Chapter 35

Chapter 35: "Welcome to the Dojo of Death (But With Health Insurance!)"

In which the strongest grandpas in the world hold a tea-fueled conference about a certain spiky-haired newcomer.

While Naruto was outside exchanging emotional farewells with Gonzui (and possibly promising to send him postcards from muscle-heaven), the masters of Ryozanpaku were having their own little council of war inside.

And by council of war, we mean a casual tea party. With enough killing intent in the air to make the plants wilt.

"I'm telling you," Sakaki said, sipping his sake while his biceps glistened like mountains dipped in oil, "that kid's not normal."

"You mean the fact he survived your presence without crying?" Kensei Ma the deceptively cheerful Chinese master asked, tilting his head. "Yes, very suspicious."

"Not just that," Akisame nodded. "He moves like a shadow. His steps were too light for someone with that muscle density. Not many can hide their weight like that. That's… ninja-grade stealth."

Shigure, who had been silently cleaning a very large sword, finally spoke in her quiet, melodic voice. "He has… spirit energy."

There was a beat of silence.

"Spirit energy?" Apachai blinked, holding his pet bird like it was part of the discussion. "Apachai doesn't know what that means, but it sounds cool!"

"It means," Akisame explained, adjusting his glasses with that wise-sensei sparkle, "he has the potential to become a mage. Or he already is one. But he accepted us as teachers, so he clearly isn't aligned with the mage associations."

"Which makes sense," Sakaki grunted. "If he were already trained by mages, he wouldn't need us. He's here to learn Ki. And judging by how his instincts handled that fakeout low kick, he's either a fighting prodigy or someone trained by a really good madman."

The Elder finally spoke, sitting in his garden chair and radiating the kind of peaceful pressure that could pop mountains. "He's either extremely lucky… or fated for something big. Either way, we train him."

"We still gonna put him through the usual hazing—I mean, training?" Kensei asked with an innocent smile that fooled no one.

"Oh, absolutely," Akisame said, already drawing a blueprint of a bizarre, possibly illegal obstacle course. "Let's see if he can survive the Seven Styles of Suffering and the Death Sauna of Determination."

Apachai clapped. "Yay! New disciple means new hugs!"

"Just don't hug him to death," Sakaki said dryly.

You see, Ryozanpaku wasn't just any dojo. It was the dojo. The kind that made other dojos wake up in cold sweats. The kind that charged a fee just for challengers to get beaten up by its residents. Not because they needed the money, but because the local hospitals had sent them stern letters about the number of injured martial artists being delivered in wheelbarrows.

And after you got flattened by one of the masters, you'd usually get dragged off to Akisame's Bone Clinic for "realignment therapy" (translation: pain), or to Kensei's acupuncture spa, which somehow made getting stabbed by a hundred needles seem like a pleasant experience.

The place had a waitlist of challengers and a fan club of people who had lost teeth there and proudly displayed their missing molars like war trophies.

But despite the chaos, despite the insanity, Ryozanpaku stood on the side of good. Unlike their counterparts in YOMI—a darker, more sinister organization of elite martial artists—Ryozanpaku trained its students to protect humanity. That included standing against other humans, monsters, demons, and every species in between who threatened peace.

They were guardians, warriors of the light, and occasionally, eccentric maniacs with a taste for absurd training methods.

And if Naruto—sorry, Issei Hyoudou, Totally Normal Transfer Student—survived the week?

He wouldn't just become stronger.

He'd become legendary.

Or at least, have some cool scars to show off at parties.

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When Naruto walked back into Ryozanpaku, he expected maybe a training session or a warm-up brawl—something simple like dodging knives while blindfolded or carrying boulders up a waterfall. You know, classic stuff.

What he didn't expect was for Akisame, the dojo's resident renaissance man, to say with the calmness of a man offering tea, "Please strip to your undergarments. We'll be inspecting your body."

"…Excuse me?" Naruto blinked.

"For medical and training evaluation, of course," Akisame said, already putting on his white doctor's coat and pulling out a clipboard. "We must tailor your regimen to your precise physiology. This is a professional assessment, not a school physical. Now off with the pants, please."

Naruto sighed and complied, mumbling something about how this world just kept getting weirder. He stood there in nothing but his boxers, trying not to feel self-conscious under the scrutiny of a man whose eyes were sharper than a Byakugan and whose hands probably had pressure-point GPS built in.

Akisame circled him like a sculptor examining marble. He prodded a shoulder here, stretched a tendon there, and even tapped on his ribs like checking for hollow walls. Naruto half expected him to start knocking and say, "Ah yes, chakra potential insulation with spiritual reinforcement. Good craftsmanship."

"You've got spirit energy," Akisame said matter-of-factly. "High-quality stuff too. No turbulence in your flow, strong circulation. But it's recent. Your body hasn't fully adapted to using it yet. That tells me one thing: you're a natural."

"A genius?" Naruto grinned.

"A very stubborn one," Akisame replied with a raised brow. "Your body's screaming 'untrained punk,' but your muscles are dense, your joints reinforced, and your bones borderline reinforced. You've either been blessed by the heavens or you've cheated biology with sheer willpower."

"Why not both?" Naruto shrugged.

Akisame chuckled. "So. Do you want to be a mage?"

Naruto tilted his head. "Magic's cool, yeah. But I prefer a good fight—fist-to-face, y'know?"

That answer made Akisame beam like a proud grandpa. "Splendid. We do need more close combat lunatics—ahem, I mean enthusiasts."

He wrote something on the clipboard in the language of ancient muscle lore and handed Naruto a towel. "Get dressed. You've got the body of a warrior and the potential of a sage. Once you master Ki, we'll arrange for you to train under a mage who can guide that part of you properly."

"Sounds good," Naruto said, slipping back into his clothes and feeling oddly proud—like a prized cow that had just won best in show at the Ki-powered county fair.

Akisame clapped him on the back. "Don't waste it. You've got something rare. Spirit and strength don't often live in harmony. But in you… I see a path worth walking."

Naruto nodded, heart pounding with excitement and a little dread.

He was officially in. Ryozanpaku had seen his potential.

Now came the hard part.

Surviving their training.

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Naruto had fought a lot of scary people in his life—snake men, giant monsters, angry moms with frying pans—but none of them carried quite the same energy as Sakaki Shio.

Standing shirtless like a biker on his way to punch a tornado, with blue jeans, a scar across his nose, and a leather jacket flapping in the breeze (was there a breeze? there was now), Sakaki radiated boss fight energy like it was his cologne.

"All right, kid," Sakaki said, rolling his shoulders with a casual crunch that made the floor shiver, "Show me what you've got. No holding back. Hit me with your full power."

Naruto, to his eternal credit, did not immediately scream and run in the other direction. Instead, he cracked his knuckles, took a breath, and smiled.

"Finally. A real challenge."

He powered up with Spirit Energy, wrapping his limbs in blue light that crackled like the Fourth of July and hummed with raw potential. His muscles tensed. His stance shifted into something between Street Fighter's Cammy and Ryu—agile but powerful. Then he launched forward with a triple jump, rebounded off a platform of spirit energy mid-air, and came down like a cannonball aimed straight at Sakaki.

The kick? Beautiful form. Speed? Blazing. Power? Enough to crater the ground behind him from the wind pressure.

Sakaki blinked.

And backhanded him across the dojo like a misbehaving volleyball.

The world turned sideways, then upside down, then back again as Naruto bounced off a wall and landed on the floor with a thud and a generous helping of fractured dignity (and ribs).

"Owwww," he groaned, staring at the ceiling as if it had betrayed him.

Sakaki sauntered over with all the urgency of a man checking on his mailbox. "Not bad," he said, sipping from a sake bottle like this was a casual Sunday brunch. "You've got potential. Good instincts. But your energy doesn't flow with your moves yet. It's like… trying to drive a sports car through a hallway full of cardboard boxes."

Naruto coughed. "So… how many bones are broken?"

"Three ribs. Maybe a forearm," Akisame called from the sidelines, completely unfazed. "Nothing life-threatening. You'll heal."

"Cool," Naruto wheezed, "so that means I can still train?"

"You will train," Sakaki said, nodding. "That's how you survive here. Get beaten up. Stand back up. Get beaten again. Repeat until you become strong enough to scare monsters in your sleep."

Naruto laughed, wincing as his ribs reminded him they were, in fact, broken. "Heh… Sounds like home."

He might've gotten curb-stomped by a muscle mountain with a sake addiction, but something inside him buzzed with excitement.

This was Ryozanpaku.

And if getting turned into a human baseball by Sakaki was part of the process, Naruto was ready to swing for the fences.

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There were few things in life that brought Naruto more joy than getting obliterated in the name of self-improvement.

Broken bones? Been there.

Crushing pressure? Standard Tuesday.

A wise old man with a tiny mustache telling you to push harder or die trying? Sign him up.

After getting yeeted across the dojo by Sakaki, Naruto barely had time to dust himself off before Akisame stepped in like a calm, smiling war general.

"Hold still," he said.

And just like that, snap snap crunch, Naruto's bones were reset by a few glowing touches of Akisame's palm. Honestly, it felt less like a healing and more like getting elbow-dropped by an angel.

"There," Akisame said, stepping back. "Bones mended. Now… let's talk about your limits. And how we're going to break them."

"Yesss," Naruto hissed in pure joy, eyes sparkling like a kid at the ramen bar.

Moments later, Naruto found himself strapped into something that looked like a rejected prototype for a Gundam torture chair.

Each limb was connected to a weight machine.

Correction: A soul-crushing doom machine designed by a sadist in a hakama.

Total resistance? Four tons.

"Maintain spirit energy enhancement," Akisame said calmly. "Surface-level coating is insufficient. Reinforce inside the body, between the muscle fibers. Everywhere."

"Coolcoolcool," Naruto wheezed as his lungs tried to remember what oxygen was.

Akisame watched him with interest, arms folded. "Don't forget to breathe. And keep up. We're only on level one."

The thing about Naruto?

He wasn't normal.

Where most would've screamed for mercy and passed out by now, Naruto was grinning. His face was red. He was sweating like a frog in a frying pan. But that wild, fox-like smile never wavered.

Because this? This was training. Real training. Just like back home.

Better even—because this time, he had an actual sensei who wasn't perving through binoculars during half the lesson.

Guided by Akisame's coldly precise corrections, Naruto focused.

Spirit energy. Not chakra. But similar enough.

He narrowed his focus. Instead of smearing energy over his body like butter on toast, he started packing it in like reinforced steel.

More pressure per inch. More density. More control.

Akisame raised a brow. "You learn quickly."

"I've been tree walking since I was twelve," Naruto muttered through clenched teeth. "This is just… lifting a really angry tree."

The energy started to sing through his muscles. His joints stopped feeling like molten gravel. His movements smoothed out. His bones, rather than straining, welcomed the weight.

He wasn't just adapting. He was evolving.

Akisame smiled, just a fraction.

"He's talented," he murmured. "And far more disciplined than he lets on."

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After an hour of playing Extreme Weightlifting: Elephant Edition, Naruto finally got a break.

He didn't collapse. That would be uncool. But he did casually crumple to the floor like a slightly overcooked noodle. Akisame, ever the terrifyingly calm sensei, handed him what looked like a rice ball but hit his gut like a full-course energy buffet.

Within minutes, Naruto was sitting cross-legged, cheeks puffed like a chipmunk as he devoured it.

"Mmmph—Akisensei—this thing—is this enchanted or something?"

"High-protein. Fermented soybean paste, seaweed, powdered kelp, and a special herbal energy mix," Akisame said proudly.

Once Naruto could feel his limbs again and remembered how breathing worked, Akisame stood up, adjusting his hakama with the elegance of someone who definitely practiced tying belts in his sleep.

"Now, we move on to something more practical," he said, his white eyes gleaming just a little too much.

"Oh no," Naruto muttered, brushing rice off his shirt.

"We'll be starting judo."

"Okay, yeah, I've done some judo. I've watched videos. I've—"

"With Ki," Akisame added gently.

"…Oh."

The next hour could only be described as elegant brutality.

Naruto was thrown.

He was flipped.

He was gently turned into a human helicopter and then not-so-gently reminded that walls exist and do not forgive.

But he wasn't mad about it. No—he was amazed.

Because this wasn't ordinary grappling. Akisame wasn't even moving fast. Every throw, every shift, every tap of a pinky finger used Ki flow to unbalance, disable, or absolutely embarrass the opponent.

"Use your Ki to sense your opponent's center of gravity," Akisame instructed as he effortlessly flipped Naruto over with one hand. "Then shift their energy with yours. Don't force them to fall—invite them to."

"You're—ow—inviting me—gah—to my grave!"

But Naruto learned.

Quickly.

He started feeling it—the tug of energy between them, the way Akisame's movements didn't fight physics but coaxed it. He began moving his own energy not just through his muscles but through his limbs to anticipate and redirect attacks.

And finally, on attempt number thirty-four, Naruto managed to execute a perfect shoulder throw.

Well, almost perfect. Akisame landed like a feather and clapped once. "Passable. With effort, you may not die in a real fight."

Naruto lit up like a lightbulb.

"I'M ALIVE! And I did Judo with Spirit energy! Believe it!"

Akisame simply nodded, but behind him, one of the masters scribbled on a chalkboard tally:

"Naruto Death Count: 0. Near-Death Count: 7."

As the sun dipped lower, Naruto rolled his sore shoulders and smiled.

He had spirit energy. He had muscle-burning training. He had real judo. And for the first time in this new world, he had teachers who believed in breaking you down just so they could build you back up stronger.

And Naruto?

He couldn't wait for tomorrow.