Marineford. The Summit War.
The very heavens seemed to shift as cannon fire thundered across the sky. The two most powerful forces on the sea were locked in a savage struggle across the plaza.
Everywhere one looked, the ground was littered with the fallen; a grim landscape of soldiers returning to the earth in the shrouds of war.
In the heart of the chaos, a young Vice Admiral poured his remaining strength into a single punch, floorning the pirate in front of him. Without pausing to catch his breath, he moved toward the towering figure in the distance.
There stood the strongest man in the world: Edward Newgate—Whitebeard, the Sovereign of the New World.
The young Marine had only one objective in approaching him: to witness, firsthand, the true gap between their levels of power.
Finally, he stood before Whitebeard. Looking up at the man's massive, Herculean physique, an invisible pressure slammed into him. Cold sweat poured down his face; his skin turned a ghastly, ashen pale.
"So, this is the strongest man in the world… Incredible!"
Just standing in the man's presence caused his body to tremble uncontrollably.
Whitebeard glanced down at the young Vice Admiral at his feet, a low, strange chuckle rumbling in his chest. As a warrior standing at the apex of the world, he saw through the young man's intentions instantly.
"Gurararara… You have guts, brat. I'll give you that. But right now, I don't have time to waste on you!"
Whitebeard slammed the butt of his naginata, Murakumogiri, into the ground. The power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit ignited instantly. The plaza buckled and heaved as if a great dragon were turning beneath the earth; the ground tilted at impossible angles, and the very currents of the sea were torn asunder.
A sphere of crushing atmospheric pressure condensed around the blade of the naginata as Whitebeard swung it down toward the young officer.
Facing a strike that carried the weight of the world's end, the Vice Admiral's pupils dilated. Then, unexpectedly, he felt a surge of pure ecstasy.
This! This was the power he had sought!
In that final moment, he felt no fear of death. Instead, he swung his iron fist upward, meeting the blade head-on. Even knowing it meant his end, he refused to retreat a single step.
BOOM!
The terrifying force of the vibration shattered his bones and pulverized his internal organs instantly. Blood sprayed from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. He was driven into a massive crater, his consciousness fading into darkness even as he stared up at the titan above him.
"Neji, Lee's been acting really strange lately. Do you think he overdid it with his training and gave himself some kind of permanent damage?"
A young girl wearing a pink, short-sleeved qipao and black trousers watched the bowl-cut boy sitting cross-legged in meditation under a large tree. Her brow was furrowed with worry.
Beside her, the boy with the pale White Eyes remained expressionless.
"If the price of awakening a Bloodline Limit is 'permanent damage' like this, I suspect many who weren't favored by fate would be begging for the same affliction," Neji replied coolly.
Half a month ago, Lee had suddenly collapsed during a sparring match with him. When he woke up, he was a completely different person.
At first, both Neji and Might Guy assumed the fainting spell was simply the result of Lee's usual, high-intensity training. But as the days passed, Lee's behavior completely overturned everything they thought they knew about him.
The old Lee would constantly scream about "Youth" and "Passion," mimicking Might Guy's ridiculous poses and antics.
But since that day, Lee had changed.
He had become calm, mature—almost like a total stranger.
The most absurd change, however, was in his training. The old Lee would have tried to squeeze forty-eight hours of work into a single day, training until he collapsed with a smile on his face. Now, not only was his personality different, but he actually spent time slacking off during practice.
This "slacking" naturally caught Might Guy's attention. Initially, Guy thought Lee was ill and forcibly dragged him to the Konoha Hospital. When the results came back showing Lee was in perfect health, Guy was furious, determined to use his "Fist of Love" to beat some discipline back into his wayward student.
But the Lee standing before him was no longer the boy he knew.
First, Lee had calmly and concisely talked Guy out of the physical punishment. Then, he had solemnly announced that he had awakened a Bloodline Limit.
To prove he wasn't lying, Lee took them to the training field and demonstrated his "Kekkei Genkai."
It was a Taijutsu technique involving ultra-high-speed movement. He called it: Shave.
The three of them had been left speechless after seeing it. To be safe and verify the claim, Might Guy had swallowed his pride and asked Lee to teach them the mechanics of Shave. Lee had agreed readily and explained the principles, but after half a day of practice, none of them could even grasp the basic concept.
Even Neji, with the analytical insight of his Byakugan, couldn't decipher how the technique worked.
And what is the most common trait of a Bloodline Limit? It cannot be learned. It cannot be copied.
From that point on, Lee had "set himself free." He slacked off openly, and even Guy, his mentor, found himself unable to do anything about it.
Taking a break from her own training, Tenten walked over to the assembly point. She took a sip from her water skin, her eyes glued to the still-immobile Lee.
"What is he doing now?"
Lee stood up and turned toward a massive tree, nearly twenty meters tall. He raised his hands, forming the hand seal to refine chakra. He lifted his right foot and pressed his sole against the trunk. Once steady, he brought his left foot up, standing at a perfect ninety-degree angle to the tree.
Slowly, he began to walk toward the canopy.
Neji, returning from a brief walk in the woods, watched with a hint of surprise. This was basic Chakra Control training—something he and Tenten had mastered long ago. They could walk on trees and water with ease.
When Lee reached the five-meter mark, his left foot trembled. His center of gravity shifted. Seeing the failure coming, Lee kicked off the trunk, using the momentum to perform a backflip and land steadily on the ground.
He looked up at the height he'd reached and frowned.
Chakra control wasn't as easy as he'd imagined. Even with Guy's private tutoring, doing it himself was another matter entirely.
"I guess I need more practice," he muttered to himself.
Since taking over this body, he had spent every waking moment looking for ways to grow stronger. Whenever he remembered Whitebeard's strike, his blood boiled. He was determined to one day become a powerhouse of that caliber.
Perhaps his conviction had moved the heavens; his dream hadn't ended at Marineford, but had instead been given a second life through reincarnation into the world of Naruto.
While a new life was something to celebrate, he quickly realized that his memories of this world's "plot" were incredibly hazy. Because this was his second reincarnation, the time gap was vast; he could only remember the general trajectory of events.
Consequently, during his first few weeks as "Lee," he had been racking his brain to dig up any useful information or "exploits" that could help him get stronger.
His urgency stemmed from a simple, frustrating fact: his character profile was Rock Lee, the Taijutsu specialist who could use neither Ninjutsu nor Genjutsu.
In a world where Ninjutsu could level mountains and Genjutsu could control all of humanity, how much room for growth was there for someone relying purely on physical techniques? The answer was simple: he'd likely be played to death by more versatile opponents.
He had hoped that his status as a "transmigrator" might bypass the restriction on Ninjutsu, but the universe had played a cruel joke on him. Just like the original Lee, he possessed absolutely zero talent for it.
He hadn't believed it at first, practicing the Clone Technique relentlessly at home, until he finally gave up a few days ago. The reality was clear: there was only one path forward for him. Taijutsu.
Fortunately, being a transmigrator did come with some "special treatment." For instance, he could use the Marine combat techniques from his previous life—the Six Powers.