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Konoha, Hokage's Office.
Hiruzen Sarutobi sat with a dark expression on his face. He never imagined that Sakumo Hatake would die—killed by Hayata Hayato, that kid who defected from the village. What made it worse was that Hayato used to be one of their own, just a regular student at the Konoha Ninja Academy.
Who could've guessed that a weak kid, who couldn't even hurt a chicken, would suddenly awaken a kekkei genkai and turn into such a terrifying monster?
If Hayato hadn't gone rogue, someone like him could've been a powerful force protecting the village. But now, not only had he killed a bunch of Konoha's ninja, even someone as powerful as Danzo—and Sakumo himself—had fallen at his hands.
"If only no one bullied Hayato at the Academy... If only he had made a few close friends, formed bonds he didn't want to break..." Sarutobi couldn't help fantasizing about how things might've been.
Clack, clack, clack...
He puffed anxiously on his long-stemmed pipe. The embers flared with every inhale, and thick smoke drifted out of his mouth. That alone showed how troubled he was. Losing so many shinobi in one go was a huge blow to Konoha.
If the other villages found out, they might think Konoha was weakened and use this as an excuse to start a war.
He stared at the intelligence scroll that described Hayato: he could transform into a huge, green-skinned monster. The more damage he took, the bigger and stronger he got.
At his peak, he was around six meters tall—at that size, Sakumo barely stood a chance. And this might not even be Hayato's limit. For all Sarutobi knew, he could still grow stronger. The whole situation was a nightmare.
As the smoke curled in the air, Sarutobi's thoughts tangled. On one hand, he wanted to kill Hayato to avenge his old friend Danzo, and his loyal subordinate Sakumo.
On the other hand, part of him wished he could bring Hayato back—to turn him into Konoha's protector instead. But there were too many unknowns.
How strong was Hayato, really? How many ninja would they have to send to capture him? And what would it cost Konoha if they failed?
The more he thought about it, the more his head throbbed.
Meanwhile, Hayato had no idea Sarutobi was racking his brain over him. He was just quietly living his weird little life.
In the Land of Rain, no matter where he walked, people stared at him with strange, nervous eyes. Nobody dared to look him in the eye—they'd avert their gaze, trembling with fear.
Hayato knew exactly why. To them, he was a monster. But he didn't really care. He was used to it by now. Actually, he kind of liked it.
Nobody bothered him, no one came asking him for favors, and ever since he wiped out the Black Dragon Gang, no idiots had come looking for trouble either.
These days, Hayato spent all his time training.
Since he had no teacher, his training was pretty basic. He focused on chakra extraction, and just kept building his physical strength, pushing his body to get tougher and stronger.
Chakra refining, body training, and practicing the three basic jutsu: Transformation, Substitution, and Clone Techniques—that was his whole routine. It wasn't much, but it was all he knew.
He had once tried to scavenge some jutsu from the corpses of the Konoha ninja he killed, hoping to pick up new techniques that way. But unlike in stories, real ninja didn't carry scrolls of their techniques around with them.
Still, after some time, Hayato decided to try something more advanced. He attempted to learn a jutsu he remembered clearly from his past life watching anime—one that had its principles and training steps burned into his memory: the Rasengan.
Compared to other jutsu, the Rasengan was relatively simple in theory. All it required was chakra—mold it into a spherical shape, keep it spinning rapidly, and boom—you'd have an A-rank technique with incredible destructive power.
But even though he knew the Rasengan's concept thanks to anime, doing it in real life was a whole different story. There were tons of little details that messed him up.
And without a proper teacher to guide him or show him the trick, things got pretty frustrating.
"....."