Chapter 6: Where the Weak Are Broken
Pain blooms where truth is struck hardest. It doesn't care for permission. It sinks in like cold steel through warm flesh—and Naruto, bastard child of prophecy and war, wore it like a second skin.
He walked like a man in no hurry to bleed, swagger in the bones, a grin stitched onto his lips like a scar that had forgotten how to heal. The courtyard opened before him like a coliseum of wolves, and at its heart stood Smoker—grey-eyed, grayer-souled, a man with the patience of ash and the courtesy of a guillotine.
"Well, Smoker, let's have some fun, shall we?" Naruto's voice was light, a wind-tossed leaf dancing toward a fire. "I hope you're not lazy when you fight."
Smoker didn't flinch. Smoke curled from the corners of his body like unspoken threats. His voice was iron dragged across stone. "Who said we were friends?"
He dropped to the lower floor, a hunter from the high cliffs, landing with enough force to make the recruits scatter like dry leaves. They gave them space—not out of respect, but fear. Men didn't get close to fire unless they wanted to burn.
"You may use your weapons," Smoker said, as if granting a condemned man a last cigarette.
Naruto bowed, mockery dressed in manners. "Thanks for that."
Smoker shrugged. "Won't matter. Without Haki or seastone, you'll never touch me."
The smile that followed wasn't kind. Naruto nodded once, and the dance began.
Daggers sang through the air, silver comets stabbing at smoke. They passed through him, elegant and useless, cutting nothing but memory. Smoker didn't move. He didn't need to. He was mist given malice, a wraith that wore the face of a man.
"Interesting," Naruto muttered, his feet gliding across the floor like thoughts through a madman's head. "A ghost that fights."
He circled, calculating. Every movement was data, every failure a note in a deadly melody. He drew his sword, cold steel drawn to the warmth of challenge. Then, like lightning learning to walk, he struck.
A kick came from the smoke—a phantom limb with all the cruelty of reality. Naruto twisted, dodging by inches. The sword slashed through Smoker's body, meeting resistance that wasn't flesh but the tension of will.
"You're hard to kill," Naruto said, breathing faster now. "Unfair advantage."
Smoker didn't reply. He didn't need to.
Chains crashed to the floor, metal whispering of violence to come. Smoker spun them, the links screaming through the air like banshees. A storm of steel circled him, faster than sound, faster than sanity.
Naruto danced with the storm, eyes flickering like dying stars. Every step was a choice, every movement a gamble. He noticed the way the smoke clung to the chains, gravitating to the damage his blade had carved earlier. A tell. A weakness wrapped in steel.
Then Smoker lunged, a wisp turned cannonball, his foot a hammer from the heavens. Naruto flew, bones meeting wall, wall yielding in protest. The impact wasn't poetic. It was brutal. Real. His breath left him in a gasp, his vision swam.
"Gahhh!"
But Naruto was already reacting, already hardening his body with Tekkai, muscles locked like fortress gates. Pain thundered in his bones, but he endured. He always endured.
"That was weak," he coughed, smiling through blood.
Smoker's eyes narrowed, then sharpened. His fists came next—each blow a sermon in punishment. Naruto bent beneath the weight of it, body folding like parchment in fire, but his laughter rang out, unbroken and mad.
"You're one crazy bastard, Naruto," Smoker said, stepping back as if he'd just sparred with a storm and wanted a breath before the next one hit. "But I like your spirit. Let's get along."
And just like that, it was over.
Naruto collapsed, his body a canvas of purple bruises and fractured pride, but his grin never faded. Around them, the recruits whispered like mice in the rafters, unsure if they'd seen a man break or be born.
On the edges, Drake watched. Silent. Still. Something in him shifted—not envy, not awe, but understanding. This was what it meant to stand. To scream against the tide with nothing but broken fists and a name.
He turned, left without a word, the image of Naruto etched into his mind like a warning—or a promise.
Naruto, child of chaos, smiled through cracked lips.
------------------------------------
Pain is a fine tutor. Not the kind who offers sweet praises or claps at progress, but the sort that leaves marks—deep, purple-edged reminders that you're alive, and more importantly, learning.
Naruto limped like a war-torn prince returning from a skirmish no one else thought worth fighting. His smile, crooked and blood-flecked, defied the bruises flowering along his ribs. Beside him, Hina hovered—equal parts guardian angel and storm cloud, her steps clipped with worry sharp enough to cut steel.
"Why did you have to be so careless, Naruto?" she asked, voice barely restrained. "You could've caused long-lasting injuries. You made Hina worry a lot."
Naruto's laugh came broken, a rustle of dry leaves. "It was needed. Good practice. You should try it out if you want to master Tekkai," he grinned, winced, and straightened—arrogance wrapped around agony like a king's cloak over broken armor.
"That's too dangerous! And stop talking," Hina snapped, the steel in her tone dulled only by the tremble of fear she tried to hide. She had seen men die from less. She had buried promises behind clenched teeth, and Naruto—damned fool that he was—kept dragging new ones from her.
"Risks," he said. "You have to take them. Or you'll stay soft. Mediocre."
His words echoed like challenge, like gospel. She hated that part of her agreed. The world didn't remember the careful. It knelt before the ones who bled for power and smiled through the pain.
"Fine," she growled. "But if you die, I'll kill you."
He leaned against her more than he wanted to. Every step a sermon in pain. Every breath a rebellion. "Take me to my room. I've got medicine."
"The infirmary is safer," she argued.
"Then I'll crawl," he said, eyes bright with something too wild to be wisdom. "But if you help, I might not break my jaw on the stairs."
A sigh heavier than her own weight left her lungs. "You're impossible."
She helped him anyway.
—
His dorm was less a room and more a den—a cramped coffin for the half-dead hopefuls who sought glory. Naruto collapsed onto the bed like a falling statue, limbs stiff, mouth set in a thin grimace. The air smelled of sweat and steel and cheap detergent.
"Fill the tub. Pour in the herbs from the workers," he ordered, voice cracking under strain. "I need to heal."
She paused. Red touched her cheeks like war paint. "This is the last time Hina does this."
Yet she obeyed.
The water frothed with herbs that smelled of mountain roots and bitter salvation. Naruto stripped with the grace of a man removing his skin, each motion tugging at fresh bruises and old pride. When the last of his clothes hit the floor, he sank into the tub with a hiss between his teeth, like steel plunged into water.
Relief shuddered out of him. "Immortals, that's good."
Hina's eyes flicked to the wall, refusing to linger on him. "Don't ask me for this again," she muttered. "Hina has training."
He grinned, eyes half-lidded. "You're the best."
"You're an idiot."
She left in a blur of indignation and fluster.
—
Silence took the room like a grave does its body—slow, inevitable, and final.
Naruto leaned back, letting the herbs leech pain from muscle, letting fatigue seep from bone. The tub became a cocoon. The water, warm as blood, carried the ache of every punch he'd taken today. But also the pride. Also the lesson. This was how weapons were forged.
Not in comfort.
Not in the hands of healers.
But in pain. In solitude. In choosing to hurt so one day, you could make others not hurt again.
He smiled as the steam rose around him. Eyes closed.
------------------------------------
He rose before the sun had a chance to cast judgment. The sky was still cloaked in ash-gray silence, the kind of hour where dreams suffocate in their beds and only the driven—or the damned—pull themselves from slumber to bleed into the day.
Naruto moved like the blades he trained with—silent, sharp, and relentless. The courtyard behind his dorm was a cracked ring of stone, an arena without witnesses, save the ghosts of yesterday's pain. Each breath misted in the morning air, his body slick with sweat that shone like oil over bronze. The previous day's bruises had faded, buried under balm and grit, but his muscles ached with the sweet pain of purpose.
He danced with Soru, vanished, reappeared. His body blurred like heat haze. He struck out with Shigan, fingers thrusting forward with lethal precision. There was no audience. No glory. Just the ache of becoming more than flesh. More than prey.
A presence brushed against his senses.
A knock, shy as raindrops.
"You can come in, Hina."
The door creaked open with all the ceremony of a secret being shared. Hina stepped inside, and her steps faltered—her eyes landing on Naruto, stripped to nothing but boxers, skin glistening, body alive with the violence of motion.
"Na–Naruto," she stammered, eyes wide, voice sharp with scandal. "Cover up. Hina does not like this."
He didn't pause. Didn't blush. Didn't pretend modesty. His smile was that of a wolf amused by sheepish complaints. "You'll have to get used to this. Nakedness is part of our lives now. Fights don't wait for propriety."
He smeared more ointment along a bruised flank, his fingers methodical. Hina looked away, but her eyes flicked back, drawn to him like a match to kindling.
Her frown deepened like a wound. "So... what does Hina have to do to start training?"
Naruto's grin spread. "Simple. Get the jar. Strip. Apply the medicine. Then follow my lead."
A long silence stretched between them. In it, pride wrestled with resolve. But Hina moved. She picked up the jar with trembling hands, turning her back as she did what was asked. It was obedience, but it was not submission.
Naruto's eyebrow lifted in amusement and, oddly, approval. "I'm impressed. That kind of commitment is rare."
He blurred again—Soru—appearing at the far edge of the courtyard in less than a blink. Wind stirred in his absence.
"Once you're stretched, try this. Slowly. I'll guide you."
Hina blinked. "You can already use Soru? But… how?"
Naruto shrugged, a gesture like shedding burdens. "Pain teaches fast. If you don't keep up, this world chews you. We're not special. Just meat. Unless we choose not to be."
She stared. What drives him? Something in his tone—so devoid of arrogance, yet heavy with certainty—unsettled her.
"What do you aim for?" she asked.
He looked at her then. Not through her. At her. "To be the strongest."
No hesitation. No room for doubt. A boy with scars like promises carved beneath his skin.
Hina's lips parted, then curled into something rare. A smile, soft and fleeting. "That's a great undertaking. Hina… wants to try too."
Naruto nodded. "Then stretch. We begin slow."
She moved—awkward, stiff—but willing. Her body still waking while his burned with momentum. She tried to mimic him, her limbs struggling to find rhythm. Naruto, observing, stepped closer.
"You're doing it wrong. Let me help."
Before she could object, his hands were on her—light, guiding, clinical in precision. Her body stiffened like a bow drawn too tight.
"What are you doing?" she asked, voice sharp.
"Helping. This is normal," he said, calm, unshaken. "We're soldiers, not schoolchildren. Get used to proximity, or lose your edge."
She glared, but behind the glare was conflict. She could argue modesty—or accept the truth in his words.
"Fine," she muttered. "But if you try anything—"
"You'll kill me. Got it," Naruto said with a chuckle. "But don't worry. My hands are weapons, not wandering."
He adjusted her stance again, gently shifting her shoulders, correcting the angle of her hips, her knees. Her skin burned where he touched, but not with pain. With awareness. And it disgusted her that it distracted her from the technique.
She moved again. Better. Stronger.
Her breath hitched, but her form steadied.
Naruto backed away, pleased. "Not bad. You'll get it."
She watched him return to his training, sweat flinging from his limbs like blood from a blade. He moved with elegance born not from nobility, but from war. From a thousand repetitions under the eye of death.
He's not like anyone else, she thought, still flushed. He's already beyond most of us.
And she wasn't sure if that frightened her—or made her want to chase after him.
--------------------------------------------
Weapons. Naruto thought of them with a quiet resentment, his hands still bruised from yesterday's makeshift war against gravity, pain, and the limitations of flesh. I need better ones. Not steel—I need purpose given edge. A blade worthy of the hands that hold it.
But no sword answered. Only the cracked echo of his breath as he thrust his fingers forward again—Shigan—puncturing the air with deadly intent.
The morning had dulled into bruised noon. The courtyard baked under the sun's gaze, heat curling off the stone like steam from a fresh kill. Naruto trained through it, a silhouette of muscle and motion, sweat trailing down his back like blood. No complaints. No breaks. The pain in his limbs had become old company. Familiar. Trusted.
A soft groan broke his rhythm.
He turned, and Hina was on the ground. Writhing. Collapsed. Her fingers dug into the dirt as if it might share its strength. Her face was white with pain, the kind that bends the soul more than the spine. She had lasted an hour longer than she should have. Admirable. Stupid.
Naruto moved toward her, not quickly. Not dramatically. But with the weight of a man who knew fatigue like an old enemy that never left his side. His steps were slow, deliberate, carved from will.
He knelt beside her, arms slipping beneath her like one might lift something fragile—a child, a broken blade, a friend too proud to ask.
Hina hissed through clenched teeth, trying to turn away from him, even as her body betrayed her. "Put me down... it's embarrassing…"
"You'll live," Naruto said. Not unkind. Just true. Truth didn't need frills. "You trained hard. That's what matters."
She didn't answer, and that was all the answer he needed.
He carried her across the courtyard, his arms aching, his breath labored, but his grip steady. The resting quarters welcomed them with the silence of stone, the kind that watched everything and judged nothing.
Naruto lowered her to the tub and turned the water on cold, his face grimacing with every motion.
"I hate this part," he muttered, more to himself than anyone.
With all the delicacy of a butcher, he tipped Hina into the bath. She gasped as the freezing water struck her like a slap from a cruel Immortal.
"You ass!" she spat, clawing at the rim of the tub, her body a chorus of complaints. Pain. Exhaustion. Humiliation.
Naruto lowered himself into the same bath with the grace of a man twice his age. His muscles screamed rebellion. His skin burned. The water bit.
"There," he groaned. "Now we both suffer."
They didn't fit. Not well. Two warriors in a tub made for one. Limbs tangled. Steam rose.
Hina tried to shrink away. Naruto didn't let her.
"Come here," he murmured, shifting her gently so that her back pressed against his chest. "This'll help."
"What are you—"
"I said I'd help." His fingers found the knots in her shoulders and began to knead. Strong. Expert. No hesitation.
She tensed.
Then softened.
Then let out a sound—raw and startled, like a truth escaping against her will. A moan, deep and guttural, half pain, half release.
Silence followed. Embarrassed. Heavy.
Naruto said nothing for a moment. Just kept working. His voice, when it came, was calm. Honest.
"Hina. That's normal. Your muscles are releasing tension. Nothing more."
Her face turned scarlet, her breath shallow with something between rage and mortification.
"You… you bastard! You're enjoying this!"
He let out a slow sigh, not of guilt, but of weariness.
"If I wanted to enjoy something, I wouldn't choose this. I'm trying to stop your body from tearing itself apart. You want to walk tomorrow, right?"
Her hands clenched. She wanted to scream. Wanted to run. But most of all, she wanted to believe him. And that was the hardest part.
"…Fine," she whispered. "Just this once. Hina will trust you."
Time passed in stillness. The water cooled. The trembling faded. His fingers worked slowly, methodically, until even the tension in her thoughts began to melt.
She slipped under. Not into the water—but into sleep. The kind only earned through suffering. Her breathing evened out, her brow uncreased.
Naruto watched her for a moment. Not with hunger. Not even affection.
Just a quiet respect. She was still here. That was enough.
He rose with a grunt, dripping, every joint a protest. He carried her like before—careful, quiet—and laid her down on his bed. She didn't stir.
Then he turned. Went back outside. The stones of the courtyard waited like judges in robes of dust.
And Naruto stepped into their court once more.
-----------------------------
The steel pole did not scream, but it might as well have. Naruto's fist slammed through it with a crack that echoed like a war drum across the empty training yard. Shards of bent metal peeled away from the point of impact—jagged petals of a flower bloomed by violence. His hand trembled ever so slightly, the glow of Haki flickering faintly across his skin like an ember starving for air.
He stared at the ruined column.
"Too soft," Naruto muttered, flexing his fingers. The strength was there. The precision—almost. But the Haki… it flickered at the wrong moments, wavered when it should have roared. A half-drawn sword was still a liability. Especially with the things he knew were coming.
He turned, eyes narrowing at the line of steel poles behind him like silent sentinels awaiting execution. One down. Ten more to go. But it wasn't enough. He needed resistance. Pressure. Something that could break back.
The Rokushiki techniques were another beast entirely, coiled in his bones and biting at his muscle memory. Shigan was no longer just a strike—it was a bullet, a sniper's resolve channeled through a finger or fist. But it still slipped through his grip when speed met hesitation. Naruto knew hesitation was the last luxury a man could afford in war. And war was all that lay ahead.
He struck again. The pole buckled. His knuckles stung. That sting was a welcome companion—it told him he was still too slow.
Half an hour bled away in repetitions. Sweat clung to his frame, his breath a low, constant rasp. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't graceful. But then again, neither was survival.
When his limbs threatened mutiny, he threw himself at the nearest bench. A handful of fruit—sweetness cut with pulp. An energy drink—syrup and sparks down his throat. It was a poor man's feast, but kings had marched on less.
And then there was Hina.
She lay curled on a mat, the edge of her sleeve tangled in her fingers, her face touched with the innocence of sleep—a rare commodity in a world that devoured peace like carrion. He crouched by her, gentle despite the thunder that still pulsed in his veins.
"Hina," he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. "Time for the morning run."
She blinked awake, the fog of rest slow to lift. But beneath her exhaustion, a spark caught. It had taken root during yesterday's pain. It had survived the fire of training. And now, it grew.
"I'm ready, Naruto," she said, her words soft, but her resolve ironclad.
He smiled—brief, easy, the kind of smile that made war look like a game. "Good. Let's go."
They ran.
The wind bit at their cheeks. The earth trembled beneath their feet. The sun hadn't yet crested the horizon, but they moved as if chased by its fire. Hina struggled at first—her breaths sharp, each step a protest—but her legs remembered the rhythm of yesterday, and her spirit demanded more from her body than it thought it could give.
And Naruto? He ran with the ease of someone who had known mountains and bled with Immortals. He didn't slow for her, but he didn't need to. The pace was her trial.
"Hina apologizes," she said between gasps, her voice a whisper barely caught by the wind. "For the misunderstanding."
He didn't flinch, didn't turn. Just laughed, low and effortless.
"No biggie."
And that was the end of it.
Not because the apology wasn't worth more, but because he didn't carry weight that didn't help him run faster. Let others drag chains of guilt behind them. Naruto had shed his long ago.
Ahead lay the fields. The sun rising. The war drums of tomorrow beginning their silent beat.
Behind them, the steel pole still stood—but only as a reminder.
A monument to yesterday's weakness.
A target for today's resolve.