Chapter 278: An Uninvited Arrival
Four lives. Half a day in the Arena. All spent.
The 80 Points from the sign-in were gone — 20 Points per revival, four revivals, exactly 80. When the balance ran out, Ryū left. He had enough sense not to keep burning resources he was trying to save.
What he'd gotten from the session was calibration. He had a working sense of his current ceiling now. Not Moon-busting — not Yukari or Master Roshi's level yet — but close. Two or three steps away, by his estimation. Once he closed that gap, a certain gap youkai was going to have a significantly harder time feeling smug.
Almost a year to reach this point. I'll take it. Anyone else getting near Moon-busting capability in under a year without cheat-level advantages would be almost unheard of.
He set the Arena aside without trying to force progress. Cultivation came next — but cultivation required a properly fueled body, and ten days of sustained high-intensity combat had been followed by water, sleep, and nothing else. His recovery had plateaued around fifty percent, and it wasn't budging.
Notably, Root's surveillance rats had stopped following him at some point. Danzō had apparently looked at the updated threat assessment and decided that stalking this particular person was an investment with poor returns. His current Observation Haki range could locate every rodent in every drain in Konoha. If he'd been inclined to act on the information, he would have.
He wasn't. Whatever the King of the Wok was scheming, so long as it didn't touch Ryū directly, he had no interest in getting involved in the Naruto world's internal politics. Most of it was the Ōtsutsuki clan's extended family drama anyway.
Better uses of the afternoon.
He headed out. Destination: the largest restaurant in Konoha, not Ichiraku. At his current level of hunger, he'd work Teuchi to death trying to keep pace.
A larger establishment meant more kitchen staff — ten-plus chefs, probably, for a venue that size.
Observation Haki, sweeping the village while he walked.
"Reconstruction looks complete. The village is actually busy today." He'd noticed it when stepping outside — more foot traffic than the weeks after the Nine-Tails incident, less than the Chūnin Exam period, but finding a comfortable middle. "It barely feels like a shinobi village. Too peaceful."
He retracted the Haki when he arrived and let the meal do what it needed to do.
The aftermath: the restaurant owner was experiencing an emotion somewhere between proud and devastated. On the proud side — Ryū hadn't skipped out on the bill, and with a generous 4.75% discount voluntarily offered, the owner had still come out significantly ahead financially. On the devastated side — the kitchen was down to a handful of carrots and some mushrooms, and the establishment would not be seating additional customers today.
Ryū walked out with a cold bottled drink, let out a satisfied belch, and finished it in one pull.
"Nothing in this world quite matches what the One Piece world has available. The biodiversity alone — whatever strange creatures exist over there, they apparently produce extraordinary ingredients."
He crushed the plastic bottle lightly, walked to the row of four garbage bins at the roadside, and dropped it in the recyclables.
Konoha had waste sorting. Improper disposal carried a fine. The system reminded him, fondly and irritably in equal measure, of his previous life in Shanghai — wet waste, dry waste, the whole bureaucratic taxonomy that had occupied several semesters' worth of mental overhead.
"Excuse me — sorry, coming through, please let me — just a moment—!"
A voice from the side.
He turned.
Crimson eyes looked back at him. Tomoe spinning.
Something struck at his mind.
It was faint — his body carried trace amounts of chakra, the unavoidable residue of being a living person in a world built on the stuff. He'd never cultivated it, never refined it into anything usable, but even an infinitesimal amount was apparently enough for a skilled genjutsu practitioner to get purchase on.
Tch. Didn't expect the Nine-Tails to break its seal this far ahead of schedule. Threw off my plans. But that contact was right — you're unusual, but you've never trained in ninjutsu. Which means you don't know even the basic anti-genjutsu techniques that even Maito Gai could manage.
Can't use the Nine-Tails now. But you're an acceptable alternative. I spent a month preparing — spent it training for exactly this, how to pull a taijutsu-specialist into a genjutsu fast.
The stranger's thoughts moved behind an ordinary face.
"Hmm. Uchiha, are they? Nine-Tails — so that's the connection." Ryū's voice carried mild interest and nothing resembling distress. "A little impulsive, don't you think? Though you're — what, fourteen? Fifteen? A bit impulsive at that age is actually pretty normal. I'd been wondering if someone had hit you with an intelligence-dampening jutsu."
The stranger's crimson pupils contracted.
He was staring at Ryū, who was showing zero response to a genjutsu that should have already taken hold.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you