Training time always passes quickly.
If you add memory loss into the mix, the speed multiplies by several times.
In the blink of an eye, more than a month had passed.
During this month, many things had happened in the outside world. Hidden currents surged among the major and minor shinobi villages. Large sums of money with untraceable sources flowed into the mercenary market.
Looking at one or two missions alone, you might not see anything unusual, but if you have enough intel resources to observe the entire mercenary market, you can see the deeper meaning behind it.
Preparation for war.
Call them a ragtag band if you will, or civilian elites if you prefer, either way, mercenaries were being gathered from all directions, armed, and readied to fight for money and status.
The ninja world was still calm on the surface.
But the sharp-minded could already feel it, the damp, hurried wind that always came before a storm.
"Looks like things are about to get troublesome."
Inside Konoha Village, Nara Shikamaru sat on the edge of a bench with a stalk of dogtail grass in his mouth.
In the middle sat Yamanaka Ino, touching up her makeup.
On the other side was Akimichi Choji, stuffing chips into his mouth.
They were only eleven years old, still hadn't graduated from the Academy yet, so after class each day, they just wandered lazily around the village doing nothing.
At eleven or twelve, kids were often full of self-importance.
After learning a few ninjutsu and taijutsu moves, they all thought themselves invincible, itching to go on missions and make a name for themselves,
Like Naruto.
But Shikamaru greatly enjoyed his current life.
If he could, he really wanted to stay a carefree student for the rest of his life.
Unfortunately…
"A war's coming." Shikamaru said quietly.
"Huh?"
Choji's hand, halfway to his mouth with a chip, trembled. "Your parents are going to war?"
He remembered that Shikamaru's dad was terrified of his wife. And now he dared to fight? Did he eat an expired soldier pill or something?
"Not his parents. He means the Fourth Great Ninja War is about to start," Ino said.
Don't be fooled by Ino's obsession with makeup and fashion magazines, she was actually quite sharp.
After all, only idiots couldn't learn the Mind Body Switch Technique.
She carefully dabbed her lip gloss, confirmed her makeup was perfect, snapped her compact shut, and looked at Shikamaru.
"You're worried… we'll be forced to graduate early?"
War meant casualties, and casualties meant a shortage of manpower.
They were eleven now. In Konoha's history, there had been plenty of ninjas who went to war at four, seven years old, and earned legendary achievements.
"I really am worried about that," Shikamaru said.
"With our current level… honestly, on a real battlefield, a meat grinder like that, we wouldn't stand a chance."
He scratched his head and looked toward the Hokage building. "But what worries me even more… is something else."
Ino and Choji asked together, "What is it?"
———
"Tsunade-sama, what is our position in all this?" Kakashi asked.
He had been back from the Land of Wind for a while now. The injuries from his chakra exhaustion had healed, and he'd returned to his usual lazy, relaxed demeanor.
But anyone who'd spent time with Kakashi recently could tell, he was different from before.
The old Kakashi was like a paper airplane, sometimes a kite, his soul tied to the string of his past. He looked like he was flying, but in truth, he was just drifting wherever the wind blew.
Now, however, he'd become a bird, one that truly belonged to himself.
That was why, at this moment, he walked into Tsunade's office and asked that question.
Tsunade took off her glasses and rubbed her forehead lightly.
"Our situation is different from Kirigakure's and Sunagakure's," she said.
"Kirigakure and their daimyo are in bed together, traitors who deserve to be overthrown.
Sunagakure has been under Tokugawa Shingen's thumb for years, poor and struggling.
They both have reasons to rebel against their daimyos. But…"
She didn't finish her sentence, but Kakashi understood what she meant.
Whether it was out of fear of the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama's overwhelming power, or the generosity of the Fire Country daimyo, ever since Konoha's founding, the Fire Daimyo had always treated the village decently.
The Fire Country had been good to them, that was obligation.
Ryosuke's friendship with them, that was personal loyalty.
If the Fire Daimyo truly declared war on Ryosuke, Tsunade personally would have swung her fists to help Ryosuke without hesitation.
After all, they'd fought side by side on the battlefield, trusting each other with their lives.
But she was the Hokage.
That meant she had to think of more than just herself.
"I need to think about it more," Tsunade sighed. "Isn't Ryosuke focused on developing productivity?"
"Can't the daimyo and the financial clans just wait until productivity is high enough, until everyone can easily create wealth, everyone's rich, and no one goes hungry or cold? Wouldn't that be nice?"
"Why do they insist on fighting to the death?"
She was just venting, not really expecting Kakashi to answer.
But after a few moments of silence, Kakashi suddenly spoke.
"That question… Ryosuke once told me a story when we were chatting."
"In an era when productivity was high, but people's purchasing power was low, capitalists would rather pour milk into the ground than give it freely to the poor, or even sell it cheaply."
Kakashi's eyes took on a distant look. "If milk represents wealth, capital will never discard it. So it's not real wealth. True wealth is the cows, the farms, and the milk factories."
"And those things… can't be taken without bloodshed."
Hearing Kakashi's retelling, Tsunade could almost picture Ryosuke's face and tone as he said those words, his chin slightly raised, those bright eyes shining, fists clenched tightly…
"That mouth of his, really something," Tsunade muttered, shaking her head. Then she changed the topic. "What's Ryosuke doing now?"
"I exchanged letters with him recently," Kakashi said, recalling Ryosuke's words.
"He said… he's about to achieve divine mastery."
"Divine… mastery?" Tsunade tilted her head slightly.
Ryosuke wasn't exaggerating. Lesson-3, Golden Spiral, after countless illusions and battles, he was indeed close to mastering it.
———
In the forest about fifty kilometers from the research facility, fierce winds were surging.
From a bird's-eye view, you could clearly see the growth paths of the trees forming outward-to-inward, slowly curving lines, like a graceful spiral.
Look closer, and you'd notice each curve shifted slightly at the end, each one forming diagonals across a rectangular pattern.
Golden rectangles and golden spirals.
Ryosuke sat at the heart of those swirling arcs.
His eyes were closed tight, brows furrowed, fists resting on his knees. Winds raged around him, spiraling endlessly. Dust, sand, tree branches, even the trees' growth trajectories, all within tens of kilometers, were being affected by him.
Suddenly, Ryosuke opened his eyes. An iron ball appeared in his hand, and he threw it forward.
The ball flew through the forest, bouncing between massive trees, ricocheting dozens of times before striking a rabbit hidden completely out of his line of sight.
"Lesson-1 was mastering rotation, boosting the iron ball's power."
"Lesson-2 was increasing its piercing ability."
"And now, this is Lesson-3, the Power of Belief, Tracking."
Through absolute mental trust, he'd achieved a leap in technique. As long as his eyes locked onto the target, no matter how they dodged, the iron ball would bounce, spiral, and strike them without fail.
Combined with Little Bomber's breathing lock and Killer Queen's first bomb, Ryosuke basically had three hacks activated, wallhacks, aimbot, and instant kill.
"Still, that's only in theory. We'll have to test how effective it is in real combat."
As he thought, a shadow appeared outside the forest, it was Sasuke walking toward him.
"Brother Ryosuke, I saw the wind stop and thought your training might be done… Did you succeed?"
There were still areas that needed refining. Looking closely, the spirals and matrices over the next dozen kilometers weren't perfectly proportioned.
But it was good enough.
Ryosuke nodded. "You came all the way from the lab, something up?"
Sasuke pulled a letter from his backpack and handed it to him.
"A telegram from Hayato Kamihara. It arrived this morning, but you were training, so I waited outside."
Ryosuke read it briefly, then smiled.
He had just been wondering where to find a suitable test subject for Lesson-3, Golden Spiral, and one had arrived.
He pocketed the telegram.
"Sasuke, want to go have a snowball fight?"
"Right now?" Sasuke's eyes lit up.
Helping with research was fine and all, but he still preferred following Ryosuke into real combat, fighting evil and spreading justice.
"No rush."
Ryosuke looked toward the research facility.
"With such a perfect field test subject, it'd be a waste to keep it to ourselves."
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