blenderwars Chapter 23, Pillar 2: I Won't Be Fooled by Dreams
Chapter 23, Pillar 2: I Won't Be Fooled by Dreams
Konoha Village training ground.
The midday sun was scorching and blinding.
Naruto gritted his teeth, holding an orange rubber ball in both hands, and tried his best to inject chakra into it.
The ball's skin bulged and deformed, but showed no signs of breaking.
Sweat beaded on Naruto's forehead, and his arms ached from the long hours of intense training.
"hateful!"
Naruto cursed under his breath and suddenly increased the flow of chakra.
However, the rubber ball only trembled slightly before returning to its original state.
He was breathing heavily, and his arms were trembling slightly.
Before I knew it, I had been practicing for several hours.
Rubber balls... are much more difficult to handle than the water balls we used to have!
Naruto recalled the first step his father taught him in his dream yesterday: to use chakra to stir the inside of the water sphere until it exploded.
He mastered that stage quickly, but now it's time for the second step.
He tried to condense and compress his chakra to a higher density to crush the rubber ball—but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't succeed.
"Drink!"
Naruto roared again, unwilling to give up, and squeezed in the last bit of chakra.
But in the end, with a soft thud, the ball in his hand was intact, while Naruto himself collapsed to the ground from exhaustion.
With his hands on the ground, Naruto gasped for breath, feeling dizzy and his arms aching and numb as if they didn't belong to him.
He collapsed onto the grass, dejected, and stared blankly at the sky.
"Damn it... why is it still not working?"
Naruto raised his right hand and shook his stiff wrist hard, his heart filled with resentment and frustration.
This Rasengan is an A-rank ninjutsu that Dad spent three years developing. It's not that easy to learn after all.
Naruto sighed, and as he thought about it, he scratched his hair in frustration.
Suddenly, he frowned and muttered, "Come to think of it... I didn't get a chance to ask about the training secrets of the second stage of the Rasengan last night."
Naruto, lying on the ground, began to spin his head rapidly.
In that case, why not... go and ask Kakashi-sensei for advice?
He had a sudden inspiration and jumped up from the ground with a somersault.
"That's right! Kakashi-sensei is a very knowledgeable Jonin!"
Naruto nodded to himself, the more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed.
Even if Kakashi-sensei doesn't know, he can at least give him some advice.
Just do it!
Naruto immediately brushed the dust off his clothes and ran towards Kakashi's house at the other end of the village.
He remembered that when Class 7 was formed, Kakashi-sensei gave them his address and contact information in case of an emergency or gathering.
……
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Konoha Village, Uchiha Sasuke walked alone on a quiet path.
The road beneath our feet gradually became deserted, and the surrounding area became increasingly sparsely populated.
Sasuke walked with a somber face until he reached the end of a dilapidated neighborhood, where a familiar yet heart-wrenching scene came into view—the ruins of the Uchiha clan.
Broken rubble, mottled walls, and faint traces of scorching from the battle years ago...
The streets that brought me joy in my childhood have long since become desolate and lifeless.
Sasuke walked slowly along the desolate street, his heart filled with mixed feelings.
Unbeknownst to him, he stopped in front of a mansion.
The gate of the mansion was half-closed, and the walls were covered with weeds and vines, but it still couldn't hide its former layout.
This is his childhood home.
Sasuke stood silently for a long time before finally taking a deep breath and pushing open the courtyard gate that had been sealed for a long time.
"Eeya—"
The old door hinges groaned shrilly, startling a crow that had landed in the yard.
Sasuke stepped into the courtyard. The once warm and cozy courtyard was now empty and dilapidated, with only the sound of the wind passing through.
The image of that tragic night kept flashing uncontrollably through his mind.
Bloody moonlight, cold blades, and images of loved ones falling one after another flashed before my eyes like a revolving lantern.
The father's stern face, the mother's gentle smile, were forever frozen in time that night as cold corpses, and the man on the telephone pole...
Sasuke's chest heaved violently, his fists already clenched tightly.
He struggled to suppress the turbulent emotions surging within him, his dark eyes burning with the flames of hatred.
"This... is reality!" Sasuke's voice was hoarse. "The warmth in my dream last night... was all a false illusion!"
"Hmph!" Sasuke shook his head violently, banishing the remaining wavering from his mind.
"I need to become stronger. I must kill that man!"
Thinking of this, he strode towards the open space in the backyard of his house.
Several wooden human-shaped targets, long since rotten and deformed, remain on the overgrown open ground.
Sasuke stopped, quickly formed several hand seals, and took a deep breath.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
A huge, blazing fireball burst forth from his mouth in an instant!
In the scorching heat, the already broken wooden figures were engulfed by the flames and turned into a pile of charred ashes in no time.
Black smoke slowly rose, and Sasuke's face, illuminated by the remaining firelight, had a sinister expression.
He slammed his fist into the tree trunk beside him, muttering angrily, "Family...it's all a fake illusion! I won't be like that idiot Naruto, fooled by this kind of dream!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he began to punch and kick wildly, practicing physical skills in the open space.
Whether it was a wooden stake or the air, it all became the target of his venting.
Amidst the whistling wind of the punches, the boy's headband was soaked with sweat, and his clothes were covered in dust and debris.
However, he showed no sign of stopping, as if he could not stop the dream fragments that kept recurring in his mind unless he pushed his body to its limit.
The loving smiles of parents, the gentle voice of my brother...
The strenuous exercise left Sasuke panting heavily, but he gritted his teeth and persevered, veins bulging on his forehead.
His eyes were filled with the flames of hatred, which burned away all the warmth in last night's dream.
Just as Sasuke was unleashing his fury without restraint, atop a tall tree hundreds of meters away, another figure was silently watching.
Kakashi stood on a tree branch, his dark pupils peering through the single eye obscured by his headband, staring at the boy in the distance who was throwing punches wildly in the training field.
He sighed softly, a complex look in his eyes.
Last night's dream really had a profound impact on Sasuke.
Kakashi thought to himself.
He had only seen Sasuke walking alone out of the village from afar and was a little worried, so he secretly followed him to observe the situation. However, he did not expect that Sasuke would go straight back to the Uchiha clan's territory and start training desperately.
However, judging from the current situation, Sasuke shows no signs of doing anything foolish; he is simply training intensely.
Kakashi felt a little relieved.
Although it is certainly not a good sign to drive a child who is only twelve or thirteen years old to this point, making him obsess over power and hatred day and night.
But at least for now, Sasuke is still in the village, not having lost his mind, nor is he in any danger.
"I hope you can pull through, Sasuke," Kakashi murmured.
He glanced one last time at Sasuke's lonely figure, sweating profusely, then vanished silently from the tree in a flash.
……