Tatsukaze showed zero mercy.
Tossing aside any semblance of the kindness expected of a Senju disciple or a teacher, he launched a flying kick straight into Dan’s stomach.
“Do you fucking want to die?”
His utterly freezing words were like black ice that hadn’t melted in ten thousand years.
His eyes resembled a bottomless abyss, flashing with a chilling, dark gleam, making him look like a demon god that had just slaughtered its way out of hell.
The pretty-boy Dan Kato was kicked flying through the air.
Upon crashing down, he immediately fell to his knees, clutching his stomach as he vomited mouthfuls of stomach acid.
“Dan, I know who you are.” The temperature around Tatsukaze plummeted sharply, the air itself seemingly freezing solid.
“As a member of the declining Kato clan, I know all about your desperate desire to make a name for yourself.”
“But let me make this clear: don’t you ever dare target what belongs to me!
You are simply courting your own death!”
He took two cold, indifferent steps forward, his killing intent thickening dramatically.
Crouching down, he grabbed Dan Kato by the collar and hoisted him into the air.
“The richest girl in Konoha?
The noblest girl?
You certainly seem to have done your market research.”
“What a pity!
You severely lack any self-awareness!”
Tatsukaze’s murderous aura surged violently, bone-chillingly cold, as if an ancient, mythical beast had awakened from its slumber, bared its fangs and claws, and was hunting for prey.
The radiating, terrifying killing intent caused the surrounding temperature to drop drastically, making the atmosphere feel as if it had turned to solid ice.
That rolling, torrential wave of killing intent—like tens of thousands of warhorses charging forward simultaneously in a massive, unstoppable stampede—terrified the young Dan so thoroughly that he collapsed limply to the ground, pissing his pants.
“How incredibly pathetic!” Tatsukaze let out a sneer of utter disdain, looking at Dan as if he were nothing but a dancing clown.
“A girl like Tsunade is not someone a piece of trash like you gets to pursue!
Etch that into your damn brain!”
“If there is a next time—I will leave you for last, making sure you collect the corpses of the entire Kato clan before I finally kill you!”
His gloomy, sinister voice hit like a deafening thunderclap out of a clear blue sky, shaking Dan Kato to his core.
His vision swam with darkness, his lips quivered, and his vocal cords froze entirely.
Because, possessing a maturity far beyond children of his age, Dan could hear it clearly—Tatsukaze was absolutely serious!
Even within those very words, he could tell Tatsukaze was genuinely contemplating ending his life right then and there!
“Get the fuck out of my sight.
You think you can court Tsunade when you’re this pathetic?” Tatsukaze stared down at the stench of urine coming from Dan, his internal contempt multiplying.
‘You think you can steal Tsunade from me with this level of weakness?’
Of course, he kept that last sentence to himself.
Even though the streets were mostly empty right now, if others—especially the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju—found out that his precious granddaughter was being targeted by his own disciple, who was acting suspiciously like a lolicon, well…
Ahem.
Tatsukaze threw Dan Kato forcefully to the dirt like a piece of garbage, gave a disdainful snort, and turned around to leave.
“An idiot who doesn’t know the immensity of heaven and earth!”
As for Dan Kato, he hadn’t even snapped out of the paralyzing fear inflicted by Tatsukaze’s killing intent.
Dan Kato shuddered violently, his face distorted and his features twisted.
He gasped in agony and moaned helplessly, completely unable to stop the torrent of tears, piss, and shit from flowing freely.
Under Tatsukaze’s boundless, slaughterous aura, he hadn’t literally been scared to death or driven insane, but he had been terrified out of his wits—so much so that he entirely forgot one crucial detail: even if foot traffic was light right now, the streets weren’t completely deserted!
“Mommy, mommy, why is that person going to the bathroom in the middle of the street?
He has no shame!” A little girl pointed out in confusion.
“What is wrong with this young lad?
Has the smoke of war frightened him out of his wits?
What a coward!” A retired old ninja commented with sheer disgust.
“Should we go fetch someone who can treat psychological trauma?
He’s obviously terribly ill…” A sympathetic woman murmured.
The overlapping whispers and pointing fingers from the crowd finally woke Dan Kato from his stupor.
“What…?” It was as if he had just snapped out of Tatsukaze’s killing intent.
He violently jolted upright and stared in confusion at the gossiping crowd surrounding him.
“What’s going on?”
Then, he finally lowered his gaze to look at his own body.
“AHHH!!!”
With a throat-tearing shriek, Dan Kato grabbed his soiled clothes and sprinted away like a madman, his face burning with unimaginable indignation and sheer humiliation.
“Alright, there shouldn’t be any more arrogant fools bothering me for now.” The instigator of it all, Tatsukaze, arrived back home and immediately pulled out the Rumble-Rumble Fruit in burning anticipation.
It was a purple fruit covered in strange, swirling spiral patterns; no matter how one looked at it, it absolutely didn’t resemble a fruit that was normally edible.
“I wonder just how thick-skulled the first person in the world to eat a Devil Fruit had to be to willingly bite into this thing,” Tatsukaze shook his head.
He paused for a moment, then shook his head again.
“Well, I suppose people like Luffy or Naruto are exactly that kind of person…”
Afterward, throwing caution to the wind, he opened his mouth wide and took a massive bite.
The juices flowed, but Tatsukaze didn’t bother trying to taste it at all.
He forcefully swallowed it straight down, taking bite after bite.
In three swift gulps, the entire Devil Fruit vanished in the blink of an eye.
Next, he aggressively grabbed a cup nearby and chugged down copious amounts of water.
“Thank god I’m a genius.
Since the taste is notoriously atrocious, the key is to not taste it at all, swallow it directly, and then chug a ton of water.
That way, I totally bypass that torturous experience!”
Taking two deep breaths, Tatsukaze finally began to seriously assess his own body.
“Although I’m not particularly skilled with lightning and the like, Logia abilities make it incredibly easy to simulate elemental ninjutsu.
However, right now I need to—”
He grabbed a shuriken, narrowed his eyes, and stabbed it forcefully into his own palm, and then…
Zzzzzzt.
The shuriken phased completely through the center of his hand, leaving nothing but a crackling burst of electrical sparks where his palm should have been injured.
“If this lightning power is put to good use…”
Tatsukaze’s eyes narrowed in sheer excitement.
Although the ninja world didn’t have techniques that completely transformed the user into pure lightning, there were plenty of Lightning Style jutsu.
If he combined them with his Devil Fruit…
“Now this is getting interesting!
It was totally worth risking my neck to snatch the position of Tsunade’s teacher!”
Well, although, even if there hadn’t been any of these perks, he probably still wouldn’t have let this top-tier loli slip through his fingers…