Hidden Leaf Village.
The days that followed passed quietly.
Aside from guiding Naruto’s training every day, Kamiki spent his time drilling ninjutsu and taijutsu.
Over the past couple of days, after noticing a weak spot in his hand-to-hand combat, he shifted his focus toward physical training.
In the end, through relentless exploration of his own body, he noticed specific points within the chakra pathway system that suppressed and regulated the flow of chakra.
Kamiki called them “gates.” In a normal shinobi’s body, there were eight of these gates in total.
They held back the inner chakra, keeping it in a delicate state of equilibrium.
Through his own experiments, Kamiki also discovered that intense physical conditioning could fulfill the conditions needed to force these gates open.
Once opened, they granted a shinobi a massive surge of chakra in a short burst, drastically boosting their physical capabilities.
The more gates one opened, the stronger the boost!
However, when forced open, chakra surged through the pathways in volumes far beyond normal, inflicting real damage upon the body.
That bodily strain escalated with each additional gate unlocked!
The most dangerous was the final gate among the eight.
Forcing that one open recklessly could result in immediate death!
After several days of nonstop training, Kamiki met the conditions to open the first five gates.
Today, he decided to head out to the outskirts of the Leaf to give it a proper test.
As usual, Kamiki used his teleportation jutsu, flashing across space in the blink of an eye to arrive at the open clearing outside the village.
Without wasting a second, he threw himself into high-intensity training!
“First gate, open!” With a sharp shout, Kamiki’s presence erupted!
Wisps of steam began to rise from the surface of his skin!
“Second gate, open!” “Third gate, open!” Roaring in rapid succession, Kamiki pushed open the gates within his body to the third.
The rising white vapor began to take on a faint greenish hue!
“Fourth gate, open!” Kamiki shouted once more.
By the fourth gate, he could already feel the physical strain tearing into his body.
Every single cell had kicked into overdrive, and a dull ache throbbed from his internal organs!
Holding the fourth gate active, Kamiki tried moving around.
Whoosh!
He leaped straight up, soaring twenty to thirty meters into the air in a single bound!
He threw a kick—his speed was three to four times faster than before, and the sheer force behind it was devastating!
Moving while maintaining the fourth gate, Kamiki gradually adjusted to the burning pain.
Sinking into a ready stance, he roared at the top of his lungs once more: “Fifth gate, OPEN!!” The green steam around him flared with intense brilliance, and the physical burden grew far heavier.
Kamiki held the transformation.
Just as he was about to move, he noticed two figures walking toward the clearing not far away!
One walked behind the other—one tall, one short—slowly making their way into the open training ground.
As they drew closer, Kamiki noticed their outfits were bizarre!
Yet beneath the strangeness lay a strange sense of familiarity.
Both wore bright green skin-tight jumpsuits, and both sported shiny bowl cuts!
Kamiki could understand a twelve- or thirteen-year-old kid rocking a bowl cut, but why did the full-grown man in his twenties or thirties beside him have the exact same bowl cut?!
Right then, the smaller bowl cut looked at Kamiki, his eyes filled with confusion.
“Guy-sensei, did you teach the Eight Gates to someone else too?” The smaller bowl cut nudged the larger bowl cut behind him and asked, bewildered.
“No, I haven’t.
Although the Eight Gates releases the body’s natural limiters on chakra, the damage it deals to the body is irreversible.
So far, you’re the only person I’ve ever taught,” the larger bowl cut answered.
“Then why does that person over there look like he’s using the Eight Gates?!” The smaller bowl cut raised an arm, pointing straight in Kamiki’s direction.
Kamiki froze.
Hearing their exchange, Kamiki finally put two and two together: Guy and Rock Lee!
Even though his knowledge of the Naruto world was limited, he had heard a fair bit about this hot-blooded master-and-disciple duo.
On the other side, Guy followed Lee’s finger and looked toward Kamiki.
Spotting the green vapor swirling around the boy, his eyes widened in amazement.
“It really does look like the Eight Gates?!” “And this kid has already opened all the way to the Fifth Gate!” Guy said with growing excitement.
“The Fifth Gate?!” Lee’s voice shot up several octaves in sheer shock.
Because he had no talent for ninjutsu, Lee had stayed by Guy-sensei’s side to focus purely on taijutsu.
Through years of blood, sweat, and tears without slacking off for a single day, he had only barely managed to unlock the Fifth Gate!
Yet this unfamiliar kid, who looked even younger than him, had already opened the Fifth Gate too!
And he looked far more relaxed doing it!
How was that possible?!
The hot-blooded duo in green jumpsuits quickly jogged over to Kamiki’s side.
Guy spoke first.
“Hey, kid!
Where did you learn the Eight Gates?” “Me?
I had an epiphany and figured it out myself,” Kamiki replied matter-of-factly.
Those “gates” that suppressed and regulated chakra weren’t hard to find in the body.
He figured plenty of shinobi knew how to unlock their physical potential this way!
“Whoa!
Figuring out the Eight Gates all on your own—you’re a pretty sharp kid!” Guy gave Kamiki a sparkling grin and flashed a giant thumbs-up.
Guy wasn’t particularly surprised to see someone else using the Eight Gates; after all, he didn’t know who had originally invented the technique either.
“You must have trained for a very long time, kid, to open the Fifth Gate with such a calm expression,” Guy continued warmly.
Being an honest child, Kamiki replied truthfully, “Yeah, I’ve been training for a little over a week now, and I can still only barely reach the Fifth Gate.” Guy’s grin froze.
Lee stared blankly.
A little over a week?
Barely reach the Fifth Gate?!
Looking at the innocent look on the kid’s face, he didn’t seem to be lying at all!
Lee felt like flipping a table in despair.
It had been five or six years since he first started training in the Eight Gates.
Yet after all those years of grueling labor, he could still only barely open the Fifth Gate, and he couldn’t even maintain it for long!
All his years of bitter training were meant to prove that a genius of hard work was still a genius!
Yet today, he ran headfirst into a true prodigy, and his confidence was smashed to pieces in an instant!
Hearing Kamiki’s answer, the corner of Guy’s mouth twitched violently too.
Back when he trained in the Eight Gates under his father, going from the First Gate to the Fifth Gate had taken him four to five full years!
What kind of terrifying monster is this!
This is way too demoralizing!
Initially, seeing how young the kid was and that he had mastered the first five gates, Might Guy had planned to invite him to join his and Lee’s training squad.
Now, having heard about the boy’s monstrous talent, Guy swallowed the words right back down.
He didn’t dare take on a student this terrifying!
“Truly frightening physical talent!
Young man, I see great things in your future!” Might Guy slammed a heavy hand onto Kamiki’s shoulder, speaking in a dead-serious tone.
With that, he bellowed at the top of his lungs: “LEE!!
It seems we must train a hundred times harder from now on!!” “YES!
GUY-SENSEI!!” Lee roared back.
Guy yelled, “LET YOUTH BURN BRIGHT!!” With that, the master and disciple took their leave of Kamiki and sprinted off into the distance to resume their grueling training.