The days returned to that tight and peaceful rhythm.
For the Eleventh Squad, that encounter in the Forest of Lost Souls had been like a high fever.
Once the fever broke, the people had changed.
Their training became even more rigorous than before.
It only took them a month to master the "Three-Man Diamond Assault Formation" taught by Minato-sensei, honing it to the point where they were almost acting with a single mind.
Tokuma's Gentle Fist grew increasingly fierce and powerful.
Yakumo found her place in the team as a support through her illusions.
And Roy remained the most unreadable leader of them all.
He rarely drew his blade, Raiga, anymore.
Most of the time, he stood at the very back of the formation, issuing precise commands with the simplest language.
Their missions gradually transitioned from D-rank to C-rank.
Escorting merchant caravans, pursuing bandits, gathering intelligence.
They were like a newly installed, smoothly operating gear in the massive war machine that was Konoha.
Everything seemed good.
No one knew.
When night fell, when all of Konoha was fast asleep,
Roy's other training had just begun.
At the secret base in the Forest of Death.
Roy stood in the center of the clearing, his eyes closed.
He didn't move, nor did he form any hand seals.
He was simply "listening."
Within his perception, the entire world became a chaotic symphony.
The sound of wind rustling through leaves.
The sound of insects burrowing in the earth as they turned over.
Thirty meters away, a night owl was poised to strike a field mouse.
He could even "hear" the "fear" of that mouse in its final moments.
This was the result of his six months of training in Observation Haki.
From being able to only vaguely perceive emotions at the start, he could now clearly distinguish the "voices" of all living things within this forest.
Suddenly.
He shifted his body slightly to the side.
A stone, whistling through the air, grazed past his ear.
Roy opened his eyes and looked toward the direction the stone came from.
There was nothing there.
But he knew that, a mere point-three seconds ago, a mischievous monkey had been standing there.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Precognition.
He had begun to grasp the second stage of Observation Haki.
Immediately after, he began his second form of training.
Armament Haki.
He extended his right hand, fingers splayed.
He took a deep breath.
A surge of dominant power began to rush through the meridians in his arm.
The familiar pain, like needles piercing his flesh, returned.
But he was used to it.
A substance black as ink started to seep out slowly from beneath his skin.
At first, it was only a fingertip.
Then, the entire finger... Then, the whole palm.
Now....
Roy gave a low shout.
His entire right hand, from fingertips to wrist, was instantly covered in a layer of pitch-black, metallic-gleaming, hardened shell.
Armament Hardening.
It had taken him a full six months to reach this point.
His body's meridians, through repeated rupture and repair, had become more than ten times tougher than before.
He walked over to the granite boulder that he had already battered into a sorry state.
He clenched his blackened fist. Using no technique, just a simple, straightforward punch, he struck the rock.
Thud.
A dull impact sounded.
A clear fist imprint was forcibly driven into the hard granite.
Rock fragments scattered in all directions.
Roy withdrew his fist.
The layer of black hardening slowly receded.
His hand was completely unharmed.
Both defense and offense were now his.
This was his second reliable trump card, aside from Raiga.
Finally, there was the development of his Zoan-type Devil Fruit ability.
This was also his most cautious and slowest endeavor.
He sat cross-legged, focusing his attention on his back.
He thought of the dragon, of the hard, impenetrable dragon scales.
He began to call upon the power dormant deep within his bloodline.
The skin on his back began to itch and burn.
He could feel something hard growing outward from within his flesh.
The process was painful.
But he made no sound.
Ten minutes later.
A patch of fine dragon scales, crackling with purple electric arcs, covered the size of a palm on his back.
He tried moving his body.
The scales flexed and shifted perfectly with his movements, without any hindrance.
He picked up a kunai and, aiming at the scales on his back, scraped it across with force.
Clink.
A crisp metallic sound.
The tip of the kunai was blunted.
Yet, not even a white scratch was left on the dragon scale.
Roy let out a breath.
Observation Haki, Armament Haki, Dragon Scales.
He was on the right track with three entirely new paths.
Time flowed swiftly during these repetitive, grueling, and painful days of training.
Before he knew it, a year had passed.
Konoha Year 40, Winter.
Roy was eleven years old.
The Eleventh Squad was on a C-rank mission to hunt down a rogue ninja.
"The target is in the ravine ahead!"
Tokuma, with his Byakugan active, led the way at the front of the formation.
"Careful, there are three of them!"
The three of them advanced in a triangular formation, charging into the ravine.
The battle erupted instantly.
"Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall!"
One rogue ninja formed hand seals, and a wall of earth rose from the ground, blocking their path.
"Tokuma, left!" Roy's voice rang out, calm and composed.
He didn't need the reminder.
Tokuma's body shot off like a leopard, using the cliff wall on the left to propel himself forward.
"Gentle Fist Style: Eight Trigrams Palms!"
He immediately became locked in combat with one enemy.
"Yakumo, disrupt the one on the right!"
"Yes!"
Yakumo's illusionary techniques activated silently.
The rogue ninja on the right, who was just about to form hand seals, suddenly froze, his eyes going vacant for a moment.
The last enemy, and the strongest, circumvented the earth wall, wielding a large blade as he charged directly at Roy.
"Brat, I'm taking your life!"
Roy watched the large blade swinging down at his head.
He didn't draw his sword.
At the very last instant, his body simply shifted left by a small margin.
The blade's edge sliced through the air almost touching the tip of his nose, missing completely.
The rogue ninja was startled.
Was this kid just lucky?
He didn't have time to ponder, instantly reversing his grip for a horizontal slash.
Roy didn't even look, simply leaning back.
The blade swept past his chest once more, stirring a gust of wind.
Twice.
Two lethal attacks had been perfectly evaded with minimal movement.
The rogue ninja finally realized something was wrong.
This kid's eyes were too calm.
It was like he was looking at a dead man.
"My turn."
Roy spoke.
In a flash, he closed the distance, throwing a punch at the rogue ninja's abdomen.
The rogue ninja sneered and blocked with the flat of his blade.
How much force could a kid's punch have?
Fist met blade.
Crack...
A sharp, crisp sound of bone breaking.
But it wasn't Roy's hand that broke.
It was the rogue ninja's arm gripping the sword.
An incomprehensible, tremendous force transmitted through the blade's flat.
Every bone in his arm was shattered by that single punch.
He let out an inhuman shriek and flew backward.
Roy withdrew his fist.
A barely visible, thin layer of black hardening flickered and vanished from his knuckles.
Both Tokuma and Yakumo glanced over amidst their own fights.
They were stunned.
Since when did Roy become this strong in taijutsu?
Roy ignored their surprise.
He walked over to the rogue ninja with the broken arm.
"Now, you can tell me who sent you."
His voice was very calm.