Hidan slowly opened his eyes and woke up in the hot spring pool.
The intense pain left his consciousness hazy, half-awake and half-delirious.
He moved his fingers on instinct—
His arm... still obeyed him?
Memory came rushing back.
Inside the prison, the samurai had sliced open both of his arms, exposing stark white bone to the air.
He raised an arm and stared in shock.
The wounds had already been stitched shut.
The flesh was whole again, as if nothing had happened.
Not just his arms—his entire body itched and tingled as every wound healed at a terrifying speed.
"A miracle! A miracle!" Hidan roared inwardly.
"Lord Jashin! You finally heard your believer's dying cry and bestowed your grace upon me?!"
The thunderous emptiness in his stomach dragged him back to reality.
He couldn't even remember the last time he had eaten.
Turning his head, he saw bread and milk quietly placed beside the spring.
"A miracle! Another miracle!"
Hidan was drowned in wild joy all over again.
"I've been blessed by Lord Jashin! There's no way I'll die!"
Meanwhile, Yako was racing toward the Land of Waves.
Sensing Hidan's prayer, he thought to himself:
What miracle? I'm the one carrying your miserable ass.
He still had to find a forbidden technique suited for Hidan.
The members of the White Ram and Antelope squads followed behind Lord Fox, utterly confused.
Why would their lord go out of his way to set up a mission for a taijutsu genin?
Might Dai.
A dead-last genin whose strength sat firmly at the bottom.
The kind of shinobi who could take the Chūnin Exams three hundred times and still never pass.
To other shinobi, he was just a fool who shouted hot-blooded slogans all day, stubbornly burying himself in taijutsu training without understanding how to play to his strengths.
A mule of a man.
The shinobi from his generation who developed slowly had at least become chūnin or jōnin.
The ones who developed quickly—
Like Hatake Sakumo—
Had risen all the way to Konoha advisor before dying for the village.
Compared to them, Might Dai had spent more than twenty years after graduation standing in the exact same place.
Day after day, he carried out the lowest of the low—D-rank missions.
No one formed teams with him.
He rarely even touched C-rank work.
This time, the ANBU had made a small arrangement.
A squad that happened to be short one member had "coincidentally" selected Might Dai to escort a merchant ship bound for Toga Port in the Land of Hot Water.
Onboard the ship, the newly promoted chūnin Hachimaru quietly asked his captain, the Tokubetsu jōnin Kyōgo:
"Captain... that guy over there—the green-clothed uncle helping the sailors tie off the ropes..."
"Can he really help us finish this mission?"
Kyōgo sucked in a cold breath and said helplessly,
"Don't even mention it. I originally wanted to hire a Water Release specialist named 'Mito Sai'..."
"But the Hokage Tower registered the wrong name and wrote down 'Might Dai' instead."
"I wanted to correct it, but when I met him in person..."
"...He looked at me with those expectant eyes."
He sighed.
"I just couldn't bring myself to turn him down."
"So I brought him along."
"Besides, before Advisor Shinnosuke died, he'd already made diplomatic runs through Uzushio and the Land of Hot Water, and seriously damaged the upper ranks of the Hidden Mist and Hidden Cloud."
"This mission shouldn't be too dangerous."
Hachimaru nodded in agreement.
"Yeah. Lord Shinnosuke was incredible."
"Even before his death, he still managed to clear out so many obstacles for us."
"As expected of the Third Hokage's son."
"...What a shame."
Kyōgo let out a quiet sigh.
"A shame that the tallest tree in the forest draws the strongest wind."
Half an hour later, the shipowner came over with a miserable look on his face.
"Lord Shinobi! Please—please tell that green-clothed ninja to stop rowing!"
"He alone has more strength than twelve men on the right side! The ship is starting to drift off course!"
Kyōgo hurriedly apologized.
"My deepest apologies. He rarely ever gets to leave the village, so he's... a little too excited this time."
Hachimaru quickly went below deck and dragged Might Dai back out.
After being "ordered" by the captain to rest, Might Dai instead began doing inverted push-ups on the deck, continuing his training.
After watching for a while, Hachimaru couldn't help but say to Kyōgo,
"Captain... even if Uncle Dai isn't very strong, I really do admire how hard he trains his taijutsu."
Kyōgo nodded.
"Yeah."
"If those pampered clan brats had even half his perseverance, they wouldn't waste their talent so badly."
"They act like they're above everyone at the Academy, then graduate only to fade into mediocrity."
The ship left Toga Port and sailed north.
But once it entered the strait near the Land of Waves, the atmosphere abruptly turned tense.
Pirates and sea bandits ran rampant in these waters.
The chaos of the Land of Waves stood in sharp contrast to the peace and stability of the Land of Fire.
Then, without warning, a thick fog rolled in over the sea.
The shipowner approached Kyōgo anxiously.
"Lord Shinobi... this fog..."
"It doesn't feel right."
Kyōgo nodded, trying to reassure him.
"Relax. We're here."
"Even if Mist shinobi show up, they won't touch a single piece of cargo on this ship."
Nearby, Might Dai cracked his knuckles, eager to jump into action.
The fog thickened and thickened.
It swallowed every direction whole.
Soon, only the maddening sound of the waves remained.
The mist became so dense it was almost suffocating.
Deep within that sea of fog, Yako pulled on the mask of a Hidden Mist assassination unit shinobi.
White Ram asked in confusion,
"My lord... you're going to do this yourself?"
Yako answered in a low voice,
"That Might Dai has something strange about him. I'm testing him myself."
"I'm worried you'd all get beaten to death."
White Ram thought that getting beaten to death by a genin sounded wildly exaggerated.
But seeing Lord Fox this serious, he wisely said nothing more.
Yako melted into the mist and formed hand seals.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!"
A savage, colossal water dragon tore through the fog and roared toward the merchant ship.
The distinctive thunder of a Water Dragon Bullet echoed across the sea.
Kyōgo's expression changed instantly, and he hurried through hand seals.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
A blazing fireball shot outward, burning away part of the mist and revealing the water dragon's true form.
The dragon's head crashed head-on into the fireball, and both techniques annihilated each other—
But the massive dragon body transformed into a violent torrent and slammed hard into the ship's hull.
The merchant ship tilted violently.
The sailors lost their footing and were thrown toward the railing.
"Dai! Save them! Don't let them fall into the sea!" Kyōgo shouted.
"Yes, sir!"
Might Dai knew his own combat ability was limited, so he immediately slid down the tilted deck, grabbed hold of the ropes, and began securing the sailors to the ship one by one.
Then—
A figure burst out of the dense mist like a ghost.
The attacker wore a painted face mask with four slanted wave patterns on the forehead.
A Hidden Mist assassination ninja.
Kyōgo leapt off the ship and ran across the water to intercept.
After a fierce clash of Fire Release and Water Release—
Kyōgo was sent flying by a brutal kick from the Mist shinobi.
His back smashed through the side of the ship, and he disappeared from sight.
CRASH—
Seawater immediately began flooding into the hold.
Might Dai no longer had the luxury of worrying about the sailors.
He rushed toward the bow.
There, he saw the Mist shinobi gripping Hachimaru by the throat with one hand.
Hachimaru clawed uselessly at the iron-like fingers around his neck.
When he saw Might Dai, he desperately signaled with his eyes for him to run.
Might Dai felt as though a knife had twisted through his heart.
Why?
Why had the captain and Hachimaru both fallen in the blink of an eye?
Crack.
A soft sound rang out as the Mist shinobi moved his fingers.
Yako looked at the "broken neck" and knew that in reality he had only dislocated Hachimaru's jaw.
But Might Dai didn't know that.
"HA-CHI-MARU!!"
He screamed in agony.
The Mist shinobi's cold gaze locked onto Might Dai at the bow, and his voice dripped with contempt.
"Heh. Has Konoha really fallen this far?"
"You're sending a washed-up old genin who couldn't even fake his way into a chūnin vest..."
"...to carry out a B-rank mission?"
Might Dai remembered the way Captain Kyōgo had looked at him, unable to refuse him.
He remembered how Hachimaru, despite looking down on him a little, had still treated him with care all this time.
His fists slowly clenched.
Then he crossed both arms in front of himself.
"Eight Gates!"
"First Gate..."
"Gate of Opening..."
"OPEN!"