The training ground.
Obito was still there, sweating buckets.
He punched the wooden post over and over until his hands turned red.
"Obito."
Makoto called out to him.
Obito stopped and turned to see Makoto, his eyes lighting up.
"Makoto! You're here!"
"Yeah." Makoto walked over. "How's training going?"
"Pretty well!" Obito wiped away his sweat. "I just keep feeling like something's missing..."
"What's missing?"
"What's missing..." Obito thought for a moment. "A secret move that can beat Aoki!"
Makoto smiled.
"Good timing. That's exactly what I came to teach you today."
"Really?!" Obito perked up. "What secret move?"
"A new Taijutsu technique," Makoto said. "It's called Iron Body."
"Iron Body?" Obito tilted his head. "Sounds tough."
"Right. That's the point." Makoto took a stance. "Come on, hit me."
"Hit you?" Obito froze. "Why?"
"So you can feel it for yourself," Makoto said. "Don't worry. You won't hurt me."
Obito hesitated.
"But..."
"No buts," Makoto urged. "Hurry up. It's getting dark."
Obito gritted his teeth.
"Then... I'm really going to hit you, okay?"
"Go ahead."
Obito took a deep breath and clenched his fist.
He remembered how Makoto had beaten Aoki with one hand.
He remembered Makoto saying, "We're both geniuses."
He remembered the past month of special training.
Then he threw a punch.
Thud!
A dull impact rang out.
Obito felt as though his fist had struck an iron plate.
He grimaced in pain, shaking his hand as he backed away.
"Makoto... what was..."
"That's Iron Body." Makoto relaxed his stance and rubbed his chest.
He hadn't felt a thing.
At seventy percent, Iron Body already provided decent defense.
At the very least, someone at Obito's level couldn't break through it.
"That's... that's incredible!" Obito stared wide-eyed at his swollen, reddened fist. "If you used this in a real fight..."
"In a real fight, Aoki could punch you ten times, and you wouldn't even feel it," Makoto said.
Obito's eyes shone even brighter.
"Teach me! Makoto! Teach me!"
Uchiha Makoto smiled as he watched Obito. Sure enough, he couldn't keep milking the same person for all they were worth.
"Ha! Iron Body!"
On the training ground, Obito Uchiha held a horse stance, his face flushed bright red and every muscle in his body tensed like stone.
Nearby, two sparrows perched in the treetops, watching him with their heads tilted.
Uchiha Makoto crouched in the shade of a tree, holding a little notebook and shaking his head as he watched.
"Attempt thirty-seven. Duration... one point two seconds."
He scribbled a note in his notebook. "That's zero point three seconds better than last time. Obito, do you know what that means?"
"It means... I'm almost there!" Obito forced the words through clenched teeth as he maintained his Iron Body stance.
"It means that at this rate, by the time you can use Iron Body in a real fight, the grass on both our graves will be three meters tall."
Uchiha Makoto closed the notebook and sighed.
It really wasn't because Obito was stupid.
The principle behind Iron Body was ridiculously simple. Basically, you pumped chakra into your muscles to harden your body.
But the problem was, would an enemy say, "Hang on, let me get ready," during a fight?
No.
They would just slash at you in a flash.
By the time you held your breath, channeled your chakra, shouted the technique's name, and finished the whole routine, their blade would already have gone through your back and out your chest.
Obito released Iron Body and plopped onto the ground, panting as though he'd run ten kilometers:
"Makoto, this move... there's something wrong with it! There's no time to use it!"
"You're only noticing that now?" Uchiha Makoto raised an eyebrow. "I wanted to say that three days ago."
"Then why didn't you say it sooner?!"
"Would saying it sooner have helped you master it?" Uchiha Makoto stood and dusted off his trousers. "Come on. We're not practicing this anymore today."
"Huh? Then what are we practicing?"
"Something more advanced."
Uchiha Makoto led Obito to the other side of the training ground and found a flat rock to sit on.
Obito watched him eagerly, looking like a puppy waiting to be fed.
"Obito, have you ever heard of 'localized hardening'?" Uchiha Makoto asked.
"Localized... what?"
"It means you don't have to harden your whole body."
Uchiha Makoto held out his right hand. "For example, when someone throws a punch at you in a fight, you only harden the spot they're about to hit. The rest of your body can keep doing whatever it needs to."
Obito blinked, taking a while to process it. "Then... isn't that just..."
"Only defending the places that need defending, while the rest of your body can still move."
Uchiha Makoto finished the thought for him. "That way, you can block attacks without turning into a sitting duck. I call it 'Flowing Iron Block.'"
"Flowing Iron Block..." Obito repeated, his eyes slowly lighting up. "Makoto! You're a genius! I can't believe you came up with that!"
Uchiha Makoto chuckled inwardly.
A genius?
This stuff had already been done to death in the pirate world Iron Body originally came from!
Armament Haki was a kind of Flowing Iron Block.
But aloud, he said, "Actually, I've been researching it for a while. I haven't slept well these past few nights because I've been thinking about it."
That was the truth!
He really hadn't slept well, but not because he'd been researching Iron Body. He'd been poring over the system panel, trying to figure out how to fatten up Obito and Guy, his two "cash cows," a little more.
Before you continue