ShuraZero
patreon
Chapter 80 : The Return of the Legend
🕑 Added 2025-09-01 04:27:23 +0000 UTCThe sun was at its highest point, an eye of white fire in a clear, endless blue sky. The air on the outskirts of Konoha was warm, filled with the familiar scent of freshly cut grass and the dry dust of the road. For Naruto, after so much time away, it was unequivocally the smell of home. A deep and vibrant relief settled in his chest.
He stopped at the crest of the final hill, taking a deep breath as if to fill his lungs with the very essence of the village. His one healthy arm shot toward the horizon, pointing with an enthusiasm that hadn't waned one bit despite the long, exhausting days of travel.
"We're almost there!" he exclaimed, his voice ringing with an irrepressible energy. "I can see the wall! And the Hokage Monument! Look, old man Third looks so tiny from here!"
Shizune stopped beside him, a genuine, tired smile gracing her face. The relief she felt was almost as palpable as Naruto's.
"It's good to be back, isn't it, Naruto?" she said softly. "I was starting to think my feet were going to become a permanent part of the road."
"Totally! The first thing I'm gonna do is head to Ichiraku for a giant bowl of pork ramen!" Naruto replied, practically tasting it. He turned to Tsunade, who had maintained a relentless pace and a grim expression for the entire journey. "What about you, Granny Tsunade? Aren't you excited? You're home!"
Tsunade, who had reached the summit with a firm and measured stride, gazed at the familiar walls. For an instant, just an instant, the tension in her shoulders seemed to dissipate. A wave of memories, good and bad, washed over her at the sight of the village she had abandoned so long ago. But the mask of indifference fell back into place as quickly as it had vanished.
"Don't shout, brat," she growled, though her tone lacked its usual bite. It was more a deep weariness than true anger. "You'll attract unnecessary attention. I didn't come back for a parade."
"But it's your home," Naruto insisted, undeterred. "People will be happy to see you."
"The people who mattered are gone," she replied, her voice a sharp murmur that put an end to the conversation. She started down the hill without waiting for a response.
Shizune placed a comforting hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Give her time. This is... complicated for her."
The trio arrived at the great village gates. The activity was typical for midday: a few merchants coming and going, and the two chunin on guard duty, Izumo Kamizuki and Kotetsu Hagane, fighting off drowsiness and boredom. Izumo was focused on a crossword puzzle, while Kotetsu sipped at a tea that had already gone cold.
"Five letters. 'Advanced clone technique...'" Izumo muttered to himself. "It can't be 'Kage Bunshin,' it doesn't fit."
"Try just 'Bunshin' and stop complaining," Kotetsu replied without looking up. "You've been stuck on that one for ten minutes."
It was then that he lifted his head and saw them approaching. His brain processed the information in stages. He recognized Shizune, Lady Tsunade's apprentice, instantly. Then he saw the loud, blond kid, the Jinchuriki of the Kyubi, Naruto Uzumaki. But his attention, and that of Izumo, who had looked up at his partner's sudden silence, became fixed on the woman walking in front.
The blonde hair, the twin pigtails, the diamond-shaped mark on her forehead. The details were unmistakable, pulled from history books and the legends older ninja told in taverns. Disbelief fought a fierce battle with recognition on their faces.
Izumo's pencil slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground without him noticing. Kotetsu choked on his sip of tea, coughing loudly.
"No... it can't be..." Izumo stammered, getting to his feet awkwardly, as if his legs weren't responding correctly. "Is that really her?"
"Lady... Tsunade?" Kotetsu whispered, the name leaving his lips like a blasphemy or a prayer. It felt as if a mythical figure had stepped out of a scroll and was walking straight toward them.
Tsunade ignored them completely. Her presence was so overwhelming that her indifference felt like a physical blow. She walked past them as if they were part of the scenery, her golden gaze fixed on the road leading to the heart of the village. Her mind was on one thing only.
"Where is Hiruzen?" she asked, her voice not an inquiry, but a direct and unadorned command.
The two chunin started, shaken from their stupor.
"L-Lord Hokage?" Izumo managed to say, jumping to his feet and offering a bow so clumsy he nearly lost his balance. "H-He's... he's at the exam tower! The preliminary rounds of the Chunin Exams! They're happening right now, Lady Tsunade!"
Tsunade's expression hardened visibly, the corners of her mouth tightening into a line of disapproval.
"Chunin Exams," she muttered to herself, with barely veiled disdain. "That old fool really went ahead with this. With the tension with Suna... he's an idiot." She turned to look at Naruto, a spark of intensity in her eyes. "Looks like we got here just in time for the party, brat."
Naruto didn't need to be told twice. The mention of the exams and the chance to see his friends in action lit a fuse inside him. He was already sprinting down the main street, leaving behind a pensive Tsunade and a Shizune who was trying to keep up.
"Sakura! Hinata! I'm back!" he shouted, his voice drawing curious glances from the villagers.
They didn't head for the Hokage Tower, the administrative center. Tsunade knew Hiruzen would be where the action was. They went straight to the exam arena, an imposing circular building in the center of the ninja district. The sound of a contained crowd, the murmur of thousands of voices, and the dull echo of impacts and explosions could be heard even from outside.
Tsunade, with her intimate knowledge of the village's infrastructure that she herself had helped build, didn't lead them through the crowded main entrance.
"This way," she ordered, turning into a narrow alley. "I'm not in the mood to deal with crowds or the old geezers on the council just yet."
She guided them through a service passage, up a series of dusty, dimly lit stairs that smelled of dampness and metal. The noise grew louder with every step. Finally, they reached a discreet door that opened onto an observation point in the upper stands, an area reserved for Jonin and high-ranking personnel, offering a perfect view of the arena without mixing with the general public.
They arrived just as a boy with a pineapple-shaped ponytail and an expression of utter annoyance was declared the winner. His opponent, a visibly battered Sound ninja, lay unconscious near the wall.
"The winner, by the opponent's surrender, is Shikamaru Nara," announced the tired voice of the proctor, Hayate Gekko.
Naruto took in the scene. "That's Shikamaru! How'd he win?"
"He used his shadow to force his opponent to bang his head against the wall until he passed out," Shizune explained, having caught the final moments of the match. "What a... peculiar strategy."
Tsunade let out a small huff, almost a laugh. "Not bad for Shikaku's son. The same lazy brilliance. A victory as efficient as it is insolent. The Nara blood doesn't change."
Then, Hayate Gekko's voice echoed through the arena again, this time with a more solemn tone, announcing the match everyone had been waiting for.
"And now, for the final match of the preliminary rounds! Rock Lee versus Gaara of the Sand!"
A palpable tension, cold and heavy, descended upon the entire arena. The crowd's murmur died down to an expectant silence. Naruto held his breath, his eyes fixed on the arena floor. He saw Lee walk down the stairs, his face burning with a determination so intense it was almost manic. There wasn't a hint of doubt in him.
And then he saw Gaara.
He appeared in a swirl of sand, materializing in the center of the battlefield. The deathly calm that surrounded him was more terrifying than any battle cry. The giant gourd on his back seemed to pulse with an energy of its own. And his eyes, a pale, sea-green, were completely devoid of emotion.
Naruto felt a chill run down his spine, one that had nothing to do with the breeze circulating through the arena. It wasn't just the sight of Gaara. It was a feeling. A deep, dark vibration that stirred within him, in the place where the Kyubi was sealed. The fox's chakra churned inside him, not with hostility, but with a kind of somber recognition, like two predators acknowledging each other in the dark.
He's like me, he thought, and the euphoria of returning home was completely replaced by a sense of icy dread. He's alone. And he's filled with a power that terrifies and consumes him. I can feel it.
The match began. And from the very first second, it was a one-sided slaughter.
Lee moved like a green blur. He unleashed a barrage of punches and kicks, each with enough force to shatter rock. But none of them connected. Every strike, every kick, was intercepted by a wall of sand that erupted from the ground or flowed from Gaara's gourd, moving with incredible fluidity and speed to protect its master.
"Incredible," Shizune whispered. "Gaara isn't even moving. How can he react so fast?"
"He's not controlling it," Tsunade said, her expert eyes analyzing the scene with clinical intensity, dissecting every movement. "The sand moves on its own. It's an absolute defense, an automatic jutsu tied to his chakra. The kid doesn't even have to think about it. Someone must have bound that protection to him."
"Tied to his chakra? How is that possible?" Shizune asked, amazed by the concept.
"An ultimate protection jutsu, likely a sacrificial act by his mother at birth, infused into the sand with her own life force," Tsunade answered, her voice low and serious. "It's a perfect, living armor. The Lee kid can't break through it with simple taijutsu. Not at this speed."
Lee's frustration was visible on his sweaty face. Every attack was useless. Finally, after another failed flurry, he leaped back, landing at a safe distance. His expression shifted from frustration to grim resolve. He looked up at the stands, searching for his sensei.
"Gai-sensei! Please, allow me!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the silent arena.
From the stands, Might Guy, with his signature green jumpsuit and bowl cut, nodded solemnly. "Do it, Lee. You have my permission."
Lee bent down and began to remove something from his ankles. They were orange leg weights. Naruto and Shizune watched, confused.
"Weights?" Naruto said, incredulous. "He's in the middle of a fight and he's taking off some simple weights? What difference can that make? They can't be that heavy."
Tsunade said nothing. She simply watched, her eyes narrowed. She knew exactly what those weights were and what they meant.
Lee let the first weight drop. It hit the ground with a deafening crash, a BOOM! that shook the arena's structure and kicked up a thick cloud of dust. The impact left a small crater in the stone floor. The crowd's silence turned into a collective gasp. He dropped the second, and the result was the same.
And then, Rock Lee vanished.
It wasn't a fast movement. It was an instantaneous disappearance. One moment he was at one end of the arena, and the next, almost imperceptibly, he was behind Gaara, connecting with a rising kick that sent the Sand ninja flying through the air.
"He did it! He hit him!" Naruto shouted, jumping with excitement.
But his celebration was premature. The armor of sand surrounding Gaara had crumbled from the impact, only to reveal a second layer. A shell of darker, more compact, and sinister sand, stuck directly to his skin like a second dermis. The blow had been cushioned. The sand was cracking under the force of the kick, but it hadn't broken.
The fight transformed into a terrifying spectacle of speed and power. Lee, his natural speed finally unleashed, realized it still wasn't enough. He made a drastic decision.
"If speed isn't enough, then I'll use force!" he declared. His body tensed, and a visible aura began to radiate from him. "First Gate, the Gate of Opening, open!"
A wave of pure, visible power emanated from him, his skin turning red and his muscles bulging.
"Second Gate, the Gate of Healing, open!"
"He's tearing his own body apart," Tsunade murmured, her voice grave and filled with the cold certainty of a medic. "The Eight Gates is a forbidden technique for a reason. Every gate he opens shreds his muscle fibers at a cellular level and overloads his circulatory system to the breaking point. He's burning his own life as fuel for this attack."
Shizune looked at her, horrified. "Will he die if he keeps going?"
"If he opens the eighth gate, yes, it's certain death. But even with the ones he's opening now... he could be crippled for life. The risk is immense," Tsunade stated.
Lee, now shrouded in a crackling green aura of power, became an unstoppable comet of taijutsu. He moved at a speed that defied logic, appearing and disappearing, connecting a series of blows so fast and powerful that Gaara's sand armor began to crack and shatter into pieces.
For the first time, Gaara looked vulnerable. For the first time, he seemed to feel pain.
And for the first time, Naruto saw a clear emotion on his face. It wasn't fear or surprise. It was an expression of demented ecstasy, a twisted smile and a bloodlust that chilled the bones. Gaara was enjoying the pain, the challenge.
The fight culminated in Lee's ultimate move. "Fifth Gate, the Gate of Closing, open!" The power he unleashed was cataclysmic. He launched Gaara into the air with a kick, then appeared behind him in mid-air, wrapping him in his bandages to immobilize him and begin the Hidden Lotus, a devastating pile-driver.
But Gaara, even in the midst of the attack, was conscious. In the final second before the ultimate impact, he managed to use his sand to transform his gourd, turning it into a giant cushion that absorbed most of the fall.
Lee, however, had no such luck. The backlash from his own technique consumed him. He fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His body was ravaged by the power he had unleashed. One of his arms and one of his legs were visibly broken, twisted at unnatural angles. He was completely helpless.
Gaara rose to his feet, the sand swirling around him with murderous fury. His face was a mask of pure hatred.
"Sabaku Kyū..." he whispered, and a wave of sand as sharp as blades shot toward Lee's motionless body.
"Lee!" Gai shouted from the stands.
In a blur of motion, Might Guy appeared in the arena, positioning himself between the sand and his prized student. He managed to disperse most of the attack with a powerful strike.
But a portion of the sand, smaller but just as lethal, seemed to have a will of its own. It slithered past him like a sand serpent and lunged for Lee's already shattered arm and leg, intending to crush them into pulp.
"It's over," Tsunade murmured, her voice full of a cold, clinical resignation. "Those limbs... there's nothing that can be done. He'll never be a ninja again."
Time seemed to stop. The sand contracted, ready for the final, crushing blow. The sound of breaking bones and pulverized flesh was about to echo through the silent arena.
But it didn't.
A single finger, pale and elegant, interposed itself between the mass of sand and Lee's shattered ankle.
The murderous sand, charged with the killing intent of a Jinchuriki and the force of a relentless jutsu, stopped dead. It didn't divert. It didn't shatter. It simply stopped, as if it had run into an immovable mountain.
Tsunade Senju stood in the center of the arena. No one had seen her move. One second she was in the stands next to Naruto and Shizune, and the next she was down there, her back straight and her expression one of frozen fury. With an almost casual flick of her wrist, she deflected the entirety of the sand, sending it crashing harmlessly against the far wall of the arena with tremendous force.
The silence that fell over the stadium was absolute, sepulchral.
The genin on the balcony stared with their mouths agape. Sakura, Hinata, and Sasuke, who had been paralyzed by the horror of the fight, were frozen solid. They saw the woman their friend had left with—the legendary Sannin, the gambler—standing in the center of it all, radiating an authority and power that made even the monstrous Gaara look like a mere child throwing a tantrum.
In the highest stands, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, stood up, leaning on his desk. An expression of profound astonishment and immense relief crossed his wrinkled face. "Tsunade..." he whispered.
Gaara turned slowly, his green eyes fixed on this new opponent. The sand swirled around him, forming sharp claws and spikes, a manifestation of his rage. His face contorted into a mask of fury.
"You... Who do you think you are to interfere in my match?" he hissed, his voice raspy and full of venom.
Tsunade didn't even look at him. Her attention was completely fixed on Rock Lee's broken body. She knelt beside him, her fingers glowing with a soft green chakra as she assessed the damage with terrifying speed and precision. Her brow furrowed. The injuries were catastrophic.
Finally, she looked up, not at Gaara, but at the arena in general—at the proctor, at the Hokage, at the entire village.
"I'm someone who's about to remind this village what it means to be a true medic," she said, her voice resonating with a strength and power that had lain dormant for far too long. It wasn't a threat; it was a statement of fact.
The legendary Sannin, Tsunade of the Slugs, had returned to Konoha. And her first act had been to challenge the exam's greatest monster and put the entire village on notice. The legend was back.
Comments
Ari Gómez García
You're welcome My friend 🥳🥰🙂↕️
Ari Gómez García
I get why you might be wondering why Naruto reacted with so much astonishment if, in theory, he already "knew" this was going to happen. The answer is simple and it's the key to his current situation: there's a vast difference between knowing something and experiencing it firsthand. Think about Naruto's future memories this way: they aren't a perfect, detailed recording of events. It's more like he binge-watched a super long anime series all at once. He'd remember the key plot points, the major twists, and the outcomes of important fights. But would he remember every single detail, every line of dialogue, every specific move in every moment? It's highly unlikely. Memory gets blurry with that much information. Now, for the most important point, which is the difference between being a spectator and being a participant. You and I can watch on a screen as Rock Lee takes off his weights and think, "Cool, now he's going to move faster." We see it through a filter; it's processed information. But for Naruto, who is right there in the stands, the experience is completely different. It's not just "seeing," it's feeling. It's feeling the tension from the crowd, hearing the deafening crash of the metal weights as they smash into the ground, and above all, witnessing with his own eyes as a real person breaks the limits of speed to the point of almost becoming invisible. That sensory jolt, that raw, real impact, is something a passive memory could never prepare him for. It’s like how we might be surprised by the destructive power a Rasengan would have in real life. Seeing it in the anime doesn't really hit us, but if you saw a roaring sphere of energy in someone's hand right in front of you, the shock would be unavoidable, regardless of whether you knew it was coming.
travis btmb
Tftc
travis btmb
"Weights?" Naruto said, incredulous. "He's in the middle of a fight and he's taking off some simple weights? What difference can that make? They can't be that heavy."why is naruto suprised shouldnt he know this already due to his meta knowledge?
