19: Naruto: TWEEK — Chapter 19 – Pull It Back —Counter resets every Monday.
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Tiange’s sudden praise caught all three of them off guard.
None of them had expected that he would actually compliment someone.
The shadow he had cast over them yesterday had been far too deep for that.
Sasuke handled it somewhat better, but for Naruto and Sakura, this was the first time either of them had ever watched someone die right in front of their eyes.
“Follow me.”
Tiange led the three of them to a small river, and the three couldn’t help but feel curious.
Why were all the other squads out taking missions while they were standing here?
“Sensei, why aren’t we going to take a mission?”
The only one bold enough to ask was Naruto.
No one else had that kind of nerve.
“First — your chakra control is terrible.
All three of you.”
“The other squads are out taking missions because they’ve already received training in that area at home.”
“Second, we are not taking those catch-the-cat, chase-the-dog missions.”
“The minimum is a C-rank.
Based on your abilities, I’ll adjust the mission rank as we go.”
“I’d imagine you don’t want to waste your time weeding and hauling water, do you?”
“After all, there is someone among you who desperately wants to get stronger.”
“We don’t!”
Naruto shook his head fast.
Sasuke said nothing, but his eyes said everything.
“Today’s assignment: fully master tree-walking and water-walking.”
“Same thing I told you before, as long as you’ve still got a breath left in you, I can bring you back.”
“So give it everything you have, and get it done.”
“Whoever finishes, I’ll take on a real mission tomorrow.”
“Whoever doesn’t — well, too bad.”
“Watch closely.
I’ll only demonstrate once.”
Tiange ran through both tree-walking and water-walking, demonstrating each technique while explaining the key points as he went.
His explanation was thorough, hitting every critical detail, because if he was going to take them somewhere, he was going to do it right.
That was his thinking.
He wasn’t afraid of how strong these three might become.
He was only afraid they wouldn’t be strong enough.
“All right, from here on out…”
“Practice on your own.
Come find me if you get hurt.”
Tiange wasn’t sure whether they could finish within the set time.
He still remembered that in the original, it had taken them two or three days.
But that wasn’t going to change his plan.
He had said one day, so one day it was.
The three began to train.
They fell again and again, but no one complained of exhaustion, no one cried about the pain.
They all gritted their teeth and pressed on, even as their faces grew swollen and bruised.
In the end, it was Sakura who completed the tree-walking training first.
By the time she moved on to water-walking, Naruto’s progress was still a sorry sight.
“You.
Come here.”
Naruto tensed up.
Why was he suddenly being called over, was being a little slow really that serious?
“Hurry up.”
Naruto hesitated, dragging his feet.
Tiange’s expression darkened.
That was enough.
Naruto jolted in fright and scrambled over to stand in front of Tiange.
Tiange looked at Naruto’s stomach.
Reaching out, he activated his Byakugan and examined it carefully.
Just as suspected, the Nine-Tails’ chakra was causing trouble.
Tiange’s gaze sharpened.
It was as if he could see straight through Naruto’s mindscape, past the seal, directly at the Nine-Tails.
“Pull it back.”
“Or I’ll kill you.”
“ROAR!”
“Get lost!”
The Nine-Tails had lived through countless run-ins being dominated by the Sharingan, tolerated that, endured that, and now a pair of Byakugan dared to throw its weight around?
The Nine-Tails was furious.
A measly little pair of white eyes, and you think you can strut around like that?
“You want to die!”
“Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion!”
In the mindscape, the Byakugan shifted in an instant, its appearance transformed.
A golden sword condensed and came slashing down hard toward the Nine-Tails.
“Tenseigan!”
“That’s impossible!”
“Stop!”
“I give up!
I submit!”
The Nine-Tails’ eyes went wide and it cried out frantically for mercy.
The Tenseigan was no stranger to it.
The younger brother of that old Sage of Six Paths had once possessed a pair of eyes just like those, and their power had felt even greater than the Rinnegan.
“You submit?”
“Too late.”
“Slash.”
“What the—”
The Nine-Tails was dumbstruck.
Where the hell did this brat crawl out from?
Even more unreasonable than the Nine-Tails itself.
It could see the outside world through Naruto’s eyes.
It could tell it was Tiange standing right there in front of Naruto.
No time.
The Nine-Tails hastily condensed a Tailed Beast Ball, hoping it might slow down the golden sword even a little.
The thunderous collision it anticipated never came.
The Tailed Beast Ball was sliced clean in two right in front of it.
The golden sword continued its descent,
SLASH!
The Nine-Tails was split directly in half.
The golden sword stopped the very instant it finished the cut.
Not a single thing in the space was destroyed.
That level of control left the Nine-Tails, still in the process of pulling itself back together, genuinely speechless.
More than ten minutes passed before the Nine-Tails fully reformed its body, and it was considerably smaller than before.
It would need a great deal of time absorbing chakra just to recover.
“I’ll say it one more time.”
“Pull your chakra back.”
“If you act up again, I will slash you until there is nothing left.”
Tiange finished speaking and dismissed the Tenseigan.
The Nine-Tails stared at the spot where those eyes had faded away.
It settled back into place and quietly withdrew the chakra it had been radiating outward.
The Nine-Tails, which feared nothing in heaven or on earth, had gone quite docile.
Tiange sensed the Nine-Tails’ chakra receding, then turned to Naruto.
“Now go try again.”
Naruto had no idea what this terrifying sensei had just done, but if it meant getting some distance from Tiange, Naruto was more than happy to oblige.
Naruto bolted back to the tree he had been practicing on.
Standing next to Tiange was suffocating.
One more try, and suddenly it was much easier than before.
In one go, Naruto climbed markedly higher than any of the marks made earlier.
What on earth had sensei done?
Naruto didn’t know, but it made the awe run even deeper.
Not only was Tiange incredibly powerful, but a casual touch had been enough to push Naruto’s progress ahead by a huge margin.
Incredible.
Naruto’s motivation surged.
A glance over at Sasuke not far away, those marks weren’t that much higher than Naruto’s own.
I’ll catch up to him.
Sasuke, meanwhile, saw Naruto closing the gap.
A knot of urgency tightened in his chest, and he pushed himself even harder.
The two competed fiercely, running themselves ragged and covered in scrapes and bruises, taking turns scrambling back to Tiange.
Once patched up, they returned without a word and went straight back to grinding away at the trees.
Finally, before that finally arrived, both of them had completely mastered tree-walking.
Naruto still finished a minute or two behind Sasuke, which annoyed him to no end.
His gaze drifted toward the river.
This, at least, he was definitely going to beat that smug Sasuke at.
As the two of them charged toward the river in that same spirit of mutual rivalry, Sakura was already walking freely across the surface of the water.
Sakura had nearly drowned more than once, and each time crawling out had been terrifying, but the fear had been pushed through every single time.
Only someone who has come close to drowning can truly understand that feeling of helplessness and powerlessness.
Sakura stood on the water’s surface and slowly began to run.
It felt as though she had been reborn.
The sight of her stopped both boys dead in their tracks, jaws hanging open.
Sakura was this good?
Tiange watched the girl running and leaping across the water.
He could see it clearly, this girl had transformed.
He waved her over.
“Sensei, I did it!”
“Mm.”
“Very good.”
“Watch closely.
This is what I’m going to teach you next.”
Tiange walked up to a large boulder, drew back his fist, and drove it straight into the rock.
BOOM!
The boulder shattered into pieces, and a large crater was left in the ground beneath it.
➤ Next: Lightning Cutter in the Left Hand, Rasengan in the Right
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