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[— Manga Scene —]
"Armor?" Naruto asked in confusion as he stared at Gaara after hearing the term for the first time.
"Normally, the quantity of sand protects Gaara automatically, and if an attack somehow gets past that sand, the Sand Armor will stop it." Kankuro said in explanation, clarifying the difference between the outer layer of sand and the sand armor adhered directly to Gaara's body.
"That is Gaara's… original defense." he added.
"There is no way to hit him! So he does not have any weak point at all!!" Naruto blurted out in tense conclusion after Gaara's defense seemed perfect to him.
'No… that is not entirely true. In reality, the Sand Armor is full of weak points…'
'As long as it does not work automatically, it consumes a massive amount of chakra… and it is a weaker defense than the quantity of sand itself. As long as the sand is stuck to his body, he is using greater power.' Kankuro thought inwardly, because after all, he could not reveal those weak points to enemies.
'As long as he forced Gaara to use this, that means he is under pressure now…'
'That Lee boy is very strong… but the result of this match is obvious, he cannot defeat Gaara!'
"Is that all you have…?" Gaara said calmly.
'What unbelievable protection. Even if I move fast, my attacks will not affect him. I have no choice except to apply greater damage on top of the sand…' Lee thought steadily.
'What will he do now?' Temari wondered.
'Lee-san…' Sakura thought nervously as she watched the change that had come over Lee's gaze.
'The Lotus will do this job.' Rock Lee thought seriously as he exchanged looks with his teacher and received his confirmation.
'Lee's Lotus, which crushes the opponent with tremendous speed… will be able to break through that protection.' Gai-sensei thought as he imagined Lee crushing the sand boy's arrogance.
[— End Scene —]
As soon as the scene ended, the art store in Konoha looked as though it had taken one deep breath and then kept it locked inside its chest, for the new pages did not merely present an exchange of blows.
For the first time, they revealed that Gaara's defense, which until now had seemed like absolute invulnerability, was not quite so impregnable after all.
Maito Dai was the first to rise, and in his eyes shone that gleam which appeared only when he saw hard work carve a breach through a wall that had once seemed impossible.
"I told you, Gai, the truly bad thing is not for an opponent to be unbeatable, but to surrender before finding the spot that can be broken!" Dai said with warm enthusiasm as he struck his fist against his palm.
Little Gai had already thrown his body forward until he was almost pressed against the page, his wide eyes fixed on a single idea that had not left him since he read the word "Lotus."
"If Lee saw the weakness amid all this terror, then it means he really does have a way to sort it out!" Gai said in a voice trembling with emotion.
A short distance away, Sakumo fixed his eyes more on the lines of analysis than on the images themselves, as was his habit whenever he tried to understand a battle from within its logic rather than from the noise around it.
"The most dangerous thing in this chapter is that it shifted the battle from the question of strength to the question of cost, and whoever knows the cost of his opponent's defense truly begins to possess a path to defeating him." Sakumo said with measured calm.
As for Kakashi, he remained silent for a moment longer than usual before raising his eyes from the page, as though his mind were reviewing the distances, the timing, and the burden that the Sand Armor imposed on Gaara's movement.
"Lee is not striking at random. He is pushing Gaara into using the heavier protection, then building his next attack on the price Gaara will have to pay for it." Kakashi said in a short analytical tone.
Not far from them, Hyuga Masanori watched the scene with the eye of a man who knew that any small flaw in a defense could change the outcome of a match entirely.
"When you force your opponent to shift his defense from automatic to conscious, you are not only getting closer to his body, but to his concentration as well." Masanori said with clear seriousness.
Hiashi, who had not raised his voice at all, kept studying the pages as though they were an anatomical chart of the balance of power in the field.
"This boy cannot afford waste, and that is why every thought he has turns directly into a lethal step." Hiashi said with composed coldness.
As for Hizashi, his smile tilted slightly as he saw how Lee had forced his opponent to acknowledge the existence of a weakness, however small and dangerous it might be.
"The most beautiful thing about it is that Gaara is no longer fighting from a position of reassurance, but from the position of someone who has begun, for the first time, to feel that someone can actually reach him." Hizashi said in a low voice.
"The worrying thing about this is that other Gaara fellow… does he have a split personality?"
…
And on the other side of the shop, Uchiha Hugaku sat in heavy silence, while his son Fugaku stared at the final page of the scene as though he were memorizing it.
"The boy who reads his opponent's weakness before charging in is not merely a physical fighter, but a fighter who understands what awe is and how it is broken." Hogaku said in a low, sharp voice.
Fugaku, younger in age but less rash than his face might suggest, did not hide his admiration for the way Lee had turned his theoretical disadvantage into real pressure upon his opponent.
"If someone who possesses nothing but taijutsu has reached this stage, then what is truly frightening is not the limit of talent, but the limit of determination." Fugaku said, narrowing his eyes in admiration.
"He cannot reach this level without talent. It is obvious that he is talented in taijutsu."
Hugaku said mockingly in response to Gai-sensei's earlier words, when he had declared that Lee was untalented.
…
And in the place reserved for the village elders, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen, let his gaze pass slowly over the scene, as though he saw in it more than merely a duel between two boys.
"This chapter does not display Lee's strength alone. It shows how a single, pure will can force everyone to reevaluate what they had assumed was already settled." Hiruzen said as he exhaled lightly.
Danzo, whose face showed no outward emotion at all, kept his chin raised and his eyes half narrowed, as if he were judging the scene rather than enjoying it.
"A fighter who seizes upon a weak point in a moment of pressure is fit to become a rare weapon, even if he was born without the talents people love to glorify." Danzo said coldly.
Koharu folded her hands into her sleeves as she stared at the page that pointed to chakra exhaustion, and her eye always caught what lay beyond admiration: the consequence.
"What worries me is that people will not remember how durable Gaara's armor is as much as they will remember that he was forced to pay a price to preserve it." Koharu said sharply.
Homura nodded slowly, looking like a man who was following the formation of a general idea within the village more than the details of the blows themselves.
"Once a single crack appears in the fortress, talk about it spreads faster than talk about the fortress as a whole." Homura said in a low voice.
As for Mito, she remained the calmest among them, yet her eyes were far too deep to miss what was happening inside Rock Lee's soul at this moment.
"Power that relies on nothing but the body becomes more terrifying when it is supported by a conviction that does not waver, and this chapter says that Lee has truly reached that stage." Mito said with a small smile that was not easy to read.
'What an interesting little one. I look forward to seeing what he will become when he grows up.' she thought inwardly with a smile.
Before the murmurs could settle again, the curtain at the entrance suddenly moved, and Jiraiya stepped in with a broad stride, as though the whole place had been waiting for his loud laughter to restore movement to its veins.
"Hah! This is the kind of chapter I like, when the impossible turns from a wall into a personal challenge inside the head of a brave madman!" Jiraiya said, waving a hand as he approached the tables.
A brief disturbance followed his entrance, not because of his voice alone, but because his presence felt as though it were announcing that what lay on the page had become important enough to attract one of the Sannin in person.
Only moments passed before the sound of steady heels striking the wooden floor was heard, and heads turned toward the entrance once more.
Tsunade appeared, entering with a calm face and a gaze that missed nothing, as though she had come from another world and then decided, at exactly the right moment, to witness this commotion with her own eyes.
"If Lee is planning to end this with a single crushing blow, then the next chapter will not be a test of strength alone, but a test of the two bodies' ability to endure the moment of decision." Tsunade said as she crossed the hall in a confident tone. Of course, she was speaking to her brother Nawaki, who already had an open volume in his hand.
In any case, he did not answer her, because he was deeply absorbed in the details of the chapter, full as it was of the fierce battle between Lee and Gaara.
Some of the people present fell silent automatically, not in respect for her alone, but because the sentence had come from someone who understood the meaning of destroying a body and keeping it alive more than almost anyone else in the village.
Then, in complete contrast to Jiraiya's noisy arrival and Tsunade's confident one, Orochimaru's entrance came in cold silence, making whoever saw him feel as if the temperature of the hall had suddenly dropped by a full degree.
"When one begins searching for a way to pierce the protection instead of colliding with it, the chapter becomes truly enjoyable, because genius then lies not in strength alone, but in choosing the point where that strength is planted."
Orochimaru said in a soft voice that stirred a hidden shiver through the place.
He had become what was considered the number one traitor in the village, and merely looking at him made everyone take a step backward, unable to force a smile.
Glances were exchanged when the presence of the three Sannin was completed, one after another, as though the new chapter had not merely stirred the readers' emotions, but had gathered in one corner of the village three utterly different ways of understanding what was happening in the arena: an enthusiasm that saw Lee as the hero of a challenge, a medical eye that saw his plan as a decisive gamble, and a cold mind that found an independent pleasure in breaching a defense.
As for Dai, he looked at little Gai and then back at the pages once more, and felt that this moment did not belong to Rock Lee alone, but to everyone who had lived a long time under some burden and then finally found before them an opponent who could be pushed one step backward.
"A fierce battle?" Dai said with a broad smile.
"No, my son… this is the beginning of a battle that will force everyone to remember the name Rock Lee the way it deserves to be remembered."
Gai, whose heart felt as though it might leap from its place, clenched his fist tightly as he stared at the final line of the scene, as though he could already hear the coming technique before it truly began.
'If the Lotus is the answer, then the next chapter will not merely break the Sand Armor… it will break the silence surrounding Lee's name in people's eyes.' Gai thought with burning emotion.
At that moment, no one in the art store was any longer asking whether Rock Lee had truly found a weakness.
The only question left hanging over their heads was far more tense than that:
When the Lotus launches… which one of the two will bear its consequences first?
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 190: Shocking!
Chapter 191: The Genius of Hard Work.
Chapter 192: Hard Work Is Useless If You Aren't Confident in Yourself!
Chapter 193: The Eight Inner Gates!
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