"He's telling the truth."
Just as Guy was fumbling for an explanation, a lazy voice drifted over from behind them.
They turned.
Hatake Kakashi stepped out, fully dressed.
"Kakashi, you're up," Guy said, relieved.
"Hard not to be."
Kakashi yawned, eyes damp from sleep. "Haah. Guy, were you just teaching Kono the Eight Gates?"
Guy understood exactly what his friend ant. Yesterday Kakashi had warned him that Kono's background was questionable and urged him not to share the Eight Gates. Guy had even left the scroll with Kakashi for safekeeping. A veiled check-in was only natural.
"I've already apologized to Guy."
Kono smiled toward Kakashi, letting him know she had co clean.
"Oh…"
Kakashi glanced at Guy. Seeing him nod, he let it go. If Guy truly agreed and had not been tricked, then it was his clan's secret to pass as he pleased. Even the Hokage had no say.
"Can the Eight Gates really be learned just by training?"
Since he had stopped prying, Kono took her chance and asked him directly.
Aside from Guy and Lee, Kakashi was the only other one in the original tales who opened even a single gate. It was still more than she had. His experience might be useful.
"Mm."
Kakashi thought for a mont, then spoke plainly.
"The Eight Gates draw power from releasing your life force. The first three gates work by lifting, in order, the brain's control restrictions on the body, so comparatively they're simple. The further you go, the harsher the cost. With your talent, I don't think this path is worth it."
It was sound advice. The Eight Gates existed so those who lacked gifts could, through will, burn life for power. Soone of Kono's caliber had no need to embrace a technique with such brutal side effects.
Kono had her reasons.
She agreed with Iruka's lesson about the limit of life force. As her body grew stronger, more of her chakra was being siphoned just to sustain that strength. From the Land of Water to Konoha, through a month of escapes and fights, her physique had been refining itself again and again, edging toward an ideal. anwhile, her chakra, once at jonin levels, had quietly slipped.
By her rough estimate, barring surprises, she would likely cap out around Kage level. And if she could not muster the chakra, then even mastering all seven nature transformations would not be enough to condense a single Truth-Seeking Orb.
Eating tailed beast flesh before she reached Kage would be both difficult and dangerous. That left two options. Steal a graft of Hashirama cells. Or bet hard on the Eight Gates.
There was no real choice.
"The Eight Gates are exactly what I need. Whatever the price is, I will pay it."
Kono's tone was steady. Her resolve was a palpable thing, and even Kakashi straightened a little at the feel of it.
Guy needed no stoking. Flas of youth leapt high in his eyes. "Yes. That is it. The Eight Gates demand the resolve to burn your bridges."
Kakashi cut a sideways look at the hot-blooded fool and, for once, did not argue. He faced Kono.
"The human body has limit switches. The na of that switch is survival instinct."
"Survival instinct?"
Kono's eyes narrowed in thought.
"Every living thing has the sa will to live. The Eight Gates exploit that, by grinding body and mind, sharpening will, and harnessing that primal drive. If a muscle fires at absolute output it tears, so the brain hides your true strength. It is protecting you.
"If you burn life, you die, so the flesh rejects the ability. Only by training without rcy, taming that instinct and achieving what I call body liberation can you tap power that sneers at death.
"There are no shortcuts."
Kakashi laid out his understanding in one breath, each word clipped clean. When Guy had started him on the path, Kakashi had tried to cheat it too. Even he had found no way to bypass the hard road and break the animal logic that sat below conscious thought.
Guy nodded along. Hone the will, ta the instinct, liberate the body. That was the crux. Thinking you could hack your way to the Eight Gates was pure fantasy.
Between the two of them, Kono finally heard the thing that mattered.
Training to open the gates ant taming an unconscious behavior. Survival instinct was just that, an unconscious program. The body refused to open the gates because it had judged the state dangerous. If you only used conscious intent, you would never find the real switches.
That instinct lived in the bedrock of life, beneath sensation.
So you ground the flesh, tempered the will, and drove yourself to the brink. In crisis, the will to live erupted. To get past the present danger, life itself would crack those shackles for a heartbeat and only then think about the bill.
In that instant, your conscious mind could touch the switch.
Training the Eight Gates ant turning that switch on again and again until your body rembered the feeling and could answer on command without having to hurl itself over the cliff each ti.
With the principle clear, Kono let herself sink.
Thump.
Thump.
Her heart pumped slow and strong. Blood moved along its rivers. Nutrients entered cells and beca energy. Waste left cells and flowed back to be carried away. A normal loop. A normal body.
Her gaze sharpened.
Byakugan.
Dead-ash pupils sent power rolling down through her.
Like a long-unplugged appliance shocking back to life, normal tissue surged under the lash of sight-power and humd. Vessels crawled, fascia writhed. Organs shifted, awakened, exultant.
A hellish scroll of at in motion would have sent most reeling, but to Kono it was only the day's warmup.
Now for the main act.
If the essence of the gates was driving the body into crisis and past its limit
then she would put herself in crisis now.
A silent command, Byakugan lending the will a crown. All that flesh already under her dominion bowed.
Still, the shackles Guy spoke of did not appear.
Pursue the limit. Create the crisis.
Kono mouthed the Eight Gates' intent and, a sovereign among roaring demons of blood and gristle, gave her order.
"Flesh, erupt!"
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