A figure in black walked through the night, a fox mask hiding his face. He finally stopped before a tiny village.
Gen Takuya looked at the settlement ahead.
If the map wasn't wrong, then this was the Kaguya clan's territory within the Land of Water.
Still, something surprised him.
It was such a small village… and yet it had night watchmen.
"Who are you?!"
The Kaguya man at the front glared, dark circles under his eyes and a bizarre hairstyle that made him look… unstable. Like someone whose mind had already cracked.
Which, frankly, wasn't far from the truth.
The Kaguya clan—also known as the Taketori—had always been… wrong in the head.
They might've been the most deranged, bloodthirsty clan in the entire shinobi world.
Every one of them was strange in personality, but they shared one trait almost universally—
They lived for battle.
They craved slaughter, as if killing was the only thing that gave their existence meaning.
That obsession had once driven them to launch a night raid against Kirigakure—an entire great village backed by a nation's power—simply to "let the Mist know how terrifying the Kaguya clan was."
They earned extinction for it.
A fate they brought on themselves.
"I'm a shinobi who enjoys collecting unusual things," Gen Takuya said in that deliberately ambiguous voice—neither clearly male nor female. "I heard you have someone who can control bones. Would you be willing to hand him over to me?"
"No!" The Kaguya man's eyes bulged, voice booming like thunder. "That little freak belongs to us!"
And as if that was the absolute limit of his patience, he lunged—fist swinging toward Gen Takuya's face.
In his mind, he was already seeing Gen Takuya split apart under his strength, and a cruel grin stretched across his features.
Gen Takuya paused, genuinely taken aback that the man attacked so quickly.
Then again… this was the Kaguya clan.
If they weren't insane, they wouldn't be the Kaguya clan.
Since the other side had already thrown the first punch, Gen Takuya had no reason to hold back.
He met it with his own fist—chakra compressed and controlled to an absurd degree in a single point.
Boom!
The Kaguya man's grin hadn't even fully faded before his body launched backward like a cannonball.
He tore through multiple houses—crashing through walls and beams—before finally stopping.
Or rather… what was left of him stopped.
He was no longer human.
He was dead.
That was monstrous strength.
Gen Takuya didn't know whether his version differed from Tsunade's, but the principle was the same—concentrate chakra into a single point of the body, then unleash force far beyond what flesh and bone should ever produce.
His body, after months of training, wasn't weak.
But his talent for pure taijutsu really was lacking. Training helped, yes, but techniques like the Primary Lotus felt awkward in his hands—like wearing someone else's skin.
Nin-taijutsu suited him far better.
When the other Kaguya saw their comrade die, there was no fear. No grief. Not even a flicker of hesitation.
They kept smiling—those twisted, abnormal smiles.
They were happy.
Happy that there was finally a fight.
Gen Takuya looked at them, then at the Kaguya emerging from the houses he'd just smashed through.
He shrugged helplessly.
"What a shame," he said lightly. "I'm actually a shinobi who prefers peace. I don't like fighting and killing."
No one answered.
They only charged, faces lit with that spine-chilling delight.
"Then come," Gen Takuya said, voice calm. "I've got a few jutsu I've been meaning to test."
His hands flashed through seals.
A surge of massive purple chakra erupted behind him—dense, tangible, oppressive.
"Peacock Mystical Method: Tiger Fiend!"
The purple chakra transformed—condensing into a gigantic tiger that crouched above him like a king. Then it roared.
The sound hit like an attack, a wave of pressure that made the charging Kaguya flinch. Pain flickered across their faces—an expression Gen Takuya had never seen on them before.
It was… almost rare.
With another roar, the Tiger Fiend pounced.
It tore into the Kaguya like a predator into sheep.
Blood exploded into the night.
During it all, Gen Takuya didn't move.
He still hadn't figured out how to maintain the Peacock Mystical Method while moving—much less while layering other jutsu on top of it. That flaw remained unresolved.
Still, using it occasionally was acceptable.
The method felt heavy.
Chakra had weight—especially once it became fully materialized.
In his previous life, he'd watched the story countless times and still marveled at how Naruto, after manifesting four tails, could move with that much dense chakra dragging behind him.
Even Orochimaru, facing a four-tailed Tailed Beast Bomb, hadn't expected chakra of that "mass" could be launched like a projectile—and he'd eaten the hit head-on.
Then there was the half-finished Wind Release: Rasenshuriken—another absurdly heavy chakra construct.
In the original tale, even the toad sage had marveled that Naruto could actually throw such a high-density, high-rotation sphere. It wasn't easy. It was borderline impossible.
Right now, Gen Takuya could barely hold a similar chakra mass, let alone throw it.
If he did throw it, it would be slow—slow enough that no one competent would ever be hit.
Which meant he finally understood why the half-finished version required Sage Mode's enhanced body to be thrown. The story itself stated it—Naruto gained a stronger body and overcame the "can't throw it" flaw.
Gen Takuya could only hope that when he perfected the Rasenshuriken, he could lower that requirement.
For now, he continued letting Tiger Fiend slaughter.
The Kaguya were utterly outclassed, ripped open and torn apart.
But they didn't fear death.
They shouted things like, "Let him see the terror of the Kaguya clan!"
And threw themselves at the Tiger Fiend again and again, reckless to the point of madness.
Truly… the Kaguya clan.
Gen Takuya smacked his lips.
The fact that a clan like this had survived as long as it had was nothing short of a miracle.
Eventually, blood coated the ground. Bodies lay everywhere—most of them incomplete.
And at last, the survivors realized something.
Behind the Tiger Fiend, Gen Takuya himself wasn't moving.
They rushed him.
Gen Takuya sighed.
If even the Kaguya clan could notice the flaw, then the Peacock Mystical Method really couldn't be used carelessly until he solved mobility.
He'd learned enough.
For now.
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