If You're Weak, Train More

Madara was not at all surprised by the result.

His gaze swept over the utterly ruined iron shovel in Izuna's hand. If that thing hadn't slowed Izuna down, he thought, this farce would have ended even faster.

He knew Izuna's strength all too well.

During the days Izuna had used caring for him as an excuse, Madara had witnessed his power.

If Izuna had used a sword instead of a shovel today, these people wouldn't be lying on the ground unable to move. They would be corpses.

But... Madara's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. Izuna had swung a solid iron shovel weighing at least dozens of pounds as lightly as a reed, and even smacked a Great Fireball apart...

When had Izuna gotten so strong?

He remembered that while Izuna had been skilled in Taijutsu and among the strongest of his peers, he had never possessed anything approaching this monstrous strength. This was probably another "surprise" from that world.

Never mind. Being strong was a good thing, Madara reassured himself. The helplessness in his eyes was quickly replaced by pride.

That's my little brother!

On the training ground, Izuna steadied his breathing and looked around at the Uchiha clansmen sprawled in every direction, groaning incessantly.

His brows gradually drew together. Instead of a victor's satisfaction, his face showed confusion and... disdain.

"Wait..." Izuna finally couldn't hold back. His voice carried genuine puzzlement. "Are you guys... really the Uchiha Clan that fought its way out of the Warring States Period? How..."

He considered his words, seemingly trying to be tactful, but ended up being blunt. "...How are you so weak?"

The Uchiha lying on the ground: "...???"

Hikaku, who had been about to step forward and clean up the mess, stumbled and nearly fell.

Weak?! We're weak?!

If Takuma, who had just been knocked unconscious by a shovel, had been awake, he probably would have fainted from anger all over again.

The clan's veteran ninjas felt as though they had a mouthful of blood stuck in their chests, unable to spit it out or swallow it.

We're weak?! We're Uchiha elites who survived countless battles to the death! We rank among the strongest in all of Konoha! And you call us weak?!

Izuna was even more dumbfounded by their twisted expressions, all of which seemed to ask, "Are you kidding us?"

He genuinely found it strange. As far as he knew, these Uchiha should have been stronger.

He was a complete newbie who had only transmigrated here recently and had zero actual combat experience. They couldn't even beat him. Were they really Uchiha?

"Has life in the village been so comfortable that you've all gotten complacent?" Izuna's tone grew serious, even carrying a hint of severity. "With skills, reactions, and teamwork like that... if your enemy had been a real powerhouse instead of me, you'd have died who knows how many times already.

"With strength like that, how can you uphold the Uchiha Clan's name? How can you face the ancestors who shed every last drop of blood for the clan during the Warring States Period?"

The clansmen: "..."

They opened their mouths to argue, but the crushing disparity in the fight they had just lost left them speechless.

Could it be... have we really gotten weaker? Has peace... really dulled the Uchiha's edge?

What they didn't know was that Izuna's judgment was based on the perspective of someone using a "cheat."

That "Rhythm Game Assist System" was an outrageously powerful asset in actual combat.

It did more than just "predict." It presented the enemy's attack intentions, trajectories, rhythms, and even Chakra fluctuations before Izuna's eyes in the most direct and precise way possible.

A three-hundred-and-sixty-degree field of vision without blind spots, combined with the "note tracks" and "timing windows" generated by the system, made any sneak attack a joke and laid bare every opening in a frontal assault.

On top of that were the exceptional physical abilities of Izuna's thoroughly tempered Uchiha body, as well as the lightning-fast reflexes and hand-eye coordination he had honed in rhythm game hell, allowing him to handle "four-note chords."

With all of that combined, Izuna was already almost invincible in close-range Taijutsu and small- to medium-scale encounters.

As long as he didn't run into a pure Taijutsu monster like Might Guy or face destructive Ninjutsu that covered an enormous area indiscriminately, he wouldn't lose.

To everyone else, his reaction speed and fighting style were incomprehensibly godlike skills.

Seeing the atmosphere grow increasingly tense and the clansmen's expressions turn from defiance to confusion and self-doubt, Hikaku steeled himself and hurried forward to smooth things over. "Uh... Lord Izuna, please, calm down and go a little easier on them... They, they're also..."

"Go easier on them?" A middle-aged Uchiha who had barely managed to prop himself up, blood still at the corner of his mouth, cut Hikaku off. He stared hard at Izuna, his eyes burning with the anger of humiliation and an even deeper suspicion. "Hikaku! Are you still going to speak up for him?! Can't you see it?!"

He pointed at Izuna, his voice trembling with agitation. "What he just used! Those were clearly the Senju Clan's power-generation techniques and Taijutsu patterns! The way he used the length of his weapon for leverage, the footwork he used to shift his center of gravity! I've seen them countless times on the battlefield! They're favorites of those Senju bastards!"

At those words, the other clansmen who could still move struggled to raise their heads, their gazes stabbing toward Izuna like knives.

"That's right! It was Senju-style Taijutsu!"

"How could Lord Uchiha Izuna possibly know Senju-style Taijutsu?!"

"Who are you really?! Are you a spy sent by the Senju?! Did you use some evil technique to disguise yourself as Lord Izuna?!"

A clamor of suspicion and anger rose again, this time with deeper hostility and killing intent.

Izuna froze for a moment. He looked down at the iron shovel in his hand, then at the enraged clansmen, utterly baffled.

"Wait, dude," he said, blinking, his tone almost amused. "Swinging a shovel counts as Senju-style Taijutsu now? This thing's heavy. How am I supposed to hit anyone with it without using a little leverage? You couldn't beat me, so now you're blaming the way I fought?"

His matter-of-fact attitude, as if asking whether they were sore losers, only made the clansmen feel more aggrieved and angry.

"You...!"

"Still not convinced?" Izuna was getting fired up too. He tossed the shovel aside and dusted off his hands. "Fine. Come on, then."

He walked over to the weapon rack at the edge of the training ground, casually took down two wooden practice swords, and tossed one to the middle-aged Uchiha who had shouted the loudest.

Holding the other, he gave it a deft little twirl.

Izuna pointed his wooden sword diagonally downward, raised his chin slightly, and gave them a challenging look. "I'll fight you using Uchiha Style. If I win, it proves I'm not an impostor, and it also proves you really do need more training. If I lose..."

He smiled faintly, baring his gleaming white teeth. "Then you can all go lie in the hospital like good boys, and starting tomorrow, double your training. How about it?"

Hikaku's vision went dark, and he nearly fainted. "No, no! Lord Izuna! Everyone! Calm down! Please, settle down! We're all family here! We can talk this out! Talk it out!"

He was about to go mad. On one side was the clan's second-in-command, who seemed to have come back to life, whose fighting strength had risen bizarrely, and who seemed to know an enemy clan's Taijutsu. On the other were the clan's core members, thoroughly enraged and determined to defend the clan's honor.

If they started fighting, what would happen then?! The whole compound would be torn apart!

Hidden in the shadows, Madara watched his little brother's arrogant, "fight me if you don't like it" attitude, then looked at Hikaku, who was practically jumping up and down with anxiety. Madara finally couldn't hold back, and his shoulders began to shake.

Izuna, Izuna... Madara struggled to stifle his laughter. You're so wicked.

He knew that, in all likelihood, this fight wouldn't happen.

The clansmen looked furious, but after the one-sided "lesson" they had just received, their confidence had already been shaken.

The enormous gap between the strength Izuna had shown and what they knew, along with his overly self-assured attitude, actually made the theory that he was a "Senju spy" seem somewhat untenable.

Sure enough, faced with Izuna and his wooden sword, as well as his seemingly fair but actually aggressive proposal, the clansmen who had been so furious moments ago hesitated.

Fight him again? Using Uchiha Style?

They watched Izuna casually twirl his sword and recalled the terrifying sense of helplessness that shovel had given them... They really had no confidence.

What if... what if we lose again? Wouldn't that be even more humiliating?

In the end, the middle-aged Uchiha who had caught the wooden sword went through several changes of expression before gritting his teeth and slowly placing it on the ground.

"...There's no need," he forced out through clenched teeth. "We... were simply outmatched."

The other clansmen also looked away or lowered their heads to examine their injuries, tacitly accepting the outcome.

Though unwilling to accept it and still doubtful, they had, at least for the moment, lost both the courage and the reason to keep challenging him.

Seeing this, Izuna curled his lip in disappointment and tossed his wooden sword back onto the rack.

"Boring." He clapped his hands and turned to Hikaku, who was still breaking out in a cold sweat. "Hikaku, don't just stand there. Make arrangements to get them all to Konoha Hospital. Get their injuries treated and let them rest in bed as needed. The medical bills come out of the clan's funds."

He glanced over the bruised and battered clansmen on the ground, who were questioning their lives, and added:

"Once they're healed, I'll personally keep an eye on them at the training ground. If they're weak, they need to train more."

Hikaku: "...Yes, Lord Izuna."

What else could he say? He could only resign himself to making the arrangements.

"I'm going to look around somewhere else." He waved at Hikaku and walked out of the training ground on his own, his steps light, as if he had paid no mind at all to the "spar" that could shake the entire Uchiha Clan Compound.

Left behind amid the wreckage and groaning clansmen, Hikaku felt like crying but had no tears. He began directing the other clansmen who had rushed over after hearing the commotion to clean up and call the medical team.

Meanwhile, news that "the Uchiha second-in-command apparently knows Senju-style Taijutsu and is terrifyingly powerful" quietly spread through Konoha faster than the wind.

When the news reached the Hokage Building, Hashirama was slumped in his chair, trying to hide behind the mountain of documents on his desk to evade Tobirama's questions about the Ninja Academy construction budget running over.

After the Anbu Ninja finished his concise report on everything that had happened at the Uchiha training ground, unable to entirely conceal his surprise, Hashirama abruptly poked his head out from behind the documents. His eyes went round, and the laziness and evasiveness on his face were instantly replaced by pure curiosity and excitement.

"One iron shovel?! He took them all down?! Including Uchiha Kenjirō and those other old guys?!"

Hashirama's voice rose several pitches, and he leaned forward, nearly springing out of his chair. "Really? Tell me more! How did he fight? How did he use the shovel? Were there any witnesses?! Where's the report? Give me more details!"

The Anbu Ninja: "..."

Lord Hashirama, aren't you focusing on the wrong thing? Is the shovel what matters? The point is that Uchiha Izuna apparently knows Senju-style Taijutsu and is ridiculously strong!

Hashirama, however, was completely absorbed in his fervent curiosity about the "fight" itself.

He rubbed his chin, his eyes shining, and muttered to himself, "Even I would have to put in some effort to take down Kenjiro and the others that cleanly using only Taijutsu and no nature transformation techniques... Those old guys all crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood. They fight dirty and have a frightening amount of experience... How did Izuna do it?"

A scene of cartoon figures fighting appeared in his mind, but how could imagining it compare to seeing it with his own eyes?

"Oh, I really want to see it for myself!" Hashirama looked wistful, even a little eager to try. "I wonder if it would be appropriate to go 'visit' Madara at the Uchiha Clan Compound now, 'run into' Izuna while I'm there, and suggest a spar? Would Madara get angry? Hmm... he definitely would, wouldn't he... But I really want to fight! Against a strong opponent like that!"

His eyes grew brighter and brighter, and he looked ready to leap from his seat. Clearly, in his eyes, "fighting a strong opponent" was far more interesting than sitting in an office reviewing documents.

Unlike Hashirama, who was consumed by pure battle fever, Tobirama had been sitting behind the desk across from him with his brows tightly furrowed from the start.

The contents of the Anbu's report ran through his mind.

"Uchiha Izuna... Senju-style Taijutsu..."

He put down the budget report he had been halfway through reviewing. His red eyes narrowed slightly, and his fingertips tapped lightly against the desktop out of habit, making a rhythmic "tap, tap."

Monster Strength, perhaps, could be explained by him secretly learning it.

In the end, it was a combination of precise Chakra control and explosive-force techniques. Although it was an area in which the Senju Clan excelled, an outsider with enough talent and guidance could conceivably learn it.

Although developing explosive power like Izuna's required long practice, it was still possible to learn it outside the Senju.

But "Senju Style" Taijutsu... that was another matter entirely.

It was not a single move, but a complete, systematic fighting system forged through the blood of countless generations of Senju Clan ninjas.

It included distinctive methods of generating force, footwork, and principles for shifting between offense and defense, all deeply bound to the Senju Clan's generally robust physiques and Chakra characteristics.

The Sharingan could copy movements, but it could not copy muscle memory built up over centuries and passed down through personal instruction.

If "Senju Style" were really that easy to learn, the Uchiha, with the abilities of their Sharingan, should have learned every clan's secret techniques long ago.

In fact, they might be able to imitate the form, but capturing its essence was extremely difficult, let alone reaching the level described in the Anbu report, where those seasoned Uchiha veterans recognized it at a glance and were so shocked they lost their composure.

"If it were only a move or two, those old foxes who survived the Warring States Period wouldn't have reacted so strongly," Tobirama murmured, a sharp light flashing in his red eyes. "Since they were all so certain... even flying into a rage over it, thinking the 'impostor' had given himself away..."

That meant what this "Izuna" had displayed was by no means a simple imitation or a superficial grasp, but the essence of "Senju Style" Taijutsu, ingrained in his bones like instinct.

Those were fighting habits that could only be cultivated by growing up among the Senju and spending years immersed in them.

Now that was interesting.

Very interesting.

Tobirama leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands in front of him.

From the information he had pieced together so far, this "Uchiha Izuna" was a bundle of contradictions.

He possessed all of Uchiha Izuna's outward characteristics and the same Chakra signature, yet his understanding was based on a parallel world of "peaceful coexistence" entirely different from their history.

He showed extraordinary closeness and trust toward Big Brother Hashirama and Madara Uchiha.

He possessed the Senju-Style Super Strength that no Uchiha should have, and now there was the possibility that he had mastered the complete Senju-style Taijutsu system as well.

And there was that eyeball he had supposedly cultivated, which he could remove and put back at will...

His Big Brother and Madara Uchiha had clearly accepted the "visitor from a parallel world" story to some extent, and were playing along for reasons of their own.

But Tobirama remained on the highest level of alert and suspicion.

He had never believed in coincidences, much less unprovoked "goodwill" or "closeness," especially when the other party was an Uchiha.

That was a lesson he had paid for in blood on the brutal battlefield.

Who exactly was this "Izuna"? Where had he come from? What was his purpose?

Was everything he had shown them a true reflection of another world, or an elaborate deception designed to exploit his Big Brother's and Madara Uchiha's psychological weaknesses?

If he was an impostor, then the power of the force behind him and the extent of its knowledge of the Senju and the Uchiha would be terrifying enough to make one's heart pound.

If... if, by some chance, everything he said was true...

Tobirama lowered his eyes.

Then what was that so-called "parallel world" really like?

Could the Uchiha and the Senju truly stand side by side like brothers?

And what kind of relationship did he have with Uchiha Izuna? How close would they have to be for Uchiha Izuna to bring Tobirama Senju a souvenir?

He remembered the fur collar he had examined several times, which remained in his laboratory to this day.

If that Uchiha Izuna saw him, what expression would he show? What would he say?

Tobirama, who had always prided himself on his reason and composure, found that he too had developed a trace of curiosity.

He wanted to see for himself.

He wanted to see just what kind of person this "Uchiha Izuna" was, the man who had stirred up the entire Uchiha Clan, thrilled his Big Brother, and left Madara Uchiha's attitude ambiguous.

"Big Brother." Tobirama suddenly spoke, interrupting Hashirama's one-man performance as he gestured with an imaginary shovel and envisioned a spar.

"Hm? Huh? Tobirama? We can talk about the budget later..." Hashirama came back to his senses, thinking his younger brother was going to drag him into another discussion about those troublesome numbers.

"Not the budget." Tobirama's voice was calm and level as his red eyes met Hashirama's. "Regarding Uchiha Izuna's eyes, I think it's time."

Hashirama froze for a moment, then his eyes grew even brighter. "Tobirama! You're willing to help?! I knew you wouldn't just leave it alone!"

"I simply need to gather enough data to assess the situation," Tobirama corrected him, his tone utterly unruffled. "Besides, since he 'believes' he knows me well and 'trusts' my skills, it's only reasonable for me to make initial contact and examine him. We've delayed long enough. It's time I paid him a visit."

Of course, observing the Parallel World visitor's actual condition up close while I'm at it is also part of the plan, Tobirama silently added.

"That's great!" Hashirama slapped his thigh, beaming. "When do you want to go? Should I come with you? I'll talk to Madara again and make sure there's no problem!"

"There's no need." Tobirama stood up. "I can go by myself, as a 'researcher' and an 'after-sales service provider.'"

"As for when..." He paused. "This afternoon. It's better to clear up certain questions sooner rather than later."