Chương 74: Fame and Challenges

Dongye Zhen had lived two lives, yet this was the first time he had tasted the heady vintage of celebrity. It manifested the moment he stepped outside. He was immediately subjected to the silent tribute of stares; even those who didn't recognize his face would experience a sudden epiphany the moment a companion whispered his name. Oh! So that's him? So young and already that formidable? If he keeps this up, he'll be soaring beyond the heavens before he hits puberty.

Truth be told, it was a delightful sensation—a novel experience of glory that his previous life had never afforded him. From this day forward, he could officially declare himself the most renowned young talent for leagues around. However, fame of this magnitude rarely arrived without its share of minor inconveniences. On the morning of August 9th, a day after the counter-offensive's success, intelligence trickled in from the Land of Waves.

According to the sensory squads stationed there, the Mist occupation forces had vanished. They had packed up and retreated under the cover of night, leaving the coast clean as a whistle. It seemed the Mist ninjas to the south possessed a shred of conscience; they hadn't forgotten to notify their comrades to flee before Konoha could sweep them all into a single grave. This development came as no surprise to the Eastern Command. Konoha had never intended to mount a costly amphibious assault on the islands.

There was no sense in inflating the casualty list for a war that was already won. With this, the conflict between the Leaf and the Mist reached its functional conclusion. The southeastern reaches of the Land of Fire finally welcomed a true, albeit weary, peace. Command issued orders: aside from a few essential scouting patrols in the direction of Waves, the rest of the garrison was permitted to stand down and rest. The shinobi could not return to the village just yet.

They remained stationed on the front, waiting for the dust to settle. Only after several days of silence—confirming that the Mist would not attempt a desperate return—would the phased withdrawal begin. As for a formal surrender? A signed peace treaty? In the strange world of the Hidden Mist, such things didn't exist. The village was a geopolitical anomaly. Konoha, Sand, Stone, and Cloud all shared the same continent, their borders stitched together with small buffer states.

When the Sand lost, they immediately prostrated themselves and signed whatever papers were put in front of them. The Stone followed suit, though their stubborn, rock-hard pride usually dragged the process out. But the Mist played by their own rules. When they lost, they simply gathered their toys and scurried back to the Land of Water. Protected by the churning expanse of the Great Sea and their treacherous archipelago, they knew an invasion of their homeland was a logistical nightmare.

They played the role of the sore loser to perfection: I'm going home now; come and try me if you think you're hard enough. Regardless of their lack of etiquette, their defeat was an objective fact. For the time being, they lacked the resources for another offensive. Consequently, the wartime restrictions in the Konoha camp were relaxed. As long as one didn't desert the camp, the commanders turned a blind eye to how the shinobi spent their time—whether in meditation, training, or celebratory gatherings.

At noon on August 10th, after a quick meal, Zhen decided to visit the field hospital to see if his skills were needed. Whether or not he truly felt a kinship with the village's ideology, he had spent years meticulously sculpting the image of a spirited youth who loved his home and his comrades. One does not abandon a persona so carefully maintained, especially when one has a family waiting back in the village.

He had barely cleared the threshold of his quarters when he crossed paths with the Hyuga Tokuma squad, recently recalled from the Waves front. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Tokuma had been sidelined during the main assault because his captain, Sarutobi Hiyue, was still convalescing from severe injuries. Instead, his team had been relegated to patrol duty on the northern perimeter. Zhen offered a bright wave.

"Yo! Tokuma, Muta, Maeko! Good to see you back. And you too... Husky!" Aburame Muta and Inuzuka Maeko offered silent nods; both were practitioners of the "brooding loner" school of social interaction. The ninken, however, tilted its head in offense.

"The name is Rocky, not Husky."

"Right, Rocky. May you one day win the Golden Belt in the Inuzuka Clan's canine boxing championships." Rocky: "???" The ever-buoyant Hyuga Tokuma stepped forward and gripped Zhen's shoulders, his eyes alight with curiosity.

"Zhen! Huomen-san told me everything. He said you were a one-man army out there. Since when did you become such a monster?" Zhen feigned a frown.

"I've always been this good. Are you only noticing now? I seem to recall a certain someone getting thrashed by me on the first day of the Academy."

"Lies! Pure slander!" Tokuma denied it vehemently, though his face quickly shifted into a predatory grin.

"Spar with me, Zhen. Right here, right now. I want to see exactly how wide the gap has grown."

"Fair enough." Zhen wasn't about to refuse an old classmate. The two squared off in the clearing outside the quarters. Zhen took no particular stance, standing with a relaxed, almost nonchalant poise. In contrast, the veins around Tokuma's temples bulged as he flared his Byakugan. He dropped into a low crouch, his hands assuming the lethal elegance of the Gentle Fist. His palms were coated in a fine sheen of chakra, ready to be injected into his opponent's meridian system upon contact.

A single successful strike could paralyze a shinobi's chakra flow; the more tenketsu hit, the tighter the noose. It was a sublime art for taking prisoners alive. Of course, in a lethal struggle, a Hyuga wouldn't aim for common pressure points; they would strike the vital organs and lethal apertures. A single tap to the heart was often all it took. One should never mistake the "Gentleness" of the style for mercy—the Hyuga had survived for a millennium because they were anything but kind.

Tokuma scanned Zhen with his all-seeing vision, only to find a frustrating lack of openings. Zhen simply was. Seeing no other choice, Tokuma lunged. He closed the distance in a blur, his hands a whirlwind of Eight Trigrams palms. He struck at every chakra point visible to his eyes in a rapid-fire sequence. But Zhen's body, tempered by years of exposure to white natural energy, was a different breed entirely. His strength, speed, and reflexes far exceeded the limits of a standard ninja. His feet never moved.

His hands, moving with a fluid, ghostly grace, met every one of Tokuma's strikes. Just as a palm was about to connect with his torso, Zhen's hand would whip out and bat the wrist aside with surgical precision. He could have done it with one hand, honestly, but he didn't want to crush his friend's spirit too thoroughly. Seeing his frontal assault failing, Tokuma pivoted, circling to Zhen's left, then his rear, then his right. He moved like a gale, striking from every conceivable angle.

Zhen remained the center of the storm. He didn't turn to follow Tokuma's movements; he didn't even turn his head. Without the use of his eyes, he dismantled every strike with effortless economy. Finally, Tokuma skidded to a halt and waved his hands in surrender.

"Enough, enough! I can't even touch your shadow. Zhen, you really are a freak. You didn't even have to use a single jutsu."

"There you go, calling me names again," Zhen teased.

"But you've improved considerably, Tokuma. I can tell you haven't been slacking." Tokuma, ever the optimist, didn't let the loss dampen his mood. He sighed, throwing his hands up in mock exasperation.

"I've realized the problem: the harder I work, the more I realize how far ahead of me you are. Zhen, what am I supposed to do if I run into an enemy as scary as you?"

"What do you do? If you're alone, you run. Obviously." Zhen grinned.

"But if you have teammates, why wouldn't you choose the path of righteous ganging-up?"

"Huh? You actually have a point."

"Of course I do. In fact, aren't you lot already trying it?"

"What?" Tokuma looked genuinely confused.

"What are you talking about?" Zhen didn't answer him. Instead, he turned his gaze toward Aburame Muta, who was standing off to the side, doing his best impression of a shadow.

"Muta, do you want to keep going, or are we done?" Muta spoke in his characteristic, monotone drone.

"We are done. I have already lost. That being said... could you please return my Kikaichu?" Zhen chuckled. He bent down and pressed his palm to the earth, pulling up a basketball-sized sphere of shimmering chakra. Trapped within the cage was a swarming mass of black parasitic insects. While Zhen had been busy with Tokuma, Muta had quietly tunneled his bugs through the soil to test Zhen's defenses.

Zhen had noticed the moment they entered his sensory range but said nothing, silently deploying a "Corner of Serenity" beneath his feet to snare them. The Kikaichu, which thrived on consuming chakra, found themselves utterly impotent against the dense, refined energy of Zhen's barrier. Their mandibles weren't strong enough to find a purchase. A defensive jutsu was designed to protect the user, but in the right hands, it was a perfect cage. It all depended on the imagination of the caster.