressions.

Xuan Zhe knew perfectly well that someone on Gaara's level would only be a bit player in the later stages.

The problem, however, was the terrifying range of his sand manipulation.

With a single technique, practically everyone below Chunin would be down.

That was also why no one had dared venture lightly into the Land of Wind all these years.

There was yellow sand as far as the eye could see, and he could clear the battlefield with one move. Who could handle that?

Orochimaru had already spent years fighting Sunagakure, so he knew exactly how to block this technique.

He hooked his index fingers together, about to form hand seals and cast an Earth Release Defensive Wall.

"Let me."

Xuan Zhe reached out to stop him, took a step forward, and rested his right hand lightly on his sword hilt.

"Oh?" Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, an amused smile curling his lips. "Even you, who never care about anything, are volunteering to do some work?"

He lowered his hands, which he had already joined.

Below, the Konoha ninja who had been preparing to cast the technique alongside Orochimaru looked up when he failed to give the order.

They happened to catch Xuan Zhe pressing his hand against his sword hilt.

"Since I'm here, wouldn't this whole trip have been for nothing if I didn't do anything?"

Xuan Zhe slowly drew the iron sword at his waist.

Compared with his older brother's White Fang, this was just an ordinary piece of iron.

Fortunately, the Naruto world's forging standards were at least on par with those of the One Piece world.

Orochimaru's Kusanagi Sword was already the pinnacle. His own blade might have been inferior, but it was not too embarrassing.

Halfway through Xuan Zhe's sentence, the blade was already a third of the way out.

As the final word fell, he abruptly drew the rest of it free.

The nearby Konoha ninja, Orochimaru included, had only one thought left in their minds-

A black blade?!

Boom!!!

A Dark Red, Almost Black Sword Slash shot skyward, reaching almost as high as the towering wave of sand.

With the terrifying power to pulverize everything, it roared forward and ripped the wall of sand to shreds.

A breach tore open in the sea of sand.

The deep red sword energy burst apart midway like a roaring beast, biting straight through the obstacle in its path. In that instant, after less than two seconds of resistance, the torrent of quicksand split in two. A terrifyingly wide trench opened in the middle, stretching hundreds of meters to the end of the sea of sand.

As the sand collapsed to either side, the expression of an elderly monk in his fifties changed drastically.

He had never expected his Quicksand Waterfall to be broken from so far away.

Although Xuan Zhe had neither a Byakugan nor anything like binoculars, the chakra presence his Observation Haki sensed was on a scale only a jinchūriki could possess. A name immediately sprang to his mind—Bunpuku, the man who had inherited the One-Tail's power.

With a clap, Bunpuku pressed his palms together again.

A miniature Shukaku more than three meters tall emerged from the sand, arms spread wide, planting himself firmly in front of him.

The ultimate defense-Shield of Shukaku.

The sword energy that had cut through the quicksand immediately struck this shield, but this time it clearly struggled far more. After penetrating nearly halfway into the Shield of Shukaku, it was finally stopped completely.

Holding his sword, Xuanzhe curled his lips.

"Although he isn't a perfect jinchūriki, Shukaku does acknowledge him. Is his control over sand a notch above Gaara's?"

The armament Haki on the blade slowly receded, restoring its original metallic sheen.

Orochimaru had watched the entire process clearly, and his pupils contracted sharply.

What was that? A secret technique of the Hatake Clan? Or... a kekkei genkai? He had never heard of anything like it. If even a Kage Level powerhouse like him was this shocked, there was no need to mention the minor nobodies below who did not even deserve names.

"Wh-what was that just now? A slash?!"

"H-how does it compare to White Fang? I-it's no worse than White Fang, right?"

"In terms of long-range attacks, I think... it might be even stronger than White Fang!"

"Isn't he an Eternal Genin?!"

"Did that blade turn black? B-black blade, Konoha's black blade?"

"The Konoha Black Blade..."

Konoha's ranks erupted into an uproar, filled with shocked, uncontrolled cries.

Even the fathers of the future Konoha 12 could not remain calm.

Inoichi Yamanaka swallowed. "From that far away, he not only broke Bunpuku's Quicksand Waterfall but forced him to use the Shield of Shukaku?"

"B-black blade. White Fang and... Black Blade?"

The fat on Chōza Akimichi's face trembled as his gaze moved back and forth between Hatake Sakumo ahead and the two brothers, Xuan Zhe and his brother, above.

Shikaku Nara, the brains of the trio, also drew a deep breath.

"Those two Hatake boys are both Kage Level? White Fang and Black Blade? So the rumors we heard as kids weren't exaggerated after all."

At Shikaku Nara's words, everyone around him froze briefly.

They all recalled their days before graduating from the Ninja Academy.

Even back then, they had heard that the Hatake Clan had produced two geniuses.

But over the years, Xuan Zhe had hardly ever appeared in public.

At some point, people had actually started calling him [Eternal Genin].

Who the hell had come up with that nickname? Were they blind?

He was clearly a monster through and through!