"That boorish brute again... Honestly, he and that so-called genius are a perfect match—one's a musclehead, the other's a disgrace."
The Hyuga clan members tried to conceal their disdain as they watched Might Guy stroll toward the estate. They looked down on him, of course—but barring him from entering would be bad manners. And the Hyuga Clan, for all their arrogance, were sticklers for etiquette.
"Good morning!"
Guy's radiant grin gleamed under the morning sun like a solar flare aimed directly at their retinas. He didn't care one bit about being ignored. With a few solid slaps to dust off his green jumpsuit, he confidently walked through the front gate.
"Yo! Unkawa! Rise and shine!"
His voice boomed like a war horn as he marched through the familiar courtyard. "The trumpet of morning training has sounded! Youth waits for no man—not even the sleepy ones!"
"Come in, Senior Guy," came the voice from inside.
Guy beamed even wider at the response and entered after politely announcing himself. He didn't even glance toward the bedroom, instead heading straight for the adjacent training room.
"Unkawa, you're probably—"
Guy slid open the door mid-sentence and froze.
It wasn't the mess of training gear that made him pause. It was the sight of the young man before the full-length mirror.
Unkawa Hyuga.
Shirtless, suspended from a horizontal bar, legs wrapped in heavy iron weights.
Click-clack. Click-clack.
Each slow, deliberate rise and fall of his body was perfectly timed—his toes barely brushed the ground before he pulled himself up again. The orange morning light spilled through the window, casting a golden glow on his tall, lean frame. His features were sharp, his muscles taut, outlined in a way that made him look carved by sunlight itself.
Guy's gaze dropped to the puddle forming beneath him. Sweat—copious amounts of it—had pooled on the floor. That meant Unkawa had been at it for a long time. Too long.
"Unkawa... don't tell me..."
The words trailed off as Guy took in the state of his muscles—arms bulging with corded strength, veins surfacing like writhing cables. It was as if even Unkawa's muscle fibers were groaning under the strain.
"You didn't sleep last night, did you?"
No response.
But that was fine. Guy was already getting fired up.
He could see it now—Unkawa's body was right at its limit, and more importantly, he'd already opened the First Gate.
The Gate of Opening—unlocks the brain's limiter, allowing the user to access 100% of their physical capabilities at the cost of stamina and strain. A huge boost in power, but at a cost even Guy respected.
And Unkawa had pushed himself to the brink.
His movements began to slow. Form wavered. Each repetition became a battle of will against screaming muscles.
But this—this was youth!
How could youth afford to stagnate?
And yet...
As the seconds dragged on and Unkawa refused to stop, Guy's excitement began to shift into concern. His brow furrowed. The smile faded.
Too much... he's going too far, Guy thought grimly. If he keeps this up, he's going to do real damage. Internal injuries, maybe even permanent ones.
Even Guy, king of insane daily routines, knew how to balance effort with recovery. Medicine baths, muscle mending, proper rest—those were necessary, even for him.
"Unka—"
He started to speak, but then everything changed.
"Haaaah."
Unkawa exhaled slowly, and a pale mist billowed from his mouth like steam from a forge. In the next second, the sweat on his body evaporated in a sizzle.
His metabolism was working in overdrive—so much so that his body temperature spiked to near boiling.
The Second Gate—The Gate of Rest—had opened.
It released the limiters on fatigue, flooding the body with temporary recovery, countering the exhaustion from the First Gate.
In that moment, every cell in his body seemed to breathe. Strength surged through his limbs like molten lava through bedrock. His core pulsed with heat, body glowing faintly with energy as if he were being reborn in real time.
Unkawa's posture straightened. His motion regained perfect precision.
And then—
BOOM!
The training weights dropped from his legs like meteorites, slamming into the floor with a thunderous crack that snapped Guy out of his reverie.
"Holy—!" Guy gasped as Unkawa calmly picked up a towel, wiping the sweat off his neck.
"You... you already unlocked the Gate of Rest?!" Guy's voice cracked with emotion.
Unkawa raised his head.
But when Guy looked into those pale Hyuga eyes—
He flinched.
He couldn't explain why. There was no Byakugan activated. No chakra surge. But for a split second, it felt like those eyes peered into him—burned something into his soul. It stung like staring into the sun.
"You okay, Senior Guy?"
Unkawa's voice was calm and pleasant as ever, with a disarming smile on his face.
"...Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," Guy muttered, scratching his head in confusion.
And then the tears came.
"Unkawa!" he wailed, sobbing uncontrollably. "Your youth! It's too bright! I—it's just... it's too beautiful! I must learn from you! Waaaaah!"
"Senior Guy..." Unkawa sighed, patting the sobbing man's shoulder. "Let me take a shower first. Please."
"Of course! Of course!"
Still weeping, Guy nodded as Unkawa disappeared into the bathroom with a fresh change of clothes.
Inside the shower, Unkawa turned the faucet. Cold water rained down from the nozzle, soaking his long black hair, trailing down his back like icy streamlets over sculpted stone.
His skin steamed as the water made contact, unable to cool his overheated body. The cold didn't even register.
Then his eyes flicked to the invisible panel only he could see.
Bloodline: Ōtsutsuki Clan (5.0% → 5.1%)
A faint smile tugged at his lips. He clenched his fists, relishing the pop of bone and the sudden crack of air pressure around his knuckles.
Crack!
Boom!
His heartbeat slowed. His blood flow eased. His overheated muscles and tendons gradually calmed.
"So the Eight Gates can stimulate bloodline potential... even increase purity?"
He chuckled.
"It's like I just unshackled my own body. Addictive, really."
Despite his lean build, Unkawa's physique was deceptively powerful. His muscles weren't bulky or showy—but now, enhanced by the Ōtsutsuki bloodline, they were perfectly balanced and optimized. No awkward disproportion from overtraining, no wasted mass. Everything was function. Precision.
If his past self was a carefully lit furnace—a restrained flame—then now?
Now, he was a volcano. Quiet on the surface, but bursting with magma underneath.
For two years, he'd been stuck trying to open the Gate of Rest.
Now, he was ready for the next one.
The Gate of Life.
There was something terrifying sleeping within this body. Power, raw and silent.
And for the first time, it truly belonged to him.