A corner shrouded in darkness and blood, but that wasn't all you could see. The sunlight shone ordinarily over every inch of the winding earth.
In the northern part of the Land of Fire, the Yukino Town is still very peaceful today.
In the hills outside the town, far from the main roads and human activity, beyond the babbling streams and lush vegetation, a man stood with his hands behind his back.
Dressed in brand-new clothes, with a short sword sheath hanging at his waist and a handsome, delicate face… that was Logan.
After maintaining the poised demeanor of a master for a while, Logan quickly grew bored due to the lack of an audience and abandoned the pose.
Having finished his warm-up, Logan confirmed that no one was around through sensory perception and rubbed his hands together, 'Alright, let's give it a try here.'
With a serious expression, he channeled chakra throughout his body and lightly tapped the ground with his foot. Bang!
The force of the rebound propelled him high into the air.
Then, amid Newton's screams from behind the coffin, Logan obediently obeyed the laws of gravitational acceleration and fell back to the ground.
"Hmm..." Logan felt like an idiot playing on a trampoline by himself. Luckily, there really was no audience, "The height's a bit lacking..."
Spotting a tree about seven or eight meters tall, his gaze sharpened. In the blink of an eye, he flashed onto the trunk, then performed the same motion… this time, a faint current of electricity wrapped around his foot as he willed it.
Bang!
The not-so-sturdy tree trunk cracked open, revealing its pale core. Logan shot upward like a projectile, the scenery below rapidly shrinking as his vision soared higher and higher.
At the peak of his ascent, there was a momentary pause, and a gentle breeze brushed his face.
Logan reached into the second pouch on his back, then flung his arms outward! From absolute stillness to explosive motion, the sharp whistling of something piercing the air suddenly echoed through the sky.
A swarm of black shadows rained down like locusts, and the flowers and grass below let out pitiful whimpers as they were mercilessly assaulted.
Dozens of black tri-pronged kunai scattered across the land like heavenly blossoms.
Sensing the countless tiny connections now existing within a radius of several hundred meters, Logan felt a strange familiarity. Without hesitation, he activated the Flying Thunder God Technique.
That's right. Today, he had taken some time to find this place specifically to test the effects of this hax-like technique.
Losing momentum, Logan plummeted toward the ground. But instead of performing the usual landing maneuver, he vanished into thin air a split second before face-planting air.
Swoosh!
Logan reappeared atop one of the kunai about a dozen meters away.
Glancing at his original position, Logan rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Then, he picked up the tri-pronged kunai at his feet and tossed it diagonally into the air before cheerfully scurrying over to another kunai, picking it up, and giving it a light throw.
In a flash, Logan teleported onto the airborne kunai mid-trajectory, then instantly reappeared to catch the one he had just thrown before it even hit the ground.
It was a dizzying display.
"Damn." Spinning the specialized kunai on his finger, Logan couldn't help but mutter in awe, "As expected of the Fourth Hokage… His ultimate technique is truly terrifying."
After some initial experimentation and adapting to the disorienting sensation of spatial displacement, Logan grew bolder with his movements.
For instance, the so-called 'Phase 1' and 'Phase 2' of Flying Thunder God Technique, essentially adding an attack mid-teleport, were things he tried while recalling scenes from the anime.
He also combined instant movement with forming a Rasengan… and later, branched out beyond the Rasengan, experimenting with Chidori, Fire Release Ninjutsu, and all sorts of other techniques.
For a while, explosions and crashing sound erupted across the grassland as he happily wreaked havoc.
Alright, forget what he said earlier. Today, this place was anything but peaceful.
The technique was incredibly convenient. The intervals and startup delay of the Ninjutsu could be virtually nonexistent, provided one was skilled enough and their body could handle it.
Moreover, thanks to its suddenness and independence, it could be combined into dozens of different combat routines without ever repeating.
More importantly, within the same spatial dimension (excluding the transmigration travel), the Flying Thunder God Technique didn't consume too much Chakra.
This meant Logan wouldn't have to hold back like he did when using the Railgun.
The power of the fastest technique in the Ninja World was such that any opponent without prior experience facing it could be instantly annihilated.
Across the hilly terrain, a lone figure flickered unpredictably like a ghost. Only after exhausting most of his Chakra did Logan finally slow his destructive rampage across the grassland, with the initial excitement wearing off.
An S-Rank Space-Time Ninjutsu mastered by only a handful…. if a villain in a TV series learned it, they might arrogantly roar, 'I am invincible!'
But Logan had self-awareness. This was the result of years of accumulated knowledge and research into Space-Time Ninjutsu since his first arrival in the Ninja World. Understanding this, he quickly regained his composure.
After recovering some chakra, Logan resumed his training. While Flying Thunder Technique was fast, without sufficient proficiency, executing it would still be awkward.
It felt like returning to the diligent training days of his past… he immersed himself tirelessly, as if addicted. Time flew by, and after half a day of training, Logan discovered some minor limitations of the technique.
He couldn't maintain simultaneous connections with too many targets. A few were manageable, but if he tried teleporting rapidly among a large number of markers in a short time, he could easily become disoriented.
If his positioning was off after a teleport, things could go horribly wrong… like a basketball player tripping over their own footwork, the entire sequence would fall apart.
Additionally, there was a usage threshold. In other words, it was impossible to rapidly flicker between point A and point B like a social dance at a frequency of fifty times per minute.
That would truly be cheating, turning him into Schrödinger's cat… existing and not existing at the same time.
'Well, not that I need to overuse it. Once or twice is usually enough.'
Logan thought to himself.
After all, in the hands of a skilled user, even a single second of teleportation, a single second of the enemy's hesitation, could be fatal. It didn't need to be spammed like a basic technique, as this could be the move that turned the tide of battle.
As dusk settled, the abused grassland looked pitiful, so Logan decided to spare it further torment.
It was getting late, so Logan meticulously collected each of the tri-pronged kunai. These specialized weapons weren't something he could just buy replacements for. If he really ran out of it, he'd have to ask Sasori to forge more, and that would be awkward.
Stepping onto a main road, he pulled on the hooded cloak he had prepared and began making his way back to the Yukino Town.
After parting ways with Sasori and leaving the Land of Earth, Logan had moved with clear purpose. Traveling at Ninja speed along the backroads and highways of the southeast, he arrived here in no time.
Yukino Town was the place where Logan, after returning from modern world, had coincidentally met Mai and journeyed with her for two days and one night.
Back then, his sudden appearance had drawn swarms of ANBU into this otherwise ordinary border town.
He had even encountered a generous junior ANBU who had lent him money. But times had changed… now, Yukino Town was peaceful again.
The townsfolk lived their lives simply, rising with the sun and resting at dusk, spending each day in quiet contentment...
After checking into an inn a couple of days ago, Logan decided to stay here for the time being.
As for funds, including the clothes he wore and the cloak he used to conceal himself, they all came from Sasori's 'small change'. Just pocket money, really.
And the reason he had returned to the Land of Fire is naturally to fulfill a promise, as the meeting place Itachi had arranged was in Dosei City.