Chapter 141: Might Guy Wants a Sensei
The moment Guy delivered his signature line, Ryū felt a callus forming inside his ears in real time. Ever since they'd met, every encounter with this bowl-cut disaster produced a minimum of ten "youth" utterances within the first few minutes.
Nobody knew why he ran on this particular fuel.
"This is youth!""Only youth!""Youth never stops!""Youth is power!""Youth [blank]!"
His Observation Haki made all five senses unnaturally sharp. He'd caught the conversation between Guy and Kakashi at range without difficulty.
But Guy's actual bold idea —
He genuinely had no idea what it was. And genuinely had no interest in finding out.
He was about to say something when Guy's voice cut in first.
"Ryū-kun — Kakashi said you beat the Nine-Tails alone, right?"
Guy's face was alive with curiosity, burning with the kind of enthusiasm that had nowhere specific to go yet.
Ryū didn't bother hiding anything. He nodded. "More or less, yeah. Though honestly, calling it solo isn't quite right — there was a whole corps of shinobi holding the Nine-Tails in place. I just delivered the finishing blow."
Guy's curiosity transformed immediately into undisguised excitement. "Did you use taijutsu?!"
Another nod. "I don't know any ninjutsu. Taijutsu is all I've got."
Why is he asking this, though.
And why did he just use formal address?
He could have asked Kakashi. Kakashi was ANBU — he had access to plenty of information, including some of the specifics from the fight. It wasn't exactly classified within the jōnin circle at this point. Ryū had no particular expectation that these people would keep it quiet. As long as they didn't make it common knowledge across the whole village, he didn't care. The moment every civilian in Konoha knew which specific person had put the Nine-Tails down, his front door would be trampled into splinters.
Before he could continue, Guy's expression shifted. The excitement drained out and was replaced by something unexpectedly solemn.
"Ryū-kun."
A pause.
"Please become my teacher. I will carry your legacy forward with all the fire of my youth. Even if something were to happen to you someday, I will make sure your teachings live on—"
SMACK.
The knife-hand connected with the top of Guy's skull before he'd finished the sentence. He hadn't even seen it coming. He went airborne, flew fifteen meters across the road, and hit the wall on the other side with a sound like a door slamming. Several cracks spread from the point of impact.
Ryū withdrew his hand in silence.
Kakashi stood with his mouth slightly open.
He had not expected Guy to ask Ryū to take him on as a student. Which was — bold was one word for it. The man had shown no indication whatsoever of wanting disciples. You couldn't just run up to someone and —
Actually, to be fair, the first half of Guy's pitch had been fine. The second half had been Guy casually jinxing the person he was asking a favor from. Being launched across the street was, on reflection, entirely deserved.
So that had been the bold idea.
Kakashi also became aware that the thought he'd dismissed earlier — the "absurd" one he'd shut down before it fully formed — had been more or less identical to what Guy just did. He'd had the same impulse. Seen Ryū's strength and felt the pull toward wanting to learn from him.
He'd talked himself out of it.
Turned out Guy had the same idea and hadn't.
Possibly this was what people meant by coincidence.
Ryū was mildly taken aback too, honestly. He hadn't predicted this. The question now was whether he wanted disciples — which he didn't, had never had any, and wasn't planning to start — and whether Guy could even learn what Ryū knew.
Probably not. Different worlds operated by different rules. Ryū was only able to bypass those rules because of the Dimensional Chat Group. Guy didn't have that. The techniques wouldn't transfer cleanly, if at all.
That was the practical argument. The more immediate argument was that he just didn't want to.
Though — if teaching someone a little something meant they cooked his meals, did his laundry, and swept the floors every day, that wasn't entirely without appeal. But Guy was a man. With a bowl cut. And if he were going to live here and do housework —
His mind produced an image.
Guy. In a maid uniform. With cat ears. Doing chores. Saying "Welcome home, master."
—STOP.
ABORT. ABORT.
He killed the mental image immediately. It had been a mistake to let it start.
"I'm not looking for disciples," he said. "And honestly, your Eight Inner Gates give you a complete path to power on your own. The road I walk probably doesn't suit you."
He paused.
"Actually, it probably doesn't suit almost anyone in this world. The foundation requires abandoning ninjutsu entirely. No chakra enhancement. No supplementary taijutsu forms. Pure physical strength alone. The baseline requirement is lifting two tons with both hands without effort — or one ton single-handed — with zero bodily strain. No chakra involved."
"That's the floor. If your baseline physical strength without any techniques, jutsu, or chakra can't reach that threshold, nothing I do transfers to you anyway."
It was a polite refusal. Guy was a neighbor, and he was a teenager. A blunt rejection of a kid that age — even an extremely loud one — wasn't something Ryū felt like being responsible for.
So he'd framed it as an impossibility rather than a rejection. No unkind words, no damaged pride. If even a gentle letdown like this was enough to shake the kid, that wasn't on him.
Guy, meanwhile, had bounced off the wall, spent a few seconds collecting his scattered thoughts, and was now listening to Ryū's words with an expression that had traveled from disappointment —
— to sudden, total recalibration.
Wait.
What if this wasn't a refusal at all? What if it was a test?
A refusal was maybe twenty percent likely. A test was at least eighty percent. Obviously.
Yes.
Obviously that was it.
Guy's teeth appeared in a wide, gleaming grin.
"Don't worry, Ryū-kun! I'll definitely meet that standard!"
Ryū stared at him.
"...??!"
☆☆☆
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