Chapter 761 : A different kind of army...

Just like Kusagakure, all the minor villages neighboring Konoha decided never to offend Fujin. All their grievances about the actions of The Spectral Swordsman were buried and forgotten. The news of him killing a hundred Suna ninjas with each attack had shocked them to their core. Unlike Suna, they didn't have the forces to handle such losses.

At the same time, they too began pondering what to do in case Konoha was more weakened than what the reports suggested. Some countries, like the Land of Noodles and the Land of Tea, didn't have any options. They had to depend on Konoha.

Meanwhile, the Land of Hot Water still remembered Kumo's blatant attempt to take over their mines and still hated Kumo. Similarly, the Land of Waterfall hated Iwagakure for its stunts a few years ago. Unlike Kusagakure, those hidden villages couldn't swallow their pride and were left with no option but to hope that Konoha stood tall.

On the other hand, the Land of Rivers, a buffer country between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind, was in a panic. If Suna and Konoha fought, their country would become the battleground. As such, Tanigakure immediately gathered all their ninjas and began preparing for another war they may have to endure.

Even the Land of Iron took note of this battle and Fujin's capabilities while calculating the implications of this sudden attack on Konoha. Council meetings ran through the night in several villages as the world waited to see how Konoha would respond.

As for the person they were discussing the most? He got off from his bed after a nice deep sleep, completely unbothered by the chaos and panic around him and in the world. If anyone were to see him, they wouldn't even be able to guess that he had killed over 300 ninjas and 2000 snakes less than 24 hours ago!

Fujin glanced at the clock and thought, ‘7 hours… My chakra reserves are almost full again. However, Shikaku should call me soon… I'll transfer 20% to the lake. Anyway, it was a good thing that I made them create such a pill.’

Fujin had consumed a special soldier pill less than a couple of days ago. As such, he shouldn't have been able to sleep due to the increased stimulation caused by the soldier pill. However, Fujin had an idea, which was to create another pill that would temporarily pause the mental stimulation caused by a soldier pill.

The reason Fujin had this idea was due to how large his chakra reserves had become. Even the best soldier pill in Konoha would need nearly 7 to 8 hours to recover his chakra completely. Once his chakra reserves were nearly empty, there wasn't much point in him staying awake until they recovered as it just increased his mental fatigue.

As such, Fujin approached the kindhearted medical ninjas who poured their heart and soul into making him an acceptable medical ninja and made them work on creating such a pill. As a gesture of ‘gratitude’ for teaching him, he even let them take credit for the idea. After nearly a month of hard research and experiments, they came up with such a pill.

However, it had a certain limitation. In fact, Fujin had already known that this limitation would exist even before the pill was created. Whoever consumes it would need to wake up before their chakra reserves were full. If they didn't, then it would cause a lot of harm to their body and cells over time. As such, the pill was only ideal for ninjas with high chakra reserves, limiting its usefulness to only a handful of ninjas, but that didn't concern Fujin.

Fujin thought, ‘Even so, this pill does have an adverse effect on the body as well as the mind due to the clash of opposite types of enzymes and chemicals in the two pills. It's best not to use it much. Then again, once I absorb Shukaku's chakra, soldier pills will be far less effective for me as I might need an entire day to recover my chakra completely. Its only use would be when I need to stay awake for several days for a mission or during a war…’

Fujin stopped thinking about it and freshened up. As he expected, an Anbu ninja came to call for him an hour later and said, “Shikaku-sama asked you to go to the third training ground as soon as you can.”

Fujin nodded and muttered, “The third training ground, huh? I guess he has already started gathering the army.”

The Anbu ninja nodded and replied, “Yes, more than half have already appeared. The rest should gather in another half an hour. Shikaku-sama will visit once everyone is there.”

Fujin replied, “Alright, tell him that I'm there.”

The Anbu ninja nodded and flickered away. Fujin thought, ‘I didn't think much about this yesterday, but now that I think of it, this is a good time to do that…’

A Shadow Clone appeared next to Fujin as he flickered away. In a few seconds, Fujin appeared in the third training ground. The third training ground was one of the largest training grounds in Konoha. While there were a few that were larger than it, what made it stand out was its location. It was right next to the entrance of the village. Whenever Konoha wanted to make a show of their forces heading out, this training ground would be used.

As soon as Fujin arrived, he activated his chakra field and sensed, ‘Hmm, over two thousand ninjas are already here.’

Activating the chakra field and sensing so many ninjas openly was generally considered quite rude. As such, most ninjas in the training ground glanced in his direction. However, Fujin had already disappeared from his position.

Renjiro chuckled and muttered, “Took you long enough to arrive.”
Fujin, who had flickered right behind Renjiro, replied plainly, “On the contrary, I was wondering whether I could sneak in another half an hour of sleep.”
Renjiro smirked and said, “It's good you're high in spirit. You'll need it when you lead an army.”
Fujin sighed and muttered, “Shikaku-san just keeps increasing my stress and workload. I hadn't worked much with large groups of ninjas until yesterday. And now he sends me to lead three thousand ninjas…”

Renjiro looked at Fujin with a peculiar expression while wondering, ‘You made him the Acting Hokage. Do you have any right to complain? Besides, you're the only council member who slept peacefully!’

Suddenly, Fujin placed his hand on Renjiro's shoulder and said, “Luckily, I can count on you, right Sensei?”

Renjiro became speechless, realizing that Fujin wanted to dump his work on him. He immediately replied, “I'll just advise you. Everything else is up to you.”

Fujin shook his head and said in a disappointed tone, “You're no fun, Sensei. Where's Hoka? I'm sure he'll love to help me out a bit. I'll leave the army to him and go hunt that snake!”

Once again, Renjiro was left speechless. He was about to say something when he thought, ‘On second thought, delegating is a part of leading as well. However, this might be the first time in history when someone delegates his entire job away… Sigh, Shikaku has had a bad influence on him.’

While Fujin and Renjiro were messing around, a few ninjas spotted them. The ones who did immediately exclaimed, “Fujin's here!”
“He is? Where is he?”
“Look there!”
“You should have seen him yesterday! He was relentless and unstoppable!”
“Yeah, the Suna and Oto ninjas were like helpless chickens against him. Even the Kazekages and the Legendary White Fang couldn't stop him!”
“Even Orochimaru ran away like a coward when Fujin appeared in front of him!”

In under a minute, everyone in the training ground was looking at Fujin! By now, there wasn't a single person in Konoha who hadn't heard about his exploits in the battle. Hundreds of ninjas had witnessed him slaughtering the two divisions of Suna ninjas in the blink of an eye! Nearly every one of them had also glanced at Fujin's other battles. None of them held back in singing his praises and the news had spread like fire through the entire village.

After seeing him once again, the ones who had witnessed his acts recalled their memories subconsciously while the ones who hadn't imagined it. Immediately, everyone began discussing him.

“He is so young!”
“Yeah, and handsome!”
“Bah! Do you only care about looks? Focus on his strength!”

The younger ninjas began discussing his strength as well as his looks. While Fujin had always gained the interest of other young ninjas, there was too little information about what he did and his real strength. His missions used to be so secretive that even the ones who had seen him couldn't say a word about it to anyone. Most of his mission records were burned by Hiruzen and Shikaku. The only information everyone had was rumors.

Of course, the rumors surrounding him were so crazy that everyone wanted to know him. Unfortunately, he was extremely difficult to get in touch with. However, Suna's attack finally made everyone realize how ridiculously powerful Fujin was. For once, they saw someone who lived up to the rumors. Unknown to Fujin, he had an army of fangirls and fanboys in under 24 hours!