The border forests of the Land of Fire were quiet in the way only those who would experience great turmoil ever were. After leaving the Toad Sages, Tenji continued his travel. He asked around once more and found out that the best swords were those used by the Samurai. Other swords were very famous, like those used by the 'Seven Swordsmen of the Mist'. But when Tenji specified that he wanted a katana, he was told that the Land of Iron would be his best bet. So he changed his path and moved north.
It was a dangerous time for someone who didn't belong to the Land of Fire, and more so, for someone who didn't know how to protect himself. But while Tenji didn't belong to a country or a Hidden Village, he was by no means powerless. His brief visit to Mount Myōboku had brought another interesting discovery. His body was almost desperately soaking up the Nature Energy. Before his death, Tenji had experimented and researched how to reach peak human strength and even surpass it. During those times, he discovered a form of energy he didn't know how to name. Now, he reencountered it, and after feeling his body's reaction to it, chose to look into it, while Gamamaru told him the history of the lands.
The strength he felt flow through his body was immense, offering him another path forward. But he took it slow, studying everything very closely at first. He had already understood Chakra to a frightening degree and managed to use it to enhance every cell in his body, if he so desired. His chakra control rose as he used it to unprecedented degrees. Sadly, before he could make more breakthroughs, he was interrupted.
Tenji felt it before he saw them—Chakra in the form of humans.
The residual nature energy, which didn't seem to want to leave his body entirely, pushed Tenji's sensory prowess further. He stopped walking and closed his eyes, using this chance to experiment and train. Every walking moment, each movement and action he took was, in a way, training for him.
He stepped out of the forest and onto the road, waiting for them to arrive. Four figures flashed from concealment and on the ground. At their front stood a tall man in a flak jacket, with long dark hair tied back, and wearing a forehead protector bearing the sign of a hidden village. Tenji recognised that sign. One of the ninja he had encountered when he woke up wore the same one. The ninja's pale eyes locked onto Tenji immediately.
Tenji's breath caught.
Behind the grown man, three children emerged from hiding.
'Children.'
But what made him stop wasn't solely the sight of children; it was the eyes of the grown ninja. Those eyes—white, were wrong in a way only he could understand. They brought back a memory immediately.
"Kaguya... Hamura."
"State your name and purpose," the jōnin said calmly.
He had his hand raised and was in a battle-ready stance. As a member of the Hyūga clan, he had sensed Tenji's large chakra miles away and was alerted to his position. The genin squad was on a mission to the border, as tensions had been rising far too much and the conflicts there were spilling over. So sensing Tenji, the Hyūga changed their course and came here.
Tenji inclined his head slightly. He measured the man and the children in front of him. If possible, he hoped to resolve this peacefully and obtain information from what was clearly one of his descendants.
"I am merely travelling. I mean you no harm."
"That won't suffice," the man replied. "You are on the Land of Fire grounds. These lands are under Konoha's jurisdiction. You'll come with us for questioning."
Tenji's gaze drifted past him to the children. Two boys and a girl. They weren't older than twelve, and it was showing. There was evident nervousness in their eyes and unconscious movements. But still, they shifted into formation as they had trained. Tenji's jaw tightened.
"... You send children to the battlefield now?" Tenji asked quietly.
The jōnin's eyes hardened, hearing Tenji's words.
"They are shinobi."
"NO," Tenji replied. "They are children being used as weapons."
That was enough.
"Subdue him," the jōnin ordered.
The three genin moved right away, following the training they had under their sensei. The first boy inhaled and pulled his head back.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
A sphere of flame was exhaled and shot toward Tenji. He didn't like this at all. Fighting children was a big no-no for him. Still, he would use this. He observed the jutsu and stepped aside. All of the jutsu's strengths and weaknesses were catalogued in his mind. But not taken as fact, since he had no experience yet. The release arc was predictable, making it useful only as a distraction in Tenji's mind. The chakra usage didn't seem that large, but it was noticeable for the young boy.
The fireball landed on a tree and scorched the bark behind him. A second later, the girl slammed her palms together and used her strongest jutsu in her arsenal.
"Water Style: Water Whip!"
A serpentine shape of water moved toward him, changing direction mid-flight, like a whip. Tenji ducked, letting it slice past his shoulder. Her chakra control was reasonable, as she could even use the jutsu like a whip and attack unpredictably. But it seemed to take a lot of chakra from the girl.
Before Tenji could move forward, the second boy stomped on the ground.
"Earth Style: Earth Flow Spears!"
Stone spikes erupted from the ground beneath Tenji's feet. He twisted and applied chakra to his sole at the single point where a spike was located. To everyone's surprise, he wasn't impaled, but stood on that spike using advanced chakra control. Tenji had understood the push-and-pull nature of chakra, depending on quantity.
Tenji was not fighting. He was learning as he went along. Up till this point, he had never seen a jutsu performed other than those he saw in the Mirror Stone. So this was a valuable experience for him. The genin's breathing grew heavier with each jutsu they used, their chakra depleting further and further.
Still, they refused to give up, committed to taking Tenji down. They used everything they had, Kunai, shuriken, jutsu, but Tenji avoided them all, never retaliating, never attacking.
Finally, the children couldn't go any longer. Sweat dripped down their faces and drenched their clothes. That point had nearly depleted their chakra. But they didn't stop, pushing their bodies beyond their limits. All to complete their objective, not to fail and not to be seen as failures.
Tenji raised a hand.
"Enough."
The three froze, confused.
"You did everything you could," he said calmly. "And you've burned through more chakra than you should at this point. That's enough."
The fire user clenched his fists in anger, thinking that Tenji was looking down on them. He saw his hard work spat on and didn't like that at all.
"You think you're better than us?!"
"No. I think you deserve better than this," Tenji's voice softened.
They stared at him, confused again.
"Go home," he said. "Hug your parents. Eat warm food, made with love. Laugh and enjoy the time with your friends."
The three didn't understand what he was saying. It was apparent at that point that they couldn't do anything to Tenji, and he refused to attack them. So believing that he was looking down on them was a logical conclusion. But his words contradicted this.
"There is nothing in this world," Tenji continued, "worth a child dying for the selfish ambitions of those in power. You are tools to them. No matter how they dress it up, no matter what doctrines they fed you with, at the end of the day, they don't care about you, as long as they get what they want."
"..."
Finally, the jōnin intervened.
"That's enough," the Hyūga said coldly.
He stepped forward.
"Withdraw," he told his team.
He had been observing the entire time, getting a feel for the man they were fighting. He hadn't felt any killing intent from him while fighting the children. That in itself was strange, as they were attempting to capture him. The pressure changed instantly. Tenji noticed that his chakra was far more refined and lethal.
"You'll submit," he told Tenji, "or be incapacitated."
Tenji narrowed his eyes, feeling his descendants' commitment to kill him. And for what? Because he walked through their lands and had a lot of chakra. He felt that this would be the strongest enemy he had fought to date.
"...Very well."
His pupils became more distinct, and the increased blood flow to his eyes causes the veins near his temples to bulge. Tenji had seen Kaguya and Hamura use this in the Memory Stone. Chaka gathered in his hands, and then, the jōnin vanished.
"Eight Trigrams - Two Palms!"
The Hyūga's fist struck Tenji's chest two times consecutively.
"Four Palms!"
Then another two times.
"Eight Palms!"
And a set of four.
"16 Palms!
"Eight Trigrams—"
The strikes landed perfectly. Tenji's body felt the impacts hit different points in his body and shuddered in response. The power of the blows and the speed picked up, in rapid succession. Until finally, the Hyūga finished the series of attacks.
"Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms!"
Tenji was hit with 64 strikes and flew through the air, crashing into a tree. The broken tree, rose dust and hid their visions. But the jōnin still saw Tenji with his Byakugan. After that, he exhaled and deactivated his eyes. He walked forward, but when he reached Tenji, the man was already pushing his body off the ground.
"What?! You can still move?"
The Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms was a secret taijutsu of the Hyūga clan's main house. Using their Byakugan's near-360° field of vision, the Hyūga envisioned themselves within the centre of an Eight Trigrams symbol. The user then launched a series of attacks against a target within the symbol's perimeter, striking 64 of their tenketsu points. Those sixty-four tenketsu were subsequently blocked, stopping the flow of chakra within the target's body and making it difficult for them to move and impossible to use jutsu.
"Urgh..."
Tenji spat a clog of blood on the ground and got into his fighting position again.
"Please... Last time, it took thousands of soldiers and countless hours of exhaustion to stop me. This will not be enough, boy."
Hyūga Honeto narrowed his eyes. He activated his Byakugan again, just in time to block the incoming strike. He created distance and once again used Gentle Fist, the hand-to-hand combat used by members of the Hyūga clan. His hand shot forward and struck Tenji in the shoulder.
"Gentle Fist: Tenketsu Needle"
Targeting a single chakra point, Honeto delivered a two-fingered strike at Tenji's shoulder to plug the chakra that's being used and halt its flow. But by using more than necessary, Honeto attempted to have his chakra act like a scalpel, cutting through the muscles as well. However, he noticed Tenji's fist shooting towards his face and blocked the attack, stringing more of Tenji's tenketsu points.
Tenji fell to the ground again. He was bleeding in multiple areas, and yet, he refused to stay down. Suddenly, something dawned on Hyūga Honeto. For the first time, he closely observed Tenji with his Byakugan, and when he did, his eyes widened in shock.
"How... that's not... possible!" he muttered.
Tenji made it back to his feet, but had his eyes closed. He didn't understand, nor did he care about Honeto's confusion, for he was in his own world of learning right now.
"What are you?! Why don't you have tenketsu point?!" Honeto shouted.
"Hm?"
Tenji didn't understand what he was talking about. Naturally, he didn't know what a tenketsu was, as he had never been to ninja academy. But to a Hyūga, this revelation was world-shattering. He didn't understand why he didn't notice it sooner. The chakra pathways in Tenji's body were strange and seemed... artificial. Not fake, but created by someone instead of appearing during pregnancy. If Tenji were told what Hanato had just found out and how strange it was, he might understand.
Hanato ignored this for now and gathered a lot of chakra in his palm. He used Body Flicker Jutsu to flash in front of Tenji, who still had his eyes closed, and struck forward.
"Palm Bottom!"
A precise thrust landed on Tenji's chest. The attack sent chakra into the area where Hanato's palm struck. He used a lot of chakra in this attack, wanting to cause severe internal damage.
Yet--
"ARGH!"
Hanato yelled in pain as his palm landed on Tenji's body. He looked at Tenji, and his eyes widened once more. Confusion flooded his mind as he observed the strange man in front of him. A golden surface was seen on Tenji's body, covering the area where Hanato had struck.
'Earth Style: Diamond Body' was the jutsu Tenji had just come up with during this fight. Using what he had just seen and studied from the genin, along with his short but impressively deep experience of chakra, he created the jutsu, which granted him immense defence. Tenji looked at Hanato with narrowed eyes.
"I understand it now."
The jōnin's eyes widened.
"What is that?"
Hanato's training brought him back, and he attacked once more. He performed the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven and struck at Tenji as fast as possible. But something unexpected happened. His attacks were deflected one after the other. But not just that. Tenji had started moving like the wind, performing strong, explosive rotational movements and using gravity and rotation to attack and defend simultaneously.
"Urgh..."
A cut appeared on Hyūga Honeto's arm, spilling blood. The man's eyes widened for the nth time today.
'Wind! He's using wind nature transformation and incorporated it into his martial arts. Using a jutsu while moving and attacking me with it!!'
'Wind Style: Cutting Movement'
Honeto's worldview had already been shattered, but this was ridiculous. He didn't stop using the Gentle Fist, understanding instinctively that if he did, it would be all over. Tenji moved without an expression on his face, taking all information in as he went along. A larger wind blade cut deep into Hanato's flesh and made him drop to the ground, breathing heavily.
"Haah... huff..."
He looked at Tenji, who stood right in front of him. What bothered the Hyūga more than anything, however, was the look he got and that Tenji seemed to be in peak condition. No blood, no wounds... nothing. His body had healed rapidly during their fight. Anger overcame Hanato. He had worked so hard; he had worked harder than anyone to reach the position he now had. To break through the fate of the branch family. Overwhelmed by that anger, he used the last of his strength to attack one final time.
"Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!"
Hanato released a high-speed palm thrust, compressing the Gentle Fist in a 'vacuum shell' and attacking. But the attack didn't land. Tenji sidestepped lightly and brought his fist forward, hitting his descendant squarely in the chest and hurling him through the air.