The air on Turtle Island still trembled faintly from the aftershocks of the clash. Dust drifted lazily across the broken clearing, sunlight cutting through the canopy in scattered, jagged beams that illuminated the sheer scale of the devastation.
The ground bore the deep, agonizing scars of battle, craters the size of houses, shattered stone pulverized into fine powder, and trees uprooted as if they were mere toothpicks.
Kenji rolled his shoulder once, feeling the satisfying pop of his joints as the adrenaline began to recede. He exhaled a long, steady breath that tasted of salt air thanks to the sea all around them.
Across from him, Might Guy stood tall, his chest rising and falling. Despite the sweat dripping from his chin and the tattered state of his signature green spandex, a wide, blindingly bright grin was still plastered across his face.
Guy wasn't arrogant enough to call himself the absolute greatest in the world, but he was confident that his skill was at the pinnacle of what a human could achieve through pure effort. He hadn't expected a stranger to not only match his speed but to do so with a terrifyingly calm efficiency.
"Such youthful intensity!" Guy declared, striking a pose and giving Kenji a signature thumbs-up that seemed to sparkle in the light. "It has been a long time since I have encountered someone whose spirit burns with the heat of a thousand summer suns!"
Kenji smirked, his golden eyes flickering with amusement. "Yeah, yeah. You're not so bad yourself, Guy. Your 'youth' lives up to the hype."
Behind them, the others gathered with a mixture of awe and extreme caution. Naruto rubbed the back of his head, his blue eyes wide as he looked at the cratered landscape.
The boy was the last to seem to understand that Kenji was not here with ill intent and had kept attacking Kenji for a bit while he fought Guy, so while the others surrendered after a bit of time, Naruto had just kept attacking and getting no way of touching Kenji and kept getting sent flying.
The others all seemed to have made themselves spectators as they stood around watching Guy and him fight, after learning there really wasn't anything they could do to actually hurt Kenji.
Hell, Killerbee at one point tried to join in and was sent flying to the other side of the island. He even tried his tail beast bomb, and yet Kenji flicked it away. SO they all just decided to just let guy have his fun since they were getting nowhere.
Guy was enjoying battling this stranger. First, when he first attacked, he knew the man was stronger than him, yet it changed in an instant, and the man's entire being just seemed to adjust to a level just below his own.
But as the fight continued, he saw that even at a lower level, this stranger was dangerous, but it wasn't his power that amazed guy, it was his terrifying ability to learn skills.
The fight got so fun that he even entered the 5th gate at one point. And after a while, 6th. Though the most fascinating was the style he started using when guy entered his 6th gate.
"Leaf Hurricane!" Guy had roared during the peak of the exchange, launching a series of high-speed kicks meant to shatter guards.
Kenji hadn't countered with the blunt force Guy expected. Instead, his hands had moved in fluid, circular motions, parrying the explosive strikes with a rhythmic grace that made the air hum like a harp string.
Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist.
Kenji had received the style as a high-tier reward from a system ticket he'd used shortly after leaving the Underworld.
While he hadn't focused on the system for a while now, the tickets and "random boxes" had been piling up. This specific style was what he had gotten as part of the 13 tickets he had saved up for a while, and it was worth it.
By the time Guy was ready to open the seventh gate, Kenji's proficiency with the style had surged from a level 1 to level 17. The more Guy pushed, the faster he leveled up and the better he got with the style.
But Yamato seemed to stop them when the fight was getting good. Kenji didn't want to stop, but he guessed that guy didn't want to continue, or rather, he stopped because he knew he could not continue.
"Takeda Ken, was it?" Yamato spoke, stepping forward into the clearing. His voice was calm, but his chakra was ready to trigger a wood-style jutsu at a moment's notice. "You said you came here specifically for Naruto."
"That's right," Kenji replied lazily, brushing a bit of pulverized stone from his sleeve.
Naruto blinked, pointing a thumb at his own chest. "But… why me? I've never seen you before in my life! And believe me, I'd remember a guy who can throw bushy-brow sensei around."
Kenji raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You don't remember? I'm pretty sure we met three years ago, back when you were just a brat failing at catching a runaway cat. I helped Team 7 corner Tora. You're the one who first showed me what chakra actually felt like."
Naruto's face scrunched up, his brow furrowing as he dug through his chaotic ramen filled, memories of his early Genin days. Suddenly, his eyes snapped wide. "Wait! You're the merchant! What are you doing here? And how did you get so… so strong?"
"I was passing through the area," Kenji lied with such a flat, unconvincing tone that everyone but Naruto deadpanned. "I've seen a lot of things in this life, and I decided it was time to pass some of that wisdom to the younger generation. Since I already knew you, you were the natural choice."
Everyone who was not Naruto deadpanned at the obvious bullshit, even guy looked like he was ready to call him out.
"What?" Naruto asked, still processing." I don't understand. You want to teach someone? Why me?"
Kenji sighed as his expression went cold. The playful, casual mask vanished. The sudden shift made Yamato tense.
"I'm here because you're a disgrace, Naruto Uzumaki."
The boy flinched as if he'd been struck. The silence that followed was absolute.
"How can you be an Uzumaki and be this mediocre?" Kenji continued, his voice dropping low, yet it still echoed through the clearing. "You have one of the greatest bloodlines in history flowing through your veins, and you know nothing. Do you even know your clan? What were they like? What did they do? Where did they lived? What does their name stand for?"
Yamato stepped forward, his face pale. "Hey, that's quite enough, you have no right to—"
Kenji didn't even turn his head. He simply flicked a finger toward the Jonin. The air around Yamato's throat constricted, his mouth snapping shut. Yamato's hands flew to his neck, his eyes wide with shock at the display of power.
"The Uzumaki clan?" Naruto whispered, his voice small. "I… I thought it was just a name the old man gave me. I didn't know there were others."
Kenji sighed. This was genuine irritation from him, to him, they wasted the potential of the Uzumaki clan. "The Uzumaki were a nation. They were the masters of Fuinjutsu, sealing techniques that could bind even the Tailed Beasts themselves as if they were nothing more than stray dogs. They had vitality so immense that they could survive things that would kill any other ninja ten times over. They were some of the most skilled people in the world, and yet you? the last of their blood, You're just a loudmouth who depends on a fox to win your battles."
The boy scowled at that as he started to yell at Kenji that he was wrong.
"Oh, then what fight did you ever win without the fox" he asked the boy. Naruto could bring up a fight on the note, Kenji only wanted a significant opponent, not loosely bandits, and it seemed the boy too understood, as he just stared there for a while before moving towards Kenji.
"Teach me," Naruto said, his fists clenching at his sides."If you know so much… if you're saying I'm a disgrace… then teach me how not to be!" he would normally not be like this, but this was something of his parents, he'd take what ever he could get, he'd met his father and he was sure he was not an uzumaki that left his mother and he couldnt help imagine what she looked like.
Kenji smirked. "Good. Because there are monsters out there that make the Akatsuki look like children, and if you aren't ready, you'll be crushed."
The Underworld, Party
Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the Underworld was a blend of high-class elegance and predatory like intent.
Aoi followed Rias, Sona, and the rest of the peerage into the grand hall of the waiting room. Even from the hallway, the air here was saturated with the scent of expensive incense, vintage wine, and the underlying, metallic tang of demonic power.
The younger generation of the 72 Pillars had been gathered here, ostensibly to socialize, but Aoi could see the truth it was a way for them to look at one another, measuring, judging, and looking for any sign of weakness.
Aoi wasn't listening to Akeno's lighthearted teasing or Sona's commentary as they walked. Her eyes were fixed on Koneko. The white-haired girl had pushed herself far beyond her limits during training earlier, even fainting for a brief moment.
Though she stood upright now, the gloom around her hadn't lifted, if anything, it had deepened.
Just as they reached the massive, ornate double doors leading to the room, the door exploded outward in a shower of splinters.
"If you've got a death wish, I'm happy to fill it, Zephyrdor!" a green-haired girl, Seekvaira Agares, shouted. Her magic was already flaring.
"Filling is my job, Princess," a smug, sharp-faced boy replied, his own magic surging in response. He leaned against a shattered pillar, his smile oily. "As I said, if you want a virgin purging, I'll be the first to volunteer."
"They never change," Rias muttered, her hand going to her hip. "Always trying to prove they're better, always fighting."
"Indeed, they don't," a deep, resonant voice said from behind them.
Sairaorg Bael walked past their group. His presence alone was like a wall, silencing the murmuring nobles by sheer weight of his presence. "That's enough. Don't dishonor the Agares family by humoring him, Seekvaira. We all know he's nothing more than the Glasya-Labolas problem child."
"Screw you, Bael trash!" Zephyrdor roared, his magic erupting into a violent blast as he lunged toward Sairaorg.
Sairaorg didn't use magic. He simply delivered a single punch to the midsection. Zephyrdor was sent flying backward, soaring past Rias and Sona's group before imprinting himself into the far stone wall with a sickening thud.
Silence followed, heavy and absolute. Then, the whispers began.
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