The Blade Cuts Flesh, the Heart Cuts the Soul

As his words fell, he lowered his center of gravity slightly.

The black cloth blocked out all light, and everything in the backyard vanished from view.

But Sasuke did not panic.

Ninjas never relied on their eyes alone.

Footsteps, breathing, the rustle of clothing, even the wind stirred by a swinging weapon could reveal someone's position.

Rustle.

Ahead to his left, a shoe crunched down on fallen leaves.

Without hesitation, Sasuke turned and swung his sword.

The wooden sword sliced through the air, striking precisely toward the source of the sound.

Snap!

The sword struck a fallen leaf, splitting it in two.

But it hit nothing else.

Sasuke's heart tightened.

A faint rush of air suddenly came from his right.

Before he could turn, a branch tapped his right wrist.

Numbness shot up his arm.

His fingers involuntarily loosened for an instant, and the wooden sword nearly slipped from his grasp.

Sasuke hurriedly drew his sword back and retreated.

"You stepped on those leaves on purpose."

"Hearing something doesn't mean you've seen it."

Cangyue's voice came from the left.

Sasuke immediately adjusted his direction and swept his wooden sword sideways.

Again, he struck empty air.

Almost simultaneously, the branch in Cangyue's hand reached in from the right and lightly tapped his shoulder.

Sasuke tilted to one side.

Before he could steady himself, another tap struck the back of his knee.

The force against his leg was slight, but just enough to break his support.

Sasuke dropped to one knee, bracing his wooden sword against the ground to keep himself from falling completely.

Under the veranda, Ino watched in surprise.

Cangyue held nothing but an ordinary branch, and his movements were not particularly fast.

Yet every time Sasuke turned, he seemed to offer up an opening to the branch in advance.

Ino had originally thought that once his eyes were covered, listening carefully would be enough to manage.

Only now did she realize that sounds could deceive him too.

Cangyue bent down, picked up a pebble, and casually flicked it toward the courtyard wall.

Tap.

The pebble struck the wall.

Sasuke sprang to his feet and slashed to his right.

But Cangyue stood behind him to his left, tapping his forehead with the branch with just enough force.

"Wrong again."

Sasuke's expression darkened slightly, and he swept his sword behind him with a backhand swing.

Cangyue took half a step back.

The wooden sword skimmed past the hem of his clothes.

Catching the faint rustle of fabric, Sasuke immediately stepped forward in pursuit and delivered two consecutive slashes.

The first missed.

Just as the second was about to reach its target, another footstep sounded to his left.

Sasuke hesitated for an instant.

In that instant, Cangyue had already slipped clear of his sword.

The branch tapped Sasuke's shoulder.

Then his knee.

Finally, it landed on his forehead again.

Tap.

The sound was quiet, but it made a vein throb at Sasuke's temple.

Since the exchange began, he had not even touched the hem of Cangyue's clothes, yet his own movements seemed to have been read completely.

What infuriated him even more was that Cangyue was not attacking seriously at all.

Each time, the branch merely gave him a light tap as he lost his balance.

It did no damage.

Yet it was more humiliating than actually taking a sword strike.

"Is dodging all you can do?"

Sasuke asked coldly.

"You don't even know where I am."

Standing several paces away, Cangyue rested the branch on his shoulder.

"Why even talk about dodging?"

Sasuke's grip on his sword abruptly tightened.

Under the veranda, Ino instinctively glanced at Cangyue.

He was as infuriating as ever.

And Sasuke had no way to argue.

Because until Cangyue spoke, Sasuke had been facing an entirely different direction.

Sasuke took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

I can't keep letting sounds lead me around.

Cangyue can step on leaves or throw pebbles against the wall.

But whenever he attacks, there has to be a rush of air.

Sasuke held his sword across his body and stayed where he was, no longer pursuing.

Seeing this, Cangyue flicked out two pebbles.

One landed behind Sasuke.

The other struck a wooden post to his side.

The two sounds came almost simultaneously.

Sasuke did not move.

Cangyue took a step forward.

He deliberately ground his shoe over the fallen leaves.

Rustle.

Sasuke still held his original stance.

Only when the branch came cutting through the air did he abruptly turn and slash diagonally with his wooden sword.

Clack!

The wooden sword collided with the branch.

Joy surged in Sasuke's heart.

I hit him!

The next moment, he realized something was wrong.

The force transmitted through the branch did not come from Cangyue.

Holding the end of the branch in one hand, Cangyue used the force of Sasuke's swing to draw it backward.

The wooden sword was instantly pulled off course.

Sasuke's chest was left completely exposed.

The branch slid forward along the wooden sword and tapped his shoulder again.

Sasuke stumbled backward.

"I clearly got the direction right!"

"You heard the branch."

Cangyue released his grip, letting the branch fall.

"Not me."

Sasuke's expression darkened completely.

He had been confident that he could pinpoint Cangyue by sound.

Yet Cangyue had only varied the ways he made sounds, and Sasuke's judgments had failed time after time.

Locating someone by sound was nowhere near as reliable as he had imagined when facing a ninja truly skilled at concealment and deception.

But that did not mean this training was useful.

Sasuke raised a hand and grasped the edge of the black cloth.

"Enough."

"Chasing false sounds blindfolded is nothing but a waste of time."

Just as he was about to remove the cloth, a branch suddenly pressed across his hand.

The branch rested on the back of his hand.

The pressure was light, but it stopped his movement.

"Let go."

Cangyue did not answer.

A breeze blew a leaf from the tree.

Cangyue raised the branch and casually swept it in front of Sasuke.

It did not touch Sasuke.

It did not even touch the wooden sword in his hand.

Yet Sasuke distinctly felt a razor-sharp presence sweep past his face.

In that instant, the skin along his cheek tightened slightly.

His body instinctively wanted to retreat.

Slice.

A faint cutting sound reached his ears.

A fallen leaf split down the middle.

The two halves brushed past Sasuke's cheeks, one on either side, before slowly drifting to the ground.

Sasuke froze.

Had that branch come just half an inch closer, the leaf would not have been the only thing cut open.

He could not see.

His hearing had failed to anticipate it either.

He had not even realized an attack had come until the Sword Intent swept past his face.

With his vision taken away, the judgment he had considered reliable proved so fragile.

"The Uchiha's eyes do possess power far beyond that of ordinary people."

Cangyue withdrew the branch.

"But if the Sharingan is your strength..."

He paused for an instant.

"Then what are you without it?"

Sasuke's hand froze on the black cloth.

Even the wind in the courtyard seemed to fall silent at that moment.

Uchiha.

Sharingan.

Those two words had long been intertwined.

The clan was renowned for its eyes.

That man had relied on the Sharingan to destroy the entire Uchiha clan in a single night.

And in his pursuit of revenge, Sasuke had always longed to make his own eyes stronger.

If only I awaken the Sharingan.

If only my Sharingan keeps evolving.

If only I have the same eyes as that man...

But if all my power truly comes from those eyes, can I only bridge the gap between Itachi and me through my eyes as well?

What if I can't see?

What if my eyes are sealed?

What if an enemy moves too fast for even the Sharingan to track?

What would Sasuke Uchiha have left then?

Sasuke slowly lowered his hand.

He did not remove the black cloth.

Instead, he tightened the knot again, shutting out the last sliver of light.

"Again."

His voice was quiet, but far more serious than before.

Cangyue remained calm on the outside, but inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

It worked.

That line really hit home with Sasuke.

As for whether practicing blindfolded could actually help Sasuke develop some kind of mind's eye, he couldn't guarantee it.

But ninja could indeed detect danger by sensing killing intent, air currents, and chakra fluctuations.

As long as the direction was right, he could leave Sasuke to fill in the rest himself.

Cangyue stepped back several paces.

The second round began.

This time, Sasuke didn't attack first.

He stood still, holding his wooden sword across his body as he tried to steady his breathing.

Tap.

A pebble landed to his left.

Sasuke didn't turn.

Tap.

A second pebble struck the wall on his right.

His fingers tightened slightly, but he still didn't swing.

A third pebble sailed over his head and struck the tree trunk behind him.

Sasuke remained standing where he was.

Watching Sasuke stand there blindfolded, Ino gradually understood Cangyue's intention.

Sasuke had been too impatient before.

Every time he heard a sound, he reacted immediately.

He seemed quick, but in reality, Cangyue had been leading him around by the nose.

Now, he was beginning to learn to ignore irrelevant sounds.

But a new problem arose.

If he didn't follow the sounds, what could he use to identify a real attack?

Ino looked at Cangyue.

Cangyue had stopped moving.

He quieted his breathing and lowered the branch slightly, seeming to blend into the silence of the backyard.

There was no rustle of fallen leaves.

No whisper of clothing.

Even as Ino watched him walk forward, she could barely hear a thing.

Cangyue approached Sasuke from the front.

One step.

Two steps.

The branch slowly rose, stopping just before the spot between Sasuke's brows.

Sasuke didn't react at all.

Cangyue didn't thrust.

He merely released a wisp of concentrated sword intent.

A razor-sharp intent gathered at the tip of the branch.

Sasuke suddenly felt a needle-like chill between his brows.

There was no sound.

Nor had he seen an attack.

But deep within his body, some instinct was frantically warning him.

Danger was right in front of him!

Sasuke jerked backward.

At the same time, his wooden sword slashed upward in front of him.

The direction was correct.

Ino's eyes flew wide.

He really sensed it!

Cangyue turned his wrist.

The slender branch met the wooden sword.

Crack!

The two collided.

The wooden sword didn't cut through the branch.

Instead, it felt as though it had struck a real blade.

A jolt traveled down the sword into Sasuke's arm. His fingers went numb, and the wooden sword flew from his hand, tumbling several times across the ground.

He staggered back two steps before regaining his footing.

Sasuke paid no attention to the fallen wooden sword.

Through the black cloth, he "stared" fixedly at where Cangyue stood.

In that instant, he truly hadn't heard a sound.

But he had felt it.

An indescribable, cold, piercing pain.

As though his body had already seen the outcome before the actual attack arrived.

"What was that just now?"

Cangyue didn't answer immediately.

He glanced at the branch in his hand.

After colliding head-on with the wooden sword, the branch remained intact, with only a few wood shavings falling from its tip.

Cangyue turned his hand and planted it in the soil beside Sasuke's feet.

The ordinary branch stood straight, like a miniature sword.

Only after finishing the motion did he slowly speak.

"The blade cuts the flesh."

"The heart cuts the soul."

Sasuke's breathing briefly caught.

Cangyue walked past him toward the house.

"What you truly need to see has never been just your enemy's movements."

He didn't explain what the heart meant, or how to see.

The more he said, the easier it would be to give himself away.

One line was enough.

He could leave the rest to Sasuke's own interpretation.

"The blade cuts the flesh. The heart cuts the soul..."

Sasuke repeated the words under his breath.

To him, the "heart" Cangyue spoke of wasn't something vague or intangible.

It was the attacker's intention, killing intent, and changes in chakra before they struck.

Movements could deceive the eyes.

Sounds could be manufactured.

But when someone truly intended to attack, the will born in that instant couldn't be faked.

If he could catch that will before the attack came, he could anticipate it even without the Sharingan.

What if he combined it with the Sharingan?

Sasuke suddenly realized that Cangyue had never been asking him to abandon the eyes of the Uchiha.

He was teaching him to fight even without the Sharingan.

Once he opened his eyes again, this ability would only make his Sharingan stronger.

Under the veranda, Ino was also watching the branch planted in the ground.

At first, she'd thought practicing blindfolded was just another of Cangyue's wild ideas.

But Sasuke really had blocked an attack from the front without sound or sight.

Although his wooden sword had been knocked away, his aim had been correct.

In just two brief exchanges, Sasuke had already begun to change.

[Valor Points +40]

Cangyue's steps briefly faltered.

It actually worked?

Sasuke bent down and picked up his wooden sword.

He still didn't remove the black cloth.

Relying on his memory, he returned to his original position and took up a defensive stance again.

He began recalling the chill he'd felt between his brows.

Once.

Twice.

The wooden sword slashed forward again and again, then drew back.

There was no enemy, nor any sound.

Yet he seemed to be repeatedly fighting that moment he hadn't seen.

Cangyue stepped into the corridor.

Ino followed him.

She glanced back at Sasuke and asked in a low voice, "Did you know all along that he'd sense that strike?"

Cangyue's expression remained calm.

Of course not.

He'd simply thought that creating a sense of danger with sword intent should be easier to detect than thrown pebbles.

Whether Sasuke could block it was entirely up to him.

Naturally, he couldn't say that.

Cangyue raised a hand and caught a fallen leaf drifting down from the tree.

It was one of the halves he'd cut with the branch earlier.

He held the leaf between two fingers, gathered a wisp of sword intent at his fingertips, and lightly sliced along its existing cut edge.

The half leaf split again.

The cut was smooth.

Cangyue handed one piece to Ino.

"Different ailments call for different remedies."

Ino took the leaf.

She looked down at her palm, then toward Sasuke in the yard.

Naruto's problem was his inability to control the immense, conflicting powers within him.

So Cangyue had him enter a dream to see his own chakra clearly.

Sasuke's problem was relying too heavily on his eyes.

So Cangyue simply covered them, making him learn to sense danger beyond his vision.

The two methods seemed absurd, even completely opposite.

Yet both had targeted the two boys' weakest points precisely.

Ino suddenly felt that perhaps Cangyue's usual strange behavior wasn't all just fooling around.

At least, not this time.

"What about me?"

Ino suddenly asked.

Cangyue looked at her.

"What's wrong with you?"

Ino's brow twitched.

"Nothing's wrong with me!"

"Then you don't need any medicine."

Cangyue turned and went inside.

Ino stood there holding the sliced leaf, taking a long moment to catch on.

"Kambara Sogetsu!"

In the backyard, Sasuke's wooden sword continued to slash down again and again.

The black cloth never came off.

Meanwhile, in the Ninja Academy office, Mizuki opened Naruto's recent performance records.

Tree Climbing, chakra control, classroom performance...

His finger stopped at the graduation assessment column.

He couldn't wait any longer.