The Training Camp's morning classes consisted of basic exercises that could be completed alone. The afternoon classes were more varied, and Morito showed up right on time every day.
Morito stood up, brushed the sand off his clothes, and headed toward the academy.
As he left, he didn't notice the delicate trail of footprints on the beach.
In the blink of an eye, night had fallen.
The bright moon hung overhead, its light falling on Morito. He gazed up at the starry sky, his eyes glimmering with confidence.
The powerful confidence that came with Awakening the Byakugan.
He didn't plan to return to the dorm tonight, because the forced absorption of Chakra at midnight didn't only happen at noon. It happened at midnight, too.
Morito was eager to find out whether his Chakra would still be forcibly absorbed now that his Byakugan had Awakened.
Besides, his training after Awakening White Zetsu also needed to advance further.
After the Training Camp's classes ended for the day, Morito went to the cafeteria. Once he'd eaten his fill, he secretly packed up another portion.
Then he slipped into the forest behind the mountain.
Marineford was an island with three important groups of buildings.
Marine Headquarters stood at the front, the residential area lay behind it, and the Naval Academy was off to one side. The rest of the island was surrounded by mountains and forests.
Morito's destination was the forest behind the mountain.
Wild animals were naturally plentiful in the forest. These cute little creatures were usually the Training Camp students' practice targets.
Reserve Navy trainees didn't train on them, though. These animals were far too weak.
Marine Headquarters couldn't exactly keep powerful, ferocious beasts in its own backyard, either.
Of course, "strong" and "weak" were relative. For Morito's training target tonight, these cute little creatures were more than enough.
There were plenty of beasts in the forest behind the mountain: birds, animals, snakes, insects, and rodents.
The Naval Academy captured beasts from time to time and released them here, maintaining the area as a natural environment teeming with wildlife.
That made it convenient for the students to gain field experience.
Not long after entering the forest, Morito came across a huge brown tiger about three meters long. In the world of pirates, big cats like this were at the very bottom of the food chain.
"You'll do!"
Morito quietly gathered Chakra at the tips of both hands. He took up the opening stance of Gentle Fist!
There was still a long time until midnight, so Morito decided to use the big cat in front of him to test the Byakugan.
Gentle Fist involved striking an enemy with one's own Chakra, damaging the enemy's Chakra pathways and meridian system, as well as their internal organs.
It could only reach its full potential when paired with the Byakugan, which could see the meridian system.
Since internal organs couldn't be trained, even the most powerful fighters often suffered fatal injuries when struck by Gentle Fist.
Gentle Fist was undeniably powerful.
But there was one thing that needed to be clarified: Morito felt Eight Trigrams Palm was purely for show.
If you knew what you were looking at, you could tell the user was killing an enemy. If you didn't, you'd think they were doing acrobatics!
Landing a hundred or so strikes just to seal the enemy's pressure points?
Of course, Gentle Fist's pressure-point techniques had to be mastered, but all that nonsense about throwing over a hundred strikes with Eight Trigrams Palm could be forgotten.
Wouldn't it be better to aim for a lethal point and kill with one strike?
Even if the enemy was on guard and a lethal point was hard to hit, all you had to do was seal a few easy-to-reach points to restrict their movements.
Instead, you'd pose in front of every opponent and land hundreds of strikes.
You'd probably exhaust yourself to death before you killed them.
The human body had about fifty-two single points, three hundred and nine paired points, and fifty extra points outside the meridians, for a total of seven hundred and twenty points.
Thirty-six of them were fatal points, commonly known as lethal points.
Morito had memorized all thirty-six.
Animals' bodies were structured differently from humans', but they had lethal points, too, and the general corresponding locations were similar!
Ordinary people couldn't pinpoint these points, but Morito was different.
He had the Byakugan, which could see through flesh!
With the Striped Tiger in his sights, Morito's Chakra burst beneath his feet, and he charged forward in a single bound. Gentle Fist was a form of Taijutsu.
Close-quarters combat was the appeal of Taijutsu.
The tiger, resting atop a rock, was exceptionally alert. At the sound of wind rushing through the forest, it immediately perked up its ears and pinpointed the attacker's direction.
In the animal kingdom, strength was judged by size.
That wasn't always true, but it was true most of the time.
Watching Morito charge toward it with such ferocity, the tiger was a little baffled. Had this scrawny monkey been drinking fake liquor, or was he still half asleep?
Didn't he know who ruled this forest?
Without the slightest hesitation, the Striped Tiger raised its thick paw and swiped at the charging Morito.
A tiger's paw was immensely powerful; it could easily rip a person open.
"Quick reflexes."
Morito hadn't tried to approach the tiger without giving away his presence. He wanted to test the Byakugan in actual combat, not win with a sneak attack.
As he approached the tiger, he focused intently on it.
Morito watched every movement as the tiger raised its paw and swung.
Now that he knew the paw's trajectory, dodging it wasn't difficult. Morito planted one foot on the ground, abruptly stopping his forward momentum.
A gust of blood-tinged wind grazed the tip of his nose.
The tiger's paw missed.
Morito went with the movement and jabbed a finger forward. The Chakra at his fingertip pierced beneath the tiger's paw like an invisible hair-thin needle.
It wasn't a lethal point, just an ordinary one.
But ordinary points had their uses, too. Once the point was blocked, the tiger's paw immediately went numb, as if it no longer belonged to it.
The tiger had been in the middle of swinging its paw. Suddenly losing the support of one foreleg, it couldn't keep its sturdy frame balanced.
With a crash!
The tiger toppled sideways under its own momentum.
"Not bad!"
Morito's eyes narrowed slightly. While the tiger was down, he locked onto a point on its neck.
It was similar to the Renying Point, where the common carotid artery pulsed in the human neck. It belonged to the Stomach Meridian. Striking it caused stagnation of qi and blood, bringing on dizziness.
It was the same move often shown on television, where someone knocked a person out with a single chop.
In reality, if you wanted to knock someone out with a hand chop, you didn't strike the back of the neck. You struck the Renying Point on the side of the neck, where the common carotid artery was.
The Renying Point was one of the Thirty-Six Lethal Points.
At best, it caused unconsciousness. At worst, it caused death.
Seeing the "little monkey" reach for it, the Striped Tiger, lord of the mountain, couldn't allow such a weakling to violate its dignity.
The Striped Tiger opened its massive jaws and lunged for Morito's hand.
It was the right choice: attack instead of defend.
Unfortunately, Chakra didn't only flow from the fingertips in Gentle Fist. It could be released from any of the body's pressure points along the meridian system.
Chakra burst from the back of Morito's hand, jolting the tiger's gaping jaws to a halt.
Taking advantage of the opening, he struck with one finger.
"You lose!"
Morito was faster. He hadn't wasted those three years, then another three years, then another three years at the Training Camp.
Before the tiger's teeth could close, Morito's fingertip had already struck the point on its neck.
The tiger, which had been so ferocious a moment ago, rolled its eyes and collapsed like a heap of mud. It lay motionless on the ground.
Its life slowly ebbed away.
It was dead.
Morito looked down at his finger. He hadn't used much force, yet the powerful tiger, some three meters long, had died instantly.
That showed just how powerful it was to send Chakra into a lethal point.
Even the thick-skinned Striped Tiger couldn't withstand that single-finger strike.
"Life... is so fragile!"
For the rest of the night, Morito continued wandering through the forest, coming across plenty of other kinds of beasts.
He used the same method and conducted the same tests.
With the Byakugan and Chakra strikes to lethal points, Morito easily took down every beast he encountered.
Before this, Morito had often come to this forest for combat training.
He could win, but never this easily.
As midnight approached, Morito came to a platform on a sheer cliff. It was one of his usual training spots.
Though it was surrounded by beasts in the forest behind the mountain, it was a safe place.
Morito didn't train. Instead, he lay comfortably on the platform, gazing into the distance at the bright moon and stars overhead.
The night sky was beautiful.
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