It was the dead of night. The sky was starless and moonless, leaving the narrow Konoha street draped in absolute blackness. Only the warm, inviting light spilling from the Ichiraku Ramen shop and the weak, yellow glow of a single street lamp broke the oppressive darkness.
Into this eerie environment stepped seven silent, masked figures, creating an atmosphere so thick it felt physically suffocating.
Sasuke was gripped by shock. "Anbu?" he whispered the designation. Every aspiring ninja learned of the Anbu Black Ops, the Hokage's personal force of assassins and tactical specialists—shadowy figures with no name, only a mask and a code. Crucially, the man Sasuke hated, the man who had destroyed his life, had been one of them.
Why are the Anbu here?
Sasuke looked instantly to Shen Mo. The mysterious merchant was clearly the reason. If this man—this path to power—was taken away, then...
"What seems to be the trouble, guests?" Shen Mo asked, his smile unwavering. Himari, still nestled on his shoulder, stretched her neck and let out a soft, questioning "Mew," her tiny, sharp teeth visible but utterly lacking menace.
"You will come with us." The leading Anbu ninja, whose mask bore not an animal face but an intricate, swirling geometric pattern—a detail that marked him as being from the shadow organization known as Root—took a small step forward. His voice was deliberately rough and disguised, betraying no emotion.
Sasuke's expression hardened. They were here for the businessman. No!
"Why?" Shen Mo asked, his demeanor unchanged.
"There is no reason," the Root ninja replied, taking another step.
Shen Mo noted the mask design. Root. Interesting. The merchant had, in fact, been aware of the pursuit since leaving Tsunade's hotel, thanks to a simple, cheap System mapping function. Tsunade's earlier invitation was essentially an offer of sanctuary, which Shen Mo had declined. The situation was now exactly where he needed it to be.
"I am merely a merchant," Shen Mo said, slowly standing up, his voice retaining its gentle quality. "In my book, people are divided into two categories: guests and bad guests. Which category do you fall into?"
"Enough chatter!" the Root leader barked, losing his slim reserve of patience.
In the blink of an eye, the ninja vanished.
Sasuke's sharingan-less eyes struggled to track the movement. Gone! He spun around, his body rigid with mounting horror. The Root agent had instantly materialized directly behind Shen Mo.
So fast! Sasuke clenched his fists. He couldn't follow the movement at all. Was this the true speed of an elite Anbu ninja? The power he craved felt impossibly distant.
Suddenly, a sound like hardened steel hitting granite crashed through the night air.
The ninja's specialized hand-blade, intended to strike a killing blow, had connected sharply against a thin barrier of light, shimmering gold. The barrier was translucent, holding its shape perfectly against the force of the strike.
"What is this?" a low voice from another Root agent hissed, startled by the unexpected resistance.
It was the Vajra Talisman, an entry-level defensive enchantment from the world of immortal heroes.
This momentary setback was all the signal the Root agents required. Capture was compromised; elimination was the next step. The remaining Anbu instantly converged on Shen Mo, weapons drawn, their bodies poised in a deadly, fluid circle.
No one spared a glance for Sasuke. Not a flicker of acknowledgment.
Sasuke's body began to tremble, and he clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned white. The memory of that dreadful, ignored day returned—the feeling of being so insignificant that even his life wasn't worth taking.
Power!
The desire surged in Sasuke's eyes, a desperate, pure yearning. Shen Mo glanced at the boy, the smile on his face deepening with satisfaction. The sale was already being finalized in the Uchiha's mind.
The Root leader quickly retreated, his voice hardening into a lifeless snarl. "There is no record of you in the village census. You infiltrated Konoha. If you resist... you will be classified as a foreign spy and immediately eliminated!"
The leader's intent had shifted entirely, superseding the original Hokage-sanctioned orders to bring Shen Mo in for questioning.
Shen Mo sighed softly, as if genuinely inconvenienced. "Why are there such foolish and wicked guests in every world?" he lamented, his voice barely audible. "You can only gain something if you pay the price. This is the truth of the universe. To attempt to change fate without spending any currency... such evil guests truly..."
"Attack—!"
Without waiting for Shen Mo to finish his philosophical musing, the ninjas launched their coordinated assault.
The Root Captain, a master of elemental manipulation, inhaled sharply. Chakra surged through his body, and his hands moved through the sealing sequences with blinding speed.
Earth Release: Binding Coffin!
Countless grains of earth and sand erupted from the ground and snaked toward Shen Mo. Though it was a technique more commonly associated with Sunagakure, the Root ninja executed it with frightening speed and precision. Simultaneously, other agents attacked: shuriken and kunai flew from the shadows, a blade of Wind Release screamed through the air, and long swords aimed for the narrow gaps in the golden barrier's presumed coverage.
The attack was tactically flawless, blocking every possible escape route. The pressure alone was enough to crush the spirit of a lower-tier ninja. Even Sasuke felt the suffocating finality of the combined assault.
Shen Mo made no move to evade. He did not flinch, he did not run. He allowed the swirling earth to completely envelop him, forming a tight, packed mound of dirt. If he were compressed within that Earth Release jutsu, he would be instantly crushed or suffocated.
Despair flickered in Sasuke's eyes. It's over. The only chance to get stronger, crushed before it even began.
At that moment, a low, resonant voice cut through the sound of shifting earth, vibrating not through the air, but directly in the core of everyone who heard it.
"Such... ignorance!"
In an instant, the packed sand and soil surrounding Shen Mo did not explode, but shattered—pulverized into fine dust by sheer, unquantifiable pressure.
Shen Mo stood amidst the falling debris, still protected by the unblemished light of the Vajra Talisman.
Then, he took one slow, deliberate step forward.
And with that step, the pressure of the environment became absolute.
A roar, like the first thunderclap of creation, erupted. It was not an acoustic phenomenon; it was a pure, psychological detonation that slammed directly into the minds of the Root agents. Their thoughts instantly fractured, their sophisticated combat programming dissolving into primal panic.
The cause was the simple, terrifying, unholy spectacle that had replaced the businessman.
Shen Mo's eyes, moments ago a friendly brown, now burned with the terrifying brilliance of cosmic gold. It was the Dragon Power—a simple, passive physical ability from a high-fantasy world, yet one that projected the sheer, crushing hierarchy of a prehistoric apex predator.
The Anbu ninjas—trained to resist Genjutsu, fear, and pain—buckled as one. Their highly conditioned muscles gave way. They could not stand. They could not look up. Every cell in their body seemed to scream in recognition that the creature standing before them was not human, but an entity of immense, overwhelming power—a primordial force that commanded instant, total submission.
The gold of the eyes was not just a color; it was an infinite, blinding splendor that looked at the world with contemptuous pity.
Sasuke, despite his raw ambition, was instantly flattened, his cheek pressed into the cold, dusty ground. His body shook uncontrollably. This was not the fear of a Genjutsu, but the instinct of a lower life form confronted by a dragon.
He felt the cold, hard reality: he was powerless, and there was no known technique to resist the very essence of this being. He lay there, trembling, his mind screaming in terror, yet a small, fractured part of his consciousness was completely mesmerized, fixating on the golden light.
I need that power. I need it more than anything. The fear did not conquer the desire; it amplified it into a single, agonizing truth.