Perhaps it was because of the power known as "chakra" in this world. Luffy always felt as if his stamina and energy were much more abundant in this world... Although he himself was initially the type with excess energy...
Perhaps it was because of this fresh environment, the adventure in a brand new world, that Luffy was too excited to suppress it, and his entire being became somewhat impulsive...
"Gomu Gomu... Monkey King Gun!" Luffy's Armament Haki enveloped his gigantic right fist as it smashed towards Danzō. Even though Danzō had unleashed the Wood Release ninjutsu, which boasted extremely strong defensive capabilities, the wooden wall was still shattered and sent flying by Luffy's iron fist, with withered branches and leaves scattering everywhere!
Danzō had originally thought that the Wood Release ninjutsu he unleashed would surely subdue this outsider. But he never imagined that Luffy's strength would be so immense... and his techniques so bizarre and unimaginable! He had originally thought he was just a guy who could stretch and shrink his body, possessing a strangely secretive number of family members.
But now, it seemed, that was not the case at all! This secret ninjutsu that could freely mold one's body into spheres, flatten it, or change its shape, or even a Kekkei Genkai... He, Danzō, who had controlled Konoha's Anbu and served as the leader of Root for so many years,
had never seen anything like it before! The ninja world had no record of such an ability. Perhaps this "outsider's" identity was a huge secret... He wondered what he had told Hiruzen before.
"Found you!" Amidst a series of teeth-gritting, leg-weakening sounds. Luffy's enlarged arm, enveloped in Armament Haki, actually forcibly tore open the Wood Release defense barrier unleashed by Danzō!
A large area of dense, thick trees, in front of Luffy's gigantic arm, looked like slightly overgrown weeds. They were torn apart and split to both sides, revealing Danzō hiding in the middle!
"This old man was waiting for you!" And when Luffy found Danzō, the leader of Root, the de facto leader of the Anbu, his right hand, wrapped in bandages, was placed by his equally bandaged right eye. He seemed to be planning to uncover the bandages covering his eye. Could it be that his eye had something unusual about it...? Or, perhaps, it was even one of his assassination techniques?!
"Alright! Enough! Stop here!" At this crucial moment, someone else stepped forward in time and pressed the pause button, preventing this intense battle from continuing... One can imagine, if such a battle continued for even a few more minutes, the resources and money Konoha would need for post-war repairs would increase by thirty to fifty percent!
Shimura Danzō heard this voice and even somewhat unwillingly lowered his arm, which had already touched the bandages. At the same time, he muttered to himself, seemingly quite displeased. And Luffy clearly winked, a smile spreading across his face, just waiting for this strange old man in front of him to unleash some new, peculiar trick.
Unexpectedly, he was interrupted at such a critical moment! So, with a speechless expression, he pulled at the corner of his mouth and looked in the direction of the person speaking. The newcomer was not a stranger; it was the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had been observing from a high vantage point!
"You've finally arrived... Hokage." In a formal setting, one must address by title. Even if Hiruzen Sarutobi and Shimura Danzō were classmates and comrades for decades, this was no exception.
"You've finally arrived." Shimura Danzō took two steps forward, acting as if he were the victim. "Look! What exactly is going on here?!"
"We clearly welcomed this outsider, and look, look... look what he did to the village!" At the very beginning, it was Danzō, this guy, who actively sought out an Ichiraku Ramen shop, came to pick a fight, and even disregarded the ordinary people around the owner of Ichiraku Ramen and directly struck without hesitation!
But now, in front of the Hokage, he acted as if he were being provoked by someone else, a great hero and brave man who had to step in to protect the village.
"Alright, alright, alright..." The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was an even skinnier old man. He looked particularly inconspicuous in the Hokage's office. But on this Konoha main road, which had been almost "leveled to the ground." Especially standing next to the taller, stronger Shimura Danzō, he appeared far too small.
Hiruzen Sarutobi naturally understood his old comrade. He knew what kind of character this guy was. He even knew a little about the things Danzō had been doing in secret with the Anbu and Root... After all, the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, had founded the Anbu precisely to strengthen the Hokage's power.
Even though Danzō had been secretly plotting for many years, in the Anbu, there were still Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes and ears. For example, Kakashi... In fact, even those Anbu ninja who claimed to have finally emerged from Danzō's Root organization might not truly be disloyal to the Hokage...
"Your identity is special, after all, it's not appropriate to reveal yourself in public. You should leave here quickly." The Old Hokage dismissed Danzō in just a few sentences. Although Danzō was inwardly unconvinced, he still obediently complied. After all, the position of Hokage in the village was, ultimately, supreme.
It wasn't that Danzō respected this scrawny monkey, Hiruzen Sarutobi. In reality, Danzō valued the position of Hokage the position that once belonged to his own teacher, the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, and almost fell into his own hands.
"I didn't expect such a thing to happen... This old man's negligence... I'm sorry! I apologize!" Hiruzen Sarutobi did not, as Danzō might have demanded, simply push all the blame onto Luffy. He could even roughly guess how the incident began, combining the intelligence reports from his Anbu subordinates.
Luffy was completely passive at the start, but later, this young outsider actually started getting into it. To be honest, among the surrounding buildings, only a small portion was truly destroyed by Danzō's hands. The vast majority were ravaged by Luffy's massive, Armament Haki-clad iron fists, which wreaked havoc!
"Because we failed to inform Mr. Luffy of your identity in time, such a misunderstanding occurred..."
The esteemed Third Hokage of Konoha, Hiruzen Sarutobi, actually came personally to apologize. Luffy did not know what the Hokage represented in this world, thinking this old man was merely a powerful village chief or something of the sort. However, since the other party apologized, he naturally couldn't keep pressing the issue Luffy himself wasn't that kind of person.
"No problem, Old Man!" Luffy grinned.
"That guy earlier actually taught me a lot about your 'ninjutsu'!"
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