Behind Konoha Village.
The leveled hilltop, with its mirror-smooth cut, emanated a scorching aura, as if silently testifying to the terror of that strike.
The belated Anbu ninjas looked at the devastation, exchanging glances, the masks on their faces unable to hide their shock.
An Anbu skilled in perception knelt down, meticulously examining every inch of the ground, finally rising in horror.
"Report, Hokage-sama, there are no Chakra residues at the scene, making tracking impossible."
"The destructive power is preliminarily judged to be more like... a Tailed Beast Bomb?"
Inside the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi listened to the report from the crystal ball. His pipe clattered onto the table, spilling hot ash everywhere.
He wearily rubbed his temples, waving for the Anbu to withdraw.
In his mind, the image of the young man with a pair of mysterious platinum eyes, unrestrained in his words and actions, treating the Hokage as nothing, lingered.
"Hansen... who exactly are you?"
...On the other side, the instigator of it all, as if nothing had happened, was leisurely sitting on a large rock, supervising Hyuga Neji's basic training.
"Oh? You finished that quickly."
Under the darkening sky, Hansen brushed off the sunflower seed shells from his hands.
He said to the Byakugan youth, who had just finished running one hundred laps and was panting heavily, leaning on his knees: "It seems your body is starting to adapt. Then let's continue tomorrow, increasing it to two hundred laps."
Neji stiffened at the words, the color instantly draining from his face.
Running one hundred laps around Konoha's sphere of influence was far more arduous than running one hundred laps around Konoha Village itself.
If not for his innate talent in taijutsu, and Hansen's mysterious energy to help him recover every time he was exhausted, he would have died halfway through.
"Oh, right, given your ninja physique, this amount of training seems a bit too easy."
Hansen stood up, stretched his neck, and a devilish smile appeared on his face.
Snap!
A crisp snap of fingers, and the Myriad Phenomenon Force Field activated.
An invisible, terrifying heavy pressure instantly enveloped Hyuga Neji, who was already exhausted.
Thump—!
Neji's legs gave out, and he collapsed as if struck by an invisible mountain, pressed firmly to the ground. Spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the hard ground. He found it incredibly difficult to even move a single finger.
"Ugh... Ah ah ah!"
He gritted his teeth, veins bulging all over his body, every muscle trembling wildly, attempting to resist this sudden immense force.
His bones groaned under the strain, as if they would be crushed into powder the next second.
"Stand up," Hansen's voice was flat, as he looked down at him, "If you can't even withstand this much pressure, what's the point of talking about breaking fate? Resisting the Main Family?"
He walked in front of Neji and lightly nudged his face with his toe.
"As you said, trash is trash. Those who cannot resist fate don't even deserve to be trampled under my feet."
"I... I'm not!"
Humiliation and unwillingness erupted like a volcano in his chest. Neji roared, and the remaining Chakra in his body burst forth wildly from all three hundred and sixty-one acupoints!
He used all his strength, his arms, elbows, knees, every place that could support him was straining, trembling, inch by inch pushing himself up from the sunken ground.
Sweat mixed with dirt and blood, trickling down his forehead, making him look utterly disheveled. But in his pure white eyes, an unprecedented flame, named "unyielding," burned.
"Very good, now that's more like a man." Hansen nodded in satisfaction, "The triple gravity field I applied will remain on you. Adapt to it tonight, and training will continue tomorrow."
With that, he turned and leisurely walked away, leaving Neji alone in place, resisting the gravity that could crush everything with his entire body, his gaze growing even more resolute.
In the following days, the ninjas of Konoha Village discovered a strange phenomenon.
From the training grounds behind the mountain, earth-shattering roars would often emanate, occasionally accompanied by fleeting energy fluctuations comparable to a Tailed Beast's roar.
Initially, many people thought the Nine-Tails had gone berserk again, and everyone scattered in fear, writing their wills overnight.
But after a few days, aside from the ever-changing terrain of the back mountain, the village itself remained unharmed, and everyone gradually got used to it.
"Have you heard? It seems there's a monster living in the back mountain."
"Last time I passed by, I saw that genius Neji from the Hyuga clan, running with a small mountain on his back!"
"That's nothing, I saw him doing a handstand under the biggest waterfall in the Forest of Death! My goodness!"
"..."
The rumors grew more and more fantastical, and Neji, as the person involved, was undergoing a hellish tempering and a complete metamorphosis.
Hansen's training method was simple and brutal: constantly pushing him to his limits with the Myriad Phenomenon Force Field, then using divine life energy to help him recover.
Each time he neared death, each time he was reborn, his body and will were astonishingly strengthened.
On the other side of the training ground, Uchiha Sasuke leaned against a tree trunk, his eyes dark as he gazed in the direction of the back mountain.
He had heard the rumors about Neji, and had also caught a glimpse of the man named Hansen from afar.
It was an intuition stemming from his bloodline; he could feel that a power more despair-inducing than Uchiha Itachi's was hidden within that man.
"It's not enough... I'm still not strong enough!"
He clenched his fists, his Sharingan with two tomoe spinning wildly in his eyes, the craving for power almost consuming him.
On the other side, the Child of the World, Uzumaki Naruto, was still his boisterous self.
Every day he was either chasing Sasuke for a duel or on his way to Ichiraku Ramen.
But occasionally, when he ate ramen alone, he would also look towards the back mountain, a look of unyielding spirit on his face... "Hiruzen! You're truly senile!"
Shimura Danzo, with bandages wrapped around his head, stormed into the Hokage's office with a grim face, leaning on his cane and striding purposefully.
The two Root ninjas behind him followed silently like shadows.
Hatake Kakashi, who was reporting to the Hokage, instantly turned, quietly blocking Hiruzen Sarutobi's desk. His visible dead-fish eye coldly glanced at the uninvited guest.
The air in the office instantly solidified.
Danzo didn't even look at Kakashi. His single eye was filled with rage, staring intently at his old friend: "The scroll of seals was stolen, the back mountain destroyed! There's this uncontrollable monster in the village, and you're still doing nothing!?"
"Hand him over to me!" Danzo slammed his cane heavily on the ground, his voice hoarse, "The Root has plenty of ways to pry open his mouth, to make him spill all his secrets, to be used for Konoha!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi's face completely darkened. He slammed his pipe heavily on the table.
"Danzo, you're being insolent!"
His aged voice contained the pressure of one who had long held a high position. He coldly swept his gaze over Danzo and the two murderous Root ninjas.
"Are you trying to attack me in the Hokage's office?!"
"Everything I do is for Konoha!" Danzo jutted out his neck, unyielding, "Any potential threat must be nipped in the bud!"
"Enough!" Hiruzen Sarutobi suddenly stood up, his Hokage robe fluttering without wind, "I am the Hokage! I will make my own decisions on this matter!"
The rage in Danzo's eyes gradually turned into cold disappointment. He took one last look at his indecisive old friend.
"Hiruzen, you will regret this."
With those words, he abruptly turned and strode away with the two Root ninjas.
The door closed with a "bang," and the office fell into dead silence.
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