Chapter 240: First Meeting with the Yellow Flash x Agreement with Konoha's White Fang
Itachi rubbed a little toothpaste on his small hand, grabbed the edge of the bathroom door, and poked his head out to investigate...
Silence filled the living room today...
Mikoto patted Roy's back and scolded mildly, "What nonsense are you talking about."
Sitting across, Fugaku remained unsmiling, just silently looking at Roy. For a moment, his thoughts seemed to return to the clan meeting in the Uchiha clan's ancestral shrine, where the boy boldly claimed he "could help clan members awaken their eyes," a statement that struck him like a lightning bolt, leaving him in disbelief.
"Mikoto," Fugaku raised a hand to interrupt the woman. His sharp eyes fixed on Roy, and after a moment, he said, "I understand."
It was as if he had said everything, yet said nothing at all, deliberately avoiding the topic, and said, "Go on."
Roy checked the time. Seven forty-five, fifteen minutes before the eight o'clock assembly. He smiled and nodded at Fugaku, then turned to Mikoto and said, "Mother, I'm heading out first. I'd like katsudon for dinner..."
With that, he supported himself on the tatami and stood up. With another glance... a muddy shoal appeared beneath his feet. Under Mikoto's dumbfounded gaze and Fugaku's shocked, narrowed eyes... he slowly sank into the ground and reappeared...
Crossing the entire living room, he suddenly appeared at the bathroom door. "Buzz..." Invisible ripples spread as the shoal opened a gap in space, revealing the boy's thick black hair...
He emerged from the ground smiling, right next to Itachi. Itachi's precocious eyes, unlike a typical child's, shone brightly, brighter than ever before. He finally understood what had happened... Then his head felt warm as Roy grabbed it and gently rubbed it...
"Nii-san, what Ninjutsu is this?" The little boy looked up at his older brother. Strange, it seemed after a night's sleep, his brother had grown taller again... He could clearly reach his brother's chin before, but now... it seemed he had to stand on his tiptoes to barely reach his neck. This rate of height growth was truly enviable...
"Hmm..." Roy stroked his chin. For a moment, he was truly stumped by the question...
The origin of [Swamp Space] came from the Swamp Demon's innate "Blood Demon Art". It fused his understanding of "terrain" and his comprehension of "space"... You could call it a combination of [Earth Style] and [Space-Time]... Yet it could emerge from water, trees, flowers, grass, and any "tangible object"...
Calling it [Earth Style] was obviously inappropriate. "I'm not quite sure either..." After pondering for a long while, Roy smiled at Itachi and asked, "Itachi, what do you think it should be called?"
Itachi's eyes sparkled as he blurted out, "Can Nii-san emerge from the water?"
"Yes."
"What about trees?"
"Yes."
"And rocks?"
"Of course..." Roy felt the gazes from Fugaku and Mikoto behind him growing deeper and heavier. He said warmly, "As long as it's something with a form, it can."
Itachi pondered for a moment and said seriously, "[So Close Yet Worlds Apart]!"
"Nii-san always tells me the world is very big, but also very small. If you measure it with your feet, you might be able to walk it all..."
"I think there's no better name than this."
"So Close Yet Worlds Apart..." Mikoto murmured. "So Close Yet Worlds Apart..." Fugaku muttered in a deep voice...
Just as Itachi said, the world is big but also small; what is close at hand can be worlds apart. However...
That only applies to the extremely rare genius ninjas who have mastered "Space-Time Ninjutsu"...
If ordinary people, or even powerful Jonin from Konoha, Kumogakure, or Iwagakure really believed it, their lives would be over...
Fugaku coughed lightly twice: "Itachi, let your brother go wash up."
The man's tone brooked no argument.
Itachi obediently stepped aside. As a gentle breeze brushed past his shoulder, a leisurely voice drifted over... "So Close Yet Worlds Apart, a very good name."
The little boy watched Roy's retreating back as he entered the bathroom to pick up his toothbrush, and showed a rare smile...
Seven fifty in the morning, about ten minutes until reporting time.
Roy finished washing up and came out. Fugaku had already finished breakfast, changed into his Jonin flak jacket, tied his forehead protector, and stepped out early to go to work at the Police Force.
Mikoto cleared the dishes and took his place in seeing Roy out. At the entryway, she bent down, wiped the boy's shoes for him, and murmured, "You're grown up and have your own abilities now, Mom won't say anything more."
"I'll listen to you. When you come back tonight, I'll make you katsudon."
Roy smiled and said, "Alright." Finally, he waved to Itachi sitting by the tatami: "When your Brother Shisui comes, tell him that today is the same as yesterday, still two sets of 'Ten Thousand Swings'... I'll check on it this evening..."
Itachi's cheeks bulged, filled with sushi. He nodded silently... He felt that even before starting sword practice, his arms were faintly aching again...
"Alright, with your father and me keeping an eye on him, nothing will go wrong." Mikoto patted the boy and opened the door.
Roy smiled, said no more, turned, and walked out the door. The sun was rising steadily overhead. His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath of the fresh morning air. He walked towards the reporting location, a training ground in the Southern Border Forest, near the entrance of Konoha Village...
Tap... tap... Crossing the streets, moving away from the weaving crowds of pedestrians, escaping the commercial district filled with dazzling arrays of goods and commercial atmosphere, and entering the forest again. Feeling the moist air hitting his face, at a certain moment, Roy paused his steps. Beside a large tree leading deep into the Southern Border Forest, he saw swaying white hair...
The white hair was tied up with a forehead protector acting as a headband. In the very center was the "leaf" symbol representing Konoha, signifying... "The Will of Fire burns endlessly."
Roy locked eyes with Sakumo Hatake from a distance of ten meters. This Kage-level powerhouse, known as "Konoha's White Fang," lowered his crossed arms. His gaze rested on Roy, filled with complexity and regret, emotions intertwined and abundant, like a knocked-over five-flavor condiment rack. He sighed softly and said, "I know the higher-ups won't agree to me being your Jonin sensei, but I always held onto a glimmer of hope. Facts proved I was overthinking it..."
Konoha's White Fang could be Kakashi's father, the idol of civilian ninjas, a powerhouse who suppressed the Sannin, and even the pillar of Konoha. He just couldn't be... an Uchiha's White Fang. Not even the slightest connection with the Uchiha was allowed!
Roy hated intrigue and dirty power struggles. But just like "light" and "shadow", "spear" and "shield", they are opposed yet unified; one cannot exist without the other... The boy's black hair swayed in the wind. He bowed slightly to Sakumo Hatake and said, "Actually, purely in terms of 'Swordsmanship', Uncle White Fang is already my teacher in my heart."
Roy bowed deeply, then straightened his back and looked at him frankly: "A teacher teaches me, and I learn from a teacher. It doesn't necessarily have to take that formal shape. What does Uncle White Fang think?"
Sakumo Hatake was stunned, then smiled... a very happy smile...
He shook his head and laughed self-deprecatingly: "I don't deserve you calling me a teacher. After all,"
Konoha's White Fang looked deeply at Roy: "What you've given me is far, far more than what I've given you..."
[Thunder Breathing] is a [Skill], a [Jutsu], and even more so a [Path]. Different people have different understandings.
These understandings often show world-apart differences due to differences in "human talent", "cognition", and "heart"... Just like Kaigaku and Zenitsu Agatsuma, both taught by Jigoro Kuwajima... In understanding the path of [Thunder], even though the latter only mastered the "First Form," he was incomparable to Kaigaku, the half-baked disciple who indirectly "killed his master"...
And Sakumo Hatake was originally adept at [Lightning Style], and his talent for "swordsmanship" was extremely high. Otherwise, he wouldn't have terrified the ninja world with a single short sword, to the point where... a plot death was necessary to make way for Kakashi. This speaks volumes!
"Uncle White Fang jests. It's just my meager understanding..."
"Meager?" Facing Roy's modesty, Sakumo Hatake looked at the boy with burning eyes and nodded in deep agreement. Otherwise, in Sakumo Hatake's eyes, this [Thunder Breathing] was completely not inferior to the famous [Kekkei Genkai] clans of Konoha, such as the Hyuga, Ino-Shika-Cho, and Inuzuka...
Sakumo Hatake caught a falling leaf in his palm. Lightning flashed, annihilating it into ash. He suppressed the fluctuations in his emotions and stepped aside to clear the tree-lined path leading to the training ground for Roy: "Go, Minato and the others are waiting for you."
Roy looked up at the sun climbing high into the sky, and suddenly cast a glance towards the Hokage Building...
Konoha, like a rice cooker flipped upside down around the Hokage Building at its very center.
On the third floor, in the Hokage's office, a certain old man with a pipe in his mouth, his hands forming an inverted V shape, continuously transmitting Chakra to the crystal ball in front of him, took a puff of his pipe and said silently, "This old man is just looking... not going over..."
Roy's gaze was cold. He withdrew his sight, this time not using [En] to shield Hiruzen Sarutobi's [Telescope Technique]...
The reason was simple. Roy knew that no matter what he did in the training ground next, our Third Hokage, who loves peeping when he has nothing to do, would eventually find out. After all... who told his Jonin sensei, Minato Namikaze, to be one of the Sannin, Jiraiya's disciple, and Hiruzen's grand-disciple?
Showing neither joy nor sorrow, the boy moved his feet, simply treating Hiruzen's gaze as air and stepping on it... He brushed past Sakumo Hatake's shoulder and walked unhurriedly deep into the Southern Border Forest. "Roy,"
"Protect yourself."
At this moment, a leisurely voice chased the boy's back and reached his ears.
Sakumo Hatake leaned against a large tree, watched the boy leave, and said warmly, "I look forward to our next sword discussion, so,"
"Please make sure you stay alive!"
Roy paused his steps. His heart fluttered as if gently poked by the wind. His first thought was of Sakumo Hatake's ending... abandoning a mission to save his comrades, resulting in the village spurning him. What was even more chilling was... the comrades he saved, for the sake of "political correctness", stabbed him in the back instead, pointing fingers at him along with those spurning villagers, which ultimately led to his suicide... It was truly lamentable...
Of course, there might also be an element of "merits overshadowing the master"... the Konoha higher-ups deliberately turning a blind eye or even pushing things behind the scenes for the sake of the Hokage succession...
Roy took a deep breath and sneered, "How truly filthy,"
He turned his head abruptly and smiled brightly at Sakumo Hatake: "Then it's a deal, Uncle White Fang."
"If I come back from the battlefield and don't see you, I won't forgive Kakashi..."
Sakumo Hatake was stunned, lowered his eyes, and laughed warmly: "What does this have to do with Kakashi?"
Roy lifted his head and said righteously, "The son inherits the father's faults. If I can't see you, wouldn't I only be able to settle the score with Kakashi?"
When did they get so close? In the Hokage Building, Hiruzen Sarutobi stared blankly at this scene. One with white hair, one with black hair. One Hatake, one Uchiha. One at the peak of his prime, his strength suppressing his own three disciples; one with extraordinary talent, frequently doing astonishing things... These should have been two people who had absolutely no intersection, walking towards different lives along two parallel lines...
Hiruzen frowned and took another puff of his pipe. The swirling smoke cast a dim layer of "ash" on the Hokage hat placed at the corner of his desk...
At the edge of the Southern Border Forest, Sakumo Hatake was left speechless by the boy's quick words, a seemingly "fallacious" argument that, upon closer thought, was actually quite logical...
Shaking his head and chuckling, he simply stopped responding. He just nodded solemnly to the boy and said, "Alright."
Then, his gaze shifted, watching the boy leave contentedly until he completely disappeared deep into the Southern Border Forest... Only then did he stand silently in place for a while longer, his figure flashing and vanishing...
The Southern Border Forest was serene at this moment...
Occasionally, a few bird calls drifted out faintly...
In the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi puffed clouds of smoke, his face obscured and unclear. The camera silently followed Sakumo Hatake for a moment. The old man took down his pipe with a clack, smacked it on the desk, and increased his Chakra output. The camera then turned back to Roy. The boy, after bidding farewell to Sakumo Hatake, strolled leisurely all the way, shuttling between the woods and flowers. He didn't look like he was going to report, but rather like he was playing. It seemed he felt... since he was already late, being a few minutes later didn't matter. He might as well just slack off and proceed, leaving people wondering whether to call him broad-minded or lazy. In short... he arrived where he needed to be...
"You're late." In the Southern Border Forest, at the training ground. One adult and three children stood in a spacious clearing, surrounded by a ring of human-shaped wooden stakes. They stared with four pairs of eyes... looking over with curiosity, inquiry, complexity, or hidden amusement...
Roy stopped his steps, hands in his pockets, and looked at Minato Namikaze, who had stepped out from the group. The man's beautiful blonde hair stood up like a hedgehog's. In an instant, his figure overlapped with Naruto's... Alike, too alike. Aside from the nose, eyes, ears, mouth, and the fox whiskers on the cheeks being completely different... Minato Namikaze was practically a larger version of Naruto Uzumaki...
"It's Uncle White Fang's fault,"
"Without him delaying me, I should have arrived on time." Roy shrugged.
A certain white-haired man who had just left the Southern Border Forest stumbled and suddenly sneezed. Along with him... a certain old man in the Hokage Building twitched the corner of his mouth imperceptibly, shaking his head and laughing...
"Slippery," that was Hiruzen Sarutobi's evaluation of Roy, and equally, Minato Namikaze's first impression of Roy. This future Fourth Hokage smiled and said, "I don't ask for reasons, I only look at results. You're late... so you must be punished."
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