Konoha Forest.
Uchiha Jin leaned slightly forward. His hands hung naturally at his sides, ready to draw the ninja tools strapped to his thigh at any moment. His eyes were half narrowed, fixed on Might Duy, who stood in front of him scratching his head.
Duy was still hesitating. He really did not want to fight a child. "Honestly, we do not have to do this."
Even if this kid had driven him into a mental breakdown with all those pranks, that was not a reason to lay hands on him. Especially not when the kid was from the Uchiha clan. If he hit the boy, would a squad from the Konoha Military Police Force storm his house?
But Jin did not want to hear any more. He stomped the ground hard, and his figure vanished instantly.
Soru.
He concentrated all his chakra into his feet and stepped on the ground dozens of times in the blink of an eye, generating explosive rebound force to move at high speed.
In the next moment, Jin appeared behind Might Duy and struck with a kick. Duy raised an arm just in time to block.
PANG!
A sharp impact rang out as foot met forearm. Duy's body was thrown sideways, but he adjusted midair, landing on both feet with one hand to the ground, sliding back until he steadied himself.
"So strong." Duy was shocked by the power behind that kick.
"It's not over yet."
The voice came from above. Duy looked up and saw Jin lifting his leg high, bringing it down in an axe kick. Duy rolled aside just in time to avoid it.
BAM!
The ground sank beneath Jin's foot, forming a small crater and kicking up dust.
"That monstrous strength like Jōnin Tsunade?" Duy, a contemporary of the future Sannin, recognized Tsunade's famous style at a glance.
But Jin was not finished. He planted both hands firmly on the ground and spun his legs like a millwheel, whipping a kick into Duy's face while Duy was still half crouched.
The kick sent Duy flying. He hit the ground with a dull thud.
Through the rising dust, Jin's figure emerged slowly. He frowned at Might Duy lying there. In just that brief exchange, Duy's taijutsu matched the Chūnin level Jin had estimated. If you counted ninjutsu, or the lack of it, Duy really was a Genin.
But that was not enough to satisfy Jin. What he wanted to see was Hachimon Tonkō, the Eight Inner Gates. He considered provoking Duy with words, but remembering how serious Duy had been earlier, he dropped the idea. He was afraid the man would end up traumatized all over again.
"Uncle Duy, didn't you say your wife is pregnant? Don't you need money? I'm hiring you right now for a C rank mission for fifty thousand ryō. Beat me with everything you've got."
Jin pulled out a crow shaped wallet, a dark version of Gama chan, took out a fifty thousand ryō note from the Land of Fire, and with a flick of his wrist pinned it to a nearby tree with a shuriken.
Duy rubbed his face and sat up. He stared at the note on the tree. Fifty thousand ryō really would solve his immediate money problems. But…
"Kid, didn't you say you had no money, so that's why you gave me that ninjutsu?" Duy's head filled with question marks.
"Ha… ha." Jin scratched his head, laughing to cover the awkwardness. His parents had left him plenty of money, and no one in the Uchiha clan had embezzled it. The proud Uchiha looked down on stealing the inheritance of an orphaned child. Ironically, Konoha's leadership could not guarantee that sort of thing as reliably. A point for the Uchiha.
"That doesn't matter. The only thing you need to think about is beating me."
Jin did not want to keep talking about it. He only wanted to know Duy's true level of strength. This was the first time he had faced a real shinobi in a serious fight.
"Please fight with the resolve to kill me, because I will fight with the resolve to kill you too."
In these twelve years, he had only fought wolves, tigers, and leopards. Academy students posed no threat and no challenge. With war closing in, he needed to know exactly where he stood.
Might Duy's expression turned solemn. "Understood. I see your determination, kid."
"I'll show you the power of self restraint."
Duy crossed his arms in front of his chest. He could feel the urgency in Jin's emotions, even if he did not know the reason.
"Hachimon Tonkō… Kaimon, the Gate of Opening… open!"
Green chakra erupted from his body in an instant, and cracks spread across the ground beneath his feet. His figure appeared right in front of Jin, twisting in the air as he launched a flying kick.
"This is exactly what I wanted!"
Jin tilted his body, watching the airborne kick coming at him, and let himself fall backward to evade. The moment Duy landed, he unleashed a storm of punches and kicks.
Yet inside that rain of fast strikes, Jin moved like a sheet of paper, swaying with the wind created by Duy's fists. Not a single punch or kick could land cleanly.
Kami-e, Paper Drawing.
Using his sensitive skin to read airflow, he guided his body with chakra, slipping with the currents as if he were a sketch on a page.
"Not enough!"
"Got it, kid! Kyūmon, the Gate of Healing, Seimon, the Gate of Life, Shōmon, the Gate of Wound… open!"
Might Duy's skin flushed red, and his speed surged. His fists now carried cutting wind blades. A thin line of blood appeared on Jin's face, sliced by the fist wind alone. Kami-e could no longer keep up.
Jin raised his arms to block. PANG. Duy's punch crashed into his forearms with a clear, ringing sound.
In the next instant, both of them disappeared. In the forest, only two dark blurs remained, flashing in and out as they traded blows at high speed. The shockwaves from their collisions swept through the trees, making leaves hiss violently and sending birds scattering into the sky.
BOOM!
A tree was stamped with a fist print, the trunk punched clean through and left hollow. Duy and Jin flickered in and out of view, faster than the eye could follow.
The clash reached its peak. Jin's body was launched backward into a thick tree. The impact snapped the trunk in half.
Jin dropped to the ground, panting. "That's my limit."
The taijutsu test ended here. He had been suppressed the entire time, unable to seize an advantage. Now it was time for ninjutsu.
Duy's next attack was already here, a devastating side kick.
POOF!
The smoke cleared. A log had been shattered by the kick. Jin was hanging upside down from a branch not far away, his hands forming seals at high speed.
Snake, Goat, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger.
He blew hard toward Duy.
"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)."
A massive fireball blasted from his mouth toward Duy. To Jin's surprise, Duy's figure blurred as he dodged. He appeared in front of Jin in an instant, fist raised, dropping with gravity behind it in a crushing strike.
PANG. Jin's body turned into smoke.
Using Soru, Jin appeared behind Duy, clasped his hands, and brought them down in a hammer blow with all his strength. Veins bulged on Duy's forehead, and the green chakra around him grew even more violent.
"Fifth Gate, Tomon, the Gate of Limit… open!"
Jin's strike hit empty air. The figure in front of him vanished. Before he could react, the world around him changed in a violent rush. His body was flying backward at terrifying speed. BAM! He slammed into a tree, and only then did the pain in his stomach register.
Too fast. I could not react at all.
"Kid, you lost." Might Duy appeared in front of Jin.
Jin wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and lay back in the grass, staring up at the sky. "Hahaha. I lost."
It was a clean, straightforward loss, but he also found his limit. The Fourth Gate level. That strength was comparable to a Tokubetsu Jōnin, a Special Jōnin. Looking at the future, when Rock Lee opened the Fourth Gate, he still could not beat Gaara. Gaara was a Jinchūriki who could easily crush Tokubetsu Jōnin. In other words, at twelve years old, Jin had already reached the Tokubetsu Jōnin level.
"Hahahaha." He was genuinely happy.
He could not compare to the true monsters of the shinobi world like Madara and Hashirama, but he had reached the level of a genius. Shinobi were naturally glass cannons, high offense and low defense. As long as you had overwhelming strength in one area, even a Genin could kill a Jōnin. Take the future Kakashi's Raikiri, for example. If a Genin used it and it landed, even a Jōnin would die.
Unfortunately, Jin still could not handle the Fifth Gate. That was equivalent to a Jōnin. The Sixth Gate was elite Jōnin. The Seventh Gate, with Guy as the exception, was Kage level. The Eighth Gate was Super Kage level, or even the Six Paths.
Duy walked over, pulled the note off the tree, and carefully tucked it into his clothes. That money would cover the household for a while.
"Young Jin, how were you able to use ninjutsu?" Duy, back to his normal appearance, sat down beside Jin with a limp. The Fifth Gate was his current limit, and the strain still damaged his body.
"When the Basic Internal Energy reaches the second stage, even without talent for ninjutsu, you can learn most techniques easily." The only pity was that in one night he had only had time to learn Kage Bunshin and Gōkakyū.
Too weak to get up, Jin took out his wallet and set another fifty thousand ryō on the ground. "This is for medical expenses, and it's also a hush fee. Remember to keep it secret."
He knew that as a Genin, Duy struggled to make money. Under the current evaluation system, ninjutsu and genjutsu were essential criteria. Duy, talented only in taijutsu, could never be promoted to Chūnin. That way of thinking would only change later, after he turned the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist into the so called Three of Furious Life with a single kick.
"I can't take it. These are minor injuries, not worth worrying about." Duy refused the money.
"Don't worry. Since you don't want it known, I won't tell anyone."
"Take it. Take the money and don't make me threaten you again with the ninjutsu story."
Duy's face fell. Hadn't they agreed that if he won, it would end there? Seeing that Jin would not budge, he sighed and accepted it. He had never had such a hard time taking money in his life.
"Young Jin, why do you fight so desperately? What's your goal?" Duy could not understand why Jin fought with that intensity.
Jin watched white clouds drift across the clear blue sky and felt a comfort he had never known before. "I just want to live freely."
Unfortunately, in this shinobi world full of conflict, even that was impossible.
"That's really… a good dream." Duy lay down in the grass too. With a hundred thousand ryō in his pocket, he would not need to grind low level missions for a while.
"What a shame," Jin sighed. War was coming. Asking Duy to keep quiet and not spread the deduced ninjutsu was meant to prevent his true strength from being known, so he would not be assigned to dangerous missions. If he were from another clan or a civilian, it would be a matter of probability. But as an Uchiha, dangerous missions would be a certainty.
Suddenly, Duy spoke.
"Young Jin, do you want to learn my Hachimon Tonkō?"
"Huh?"