You Want to Weigh Me?

The next morning, on the riverbank east of Konoha.

To thank Cangyue for helping him out the day before, Naruto had organized a picnic.

By "organized," he meant going door to door telling everyone to bring their own ingredients, seasonings, and cookware, then arriving on time himself empty-handed.

Choji stared at Naruto for a long while.

"So, what did you bring?"

Naruto confidently patted his chest.

"I brought everyone!"

Choji silently guarded his grilled meat.

When Cangyue arrived by the river, the Flame and Thunder Swords were strapped across his back, one on either side.

Shikamaru lay in the shade of a tree, Kiba was catching fish by the river with Akamaru, and Ino and Sakura were preparing the ingredients.

Sasuke sat alone on a rock, so quiet that he seemed to have merely happened to pass by.

Off in a corner stood a quiet Shino Aburame, too.

Only Hinata was missing, because her family was too strict.

Naruto had also invited Iruka along, though.

His main job, however, wasn't to enjoy the picnic, but to keep these kids from turning the riverbank into a Fire Release training ground.

Cangyue looked around and suddenly realized Naruto was missing.

"Where's Naruto?"

"He was here a moment ago. Said he was going to get ready for today's training."

Shikamaru yawned.

"Acting all mysterious. What a drag."

Just as he finished speaking, Naruto emerged from behind a tree.

He had tied a strip of white cloth around his forehead, with the crooked character for "sword" written in the center, and tucked a leafy stick behind his back.

Everyone fell silent at once.

Cangyue's eyelid twitched.

When they'd parted yesterday, this guy had still been reasonably normal.

How had he evolved from a problem child into a performance artist overnight?

Ship him off to the Akatsuki and seat him with Deidara and Sasori.

"Cangyue!"

Naruto hurried over, his expression more determined than ever.

"I'm ready!"

"Ready for what?"

"To become a real sword!"

Naruto turned and walked straight up to Sasuke.

"Sasuke, be my hammer!"

Dead silence descended over the riverbank.

Sasuke slowly raised his head.

"You want to fight?"

"Not fight. Forge a sword!"

Naruto pulled a crumpled little booklet from his clothes.

"Cangyue said every good sword was just stubborn iron before it was forged. If stubborn iron wants to become a sword, it has to keep taking blows from a hammer!"

"So as long as you beat me hard enough, you can knock all the impurities out of me!"

Everyone's eyes turned to Cangyue at once.

There was curiosity, suspicion, surprise, and a dawning realization that said, "Of course you're involved again."

[Valor Points +12]

Cangyue maintained a composed expression, but inwardly, he had already begun reflecting.

Yesterday, he'd been talking about tempering one's will.

How had Naruto turned that into getting stronger by being beaten up?

Ino asked suspiciously, "Did you really teach him that?"

"I taught him to temper himself, not to volunteer for a beating."

"But that's exactly what you said yesterday!" Naruto immediately undermined him.

Cangyue fell silent for a moment, then clasped his hands behind his back and gazed at the river.

"Language is a window."

"Some look through it and see mountains. Some see rivers. Others see nothing but the bird droppings on the glass."

Naruto froze.

"What does that mean?"

Shikamaru lazily translated, "He means you mistook a metaphor for a training method."

"No way!"

Naruto opened his booklet and read out his evidence:

"A hammer knocks out impurities. As long as I keep getting hit, all my weaknesses will get knocked out!"

Shikamaru considered that for a moment.

"The first thing knocked out will probably be your brains."

"You're the one with no brains, Shikamaru!"

Naruto stamped his feet in anger.

But Sasuke had already risen from the rock.

"Fine."

Naruto's eyes immediately lit up.

"You'll do it?"

"I'd like to see what you'll look like after a beating, too."

Sasuke took his stance.

Overjoyed, Naruto pulled the stick from his back and gripped it with both hands.

"Come on! Don't hold back just because we're comrades!"

Cangyue took a skewer of grilled meat from beside Choji and made no attempt to stop them.

Some lessons couldn't be taught through words alone.

For instance, if you volunteered to let Sasuke beat you up, you really would get beaten up.

Sasuke pushed off the ground and appeared in front of Naruto in an instant.

Naruto had only just raised his stick when a fist struck his face.

Bam!

Naruto spun halfway around on the spot and plunged headfirst into the grass.

"Stop."

Cangyue spoke up in time.

Naruto climbed back up, clutching his rapidly swelling cheek.

"Why stop? I've only just started tempering myself!"

Cangyue gave him a serious once-over.

"You're not a sword."

"Why not?"

"A sword's face doesn't swell when you hit it."

Naruto still refused to accept that.

"A truly good sword would never give up after one hammer blow!"

"Well said!"

A shout brimming with fiery enthusiasm suddenly came from the woods.

The next moment, a tabby cat darted out of the bushes, carrying half a freshly grilled fish in its mouth.

Choji's expression changed drastically.

"My fish!"

Before the tabby could get far, a green figure lunged after it and caught it firmly in his arms.

"Capture successful!"

Holding the constantly struggling tabby, Rock Lee flashed a brilliant smile.

Right behind him, Might Guy, Neji, and Tenten emerged from the woods onto the riverbank.

Tenten held a mission sheet and sighed helplessly.

"We've run three laps around Konoha trying to catch this cat."

Neji glanced at the grilled fish in the tabby's mouth.

"It probably came here because it smelled the food."

Might Guy, however, paid no attention to their mission target.

All his attention had been drawn to Naruto, who had "sword" written on his forehead and was still holding his stick high despite his swollen cheek.

"Willingly enduring countless hammer blows from a comrade, tempering your will through pain!"

Might Guy gave Naruto a thumbs-up, the flames of youth burning in his eyes.

"This is the very forging of youth!"

Naruto instantly felt as though he'd found a kindred spirit.

"Bushy-brow uncle, you think it works, too?"

"Of course!"

Might Guy clenched his fists, looking invigorated.

"Take a hundred hammer blows today, then two hundred tomorrow!"

"If you give up halfway, run five hundred laps around Konoha on your hands!"

Naruto's blood boiled with excitement as he listened.

Rock Lee's eyes shone just as brightly.

"Guy-sensei, please let me join this sword-forging training, too!"

Neji and Tenten stepped two paces aside in perfect unison.

Those two had gone mad.

Absolute maniacs.

Cangyue silently put down his grilled meat.

It's over.

An abstract theory has met a professional practitioner, and now there's a fanatical follower, too.

The loop is complete.

Might Guy turned to Cangyue, clear approval in his eyes.

"Cangyue, I never imagined you'd already truly grasped the meaning of Taijutsu training!"

[Valor Points +20]

Cangyue felt a stir of interest.

Might Guy's strength far surpassed that of the students present, and the gain from him alone outweighed that from everyone else.

"Since you're the one who proposed this sword-forging training, let me serve as your hammer!"

Might Guy's gaze burned, as though he might begin forging him on the spot at any second.

An image flashed through Cangyue's mind of himself being kicked all the way up onto Hokage Rock.

Let's not.

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and spoke calmly.

"True tempering has never been limited to fists and feet."

Might Guy paused.

"Failure is a hammer. Setbacks are a hammer. Powerful enemies are hammers, too."

"If all you know is how to pound the flesh, you'll end up with nothing more than a lump of iron that can take a beating, not a sharp sword."

Might Guy shuddered, the excitement on his face gradually giving way to solemnity.

"I see!"

"What truly needs to be forged through countless blows isn't just the body, but also our never-give-up spirit and our youth!"

"Lee!"

"Guy-sensei!"

Master and student embraced tightly, their tears flying in the wind.

[Valor Points +12]

Cangyue secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Although he had no idea what exactly Might Guy had figured out, an audience member who could fill in the theory on his own was a mature one.

"Are you done fooling around?"

Iruka walked over with a dark expression.

His gaze swept over Naruto's swollen cheek, Sasuke in his fighting stance, and Team Guy's master and student sobbing in each other's arms.

Then it passed over the tabby still struggling in Rock Lee's arms before finally settling on Cangyue.

"Cangyue, come with me."

"This has nothing to do with me." Cangyue looked utterly innocent.

"Then what happened in the park yesterday had nothing to do with you either?"

Cangyue ate the last bite of grilled meat and calmly stood up.

"That did involve me."

The two went to the riverbank.

Iruka took out a written complaint and held it out to Cangyue.

It stated that Cangyue had attacked children his own age with a branch without provocation, leaving several of them physically and emotionally traumatized. After returning home, one of them would instinctively cover his backside whenever he saw a branch.

"Did you do this?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They were bullying Naruto."

Cangyue answered without the slightest hesitation.

"I controlled my strength. Every attack avoided their joints and vital points. They only suffered superficial injuries."

"That's not the point."

Iruka rubbed the bridge of his nose.

He had already questioned witnesses nearby and knew those children had bullied Naruto first.

"There's nothing wrong with helping a friend, but you can't resort to violence every time something happens."

"You could have found an adult nearby or told me."

"A ninja needs more than strength. He needs to understand how to use it."

Cangyue looked at Iruka.

There was little blame in his eyes. Instead, they held more concern.

"Also, you've changed far too much lately."

"If your swordsmanship is this good, why have you never shown it before?"

"You've misunderstood, sensei. I wasn't hiding it."

"Then why have you never told anyone?"

Cangyue turned toward the river, his tone indifferent.

"Because they can't even block a branch I casually snap off a tree."

"Naturally, they don't deserve to hear my story."

The concern slowly vanished from Iruka's face.

For fuck's sake.

Why on earth had he just thought this child carried some heavy past he was unwilling to share?

"Write a reflection."

Iruka handed Cangyue paper and a pen.

"Write it right here, and give your actions some serious thought."

Cangyue sat down on a rock, considered briefly, and wrote the title.

"Reflections on the Inadequate Combat Performance of Tree Branches."

Iruka's eyelid twitched violently.

Cangyue continued writing: "Through this combat experience, I have come to recognize several significant shortcomings of ordinary branches: they break easily, have limited reach, and lack sufficient intimidation."

"When surrounded by multiple opponents, one should prioritize selecting..."

"Stop!"

Iruka snatched the reflection away.

"I told you to reflect on hitting people, not analyze your weapon's shortcomings!"

"Learning from experience is also a required part of a ninja's training."

"Rewrite it!"

A second sheet of paper was slapped down in front of Cangyue.

Cangyue had no choice but to take a different approach.

This time, he wrote about the meaning of strength and the responsibilities of a ninja, then moved from the sword's edge to its sheath. The entire reflection was filled with obscure, philosophical insights.

Iruka initially maintained a stern expression, but as he read on, his face gradually grew serious.

"If strength exists only to harm the weak, it is not a sword, but a deadly weapon that has lost its sheath."

"The truly strong are not those who never make mistakes, but those who know why they swing their sword before every stroke."

Iruka read it twice.

Although the whole reflection remained vague and bewildering, those two lines did have some merit.

[Valor Points +8]

Something stirred in Cangyue's mind.

So writing reflections could earn Valor Points too.

A brand-new road to riches seemed to be slowly opening before him.

"Cangyue..."

Naruto's voice came from behind him.

Half his face was swollen, and he looked dejected.

"I'm sorry."

"You only got punished by Iruka-sensei because you helped me."

"I won't cause you any more trouble."

Cangyue was terrible at handling this sort of heavy atmosphere.

He crumpled the reflection into a ball and casually tossed it to Naruto.

"Don't misunderstand. I'm not shouldering anything for you."

"If a sword is always held in someone else's hand, it can only become someone else's weapon."

"If you really want everyone to acknowledge you, first learn to wield your own sword."

Naruto looked at the crumpled paper in his hand, determination returning to his eyes.

"I understand!"

Cangyue's eyelid twitched.

"What have you understood this time?"

"The next time someone bullies me, I'll grab a branch and whack them myself!"

"..."

Cangyue decided to avoid using metaphors with Naruto whenever possible from now on.

Perhaps this lump of iron's problem wasn't a lack of tempering.

Perhaps its internal structure was simply unusual.

"Kambara Sogetsu."

Sasuke's voice came from a short distance away.

He was already standing in the middle of the riverbank, his black eyes fixed on Cangyue.

"Fight me."

Everyone who had still been eating turned to look.

Might Guy stopped reflecting on youth, and Iruka made no move to intervene.

Even Neji turned his gaze toward the Flame and Thunder Swords on Cangyue's back.

Cangyue sized Sasuke up.

As a genius of the Uchiha Clan, his talent, status, and resolve were all far beyond those of an ordinary student.

Moreover, Might Guy, Iruka, Neji, and a group of students from their year were all watching.

A public sparring match.

How was this a challenge?

This was clearly a crowd of Valor Points lining up to deliver themselves to his door.

Cangyue rejoiced inwardly, but remained composed on the outside as he said coolly,

"You wish to take my measure?"

"Naruto said you could turn crude iron into a sword."

Sasuke slowly settled into his stance, fierce fighting spirit rising in his eyes.

"I don't care about those nonsensical lessons."

"I just want to see how sharp your sword really is."

[Valor Points +10]

The corners of Cangyue's mouth lifted slightly as he reached up to grasp the sword hilt behind him.

The flame sword and thunder sword trembled gently in their sheaths, giving off a low hum.

"A sword's sharpness has never been proven with words."

Cangyue walked toward the middle of the riverbank.

The spectators stepped aside of their own accord, clearing a space for them.

"Since you insist on proof, I will let you see with your own eyes."

"What a true sword is."