The Konoha training ground remained as desolate as ever.
With the sun setting in the west, there was virtually no one around.
A young man with a perfectly straight posture stood proudly in the center of it all.
“You’re here?
Are you ready?” Tatsukaze said coldly.
‘No politeness whatsoever.
The usually smiling and carefree Tatsukaze is genuinely furious…’ Danzo’s heart sank, and his wrists felt slightly stiff.
He shook his arms a couple of times.
Only after feeling the stiffness in his body fade away did he raise his head again and state solemnly, “I’m ready.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, a tempest of lightning and thunder gathered beneath Tatsukaze’s feet.
The massive electrical currents turned the dusk into broad daylight—even brighter than daylight!
Danzo’s shadow flickered erratically under the blinding flashes of light.
‘What powerful electrical currents!
What intense lightning!’ Danzo couldn’t suppress his internal shock and marveled.
“Danzo, don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” Tatsukaze’s face flickered unpredictably under the dazzling white light.
“If you back down right now, for the sake of our long history together, I will—”
“Let me off the hook?” Danzo’s eyes bore the heavy suppression of Tatsukaze’s aura, but also carried a trace of irrepressible anger.
“No!
I will spare your life!”
Zzzzzzt.
The crackling sound of berserk electricity was unceasing, but Tatsukaze’s body suddenly vanished from Danzo’s sight.
Lightning Body Flicker!
The Body Flicker technique sounded simple in theory, but in actual combat, how many people dared to use it casually?
The time required to cast it, the fleeting window of opportunity to use it, the enemy’s ability to predict it…
There was practically no one who could seamlessly integrate the Body Flicker technique into high-speed, close-quarters combat!
Except for Tatsukaze!
“Don’t underestimate me!” Danzo roared.
Just as Danzo turned around, Tatsukaze’s figure instantly materialized right in front of him, accompanied by a sonic boom caused by his excessive speed, his silhouette still appearing as a blurry afterimage.
“I didn’t just casually run over here to challenge you blindly!” Danzo bellowed, as if venting some pent-up emotion from deep within his heart—something that had been heavily suppressed.
“That blindingly fast Body Flicker you used in the Hokage’s office that day—I had already familiarized myself with it!
And based on that, I’ve already prepared countermeasures!”
“No matter how fast you are, by scattering my chakra across a ten-meter radius around me, I can absolutely detect your approach in advance!”
Amidst his roaring, Danzo made his strategy clear.
He never fought battles without a plan; this was also Danzo’s pride.
“I see.
You really did put some serious thought and effort into this.”
Suddenly, Tatsukaze’s incredibly indifferent voice echoed, causing the proud Danzo to shudder violently.
“However, no matter how much calculating you do, in the end, it’s all completely useless.”
These plain words instantly instilled a foreboding feeling in Danzo, who had just believed he secured a tactical advantage.
“It’s useless!
Even if you use that Monstrous Strength you used during your fight with Hiruzen, there’s absolutely no way you can easily land a hit on me!” Danzo roared at the top of his lungs, his eyes seeming to spew blazing fire.
“Whether it’s you or Hiruzen, I will not lose!”
In response, Tatsukaze simply replied with a faint, chilling remark.
“No, you’re finished!”
He leaped high into the air, swung his heel up high, and then brought it crashing down like a plummeting meteor.
“Heavenly Foot of Pain!”
BOOM!
With a single brutal axe kick, he stomped Danzo straight into the ground.
Under the sheer, titanic force, the earth split and mountains seemed to crumble.
Centered entirely around Tatsukaze’s point of impact, the solid ground caved in drastically, forming an impossibly deep and massive crater!
“Pfft!”
Danzo forcefully coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The flesh surrounding the area where Tatsukaze’s heel struck was even pulverized into a bloody, mangled pulp.
He was instantly destroyed, crushed as easily as a withered twig or a dead leaf!
“Don’t tell me you honestly thought an ability I personally developed could be blocked just by you ramping up your chakra a little bit and coating your arms with it.” Tatsukaze shook his head in sheer disdain.
“Even though the fundamental principle I explained back then wasn’t false, if you thought you could contend with me just by doing something so laughably simple, then you’ve gravely insulted me!”
The core theory behind the Monstrous Strength was indeed very simple, but this ‘simple’ principle was the primary offensive weapon of the Kage-level powerhouse, Tsunade!
Relying solely on her Monstrous Strength, Tsunade made sure that even Orochimaru and Jiraiya wouldn’t dare take a single punch from her head-on!
“You probably thought you could just use your chakra to bolster your defenses.
While the underlying principle is similar, what do you know about how chakra is supposed to be densely concentrated in specific areas, which meridian pathways require less chakra, exactly where to erupt with the most chakra, and where…”
Monstrous Strength was a taijutsu born from the absolute pinnacle of medical ninjutsu!
The true face of Monstrous Strength lay in its impossibly precise control down to every single meridian pathway, and the complex system of exactly how to manipulate them to unleash the ultimate explosive power!
That was exactly why Orochimaru and Jiraiya could never learn it.
Only Tsunade and Sakura managed to master it.
“Danzo, I will give you one final chance.” Tatsukaze’s voice was frigid, as cold as ten-thousand-year-old black ice.
“In twenty words or less, if you don’t give me an acceptable reason for this, then you can thoroughly die right here!”
Tatsukaze had genuinely formed murderous intent!
No one could threaten his reverse scale and walk away unscathed.
Absolutely no one!
With his bones shattered and his muscles ground into pulp, Danzo still managed to clench his teeth.
His eyes nearly popped out of his skull as he gritted his teeth and squeezed out a few words through the gaps.
“Sensei decided to establish the Anbu…
The Commander…
will be chosen from among you, me, and Hiruzen!”
“Anbu Commander?”
Tatsukaze’s eyebrows furrowed.