# Chapter 9: Killing Yourself
Lee strolled through Konoha like a man who owned the world, whistling a pleasant tune, making his easy way toward the Shinobi Academy where today's Genin exam would take place — an exam that would determine far too much about the future of the boys and girls sitting it. But he wasn't nervous. Why would he be? His plan for today wasn't the standard practical test in Ninjutsu that the rest of the students would be attempting. No, he had something else entirely in mind.
A demonstration of Rankyaku.
Rock had decided to earn his Genin rank through an alternative route. An unusual one, but genuinely practical and recognized by enough people for it to matter. And unlike where he'd stood a month ago, Lee hadn't been standing still — he'd refined the technique that had come out of the chest, the Rankyaku from the legendary Rokushiki style, making it less costly and easier to deploy. At this point the technique consumed roughly 10% of his chakra reserve, which was considerably less than before. The strain on his tenketsu was no longer so brutal either — something closer to reasonable.
Still, that was the ceiling he could expect for now. There was nothing left to do but watch the clock and play a patient game with time, waiting for his chakra reserve to grow on its own as the body aged — the way a sapling swells slowly into a solid tree in good soil.
That said, it was worth telling the story — briefly, or perhaps not so briefly — of exactly what results Rock had managed to achieve in Taijutsu over an entire month of catastrophically hellish training, a month that had passed like fog across his eyes.
He had done five hundred push-ups. Sometimes closer to a thousand. Biting through his tongue until it bled. He had squatted until his joints cracked with a sound that grated on every nerve. He had worked his core on stones, beating his own back raw. He had knocked his head against tree bark every time the urge to lie down for just a few minutes crept in — that sly, self-deceiving urge to rest, to call it a day off, to tell himself he'd earned it.
So naturally, rotten doubts had clouded his mind as effectively as any enemy Genjutsu — but Lee would have been a weak-willed idiot, not a karateka who had been forged through trial after trial, if he hadn't driven that mental rot out and breathed out every last thread of anxiety in one long, deliberate exhale.
In the end, Rock had made it through. And he had decided, with genuine pride, that he absolutely was not going to stop at what he'd already achieved — he would keep climbing toward the peaks of the shinobi world.
Tenten and Naruto had watched him train often — effectively the only people close to him in any real sense, aside from his father Son Lee, who was perpetually vanishing on missions. And they had watched with something approaching awe, because the thick-browed boy was destroying himself in ways they wouldn't even inflict on their worst enemies. What kind of masochism is this, they sometimes asked. For instance, when Rock reached the point where he could coordinate his movements with extreme precision and had achieved a level of full-body flexibility that wasn't quite a snake's but was getting uncomfortably close, he began doing push-ups and running on his hands — and attached weights to his legs in lieu of training irons. He nearly snapped a vertebra doing it, twice. Fortunately, luck was kind to him both times.
So watching her classmate put himself through training torture day after day, session after session, Tenten had found herself sitting quietly at her desk during one of their lessons and arriving at a conclusion she couldn't shake loose — walking and studying alongside her was a genuine monster who showed no mercy to himself or to anyone else.
She also couldn't help recognizing that she simply wasn't trying hard enough. Whatever kind of monster Lee was, he was still a human being, just like her — which meant she had no excuse for her own laziness and weakness.
Seeing the fire in Rock, his classmate began putting more time into her own training. She'd used to believe there was no rush — had admitted that easily, without guilt. But Lee always seemed to be preparing for something. Something dangerous, something that threatened the peace. And without him doing or saying anything in particular, that urgency kept pushing her to train harder too.
And Naruto—
Uzumaki was simply happy. Thrilled to talk with Lee, to trade words back and forth with Tenten, beaming with the joy of having made a friend in the thick-browed boy.
"I'm gonna be Hokage, dattebayo! And everyone's going to recognize me as an amazing ninja!"
Those were the kinds of promises the blond in the orange jumpsuit threw around constantly — and whenever he and Rock were having dinner at Ichiraku Ramen in the evenings, the kid would announce with a laugh:
"Once I become Hokage and take over as leader of the Hidden Leaf, I'm gonna give both of us unlimited free coupons for any ramen we want! We'll eat together until we burst, every single day, Lee — how great is that?! Ha ha ha!"
Memories like that brought a warm smile to Rock's face. Because once again, he had this feeling — like he was raising a younger sibling, or a martial arts student with enormous potential. They weren't family. They weren't brothers. Just friends. But that was enough, as long as they got along — and Lee had no desire to spend his entire life as a recluse with no one around him.
What was considerably less warm and companionable, however, was the one particular incident that stood out from the otherwise gray monotony of that training month — the day Lee finally decided to tackle one of the three hell's exercises the system had queued up for him. Specifically:
*[Endure five full-strength hits from your holographic clone.]*
It had been a week ago, maybe two — hard to say precisely. He'd stopped at the training grounds and deliberately chosen the far edge of it, among the dense trees and the stream, away from the dummies, so that a passing Might Guy wouldn't see anything unusual. At his mental command, a translucent blue double materialized before him — faintly smoky in appearance, perfectly mirroring his face and build.
*Can't let my guard down. This is the Hell's Training System, for crying out loud. I'm thinking this clone doesn't just hit at full strength — it's probably stronger than me. There are no more free passes in my life. Time to work like a devil in a coal mine.*
With that thought firmly in place, Lee braced himself and took the first strike — standing in his stance, one arm shielding his head, the other covering his torso. The holographic clone exceeded every expectation with a single straight punch that sent Rock's arms numb and filled them with a long, grinding crack of protest. The second blow came as a kick aimed at his head, which genuinely frightened him. He tried to drop into a crouch, only to catch an even faster follow-up straight to the stomach — close enough to bring up his last meal.
Two. Three. Four.
One hit left.
By this point, Lee had a split lip. Under his clothes, a bruise was spreading across his liver. Another was blooming just below his knee, because there was simply no way to block everything — it wasn't physically possible. His arms had given out, worn down by the relentless force and pressure to the point where he could no longer lift them properly. His own digital holographic double had done that to him, with a face that expressed nothing at all and a blank stare that managed to be infuriating on top of everything else.
Then the final charge came.
Lee gathered his will into his fist, his black eyes lighting up with something many would have called an ephemeral spark. His teeth clenched. His thick brows pulled together hard. The system clone launched itself off the ground with its fist raised — and Rock took the blow directly to the forehead. Literally with his forehead, meeting it head-on, the sweat and blood running together into a single trickle above his eye, the concussion ringing gently through his skull.
Worth adding: Lee walked around with an extremely visible lump on his head for quite some time after that. Fortunately, everything had cleared up by the day of the Genin exam — thanks in part to the healing salve — so right now the boy was in excellent health and high spirits. As a reward, the system's Bronze Chest had delivered a new technique. More accurately, a stance — one built on pure Taijutsu, and one that Lee immediately appreciated for its elegant simplicity and brutal effectiveness.
*Right hand, right leg, right stance.*
By tensing every muscle and taking up a specific position — right arm, right shoulder, right hip, and right leg all leading forward — the user of this stance delivers rapid strikes aimed not at the opponent directly, but at a *point* far behind them. This way, even if the opponent falls back or increases the distance between themselves and the attacker, the probability of the strike connecting remains high.