“Tch. Forget it, I was just picking on you,” Renjiro muttered, clicking his tongue and waving it off. “After all, you’re only half yourself right now. Let’s save it for later. But don’t think I’ll let you forget what you just said.”

Ryusei’s face didn’t change, calm and steady. His reply came smooth and quick.”No. It’s only fifty percent of my chakra reserves. Not fifty percent of my fighting ability. For a friendly spar, I doubt I’d even need that much.”

Before Renjiro could snap back, another voice cut in.

“But what if we actually find the wolves later, or they come again tonight?” Kanae’s tone was sharper than usual, her pale eyes fixed on Ryusei as her hand rested on her hip. “You’ll still need every drop of chakra. And what if you get injured? Remember what matters most right now: the mission. Don’t be reckless.”

Renjiro blinked at her, brow furrowing.

For Kanae, who normally stayed cold and indifferent, it sounded almost… personal.

He couldn’t figure out why, so he stayed quiet.

Ryusei’s narrowed eyes softened slightly as he looked her way.

‘Why does it sound like she’s lecturing me? Is this supposed to be… ‘care’ of some sort?’

It didn’t line up with her usual behavior.

Normally, she’d toss a cold remark and move on, indifferent whether he fought or not.

This time, though, it felt different.

He didn’t dare point it out; better not push her back behind that wall again.

Instead, he gave a small, easy smile and answered her evenly.

“I’m not mad at Renjiro. I just wanted to test some things I’ve been working on in taijutsu, nothing more, as he recommended. So, we’ll keep it light as I said. I don’t plan on getting myself wrecked right before a mission. And even if I do take a hit, it probably won’t be too big, so I can heal it with medical ninjutsu. As for chakra, I brought enough pills with me to recover. We’ve got the whole day ahead, nothing pressing until nightfall. So, plenty of time to be ready again.”

Ryusei wasn’t sure if he imagined it, but he caught the faintest twitch at the corner of Kanae’s lips, almost like a suppressed snort, before she turned her face away and fixed her gaze back on the distance. Silent again, cold again.

Renjiro, on the other hand, grinned wide.

“Alright then… since you asked for it. But don’t blame me later.”

His excitement was hard to miss. He’d been itching for this chance since the day they became a team.

For months, he’d poked and provoked, waiting for Ryusei to finally take the bait. Now, at last, he got his wish.

He didn’t care about Ryusei’s recent changes, didn’t care what had gotten into him; he only cared about the fight.

His hand reached over his shoulder, pulling free the short ancestral blade strapped to his back.

The steel hummed as chakra flooded it, the faint vibration giving it a sharp, dangerous life of its own. Renjiro’s grin only widened.

“To make it fair, and since you asked for my taijutsu, I’ll use only that against you,” Ryusei said. His lips curved, but not into his usual polite mask. This time, it was his real smile.

Kanae’s expression twitched, just barely, as if the change unsettled her.

Renjiro barked out a laugh.

“Hah! Good, good. Seems like another mission ended with an injury for you. But don’t worry – if you beg, I’ll drag you back again, after we finish it without you.”

Ryusei only smirked. He wasn’t doing this out of recklessness or pride, just annoyance, sharpened into calculation.

Duy’s words echoed in his mind: to sharpen taijutsu, you needed real opponents.

Renjiro didn’t rely on taijutsu but kenjutsu, true, but who said taijutsu should only be honed against its own kind?

In this world, a shinobi had to be ready for anything: blades, jutsu, beasts, or worse. Versatility was survival.

And in that sense, Renjiro’s Hatake style was perfect. Fast, assassin-like, sneaky, and dangerous.

The kind of edge Ryusei wanted to clash against, so his fists and footwork could adapt to anything.

However, since he had promised to fight with taijutsu alone, Ryusei knew better than to be delusional; keeping the weights on would be suicide. He was not that arrogant.

“Wait. Let me take these off,” he said, voice calm, not asking for permission.

He crouched slightly, sliding his hands into the concealed opening at the sides of his lower legs. A moment later, with a sharp tug, the first set of weights came free.

They slammed into the ground with a heavy bang, carving shallow craters into the dirt.

Then, reaching into another hidden seam near his waistline, he drew out the weights that lined the rest of his limbs.

One by one, solid bars of dense, chakra-forged metal slipped out, thudding into the earth around him.

Each impact shook the ground, sending up small clouds of dust.

Finally, for the torso set, there was no easy way to slide them through.

So he pulled his upper clothing free, exposing his chest, and unlatched the remaining pieces.

Soon, the final set dropped with another crash and final spiderweb in the ground, dust rising around him.

The scene was eerily reminiscent of Rock Lee’s legendary unsealing before Gaara.

Renjiro’s smirk faltered. He instinctively hopped back, eyes narrowing. ‘Tch. It seems that I underestimated him…’

As a Hatake swordsman, Renjiro was no stranger to weighted training; he had used it himself in the past.

But the sheer force of those impacts, the craters gouged into the earth, told him just how monstrous Ryusei’s load had been.

To previously travel so far at a fast pace without ever breaking composure under that weight… his body and willpower were clearly on a level Renjiro knew he hadn’t reached.

‘If his taijutsu is refined enough, this could actually be dangerous. Strength alone doesn’t win, but if he pairs that strength with real polish…’

On the other side, Kanae’s pale eyes also widened a bit before she quickly stepped back.

But the shock wasn’t only from the weights.

Her gaze lingered on his bare torso, shoulders broad, chest and arms cut like stone, every muscle balanced in clean proportion, tapering down to a sharp ‘V’. 

Her ears felt strangely warm. Her brows twitched, and she clenched her jaw as if angry. Angry at what, she wasn’t sure.

Ryusei rolled his shoulders, stretching, flexing lightly as though testing his freed limbs.

From the corner of his eye, he caught Kanae’s reaction and smirked inwardly.

‘So, the frost she wore back in Konoha was just a mask. That heat from before never cooled. With time, it grew in silence instead, and now it leaks through the cracks she can’t hold shut.’

And he understood why.

The bloodline-forged Senju body, paired with the previous inhumane training methods and recovery, possible in this world, had turned him into this in just such a short amount of time. 

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep