Author Notes:

It's been a long time since my last update on this one. Sorry for abandoning whoever call my honest fans, but I had a massive author's block on this story for a while. I hope this year I can update it more than once, but I can't tell you for certain, unfortunately. I had a few personal problems this past year, but at least this time around I can face them with some degree of dignity.

Either way, for those that saw the story on the first hour or so of my posting, I usually make minor changes of the story before it fully settle down. It is 100% certain that next day the story will be stablished and nothing will change on it.

Special thanks to Tellecius Sundance, the author of Legacy of Rasengan Series (please continue part III!), for doing the beta of my story. If it weren't for him it would be 135% worse.

I plan to take this as an AU of both source materials, considering it already passed an year since I last updated. You will enjoy more if you only watched the anime of Kenichi and the Pre 4th Shinobi War on Naruto, though I plan to include a few things from later of the series.

It wasn't a good day to be Nanjo Kisara.

The first thing that greeted Kisara once awake was the splitting headache she had. Though not quite, it came pretty close to a previous one that made her swear off drinking until twenty-one. 'Though, if it's this bad before drinking, I'm willing to rethink it again.'

Next came what will become her ever-present nemesis from now on: a dull, ever-present feeling of painand, as cliche as it sounds, even in places she didn't knew could hurt that much.

Only after rolling inside her futon a bit, her mind drifted to immediate concerns like the fact she wasn't in her own room. After that startling realization, more and more events came back to her. The start of the day with Freya, the gruesome 'warm up' and physical tests even before breakfast that became worse until lunch. Afterwards she remembered the strange, sometimes nonsensical but mostly frustrating tests, until that.

'I can't believe I did that', she thought ashamed. She was honest to admit being a naturally emotional person, though not enough to let it rule her. But even she had to admit yesterday was way out of proportion! She thanked the fact her master didn't outright mention anything to her afterwards, else she couldn't face him afterwards, and she hoped he would never mention it again.

'Yet I owe him at least an apology,'she winced at the thought. It wasn't everyday Kisara admitted she was wrong to anyone, but she did promise him to take any training and lifestyle her master might impose on her. However not even one day has passed and she already threw a fit! Now that the thought crossed her mind, she did act a bit strange...

"Kisara, how long do you plan to sleep?"

Her silent musings interrupted, Kisara managed to drag herself out of bed, silently cursing her master for deciding to start the day even earlier than yesterday. After changing into her training clothes and combing her hair, she followed Rikudō back to the kitchen in order to get some breakfast for herself, but was greeted with only a single cup of tea.

"Green tea before breakfast?" She managed to ask between her yawns and sips of the slightly bitter tea, sounding more coherent than before.

"Just your medicine for today. It also acts as a stimulant to help you wake up." He answered her while drinking his own, apparently only real, green tea.

She almost choked on her almost finished drink, swallowing the rest reflexively, and instantly sobering up.

"My WHAT?!" she yelled at him while slamming her hands at the table. "What do you mean my medicine, and for 'today' no less? Have you been drugging me?"

"Don't say it like that," says her master with a light chiding tone, as if reminding a kid to not take a cookie from the jar before dinner. "You make it sound like I hadn't warned you."

"WHEN?"

"Kisara," her master tries to catch her attention again, "I want you to undergo a treatment starting with this tea for the next..." Unfortunately she simply drank the beverage in between the bites of her meal before he could finish, not really paying attention to him.

"You know what, I'm going to tell you later." His answer was a simple nod and a 'hummhm' from her.

"Now that you mention it, you kindof told me something like that during dinner too," she said, pausing on her rant for a moment, trying to remember what she ate yesterday. It was yet another healthy meal with varied meats, vegetables, grains and even fruits for dessert, with some tea she assumed was simply green tea, but it had a different taste than normal. Tired as she was, Kisara didn't bothered to ask the brand.

"Besides, this one isn't really strong or does anything drastic. It only prepares your body to take the necessary medication later and is no different from natural medicine. Would you be as suspicious if I told you it is some form of secret Chinese medicine with over two thousand years of tradition?"

"Yes," she told him without missing a beat, glaring at her master.

"In any case," he continued as if he hasn't heard her. "You only need to take it for about a week. Afterwards, if you want to stop, there won't be any problems to your body." He paused for a moment before sighing, answering before she could continue herself.

"But I guess I should have insisted more about telling you earlier. Even if I know it will help you in the long run, that don't mean you should accept it blindly. And I don't plan to simply force it on you. For that, I'm sorry."

Kisara's gaze softened slightly after hearing that, glad to know her master wasn't above apologizing when he screws up. Though, there were still some questions to be answered.

"Alright then," her voice was less confrontational. "But what this medicine is for?"

"Well, the treatment is meant to enable you to regain your body full potential," he raised his hand to forestall her protests. "Most of the necessary work is done during your formative years, starting at six years old on the earliest and nine at the oldest, involving rigorous physical and mental training. Now, I could train you to try to reach your potential, and you couldreach it in a decade or so of that type of training. Unfortunately that would leave you stuck with an unreasonable amount of time as you try to pass this initial wall to reach your true potential. In order to break those walls before you're fifty, you need something more drastic and permanent."

"I'm not sure I want to use drugsto reach my full potential," she said the word with venom and disgust, equating their use as the same as using weapons.

"Well, it's not something as simple as using steroids to improve your performance. In fact, this type of treatment causes you to feel weaker than before until the end of the final dosage." That gave pause to Kisara's thoughts. "The patient experiences some uncomfortable side effects, ranging from nausea, dizziness, mood swings and lethargy, to say the least. That doesn't count the fact that continuing the treatment past a certain point is actively harmful to the body, with loss of muscle mass, liver and eventual other organ failures, and even strokes are not uncommon for those relying on the medication too much."

Now she was really getting curious, with a good dose of apprehension. On one hand this kind of treatment isn't something as simple as steroid use to enhance someone short term, which were closer to hormonal treatments actually. But on the other hand, she wasn't sure the man in front of her was qualified to apply it.

"What the treatment actually doesis give your body the same potential of growth you had as a kid. It's normally used as a rehabilitation tool for adult shinobi who were a step below from forcibly retiring." Her master concluded, sitting a bit straighter and looking rather proud of himself for some reason.

"Are you even qualifiedto apply this treatment on anyone?" she asked, still suspicious of this procedure.

Her response was a grin from her master. "The beauty of this is that even youare qualified to apply it. The creation of the medicine is rather easy, and I have all materials with me. It's just: drink a few drinks and eat a few pills for some time and you get it. It's just recommended that someone else other than the patient administer the treatment, just to make sure because of the dangers of overdoing the medication. But aside from that, all you need is to diligently go through the proper steps."

"That sounds awfully convenient," the apprentice replied, skeptical of what she just heard. 'As if medicine works that way.'

The master just shrugged. "It is a secret set of medicines. There are people who would gladly give of an arm and a leg in order to get their hands on this treatment recipe." Kisara wasn't sure about the last part, and had this feeling he was still hiding something about it from her. But in this case, on the veracity of how valuable this medicine was…
"It isn't all that bad, you might even get a second growth spurt, growing a few centimeters," he paused for a moment looking at Kisara. "And other stuff."

"What other stuff?" she replied in confusion before her master stood up with a grin.

"Now that would be telling," he said with a wink, before his voice became serious again. "Let's go training, we have a lot of ground to cover and the day has already started."

He led a grumbling apprentice in tow outside. She was at the same time apprehensive and somewhat hopeful of this treatment. On one hand, the side effects alone would be a pain to endure. The fact that mood swings were expected meant that her behavior last night was, in her head, totally justified and thus she could postpone apologizing until later. On the other hand, if she could get a few centimeters taller, it would be enough of an investment for her, but she couldn't stop herself from being curious at this 'other stuff' he mentioned.

Kisara was panting from the training, which proved to be far more difficult than she first thought, both physically and mentally.

"Survival training?" she repeated in disbelief, but quickly enough she remembered the words of her master where he would teach her a lifestyle instead of martial arts.

"And more physical and mental training. I just thought that we could multitask a bit," replied the Sage while leading her through the compound towards the training grounds, until they finally entered a caged area full of metallic plaques with strange inscriptions on them. The area was a huge section of the forest walled up, though it didn't looked any different than the other areas they passed before.

"Welcome to the Forest of Death," said Rikudō while unlocking the gate. "Currently, there is too much 'forest' and not enough 'death.' But soon enough I will correct that little problem."

"Heh, good one," Kisara snickered at the good humor of her master, but somehow the grin she got as a response wasn't reassuring.

"Again", barked her master, and she started to climb the tree once more with the equipment on her back weighting ten kilograms total. She had been doing that for a while now, after a pitiful performance on her survival training. She almost didn't manage to make a fire even with a lighter, the task being harder than it looks. Lucky for her the Sage was more than willing on letting her use a wide variety of alternative equipment and teaching her how to use them.

The physical training was also as gruesome as she remembered from yesterday, possibly even harsher since she had so little for breakfast. With the hunger as motivator however, she picked up quickly the necessary knowledge to forage some fresh and safe food, which the forest proved to be rather bountiful. Yet again her hunger was used as a tool to improve her training, by meditating after being exhausted and hungry. The girl had a hard time doing her best to focus while under such adversities.

"Enough! Good work, Kisara," he said while his student slumps on the ground, dead tired from the workout. "Let's go get some lunch first before we continue our training."

"Finally!" she said while trying to stand up and retain what little dignity she had.

It was then that Kisara felt a shiver run down her spine, and she took a glance at her back but saw nothing but shadows casts from the trees. She couldn't shake off the feeling of dread, but dismissed it as nothing important. Certainly, her master was merely joking when he introduced the area as the 'Forest of Death'…right?

Unknown to her, the two of them were not alone, with a pair of eyes full of rage and hatred trailing behind them.

She started with a snap kick with the intention to follow up with a spinning side kick. Her opponent would have none of it and pulled her foot with enough force that she lost her balance and overextend herself, being hit in the face for her troubles.

Trying to ignore the pain, she quickly pulled herself back to her stance. Her master hadn't followed up on his attack, giving her the chance to gather her bearings. But as soon she regained her balance, he closed his distance with her in an incredible show of speed. At practically on grappling distance with her, he started to punch her torso with small, compact attacks, denying the advantage of range that a kick normally have. Not only that, but every moment she tried to get some distance he retaliated with a low kick that stopped her tracks, being strong enough for her to feel it but not enough to make her limp with a single attack.

In this case, the weakness of Taekwondo showed. Their over-reliance on mid to high kicks which, while fast in itself as a martial art, had a limited range to be fully effective. And so long as you are inside that range, the Taekwondo martial artist options were more limited. To add insult to the injury, as a rule of thumb they aren't used to blows on their legs like some other martial arts such as Muay Thai, and are generally vulnerable to low kicks.

Of course, a more experienced martial artist could work past those limitations, preventing those situations from arising in the first place or covering their weakness with improved punch techniques or even throws. But at this point, the boundaries between one style and another become muddled.

As the fight progressed, it was clear Kisara was outmatched, but not in the way that she expected.

Her front kick was countered by an uppercut of all things, hitting her on the bone and stinging like nobody's business, and her three jumping roundhouse kick combo was stopped by her master hiding behind a tree, catching her by surprise once he reappeared from her blind spot after circling through the trees and outmaneuvering her. It certainly couldn't be called fight as much as it was a battle. The only unspoken rules where that neither of them would seriously hurt each other, but even that rule was treading on thin ice with how heated the fight was becoming.

When the opportunity arose, Kisara started with a crescent kick followed by a tornado kick, and with the corner of her eye she saw her master still in her attack range, preparing to finish the combo with an axe kick in order to both gain time and reassess her proper engagement range. What she wasn't expecting was the dirt flying directly at her eyes blinding her momentarily, but it was enough for her master to seize the opportunity and throw her, leaving Kisara with her back on the ground.

'I know what he wants me to do, but still, it's infuriating.'Of course she knew the theory since her master was very clear on that subject. Their spars now would be more brutal in nature; one step closer to what he considered a 'shinobi battle' while still being far safer and 'light' than the real deal. To use the environment as a weapon itself, to resort to dirty tricks to win. He said that there was a point to this exercise, she just couldn't grasp it no matter how she wracked her brain.

"I think that's enough," he said while extending his hand to pick her up, which she accepted as graciously as she could. They both stood at a certain distance, and performed the little bow she was taught, then making the 'peace' sign of shinobi after a spar by interlocking their index and middle finger in a loose analogue of a handshake. "We will just finish off the cool down exercises and then I will be off while you stay here."

"Off? Are you going to leave me here alone?" Isn't he going to teach her or something? At least supervise her?

"I will be off for three days on business, but you are well supplied with the equipment I gave you. Now, I want you to keep up the training regimen we were doing in the mornings. But dedicate the evenings to do more meditation, going through the exercises I showed you. I don't expect much improvement in only three days, but I do expect you to do your very best while I am away."

He turned to her with a faraway look on his face, before it turned serious. "Most of shinobi training is actually spent in self-training. And though I might guide and motivate you, only youhave the key to advancing to your full potential. That's a lesson you need to learn as early as possible." Then he broke into a disarming grin, his voice soft and encouraging. "I believe in you, Kisara, and I know you will flourish and improve both under my training and on your own."

Kisara tried to hide it, without much success, a small smile creeping on her face and a mild blush. From the short period together she knew her master was a demanding taskmaster, often asking the unreasonable, sometimes even the impossible in her opinion. But in the end she always managed to perform admirably until the end.

She wasn't sure if she could retain the same amount of progress by training alone, but she had to try her hardest for the sake of her master and, most importantly, herself.

Night had fallen and Kisara was doing a final check in on her equipment.

"Let's see. Three kunais, enough wire to make a few traps if I reuse it (though I'm not proficient on trap-making yet), some shuriken." She took a box containing six balls of different colors. As remembering the instructions, she took one of them to inspect, finding nothing wrong in the gray explosive. Gray for smoke bombs and red for incendiary bombs.

She also found her medicine in another box, each of the pastries meant to be dropped into the water, shaken and drunk either hot or cold. Though apparently the hotter the water, the more bearable the taste was, according to her master.

Several pieces of light equipment were also there, such as rope, lighter, a cloak, canteen, a first aid kit, and a few other niceties that all put together won't slow her down much. Everything properly checked, she started to pick up some materials to make a fire when a shiver ran through her spine. An intense sense of dread washed her over for an instant, just to vanish almost as immediately as it started.

'I've got a bad feeling about this,' thought Kisara before going back to her chore.

As Kisara worked on, two figures were watching her from the top of one of the trees. The smaller shadow regarded the taller one with both respect and curiosity, and spoke with a grave, old voice.

"Are you sure this is wise, Rikudō-sama? To pit her against him so soon? I thought you took care of your young with more care than that."

Rikudō glanced to his right, considering his words carefully before answered his aging friend. "I need her to have an attitude change as fast as possible. Normally, it would come with years of training and proper education, but unfortunately we don't have the luxury of time. If I don't start the real training soon, we will lose a small window of opportunity."

He turned his gaze back to his apprentice down the tree, doing her best to set up camp while remembering the lessons he imparted on her. Yet again he was impressed with her speed of learning, and above all else her spirit and drive to improve. "Besides", he continued with an afterthought, "I'm fond of the 'sink or swim' approach."

"She could die," reminded the shorter shadow. "He is not to be underestimated, even after being starved and wounded. When cornered, a being can bring previously unseen potential to the front, but that goes both ways."

"I will not allow it," said Rikudō matter-of-factly. "If she cannot handle him, I will kill him myself. I prefer if she can deal with him in the end, but I won't endanger my student more than strictly necessary."

"She will get hurt, though," his friend reminded him once again, and this time he just shrugged.

"I can heal her, good enough to not even leave scars. I'm sure she will understand my reasons. Eventually."

The aged friend just chuckled at the nonchalant way he treated severe bodily harm, not for the first time being impressed by the being at his side. "You're different from the others. Ruthless in a way I can understand, yet still caring. I like that."

Rikudō just smiled at his friend, before wincing at how wrong Kisara tried to start a fire. It brought him bad memories of a time that would never come back.

"Still, there is one thing nagging me," asked his friend, his tone more casual and innocently curious this time. "What are you actually going to do outside?"

"Oh," he replied absently minded. "Just this and that, nothing really important."

As Tanimoto Natsu, also known as the Sixth Fist of Ragnarok Hermit, spent his time doing his homework in order to maintain his 'perfect student' mask, he couldn't help but have a strange feeling that his life was about to get more interesting in the days to come.

As if his thought tempted fate itself, he heard the front door bell ringing.

'Who could be at this hour?'he thought while the bell rang a second time. At the fourth time, he was already in front of the door, impatience and annoyance clearly visible in his face for a moment before he schooled his features just in case.

"Yes, who is—?" the door suddenly opened fully by a massive man behind the door, but that wasn't what made Hermit jaw drop in astonishment. "Sifu?"

Ma Sougetsu, master class chinese martial artist and Tanimoto's master, was in front of his disciple after an untold long time away from him. Making a beeline towards a cabinet where an old whiskey was being guarded, and afterwards he popped into the couch on the living room. Ma sat with his arms spread out and his feet over the table and started to down the drink as if it was water.

As Hermit was about to complain about his teacher's bad habit, and the fact that was the last bottle of a very expensive brand of whiskey, a wallet was thrown on his direction which he deftly caught. A bit apprehensive, he slowly opened the wallet to see what this was about.

"Who is Tanaka Kirito?" he asked, while counting the substantial money inside the wallet.

"He lent me his wallet. Now go make yourself useful and buy some more beer, I will soon finish up this bottle anyway."

He wanted to argue, he really did, but he also knew that trying to keep his master away from his one true love was an exercise in futility. Sighing, he went to the nearest convenience store to buy his master's drink. Though during the whole travel, he never stopped trying to figure out why his master was here right now. Still, he could pester him for more training now that he was here. Even though he suspected said training would be as unreasonable as always.

When Hermit came back, his master had already finished the bottle, and was simply staring at the ceiling, as if contemplating the deep meaning of life or some other complicated philosophical question. He tried to call his master several times, almost even dangling the beer in front of his face, but he remained unresponsive.

Hermit simply didn't knew what to say to his master that looked so out of character. However, something in the back of his mind made him think that he himself acting out of character would give a reaction. Thus he joked, and the following next words came out of his mouth.

"Wow, master, it's almost as if you lost to someone."

The reaction was immediate, and the bottle on the hand of Ma Sougetsu shattered into tiny fragments, not even a single drop of blood drawn from his hand. His expression spoke of a barely controlled fury.

"Rikudō!" he growled, letting some killing intent wash over the house, sending shivers down the spine of his disciple.

"Who are you?" asked Ma Sougetsu in a disinterested voice towards the man in front of him. He wasn't even sure why he bothered to talk with this trash, but something in the back of his mind made him feel wary of the mysterious individual. It certainly wasn't the attire the man was wearing, since Sougetsu had seen weirder in his career as a martial artist.

Said man was wearing a white overcoat with a strange triangular hat on his head, with the kanji of 'fire' in a visible position at the front. Under the cloak he was wearing a blue attire with a green flak jacket beneath, the man's face hidden in shadows except his mouth.

"You may call me the Rikudō Sennin, Ma Sougetsu. You're a rather interesting person, you know? When I heard about you initially, I was sure I would need to eventually kill you." Sougetsu simply snorted at that notion, dismissing him as yet another nobody who wanted to further his name by defeating Ma Sougetsu, "But as reports of your 'performance' as a bodyguard appeared, it painted an interesting picture of you. You always went after those that could pay the most but were actually smart enough to avoid conflict with other factions, or were target of yet another assassin without scruples were you could finish the enemy with extreme haste. In fact, for someone with such a violent lifestyle, you have a disturbingly low amount of clashes with the police."

"... What are you trying to say?" Ma asked, not really understanding where he was going, but now he was a bit on guard considering the man, Rikudō, had such information on him. It's not something you notice unless you comb some of his most recent contracts. And though he doubted the Sage had ironclad proof that this pattern was a constant for him, such speculation would prove to be true on closer scrutiny.

"I want to test you, Ma Sougetsu. To know the true extent of what the best of the best can offer," the man said in response, only his wicked grin being visible on his face.

"Huh. As if I haven't heard that before,"Sougetsu said dismissively at Rikudō. "Don't blame me if you end up dying."

Rikudō's only response was an even wider grin.

And then he disappeared from sight.

Sougetsu didn't have the time to widen his eyes. His instincts kicked in almost instantly, blocking a high kick from his side. He tried to retaliate immediately with a kick of his own, but he was already being attacked from behind with a powerful blow. Somehow his opponent was already circling him and outmaneuvering him in a speed surpassing his own.

Not willing to go down that easily, he released any restraint he still had, and increased his own speed to the very limits, knowing he was facing a worthy opponent this time. Powerful and precise blows were exchanged and both combatants weaved and parried each other attacks, not willing to move an inch from their position.

Ma Sougetsu was the first to break that equilibrium by switching from his prefered powerful style of Piguaquan, the chop-hanging fist style, to the more versatile on close quarters Wing Chun. Now on equal tactical footing with his enemy, the chinese martial arts master unleashed a chain of everflowing attacks, starting with punches on close range intersected with grappling attempts of the enemy own limbs.

Not to be outdone the sage blocked the attacks and avoided the grappling attempts by throwing his body weight around and taking advantage of his speed superiority. The defense was somewhat clumsy, but Ma was impressed by the fact he could keep up while obviously having little experience in this type of fight.

Soon enough the Sage tried to disengage by dodging backwards, but this move gave Ma his opportunity. By switching back into the chop-hanging style he unleashed one of his specialty attacks by using the circular momentum of his body to increase the striking power, combined with the perfect timing to catch Rikudō on the chest, hoping to eliminate his opponent.

"Uryu Banda!"

By twisting his body sideways the Sage avoided the attack by a hair's breath, and Ma could see a distinct smirk framing the face of the blond man. Rikudō body twist became a full spin, culminating on a powerful spinning heel kick, followed by a crescent kick on the same spot to cause twice the damage.

"Konoha Senpū Otoshi!"

Both attacks were parried, their power still relatively light compared with Sougetsu own vicious assault, but that gave the Sage the opportunity to safely disengage in an inhuman feat of acrobatics by using Sougetsu as leverage and jumping back several meters, all of that from a position where gravity should have made him fall like a sack of potatoes.

But as soon as the Sage touched the ground Sougetsu was already on his tail, coming with a flying crescent kick, but instead he hit the pavement on the ground and leaving a massive indentation on the ground. This time he had enough time to widen his eyes, cursing himself for underestimating his opponent speed. He looked left and right without finding him, until he turned up and saw the man standing on top of the electricity post.

Before Ma could follow his enemy, Rikudō crouched on top of the post and flung himself towards the chinese martial artist like a missile, hitting him with a combo of a frontal kick and a spinning heel kick.

"Konoha Senpū!"

Both attacks were parried, but Sougetsu could feel their power was stronger than before. He could tell that if he continued to block those attacks, the accumulated damage on his arms would quickly begin to weaken him. If the man in front of him could maintain his stamina as well as the speed, there was no way Sougetsu could outlast his enemy.

Besides, this style of fighting was more in the realm of his brother to outlast up his enemies. Sougetsu was always the one to go after overwhelming force, after all.

Standing his ground, Sougetsu gathered all the strength he had, and pushed his speed past his usual limits, leaving the marks of his foot on the ground. Certainly a much cruder ability compared with the smooth, almost soundless speed of his opponent, but it was more than enough to bridge the gap.

Coming literally in less than a blink of the eye, he caught his enemy by surprise with two relatively light attacks at his torso, ending the assault with a powerful palm strike to the middle of his enemy's body. It was his ultimate attack, able to pass through the defenses of his enemy and cause damage directly to the internal organs, "Kyousa!" He have yet to see someone survive this attack from him.

'Yet, why is he still grinning'?

In fact the grin on the face of the Sage never left his face, even while his body should be destroyed by now.

As his opponent went flying away, his instincts kicked in once more. Just in time for him to barely defend against an attack coming from behind him and taking a glancing hit. Both combatants took some distance once more, disbelief on the eyes of Sougetsu when he realized that somehow he had hit a trash can.

"You're good," said the self-styled Sage of the Six Paths. "But I'm afraid I have to cut this short tonight."

It was then when the Chinese martial artist felt a powerful wave of killing intent wash over him, and he somehow saw a small knife like object embedding deep into his brain, coming faster than sound. He blinked, and this time the opponent was standing over him, his own heart on the hands of that man. He took a deep breath, and this time his vision was rotating, and he could see his own body failing on the ground.

Sougetsu brought up his own killing intent, as if to form a spiritual barrier against the sheer hostility and intensity of the enemy's own killing intent.

'What was that?' he thought, now truly apprehensive against his enemy. He never experienced this kind of thick, powerful killing intent before. He heard of tales of strange techniques that worked only with killing intent, but this was different.

It wasn't a threat of an attack that would bring ruin to the opponent, but rather a plain promise of death his own brain interpreted as it saw fit. A truly powerful ability that would have paralyzed a lesser man.

This brief moment of peace was shattered once more when the Sage literally disappeared from sight in a show of speed that paled his previous performance, the particles of dust on the air still trying to realize they should fall.

"Gah... hah!"

The world of Sougetsu exploded into pain as the enemy strike hit his stomach, enveloped into a strange blue aura.

"Konoha Gouriki Gouken!"

Time had seemed to slow down and Sougetsu tried to resist the attack, but the level of power was so far above the previous showing that it was like comparing light and darkness, night and day. He felt his insides being dangerously compressed, and he almost threw up right then and there from the massive impact of the blow.

He flew backwards with incredible speed, his body bouncing across the street until it was forcefully stopped by a wall, cracks being visible behind him.

"Don't worry," said the voice of the Sage from his side already, "I held back enough so you won't have any lasting injuries. You will feel very sore afterwards, but nothing rest and a good meal won't fix. Who knows, maybe I will even send my disciple to fight you later to see how it turns out? Either way, you did good, Ma Sougetsu."

Sougetsu tried to retort, but all he could see in front of him was darkness, and soon his thoughts followed the same pattern.

"Brat," Ma Sougetsu started suddenly, almost startling Tanimoto. "Tomorrow, we will continue your training. You better prepare yourself."

Tanimoto stopped for a moment, before a wicked smile graced his features. "Yes, sifu."

'Finally,' thought Hermit, 'I will gain more power and then…' For a brief moment, an image of long lost days, both happier and bittersweet memories flashed in front of him, of simple times. Of someone that would never come back, but as soon as it came, it was ruthlessly crushed down. 'And then I will crush all opposition!'