Zander
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Chapter 41 – Do you want me to kill them?
🕑 Added 2025-06-27 14:01:13 +0000 UTCChapter 41 – Do you want me to kill them?
The wind was sharp that morning in Tanzaku Quarters, rushing through crooked alleyways and wooden eaves, kicking up the dust along the merchant paths. The air carried the scent of grilled meat, cold sake, and something newer, tension.
Hajime walked through the streets with slow, steady steps.
He was impossible to miss.
He stood nearly two meters tall now, just under six foot six, his body forged from muscle, bone, and purpose. His chest was broad, arms thick with power, his steps heavy enough that the planks beneath his feet groaned. Every inch of him exuded calm strength, not wild or flashy, but dense, solid, like a moving wall of living steel.
Strapped to his back was his halberd.
A Nemesis Force Halberd, crude by Imperium standards, but beautiful in its own right. The shaft was dark, forged from hardened minerals bound by psychic compression. Twin crescent blades flared at the top, sharp and curved, shimmering faintly with a dull silver hue. Even now, it pulsed with quiet potential. When he willed it, the weapon could glow with eerie blue light, Warp energy flowing through its dense core.
Some locals had seen him before, mostly as the polite, quiet boy working at the clinic. But this wasn’t that boy.
People stepped aside as he passed.
Whispers followed behind him.
“…He’s huge—”
“a shinobi?”
“no headband. Maybe a mercenary?”
But Hajime didn’t hear them. His focus was forward.
Then the rumors reached his ears.
“…They say the Third Hokage is dead.”
“killed by Orochimaru during the Chūnin Exams”
“Konoha was attacked. The Sand Village betrayed them”
Hajime’s face didn’t change. No reaction. No flicker of emotion. The death of Hiruzen Sarutobi meant little to him, he was a stranger. A name. A background figure in the larger story.
But Tsunade?
She mattered.
He reached the clinic moments later, pushing the door open quietly. Inside, Shizune was alone, organizing bandages and herbs. Tonton sat at her feet, quietly chewing on a carrot.
She looked up, and froze.
Her clipboard slipped from her hands, clattering to the floor.
“Hajime…?” she said.
He nodded once. “I’m back.”
Her gaze scanned him up and down. His frame had grown even more, bulkier, tighter with muscle. His neck was thicker, his jaw firmer, and the halberd on his back looked like something Humans would not use, it's too big.
“You’re… bigger. Again,” she managed.
“I’ve been training.”
She blinked, but didn’t argue. She stepped forward, then paused.
“…Tsunade-sama isn’t here.”
“Where?”
Shizune hesitated. “A tavern. She left last night after the news about Konoha… didn’t sleep. She’s drinking. A lot.”
Hajime didn’t speak for a moment. Then he nodded.
“I’ll find her.”
He left without waiting for more.
Down the roads he went again, passing rows of vendors and gamblers, fortune tellers and sake stalls. But his mind was sharp now, focused.
He reached the tavern soon.
A large, open-front establishment with paper lanterns hanging from crooked wooden beams. Laughter echoed from inside. Dice clacked against wood. The smell of grilled eel and burnt rice wine filled the air.
But he felt it before he stepped in.
Two presences.
The first: cold and crawling. Not just chakra, but something worse. A snake-like aura, coiled and watching, slick with venom and cunning. It didn’t radiate raw strength, it oozed manipulation, deception, hunger. It made Hajim guess who it was instantly.
Orochimaru.
The second aura was quieter, but no less strange. A hollow presence, like a man without a core. Empty, calculated, but twitching beneath the surface, something false wearing a human face.
Kabuto.
His halberd hummed softly behind him, sensing his focus tighten.
He stepped inside.
Tsunade sat at the far end, back slightly hunched, her long blonde hair loose and shadowed. Four empty bottles lay around her. She cradled a fifth in her hand, barely noticing who came and went.
Across from her sat the snakes.
Orochimaru. Pale, smiling faintly, fingers twitching despite being sealed. Kabuto beside him, glasses glinting in the dim light, eyes on Tsunade like a vulture waiting for meat to go cold.
Hajime’s footsteps echoed as he crossed the floor.
The room went quiet.
Even drunk gamblers straightened when they saw him.
He was a wall of muscle, shadows flickering off the halberd at his back. His eyes burned with cold focus. His cloak swayed like a cape.
Orochimaru’s smile twitched.
Kabuto’s brows lifted faintly.
Tsunade looked up.
Her eyes, slightly hazed from drink, widened in surprise. “Hajime…?”
He didn’t answer her yet.
His gaze was locked on Orochimaru.
And he saw it clearly now. the strain in the snake’s body, the sealed hands clutched to his chest, the faint tremor of agony barely hidden behind smirks and silky words.
“…You can heal these hands,” Orochimaru was whispering, “and in return, I’ll give you Dan… Nawaki… brought back to you.”
Tsunade didn’t respond.
She looked lost.
Hollow.
Hajime stepped forward, now close enough for them to see the faint glow of his halberd’s runes, lines carved into crude steel but glowing with pure Warp energy.
And in a voice that cut through the table like a blade, Hajime said:
“…Do you want me to kill them?”
The silence that followed felt like glass cracking beneath the weight of something far too heavy.
Tsunade blinked.
Kabuto stiffened.
Orochimaru?
He just smiled wider.
But the tension in his jaw betrayed the pain.
Hajime’s hand didn’t move toward his weapon.
But the blue glow from the twin blades behind his back brightened ever so slightly, cold, ghostly, beautiful.
It was a warning.
He was ready.
Chapter 41 – Do you want me to kill them?
