Konoha.
The same small forest as always.
“One-Sword Style: Random Slashing Edition!”
Shanks swung his blade.
A flying slash four or five meters long shot forward and struck a tree nearly two meters thick.
Crack!
The tree snapped apart.
Looking at Withered Wood in his hand, Shanks saw that the blade was still dark and steady, while the edge remained bright.
He felt that the one hundred fifty thousand ryō had been worth it.
“That slash is already comparable to an ordinary B-rank ninjutsu.
Not bad,” Hiruzen Sarutobi said.
“But judging from your condition, it consumes quite a lot of stamina, doesn’t it?”
“It’s fine.
My body is strong enough.
I can fight three hundred rounds without a problem.”
Shanks firmly believed a man could never say he could not last.
Team Hiruzen had not accepted any missions today.
The main reason was that Shanks wanted to test Withered Wood’s power.
So far, it looked pretty good.
Hatake Sakumo stood nearby, clearly eager to try.
“Sakumo, come.
Let’s have a man’s romance!”
Shanks was also burning with fighting spirit.
Hatake Sakumo did not waste words.
He drew his short blade and charged straight in.
Clang, clang, clang!
The sound of metal striking metal rang out continuously.
The two moved faster and faster until their figures were almost impossible to see clearly.
“Dragon-Slaying Flash!”
Hatake Sakumo launched an extremely fast thrust from the Hatake sword style.
Shanks’s Observation Haki sensed the direction of the attack, but Sakumo was too fast.
He had no way to dodge in time, so he could only raise his blade and block.
Armament Haki wrapped around Withered Wood, making the blade even darker.
“One-Sword Style: Sword Twenty-Four, Lotus Seat of Guanyin!”
Two arcs of sword energy formed a cross and slashed toward Hatake Sakumo.
Bang!
The Sakumo struck by the sword energy turned into a broken piece of wood.
“Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique!”
The moment one of Shanks’s legs was grabbed from underground, Shanks covered his left hand with Armament Haki.
“Chakra-Enhanced Style: Give Me Back My Pretty Face Fist!”
He punched the ground.
Boom!
Several cracks split open across the earth.
From within the smoke, a figure rushed out.
“White Fang Pursuit!”
A streak of white light flashed.
Clink!
Two hours later…
“Hah… hah… hah… how about that, Sakumo?
I told you, a man has to last.”
Shanks was panting as he spoke.
“One hundred nine to one hundred six.”
Hatake Sakumo lay on the ground, too exhausted to even speak.
He did not feel like talking either.
The Hatake sword style felt as if it had met its natural enemy in Shanks.
Its attack routes were almost completely sensed in advance.
Even when Shanks could not dodge, he could simply use Armament Haki to block.
Add Shanks’s abnormal physique on top of that, and Sakumo could not compete in a drawn-out fight.
“Sakumo, you don’t need to mind it too much,” Hiruzen said, comforting him.
“Your family’s fighting style is naturally restrained by a shinobi like Shanks.”
“In the entire shinobi world, only Shanks and Kumogakure’s Lightning Release shinobi use this kind of approach.
With your current strength, if you catch an elite jōnin off guard, you may be able to kill him.”
Sakumo nodded.
He understood that too, so he was not too disappointed.
The Hatake Clan’s fighting style relied on high-speed assault.
The Hatake Clan was not known for large chakra reserves or strong bodies.
Sometimes, they could kill jōnin while only being chūnin because their attacks were strange, fast, and powerful.
To put it simply, they were assassins.
Shanks, on the other hand, was the type with high defense, thick health, huge chakra, and close-combat mage tendencies.
When an assassin met someone with high defense and thick health, there was not much to do.
But there were very few people like that in the shinobi world.
Those who could train to the point of withstanding the future peak White Fang’s attacks would probably be limited to people like Shanks, the Second Raikage, and the future Third Raikage, who would be called the strongest Raikage.
Even the future Fourth Raikage, after growing up, might not necessarily be able to withstand the White Fang at his peak.
“Oh, right.
I heard Brother Kagami is getting married next month.
Is his wife Sister Koharu?
Hehe.”
After resting for a while, the three sat on the grass and chatted.
“Haha!
Koharu would be very embarrassed if she heard that,” Hiruzen said.
“Be careful.
One day, she might secretly make things difficult for your little girlfriend.”
“Kagami is getting married at the beginning of next month.
Teacher will be the witness.
The other party is also from the Uchiha Clan.
I suppose she and Kagami can be considered childhood friends.”
“I thought it would be Sister Koharu.
What a waste of all the effort I spent trying to pull strings for them.”
Shanks curled his lip.
“Why would you do something that boring?” Hatake Sakumo asked, genuinely unable to understand Shanks’s mind.
“You don’t understand.”
Shanks spoke with confidence.
“Look at our Senju Clan.
They’ve already begun marrying civilians.
By the next generation, Konoha’s population will have a lot of Senju blood mixed into it.
It may not be especially strong, but at least ordinary civilians won’t be as average as they are now.”
“If Brother Kagami married Sister Koharu, wouldn’t that count as the beginning of Uchiha intermarriage with outsiders?
Once someone starts, it won’t be easy to stop.”
“By then, the village might be full of red-eye disease, white-eye disease, and Senju blood.
The picture is so beautiful I almost don’t dare to look at it.”
Shanks spoke as if describing some grand future.
Hiruzen fell into thought.
In the end, he shook his head.
He felt Shanks was thinking too simply.
“The Sharingan and Byakugan are the foundations of those two clans.
Not everyone has the courage and vision of the First and Second Hokage, who don’t mind Senju blood flowing outward.”
“Besides, special bloodlines like the Uchiha and Hyūga are even more precious.
They won’t allow them to leak outside so easily.”
“All right, that’s enough for today.
Team Hiruzen is dismissed.
Gather at the village gate tomorrow.
We have a mission.”
After Hiruzen left, Shanks looked at Hatake Sakumo.
“Sakumo, want to eat ramen?
I haven’t had Hand-Pulled Ramen in a long time.”
“Sure.
I haven’t eaten there in a while either.”
The two returned to the village.
As they passed a bathhouse, Shanks suddenly stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
Hatake Sakumo saw Shanks looking toward the bathhouse roof and followed his gaze.
There, another white-haired boy was crouched on the roof, staring downward without blinking.
“…”
“Someone’s peeking!” Shanks shouted.
“…”
The white-haired boy on the roof froze.
“Ah!
Someone’s on the roof!”
A series of screams came from inside the bathhouse.
“He’s on the roof!
Catch him!”
Several female shinobi wrapped in bath towels surrounded Jiraiya in the middle.
“You little brat.
Not learning anything good at such a young age?
Are you looking to die?”
“I’m not a little brat!
And I wasn’t peeking!
I was doing research!”
Jiraiya shouted with complete confidence.
“Research, my foot.
Teach this brat a lesson!”
Bang, bang, smack!
After the female shinobi left, they left behind a white-haired boy with a swollen pig-like face.
“I told you before,” Shanks said, patting Jiraiya on the shoulder.
“At your age, don’t keep peeking.
It’s bad for your health.”
“It’s all because of you!
If you hadn’t shouted, no one would have known.
This is your fault!”
Jiraiya glared at Shanks like an angry bird.
“All right, all right.
I did it for your own good.
I’ll treat you and your big brother to ramen as compensation.”
“My big brother?”
Jiraiya was stunned.
“Yeah.
Look, you have white hair, and the guy beside me also has white hair.
Maybe you’re his father’s illegitimate son.”
Shanks transformed into a famous detective on the spot.
“…”
A vein appeared on Hatake Sakumo’s forehead.
“Shanks, don’t slander someone’s father in front of his son.”
“Ahahaha!
Don’t mind it.
Bad habit.”
Shanks scratched the back of his head and laughed awkwardly.
“No way!”
Jiraiya knew Shanks was joking.
“Haha.
I’ll buy you ramen as an apology.”
“Since you’re this sincere, I, the great Jiraiya, am magnanimous enough to forgive you.”
“…”
This kid is even more arrogant than me.
Shanks’s face darkened.
The three arrived at Hand-Pulled Ramen.
“Boss, one pork-rib ramen with egg and two big-bone ramen.”
“Got it.
Please wait a moment!”
Shanks had never eaten ramen made by Teuchi himself, but Teuchi’s father’s ramen really was quite good.
“Jiraiya, do you have nothing to do normally?
Why are you always on bathhouse roofs?”
“I told you, that isn’t peeking.
It’s research into human anatomy!”
Jiraiya corrected him seriously.
“…”
Hatake Sakumo was speechless.
To describe peeking in such a fresh and refined way was truly something else.
“You spend all day doing that?
Don’t you play with friends?”
“What’s fun about playing with a bunch of little brats?” Jiraiya said disdainfully.
“…”
For the first time, Shanks wanted to hit someone.
“Is this Hatake Sakumo, one of Konoha’s Twin Supernovas?” Jiraiya asked.
“Oh?
You know him?”
Shanks raised an eyebrow.
“Of course.
In a few years, when I enter the ninja academy, the Supernova title will belong to me!”
Jiraiya looked like he was already a genius.
“Hehe.
I wish you success.”
Shanks did not want to crush him.
Future dead-last.
If Hiruzen Sarutobi had not felt that Jiraiya’s lecherous nature matched his own, who knew whether he would have chosen him as a student?
“In a few years, you’ll understand something,” Shanks said.
“What?”
“Your big brother will always be your big brother.”
At that moment, the ramen arrived.
“Here you go.
Enjoy, kids.”