Sensing Minato's ruthless intent to "destroy the roots," Jiraiya instinctively wanted to pull back.
But if he pulled back now, the shuriken Minato threw would hit him right in the face.
This brat is too dirty!
Jiraiya cursed internally. He threw himself to the side, taking a kick to the thigh from Minato as the price for dodging the counterattack.
"Pfft... hahahaha!!"
Not far away, Tsunade burst out laughing when she saw this.
Orochimaru's mouth twitched. Next to him, Nawaki's face contorted. "Big Brother Jiraiya... that was lame..."
"Shut up! The Great Jiraiya was just being careless!"
Jiraiya blushed. As he spoke, he launched a sweep kick to force Minato back, using his adult size advantage to fight with Strong Fist style.
Tsunade huffed. "Shameless! Using your size advantage against a kid!"
"I'm already holding back a lot!"
Jiraiya grimaced. Honestly, with his Taijutsu level, beating Minato would be effortless.
The hard part was matching the kid's speed and strength and beating him without hurting him.
Otherwise, given Minato's dirty move just now, if this were a real enemy, Jiraiya would have already planted a heavy kick into his stomach before he even threw the shuriken.
After blocking several of Minato's attacks in a row, Jiraiya felt he had figured out Minato's fighting style. He grinned.
"Is that all? If this is the best you've got, then it's about time to end this!"
As he said that, Minato silently raised his leg. Jiraiya habitually crossed his arms to block.
But just as Minato's shin lashed out, it suddenly burst into blinding light!
Bad news!
Jiraiya sensed danger immediately. A massive force slammed into his arms. The next second, he was blasted backward like a cannonball!
What power!
No... it's speed...
Jiraiya was shocked. He adjusted his posture in mid-air, landed on his feet, skidded backward over twenty meters, and finally came to a stop.
"I knew it. A Bloodline Limit..."
Orochimaru watched Minato, deep in thought. "A Bloodline Limit I've never seen before."
Next to him, Tsunade's gaze turned serious. She hadn't taken the "Light Style" too seriously before, but she just realized something: Minato's kick had zero chakra fluctuations!
Simply put, chakra is energy refined from stamina (Physical Energy + Spiritual Energy).
The relationship is: Chakra = Stamina, but Stamina ≠ Chakra.
Except for pure Taijutsu, everything—Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, Bloodline Limits—requires chakra to activate. Even ordinary people who awaken Bloodline Limits unconsciously will instinctively convert stamina into chakra.
But Minato's kick didn't go through the chakra conversion step. It was powered directly by stamina! There was zero energy loss from poor chakra control!
Is this really a Bloodline Limit?
Or some other special ability?
"Phew... that was close!"
Jiraiya wiped his forehead with exaggerated relief. "I didn't expect you to have a trick like that up your sleeve. You really scared me!"
Minato rubbed his leg and didn't rush forward.
That kick used the Glint-Glint Fruit's power to unleash the fastest kick his body could currently handle.
But since it was his first time using it in combat, he didn't control the speed well. It put a heavy load on his shin.
"Oh my, looks like that move puts quite a burden on your body."
Noticing Minato's reaction, Jiraiya gave a sleazy grin and slowly started making hand signs. "In that case, I'm going to start using Ninjutsu now~"
Before he could finish the signs, Minato suddenly raised his hand and pointed his index finger. A blinding light gathered at his fingertip.
Again?
Jiraiya's face darkened. He abandoned the signs and dodged to the side.
Sure enough, the moment he dodged, a beam of blinding light flashed past.
BOOM!
Jiraiya looked back. Behind him, a massive explosion of fire erupted. Dozens of thick trees were instantly carbonized, leaving a scorched crater in the ground.
"Hey, hey! What was that?!"
Jiraiya's eyes bugged out. Tsunade and Nawaki were jaw-dropped. Even Orochimaru's pupils trembled in disbelief.
"That kind of power... was instant?"
Tsunade's lips parted, her voice dry. Nawaki's mouth was wide open, staring blankly.
A-rank Jutsu power. No hand signs. Attack speed too fast to track...
Orochimaru's gaze was intense. He shook his head slightly. "No, there was a charge-up time... but maybe that's just because he's not used to the ability yet."
"Phew..."
Minato exhaled softly. That laser beam took a lot of stamina.
With his current stamina, he could fire maybe seven or eight shots max.
Even with the "Creation of All Things" buff giving him super recovery, his stamina cap at this age was the limit.
Seeing Jiraiya's dumbfounded face, Minato quickly apologized. "Sorry, Senior Jiraiya! I didn't expect it to be that strong. It's my first time using this ability..."
Honestly, he didn't expect firing a laser to be that easy. It felt like instinct.
No difficult training required. Just gather energy, shoot, and boom—massive damage!
Before this, Minato had focused his training on Ninjutsu. For the Glint-Glint Fruit, he had mostly tested its utility functions.
Like Kizaru's "Yata Mirror."
The principle was projecting a beam of light that could refract off surfaces at any angle to create a path of light. Then, the user turns into light and travels along that path.
It sounded redundant since the fruit already allowed light-speed movement.
And practically... it didn't help Minato much. It just turned "move at light speed" into "move at light speed but you can turn corners."
As for combat skills... it wasn't that Minato didn't want to develop them. First, the fruit was too flashy. Second, he didn't really know how to develop it further.
The Glint-Glint Fruit was just too strong out of the box!
Taijutsu got a super speed buff. It could make light swords. For crowd control, it had clones (Yasakani no Magatama) that were fully automated and could reassemble if hit.
For ranged attacks, it had high-penetration lasers that came with a free explosion. For AoE, it had "Sacred Jewel" (Yasakani no Magatama) to carpet bomb the area.
No fancy mechanics. Just pure, raw stats.
"This ability is a bit dangerous for sparring. Maybe we should stop here for now..."
Minato scratched his head awkwardly.
The laser was too fast. Hitting an arm or leg was one thing, but if he hit the heart? Or if the explosion caught them? Even a medical ninja couldn't fix "vaporized."
"No! Don't hold back!"
Two figures flashed by. Tsunade and Orochimaru appeared on either side of Jiraiya.
Tsunade crossed her arms, looking at Minato with burning excitement. "Orochimaru and I will provide support. You just go all out!"
This fight wasn't fair to Jiraiya. Since the goal was to test Minato, Jiraiya had been passively taking hits.
Originally, the three of them thought that no matter how genius Minato was, he was still just a Genin-level kid.
And his earlier performance confirmed that. Good Taijutsu, smart tactics, clever shuriken use—impressive, but within acceptable "genius" limits.
But when that laser exploded, they realized something terrifying: Minato already had the power to kill them.
And since Minato couldn't control it perfectly yet, letting Jiraiya face him alone was irresponsible.
Looking at the innocent-looking blond kid, Orochimaru's gaze was complicated.
So this is a Bloodline Limit...
A powerful Jutsu that even a genius would need years of hard training to master... unleashed by a five-year-old with a casual point of a finger...
While Orochimaru silently lamented the unfairness of the world ("the gap between worlds"), Nawaki was still standing there, completely frozen.
What just blew up?
That was Minato's move?
I... I actually fought a guy like that?