Chapter 180: Eriri Wants to Draw a Certain Kind of Manga
Ryū genuinely hadn't seen this coming. Guy's emotional intelligence and social awareness had turned out to be... not what he'd expected. Not pleasantly unexpected, either. Very much the other direction.
Any normal person would have heard what Ryū said back then as a polite brush-off.
But Guy was not, by any reasonable definition, a normal person. Something was clearly missing from his mental wiring. In that respect he wasn't unlike the dense harem protagonists from light novels — the ones who somehow dodge every obvious romantic development despite the universe practically shoving it in their face.
Guy's version was different but equally baffling: if you didn't explain yourself to him for a significant stretch of time, he simply wouldn't register what you were actually saying, and would proceed to interpret everything in the most inconvenient possible direction.
Both types of brain, as far as Ryū was concerned, were equally suffocating to deal with.
Still. In Guy's mind, Ryū hadn't been brushing him off. So he'd gone and trained like a man possessed. And if Ryū turned him away now after he'd actually done it —
That felt a bit cruel, didn't it?
What if it crushed that relentless drive of his? Who was going to kick Madara in the face if it did?
Before Ryū could say anything, Guy's voice floated up again from below.
"Ryū-kun — no! Ryū-sensei! Please teach me real taijutsu! The fires of my youth cannot contain their excitement a moment longer!"
I haven't agreed to anything yet and you're already calling me sensei?
"Ryū-sensei — no matter how gruelling the training, I'll push through it! Even if you made me fight ten jōnin at once, I would have no complaints! Because youth must be forged in the fires of hardship!!"
Ten jōnin at once would require the Seventh Gate minimum. You'd win and then immediately be carried out on a stretcher.
"My ninjutsu aptitude is poor, so taijutsu is the only path I can walk… but my father told me — if I work ten times, twenty times, a hundred times harder than any genius — then I will be the strongest of all!"
Ryū looked down at Guy for a moment, expression flat.
Then he waved a hand.
"Fine, fine. Come back tomorrow. And don't show up before ten in the morning — I won't be awake."
"YES SENSEI!!"
Ryū didn't consider himself good teacher material. He had too many unresolved gaps in his own foundation. Two fixed so far in the Arena. Almost certainly many more he hadn't identified yet.
That was precisely why he hadn't taken the new members' training on himself — Umaru and Eriri were Yukari's problem now. He was genuinely worried he'd teach them something wrong by accident.
With Guy, the plan was simpler. Copy down a few techniques from the Six Powers — Shave, Moonwalk specifically — hand them over as "forbidden arts, not to be shared," and let Guy sort out the rest on his own. Whether he could master them, how far he could take them, what ceiling he'd eventually hit — that was entirely up to Guy.
Yes, he was being extremely "responsible" about this.
Iron Body and Tempest Kick are the right calls here. Most Konoha ninja are relatively fragile — Glass cannons, a lot of them — and Guy's whole thing is taijutsu. His ranged options without the Eight Gates are basically nonexistent. Iron Body gives him a second life. Tempest Kick fills the gap. Couldn't design a better fit if I tried.
He found paper and a brush, and spent the next ten-odd minutes writing it all out — the underlying mechanics, the technique principles, every piece of refinement he'd personally worked out in the Arena. Both techniques, complete.
He stepped back and looked at the filled pages.
"Haven't actually written anything by hand in a while. The handwriting's a bit rough. Should still be legible, though."
Rough it was. But it wasn't illegible. Nobody would mistake it for a foreign script.
If those pages were circulated anywhere in Konoha, they'd cause a stampede.
Iron Body was effectively a second life for any taijutsu practitioner — master it fully and you could shrug off the blast radius of an explosive tag with your bare body. Tempest Kick was a ranged strike with no chakra cost and destructive power that put most ninjutsu to shame.
And the Six Powers had a beautifully specific property: their ceiling was entirely determined by the physical strength of the user. No fixed cap.
If Ryū used Tempest Kick at full power right now, he could split West Lake in half. The thing was barely three kilometres across at its widest — if he couldn't clear that distance with a single strike, he'd have to question every life choice that had led him here.
He was folding the pages into an envelope when the Chat Group chimed in his head.
Three possibilities: someone had tagged him, a group quest had triggered, or a new member had joined. New member was the least likely — two had joined just days ago, which was already extraordinary. Sometimes a whole month passed without one.
He opened the Chat Group.
Not a new member. Someone had tagged him. Specifically: Eriri, the most recent arrival.
Street-Corner Illustrator: RawrSoFierce — is the Admin around?
Kaguya-sama: What do you need the Admin for, Eriri?
Kaguya-sama: Hmm… there's definitely something suspicious going on here. Don't tell me the Admin has already made his move on you — targeting a tsundere blonde twin-tails in her mid-teens, how terrifying—
Street-Corner Illustrator: I just have a question I wanted to ask the Admin, that's all.
Street-Corner Illustrator: It's not what Kaguya-senpai is imagining.
Street-Corner Illustrator: Also… every time the Admin comes up, Kaguya-senpai gets really worked up and starts saying things like "the Admin is making moves on female members again"… Senpai, are you…
Kaguya-sama: SH— Shut up! No! I deny it! I absolutely do not!
Eternally Seventeen: So it's not that the Admin is pursuing Little Kaguya — it's that Little Kaguya wants to pursue the Admin!
Eternally Seventeen: That does make sense, actually. The Admin's looks are quite good, and he's considerate. And Little Kaguya is what, sixteen? Seventeen? Perfectly the age for these feelings to develop~
Kaguya-sama: (‵□′) TRIPLE DENIAL AAAAAA!! And Yukari-nee, you say this kind of thing all the time! I was just copying you!!
RawrSoFierce: …This is probably not the right moment for me to say anything.
RawrSoFierce: I've walked into something awkward.
"…"
The moment Ryū surfaced in the chat, the entire group went dead silent.
He had, in fact, walked in at the worst possible time.
The most awkward person in the room was Kaguya, who had just been thoroughly teased by Yukari and then watched the subject of the conversation appear in real time.
The group held its collective breath for about ten seconds.
Then the noise resumed.
Eternally Seventeen: My my~ Little Kaguya, having feelings and then trying to drag me down with you — did you really think I'd fall for that~?
Street-Corner Illustrator: Um… did I say something I shouldn't have?
Eternally Seventeen: No, my dear. You have a very promising future.
Kaguya-sama: IT'S REALLY NOT LIKE THAT AAAA!!
Kaguya-sama: The Admin is very attentive to the group members, yes, but he's also lived for at least tens of thousands of years — I'm not going to fall for someone that old — wait no that's not what I meant — Admin I'm not calling you old — AAAAAA this is so frustrating!!
Kaguya-sama: I just DON'T. Have those feelings. cries
Crazy Diamond: Is this what they call "protesting too hard after being exposed"?
Edward Newgate: Gurararara. Little Kaguya has shown her hand quite thoroughly.
My True Form Is Cola: So that's the kind of relationship Kaguya-senpai and the Admin have?
My True Form Is Cola: Suddenly very interested… jpg
RawrSoFierce: Can we get back on track here. Street-Corner Illustrator — you had something you wanted to ask me?
RawrSoFierce: Eternally Seventeen, old woman, stop causing problems.
Eternally Seventeen: Hmph~ (￣￣~)
Street-Corner Illustrator: Right! Admin — I wanted to ask. Would you be willing to be the main character of my new manga? I've had a sudden enormous burst of inspiration and…
RawrSoFierce: Pfft — that's what you tagged me for?
RawrSoFierce: Sure, I don't mind. Go ahead.
Street-Corner Illustrator: Really?! In that case — Kaguya-senpai, Yukari-senpai, Umaru-chan — would any of you want to be the female leads?
Eternally Seventeen: ???
Kaguya-sama: !!!
My True Form Is Cola: …
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