Chapter 306: Guy Learns Iron Body and Tempest Kick
Honestly, Ryū had lost count of how many festivals he'd missed since arriving in the Naruto world—more or less all of them, really.
Either the aftermath of the Nine-Tails incident had people too focused on rebuilding to bother celebrating anything, or Ryū himself happened to be off somewhere running a group mission, conveniently missing every single one.
Watching the crowds flow past on the street outside, breathing in the fresh air, he shook off the stray thoughts and murmured to himself, "A whole year's gone by already, huh. A full year living here in Konoha—I've genuinely settled into the rhythm of this place completely."
A year felt strangely short. It had gone by, in his sense of it, in the blink of an eye—close his eyes, rest a moment, open them again, and suddenly a full year had passed.
Back before the Dimensional Chat Group, watching time slip by that fast might've earned a solid ten minutes of brooding, philosophical reflection.
But now, as Admin of the Dimensional Chat Group, with a constitution strengthened to an absurd degree—strong enough on its own to grant him at least seven or eight hundred extra years of life—that kind of overly dramatic hand-wringing simply didn't happen to him anymore.
A single year, for him now, amounted to little more than a single grain of sand across an ocean of remaining lifespan.
And the stronger he got, the longer his lifespan stretched, too—and given that his strength kept climbing without any sign of stopping, his remaining years would just keep extending indefinitely right along with it. Under those circumstances...was there really any reason left to fret over time slipping away?
Konoha had genuinely been peaceful this past month, it had to be said—Minato ran the village with a steady, well-organized hand.
Certainly nowhere near as chaotic as the original canon's storyline. Especially in the aftermath of the Nine-Tails incident, there hadn't been much in the way of major upheaval since.
Wonder how Obito's doing in there. Probably still stubbornly plotting to burn Konoha to the ground. Then again, his eyes are still safely in Kakashi's custody, so he can't exactly cause much of a stir right now.
And with Madara's identity already blown, the village higher-ups would obviously want to keep a close eye on Obito—using him as bait to draw Madara out. No way they'd just let Madara waltz in and take him back.
Then again, who really knew? Konoha wasn't exactly a village of perfectly unified loyalties.
Who's to say there wasn't some traitor inside quietly playing tour guide, ready to help spirit Obito away the moment the opportunity arose?
Honestly, that possibility was fairly high. Obito was a critical piece of "Zetsu's" broader plan—without him, that whole plan would need a serious rework from scratch.
Would any of that end up dragging Ryū into it personally?
Hard to say. No telling what was actually going through anyone's head on that front, and frankly, even if it did drag him in somehow, Ryū couldn't say he'd be particularly bothered by it either way.
His strength, at this point, basically made him untouchable across the entire Naruto world. If he threw a full-power punch straight down at the ground, he could probably shatter the planet itself.
And that was without touching his Devil Fruit power, without touching his Ki—purely off his monstrous baseline constitution and Armament Haki alone.
Factor in the Devil Fruit and Dragon Ball Ki, and it'd be practically trivial.
If the planet beneath his feet actually had some kind of sentient consciousness, and somehow found out the Dimensional Chat Group's Admin was currently pondering exactly how many punches it'd take to blow it up entirely—it'd probably be shaking in its boots right about now.
Because Ryū genuinely was, at this point, in star-busting combat territory—a real, bona fide top-tier fighter within the Dimensional Chat Group, trailing behind a certain youkai sage by only the barest margin.
Right at that moment, something in Ryū's Observation Haki registered—a very familiar presence.
The only person whose presence he'd recognize this instantly, and who regularly wandered around this part of the neighborhood, was Might Guy—the earnest, hot-blooded watermelon-headed teenager himself.
Not that Guy necessarily was coming to see him, though—Guy's house sat right next door, separated from Ryū's only by a narrow two-meter alley. There was a decent chance he was just passing through on his way home.
But the next sound to reach him—a voice practically vibrating with excitement—shattered that particular little theory instantly.
"Ryū-sensei! I've mastered it! Both of the martial techniques you taught me—I've finally mastered them!! THIS is the power of youth! THIS, right here, is the power of youth!!"
Listening to that excited shout from below, Ryū's mouth twitched involuntarily.
But that reaction quickly gave way to genuine surprise, because he'd caught every word Guy had just shouted.
Mastered both techniques he'd taught him?
Which meant Guy had actually learned Iron Body and Tempest Kick—two of the Six Powers—already?
It had only been a little over half a year since he'd started teaching him.
Learned it that fast?
Was this because Guy was putting in twenty times the effort of a normal person?
Or did he genuinely just have a rare, natural aptitude for the One Piece world's martial arts?
Ryū couldn't say for certain either way, but he knew for a fact Guy worked harder than practically anyone else. There probably wasn't a single ninja in all of Konoha who put in more effort.
That said, Guy learning Iron Body and Tempest Kick almost certainly meant Beginner tier for both—there was no way he'd jumped straight to Mastery on a first pass.
Unless he was some kind of cheat-code protagonist blessed with absurd plot armor—but Guy had no such thing going for him, so both techniques were most likely sitting at Beginner.
"Whatever the case, truly worthy of being the future Guy of legend. A man who, with all Eight Gates open, can go toe-to-toe and beat down Six Paths-tier Madara himself—of course martial arts talent like his wouldn't come out of nowhere. That said, the sheer effort he pours in is obviously non-negotiable too."
"If his baseline constitution, gate-closed, can already climb to something on the level of Doflamingo's tier, does that mean the Eight Gates come with barely any serious drawback once opened? Or maybe none at all?"
A bold, speculative thought crossed Ryū's mind. The reason the Eighth Gate—the Gate of Death—guaranteed death upon opening, and only stayed active for such a short window, seemed to be tied directly to raw life-force capacity.
If Guy's own life force turned out to be freakishly, abnormally strong, could he potentially keep the Eight Gates active for a full half hour before his body finally gave out?
That would be genuinely terrifying, honestly. The Eight Gates was already a fantastic technique in its own right—Ryū made a mental note to ask Minato sometime whether he could borrow the scroll on the Eight Gates Formation for a closer look.
Not that Ryū could actually make much sense of it himself, given his limited knowledge base in this particular area—but he could always pass it along to the old hag for a proper analysis.
A forbidden technique capable of boosting someone's own combat output by dozens of times over? Yeah, that was exactly the kind of thing that would catch the old hag's interest.
"Ryū-sensei, so does that mean I can move on to learning the next set of martial techniques now?...Huh? Not home again? But the window's clearly open..."
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