Chapter 206: One Strike at Full Power
The gate guards heard the words and understood nothing, but Jiraiya's pupils contracted sharply.
Detected. How? The concealment had been meticulous. Hiruzen had been a hundred metres back — well outside any normal shinobi's sensory range.
Not outside this.
In a discreet corner about a hundred metres away, an older man felt his expression shift. The small, neat goatee below his chin moved as he murmured quietly to himself.
"He found us. Or perhaps he found us from the beginning and simply waited to say something."
He stepped out of concealment. His appearance registered immediately on anyone who recognised it.
The Third Hokage.
Sarutobi Hiruzen.
No point in staying hidden after being called out.
The moment Hiruzen emerged, another figure appeared beside him — a young man in his mid-twenties, who scratched the back of his head and said, somewhat ruefully, "I did say from the start that this approach would backfire. His sensing is better than any sensory-type ninja I know. And given his temperament, a direct request — approached with proper sincerity — probably would have worked fine. Coming at this sideways was always going to look suspicious."
Hiruzen was quiet for a moment. Then: "Don't make assumptions about someone's character so easily."
Another figure stepped out of the shadows.
Anyone who had watched the source material would recognise him immediately.
The King of the Wok himself — Danzō.
Three figures now visible, plus Jiraiya behind him.
The combined top-tier combat strength of Konoha, assembled within speaking distance.
If they'd been radiating hostility, Ryū might have taken it seriously. They weren't. Wariness, curiosity, calculation — but not intent to fight. Presumably because they'd done the math and found the math discouraging.
They wanted to know his actual ceiling.
Hence Jiraiya as the probe.
He'd spotted all of them from the beginning and chosen to let the situation develop. Anyone else in his position might have reacted to being tailed — nobody enjoyed a trained surveillance team on their back. But when you could flatten everyone involved, the reaction options broadened considerably.
"The Third Hokage. The Fourth Hokage. The head of Root. And one of the Three Sannin." He let the observation sit for a moment. "Quite the assembly."
Nothing in his face showed anxiety or tension. Why would it?
Jiraiya waved his hands quickly, working to defuse the atmosphere. "Ahaha! Don't misread this, Ryū-kun — the Third and the others are just curious. No hostility. You're part of Konoha's community. The approach may have been poorly considered, and for that I apologise!"
While Jiraiya spoke, Minato had walked over to join the group.
Ryū, Hiruzen, Minato, Jiraiya, Danzō.
Set aside Tsunade, whose location was currently unknown.
This was effectively the village's entire top combat tier, standing at the village gate.
The gate guards were frozen. They had the sense not to move or speak.
Ryū's gaze found Minato.
"I'll say this — setting you aside, most of this group aren't well-suited to leadership positions. And whoever conceived this particular approach has a hole in their thinking. If I'd been in a worse mood today, I'd have already hit someone."
Hiruzen: "…"
Danzō: "…"
Silence, measured in seconds.
Then Hiruzen's somewhat rough voice: "Perhaps the young man is right. Minato, for all his youth, is genuinely a capable leader. This was clumsiness from us old men. I ask your understanding."
Compared to Danzō, who had gone very still and very quiet, Hiruzen at least had the social competence to acknowledge the failure directly. Though it helped that Ryū's strength made courtesy the rational choice.
"Save the damage-control. I know what you're all worried about." Ryū shook his head. "As long as you don't make problems, I won't act. Do something worth responding to, and that changes." A brief pause. "If something sufficiently excessive happens, I won't have a strong objection to dismantling the village. I'll acknowledge that sounds like villain dialogue. I'm still capable of following through."
No chill in the voice. No visible hostility. Just a flat, unadorned statement, delivered in the same register as commenting on weather.
Which was exactly why the people listening felt a cold edge move through them. The calm made it worse. A blade without a handle — nothing to grab onto and dismiss.
Before any of them could formulate a response, Ryū continued: "You want to see my capabilities, correct? I came to the gate to avoid accidentally damaging my own house. The walk was incidental."
Jiraiya blinked. "Ryū-kun, you're—?"
"You did ask for a full-power strike. Do you still want one?"
Something happened to Jiraiya that he hadn't expected: he noticed he was nervous. When had that started? The sweat at his hairline was already there. The internal threat assessment had spiked to a level he didn't usually reach.
He kept the grin in place. "I may not be a match for you, but I've got my guard up this time. I won't go down in one move like before."
"That's on you. If something goes wrong I'm not paying medical fees." Ryū glanced past him. "Outside the walls. There's more room."
He walked through the gate without looking back at Hiruzen or Danzō.
"…"
The gate guards watched them all file out. When they were gone, several sets of eyes turned to each other.
They'd heard everything. They understood none of the subtext.
What they'd seen clearly: the young man who looked noticeably younger than even the Fourth Hokage was receiving an expression from Hiruzen and the others that could only be described as deference. Something approaching awe.
"That young man — I've never seen him before. He doesn't look anything like the Third. He's not the Third's son, is he? Or… wait, maybe Danzō's?"
The second guard responded quietly: "Danzō always looks like he's plotting something. I find it hard to imagine him having any private life at all."
A third: "Would you two stop. Speculating about a former Hokage and Danzō in the open, in front of the gate — if ANBU or Root hears that, you're spending a few days somewhere unpleasant."
"We're not saying anything bad, we're just—"
"It doesn't matter, you need to—" A pause. "Wait. Why is the ground… the ground is shaking."
Three heads looked down.
The earth was trembling visibly. Even as trained mid-level ninja, the movement threw their balance. One nearly sat down involuntarily.
Hairline fractures spread across the ground beneath them, multiplying outward from a single direction at speed. The nearby buildings began rattling. Walls cracked.
The vibration intensified.
Then the sound arrived — delayed, because whatever had happened out there had moved faster than the noise it produced.
The sound hit like a firecracker detonated at ear level. The pressure wave made their eardrums ring.
They turned toward the source.
Several thousand metres outside the village, a column of dust was rising — dozens of metres high, spreading outward in a vast cloud. Boulders the size of houses were airborne. The shockwave had covered the distance to the village in an instant, shaking the Hokage Rock in its direction, collapsing buildings that had been halfway through reconstruction.
At the epicentre:
Four figures, moving like cut kites, flung outward by a force that had given no warning and no direction to brace against. They passed through trees and boulders, snapping and shattering, until distance and impact finally slowed them.
If anyone had been close enough to see clearly:
The four figures were Minato, Jiraiya, Danzō, and Hiruzen.
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