The man before Minato possessed no particularly unusual abilities.
In fact, he rarely even used the five basic nature transformations.
Instead, he relied entirely on an impeccably refined swordsmanship.
Again and again, at the most critical moments, his blade interrupted Minato’s advance, leaving the Yellow Flash unable to move forward.
This man didn’t appear much older than Minato.
Yet every movement suggested someone who had survived a century of life-and-death battles.
He was a killing machine that had seemingly never stopped fighting.
Only a lifetime spent walking the line between life and death could produce instincts and combat awareness like that.
Minato had seen this quality before.
Only in the elderly shinobi who had somehow survived the Warring States Period.
Unfortunately, age had long since dulled them.
They still possessed vast experience, but their bodies had become blunt blades, relying on wisdom to compensate for failing strength.
The man before him was different.
He was a razor-sharp blade...
Tempered by the same lifetime of experience.
His "speed" wasn’t like Minato’s, which transcended space itself.
It was simply...
Perfect timing.
Minato had absolute confidence in his own speed.
Once his Flying Thunder God-marked kunai covered the battlefield, he could appear almost anywhere at will.
If necessary...
He could even seem to outrun light itself.
But what did that matter?
Even if his movements were so fast they created afterimages, allowing him to appear in multiple places at once...
Those were only illusions produced by Space-Time Ninjutsu.
They deceived the eye.
Not reality.
Yet Uchiha Tenzen didn’t even seem to need his eyes.
Even with them closed...
He could predict exactly where Minato would appear.
A lifetime of endless battles had engraved countless experiences into his body.
His muscles remembered.
His sword naturally fell upon the one position Minato absolutely had to defend.
How terrifying...
Just how many life-and-death duels would it take to develop instincts like those?
Minato couldn’t help thinking—
This man must have been killing people ever since he was old enough to hold a sword.
Someone so young couldn’t possibly possess such experience.
Only someone who had spent every day fighting for survival could.
What Minato didn’t know...
Was that Uchiha Tenzen was already well over eighty years old.
His unique immortality merely preserved his youthful appearance.
Aside from that...
Minato’s judgment wasn’t far off.
Tenzen truly had spent his entire life fighting.
Even so...
That alone wasn’t enough to make him stand out among Kei’s followers.
Every member of Kei’s Iga Group’s Ten Elites possessed a lifetime of bloody combat experience.
Compared to the extraordinary abilities everyone else had gained after arriving in the Naruto world...
A swordsman who specialized solely in the blade held little advantage.
As one of the first shinobi summoned by Kei, Tenzen had once secretly sparred with Sakumo Hatake, the White Fang of Konoha, hoping to prove his worth.
He had lost.
Although Sakumo insisted afterward that the match had ended in a draw...
Tenzen knew the truth.
Had it not been for his immortal body slowly dulling Sakumo’s sword through constant regeneration...
He would have become the first of Kei’s followers to die.
In other words...
If Sakumo had possessed a truly exceptional blade—
Even something as simple as a chakra sword—
He could have reduced Tenzen to pieces.
After witnessing that battle, Kei had laughed and remarked,
"Tenzen’s the ultimate fifty-fifty fighter."
"Against monsters like Sakumo or Minato..."
"Against ordinary jōnin..."
"It makes no difference."
"He can’t beat them."
"But they can’t beat him either."
Tenzen, despite being over eighty years old, had been rather embarrassed by that evaluation.
Sakumo, however, had burst into laughter.
Scratching his head, he nodded approvingly.
"’Fifty-fifty,’ huh?"
"That actually sounds pretty impressive."
"Maybe I should give Kakashi a different name."
It wasn’t because Sakumo was a sore loser after fighting someone for an entire day and night.
There was an old custom.
When one deeply respected another, it wasn’t unusual to name a beloved junior after that person—or at least use a related name.
Just as Fugaku had named his younger son Sasuke, after Hiruzen Sarutobi’s father.
Clearly...
After that day-and-night duel...
Sakumo had genuinely come to admire Tenzen.
Now...
That cheerful man with the white hair and permanently smiling eyes was gone.
As someone who had fought Sakumo for an entire day and night...
Tenzen wanted to see for himself whether the man whose name stood alongside the White Fang truly deserved that reputation.
Even if Sakumo had died...
Tenzen refused to let politics tarnish his friend’s legacy.
Failing to save him had been a matter of circumstance.
Protecting his reputation...
Was a matter of friendship.
If Minato’s name stood beside the White Fang’s...
Then he had to possess strength worthy of it.
Another slash flashed.
Tenzen knocked away the Flying Thunder God-marked kunai Minato had deliberately thrown to probe the limits of the anti-ninjutsu field.
Sakumo...
If you had asked...
I would’ve personally given you a warrior’s death.
You never should have ended your own life in such humiliation.
For an instant...
The image of that white-haired man smiling with narrowed eyes resurfaced in Tenzen’s mind.
Then...
He swung again.
The blade flashed like a streak of white light.
It arrived at Minato’s next landing point before Minato himself did.
Twisting his body in a manner that defied human anatomy, Minato barely evaded the strike.
Even so...
His clothes were sliced open.
That alone wasn’t frightening.
What truly shocked him...
Was that although only one slash had landed...
Two cuts appeared.
The first tore his clothing.
The second left a thin line of blood across his abdomen.
"...How terrifying."
"It’s as if the sword intent itself locked onto me."
Minato’s heart skipped a beat.
It wasn’t that Tenzen’s strike lacked power.
It was that Minato had dodged quickly enough to avoid the fatal portion.
More alarming still...
He should have escaped effortlessly with the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Instead...
Faced with that overwhelming sword intent...
His body instinctively chose to evade physically.
Which meant...
His instincts had led him into greater danger.
He had made the wrong decision.
"...This resembles Sakumo-senpai’s swordsmanship."
"So that’s it..."
"Sakumo-senpai truly was incredible."
"His blade leaves no path of escape."
Minato recognized it.
It was the White Fang’s swordsmanship.
Remembering his departed friend, Tenzen entered an indescribable state of clarity.
The Iga Group, followers of the Future Buddha, had finally found a bright future.
It was something Tenzen would gladly have given his life to obtain.
Yet...
Even after attaining happiness...
Troubles inevitably followed.
This world had never been a pure land.
After finally finding comrades who accepted him...
After finding a true friend who cared nothing for the darkness of his past...
That friend had still died to political persecution.
Just like the fate of the Iga Group and the Kōga Group.
People manipulated like puppets by those who stood high above them.
So this...
...is the true nature of the world?
Tenzen had believed he’d long grown accustomed to living in darkness.
He thought he had begun a new life.
Yet when confronted with another injustice...
He still found himself raging against the heavens.
People were often drawn to those completely unlike themselves.
Tenzen was a man willing to do anything for the Iga Group.
Once...
He had even attempted to violate Oboro for the sake of his clan.
Once...
He had brutally murdered Kagerō for the same reason.
Those sins belonged to another life now.
Even so...
Those memories prevented him from fully integrating with the companions—and former enemies—who had all been granted a second chance.
Even Koshirō, the adopted son he had raised...
Feared him more than he respected him.
Because they all knew...
If Tenzen had once been willing to do anything for the Iga Group...
Then now...
He would do anything for Uchiha Kei.
And that thought alone was terrifying.
Then...
A simple man entered his life.
A man with immense strength but no hidden schemes.
They fought.
They exchanged techniques openly.
Sakumo admired Tenzen’s combat experience.
Tenzen admired Sakumo’s swordsmanship.
Sometimes they drank because they had fought.
Sometimes they fought because they had drunk.
Now...
That man was gone.
Then...
I’ll carry your swordsmanship.
Let this world tremble beneath it.
Bang!
One slash.
A slash that seemed to overtake space itself.
Tenzen’s Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun wildly.
For an instant...
A strange horizontal line appeared at the center of his pupil.
Minato’s Forehead Protector fluttered away together with strands of his golden hair.
Tenzen’s voice echoed through the air.
"White Fang Secret Technique—Three Thousand Troubles!"
"Sever!"
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