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Chapter 57: The Calm Before the Storm
Night had fully claimed Konoha, a blanket of stars stretched over the silent village. It was far too late for a young girl to remain at a boy's isolated hut, regardless of intentions. After their charged, twilight conversation, Kushina had left, her step lighter, the ghost of a smile lingering on her face as she disappeared into the warren of streets.
Ragnar watched her go, his thoughts a churning current beneath a placid surface.
The gears of fate were turning, their teeth grinding against the timeline he knew. Whether Kushina was already the Jinchuriki or merely a girl living in the shadow of that future, the outcome seemed immutable. And looming over that personal tragedy was the larger cataclysm: the Second Shinobi World War.
Soon, the entire continent would be a chessboard drenched in blood. In that maelstrom, individual power was a leaf in a typhoon. Even the legendary Sannin—Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya—weren't the titans they would become. They were prodigies, yes, but still vulnerable. If a monster like Hanzo the Salamander, the "Demigod" who would bestow their title, had wished it, the history of the Sannin would have ended in the mud of the Land of Rain. That was the scale of the conflict. That was the level of power that moved within it.
Ragnar's current strength—the Haki, the Phoenix fruit, the demon blade—was formidable for his age, monstrous even. But against the gathered might of nations and the Kage-level beasts that led them? It was insufficient. He needed more. He needed it before the storm broke, before he was swept into its heart.
Dawn came, grey and cold. Ragnar began as he always did: with the foundation.
Before his hut, the iron-sheathed training post stood as a silent testament to obsession. He began. No fancy techniques, no chakra flares. Just flesh and will against unforgiving metal.
THUD. A straight punch. THUD. Another. A thousand times. The rhythm was a metronome of self-inflicted violence. His knuckles split, blood smearing the dull iron. Sweat poured from him, soaking his simple training clothes, pooling at his feet in the dirt. His breath came in great, heaving gasps that fogged the morning air, his heartbeat a primal drum echoing in his chest.
He moved on. Uppercuts. Side kicks. Chops. The post shuddered. The ground around it became a quagmire of churned earth and spilled effort.
This was not just training. It was an act of defiance. A forging. Every punch was a rejection of the fate of cannon fodder. Every kick was a step towards the power to shield the one flicker of genuine care in his life. Every impact was a promise to the Uchiha, to Danzo, to the entire brutal calculus of the world:Â I will not break. I will become the hammer.
His Haki and the Phoenix regeneration worked tirelessly beneath the punishment, repairing micro-tears, strengthening bone, thickening muscle. The process was accelerated by the sheer, relentless demand he placed on his body.
He used Shadow Clones, not for numbers, but for depth. One clone sat in meditation, expanding its Observation Haki, not to sense enemies, but to listen to the quieter things—the shift of air a second before a leaf fell, the subtle tension in a muscle before it moved. He sought that fleeting glimpse beyond reaction: true precognition. The clone focused on Conqueror's Haki, not as a blast, but as a focused pressure, a scalpel of will to target a single mind amidst chaos. Another clone worked with Armament, not just hardening skin, but trying to extend it. To sheath a kunai not just on contact, but to project the hardening as it flew. To encase a crackling Lightning Cutter in a shell of black, making it an armor-piercing railgun. He even experimented, trying to force Armament to mingle with the blue Phoenix flames that slept within him, testing the boundaries between his disparate powers.
The daily grind was broken only by sustenance. Kushina's carefully prepared lunchbox appeared, a small, bright point of care. It was delicious, heartfelt, and about a tenth of what his hyper-metabolizing body now required.
Funded by his ANBU stipend—a small fortune for a child, which was why he could give the mission reward to Dai without a second thought—he took to the streets of Konoha. He became a regular at multiple eateries, not just the famous Ichiraku. His orders were legendary: mountains of rice, platters of meat, bowls of stew that would feed a family. Waitresses stared, chefs gaped. The boy with the intense eyes and the body of a young athlete consumed like a sumo wrestler in training.
A new nickname began to circulate alongside "prodigy" and "Hokage's interest":Â The Bottomless Pit.
Rumors flew. Maybe his genius was linked to his diet? The Akimichi clan, masters of calorie-to-chakra conversion, seized on this, half-jokingly endorsing their own restaurants. But one look at Ragnar's lean, defined physique compared to the Akimichi's characteristic bulk killed that theory. He was building a body of dense, efficient power, not stored energy.
As the days bled into weeks, the changes became physically evident. The accelerated growth fueled by his System, Haki, and brutal training pushed his body past its years. At barely nine years old, he had the height and frame of a well-built fourteen-year-old. He moved with a coiled, predatory grace that made people forget his age entirely.
The village around him was changing too, preparing for the coming storm.
The most public shift was the rise of Might Dai. The "Eternal Genin" was no more. The Hokage, impressed (and politically maneuvered) by the story of the Eight Gates being used to fight a Kumo jonin to a standstill, had promoted him directly to Special Jonin.
There was, of course, backlash. Mockery turned to resentment. How could a failure leapfrog so many? Dai, ever earnest, didn't argue. He simply demonstrated. Challengers found themselves facing a green typhoon, their techniques useless against the sheer, overwhelming speed and power of the Gates. They were "subdued," as the reports politely stated—usually with broken bones and a lesson about the "Power of Youth!"
Dai's new status came with a higher stipend, better housing, and respect. The hidden injuries from years of poverty-fueled training were being addressed. For the first time, the future for his soon-to-be-born son, Guy, looked bright. A future where the boy wouldn't have to fight for every scrap of protein, where he could train his body properly. The path that would one day lead to a green-clad god kicking the soul out of a pseudo-deity was being paved, not with despair, but with hope.
Ragnar observed it all from a distance, a ghost in his own village. He trained. He ate. He planned. He felt his power consolidating, inching upward. The Haki grew more nuanced. The Phoenix flames simmered with greater heat. Yama's weight felt more natural in his hand.
But the tension in the air was a palpable thing. More patrols left the gates and didn't return. The Uchiha compound seemed quieter, emptier—its forces deployed to the nascent front. The Hokage's face on the monument looked graver in the morning light.
The calm was an illusion. The storm was gathering just beyond the horizon, and Ragnar intended to meet it not as a leaf to be tossed, but as a force of nature in his own right.
(End of Chapter)
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