Time slipped by like fine sand through an hourglass, and before anyone noticed, two full years had passed.
For those two years, the ninja world had fallen into an eerie calm. High-level commissions born from friction between the smaller countries had suddenly dropped off, and the four great villages, whose expansion had long depended on exploiting those smaller nations and waiting for chances to absorb subordinates or seize territory, all seemed to go quiet at the same time.
On the surface, it looked as though they were still licking the wounds of the First Shinobi World War and focusing on recovery.
As the victor of that war, Konoha had sensed that something was wrong long ago. The Land of Fire and the village had already begun quietly mobilizing spies hidden in various countries, ordering them to keep close watch on the movements of the major hidden villages.
What they did not know was that the schemes of the four great villages had long since shifted away from the ninja continent itself and moved overseas.
By the time Konoha realized what was happening, one of its strongest allies would already be gone.
***
March 27, Konoha Year 33.
Some distance from Konoha, near a place of waterfalls and cliffs, a white-haired child stood on the bank of a deep pool.
He looked only nine years old, yet he was already about one meter sixty tall. His face was still startlingly young, almost tender, but the expression in his icy blue eyes was grave as he gripped his right wrist with his left hand and stared fixedly at his own palm.
Above that palm floated a sphere of blue chakra the size of a billiard ball.
The outside of the sphere was blue, but the core was white. Deep within it, chakra spun at terrifying speed in layer after layer of compressed vortices, forming a stable whole that already looked like a finished ninjutsu.
To any ordinary observer, it would have been enough to call it complete.
Gojo Yoru was not satisfied.
His brow tightened. Though his body did not move, the pressure in the air around him made it look as if he were forcing something through sheer will alone.
Inside the bright white core, one single strand suddenly darkened.
It was only a wisp of black, inconspicuous amid the rest of the chakra. If someone were careless, they might not notice it at all.
But that tiny streak of black instantly disrupted the balance of the sphere.
The Rasengan in his hand began to tremble. Heat surged through it as though the inside of a sealed ball had suddenly been brought to a boil, as though the entire technique might explode in the next second.
Without hesitation, Gojo Yoru lunged forward and slammed the sphere into the rock wall nearby.
Boom!
Stone shattered. Dust and fragments blasted outward, and the roar of the impact echoed through the valley.
When the dust settled, a massive crater with clear spiral grooves had been carved into the mountainside.
Just from the marks left behind, anyone could imagine what would happen if that technique struck a human body. The victim would be blasted away, hurled backward in a spinning arc. If the chakra could enter the body the way the Hyuga clan's Gentle Fist did, it might even grind internal organs to pieces.
There was no question about it.
This was a powerful high-level ninjutsu, and an extremely rare one at that—a technique that required no hand seals.
And yet, the nine-year-old boy who had created and mastered it showed no joy at all.
"I failed again," Gojo muttered, frustration darkening his expression. "Is it really that hard?"
"Your chakra control and shape transformation are already good enough. Perhaps what you should work on next is nature transformation."
The sudden voice made his expression change instantly.
"Who's there?!"
This place had been chosen with extreme care. Forest surrounded the waterfalls. On the paths leading in, Gojo had strung an entire web of steel wire and tiny bells. Touch one line, and it would trigger a chain of hidden explosive tags, setting off a loud chain reaction.
Even if a beast blundered into it by accident, he would end his training for the day.
For someone to appear here silently despite all that...
That person was no ordinary ninja.
Gojo Yoru immediately prepared to circulate the space-time chakra within his body even as he turned toward the source of the voice.
The moment he saw the newcomer, his pupils contracted.
Then, without the slightest delay, he bowed with perfect respect.
"Lord Orochimaru."
A young man in a green jonin vest stood on the bank of the pool as though he had appeared out of thin air.
He had long black hair, pale skin, golden snake-like pupils, and the faint trace of purple at the corners of his eyes. Even at this age, his features were already unmistakable.
This was Orochimaru, one of the three disciples personally taught by the Third Hokage. In the future, he would be known across the ninja world as one of Konoha's Legendary Sannin.
At this point in time, however, he did not yet carry the darkness he would one day become infamous for.
Instead, he had the same cold, beautiful detachment that made Uchiha prodigies like Itachi and Sasuke so striking. Handsome. Aloof. Dangerous only in the way a drawn blade was dangerous.
Gojo Yoru was not afraid of him.
Not now.
This Orochimaru had not yet joined hands with Danzo. He had not yet fallen from Konoha's path. Right now, he was Hiruzen Sarutobi's best candidate for the position of Fourth Hokage, a man who still carried the Will of Fire and whom Tsunade herself trusted enough to entrust her younger brother to.
"What's your name?" Orochimaru asked, studying him with growing surprise. "And how old are you?"
From a distance, he had thought this was merely a genin training in secret.
Only after coming closer had he realized the truth.
The person standing here was not a genin at all, but a child whose body had developed far ahead of his age. His face looked even younger than Nawaki's. If one judged by face alone, he might not even have reached the fifth year at the academy.
"My name is Gojo Yoru," he replied honestly. "I'm nine years old."
"Gojo?"
Orochimaru lifted a brow.
"What relation are Gojo Hayate and Gojo Mio to you?"
"They were my father and mother."
As expected.
That answer made several things click into place in Orochimaru's mind at once.
Outwardly, however, he only said, "Your parents were heroes. And you..." His gaze slid toward the ruined mountain wall. "You're a genius. That ninjutsu just now was beautiful. Very impressive."
"You flatter me, Lord Orochimaru."
Gojo Yoru lowered his head modestly, but inwardly he let out a quiet breath of relief.
The connections left behind by two jonin truly were a form of invisible inheritance.
"Then why train here," Orochimaru asked, "instead of in the village?"
Once he realized the child before him was the son of old acquaintances, his interest only deepened.
He had only come here because he had discovered the hidden wires and explosive tags on his way back and found it curious enough to investigate. Using an Earth Release-based Body Flicker, he had slipped past every trap without setting one off.
And what he found at the end of that trail was a nine-year-old boy performing the Rasengan.
That alone was astonishing.
Rapid physical development meant extraordinary physical and spiritual energy. The technique Gojo had just used possessed chakra control and shape transformation of a level that was at least B-rank in difficulty.
And judging by what Orochimaru had just seen...
Gojo had not merely been practicing a completed ninjutsu.
He had been trying to inject nature transformation into it.
Shape transformation combined with nature transformation—done at a high enough level—was the foundation of true top-tier ninjutsu.
That meant the move in Gojo's hand had the potential to rise even further.
A nine-year-old child who could already grasp that much was fully qualified to graduate early. Many chunin, and even some special jonin, did not possess a trump card of that level.
So why hide it?
Why bury that talent out here in the wilderness?
Orochimaru's narrowed gaze rested on the child before him.
Did this boy want to conceal his strength?