Scene #1428:

Owner	Pose
Rock Lee	It's not difficult to find Rock Lee. He's doing pushups on one hand in the middle of the grassy field. He's come to the spot Zwei originally arrived at, so that it wouldn't be too difficult to find him. He seems to make a point about not inviting people to the actual college. It's the middle of the day on his world.
Zwei	As usual, Zwei is multitasking. Asche is dealing with some leftovers of the Elvari attack and the battle with the Fleet Daughters out on the Great Ocean, requiring a great deal of ground to be covered, and so it can only spare Weiss for meeting up with Rock Lee, which is just as well, because it's mostly her sensors it needs. As such, the human sized Armiger arrives in a relatively conventional way; piloting a sleek, carbon-black dropship of organic curves and razor sharp edges down from the stratosphere and into a gentle landing on the side of a grassy incline. The thrusters swiftly scorch said grass straight off the dirt directly beneath it, but do so quickly enough that no fire starts. Weiss pops the lid on the cockpit and steps out, unplugging some sort of cable from the back of her neck as she hops down to the ground. "Hey there~" she calls after Lee, waving to him as she approaches. "Glad to see you're alright! Also good to know that the Union doesn't care enough about me to send a babysitter for this." She grins to herself. "Just hold on a minute. I'll start setting up equipment." She steps off to the side, holding out her hands in front of her and subsequently ceasing the appearance of blinking. The ground for several meters ahead of her suddenly flattens as if hit by a giant boot; the grass and gravel disintegrating instantly in a swirl of brownish dust. From out of the dirt rises several shapes, taking form as if sculpted out of nothing. Half of it is very mundane. A set of reinforced platforms holding down common materials, including wooden boards, cinderblocks, concrete slabs and steel plate. The other half of the equipment rises off the ground by itself as she applies a jolt of wireless power; floating into the air in a widening net where what appear to be cameras of some kind catch crisscrossing angles.
Rock Lee	"Wow! You can create things out of grass!" Lee observes as he begins to walk around the raised platform of materials. He squints down at them, as if trying to figure out what he'll be doing. "You are not an enemy! I do not think anyone should have to watch you. And I am fine, I had to stay locked up so that my brain could be scanned."
Zwei	"I wouldn't say I'm anyone's enemy just yet, but still. I'm not allied with anyone in particular. I'd have thought the Union might be a little paranoid about me. Maybe it's just my winning personality~" Weiss doesn't seem bothered in the least about being alone with Lee. She instead seems inordinately pleased that recording and documenting his combat ability can be seen as such a harmless activity. "It's actually mostly just the dirt. There's not really enough grass here to make all of this. Once you strip anything down to tiny enough particles, it all sort of becomes interchangeable. By taking apart the pieces that make up dirt, air, grass, or anything else, you can put them back together in the way a different thing is built, like concrete or steel." She chatters over the steady hissing sound of nanofabrication, though Zwei's method skips the nanomachines entirely. In short order, a series of progressively larger and harder pieces of material have been set up in a graduated line across a row of sensors and against a solid backboard of some featureless silver material, with tiny crosshairs painted behind each object. Weiss lowers her hands from their conducting position, gesturing casually towards the paper target at the far left, then through the foam, cloth, plastic, wood, resin, stone, and metal targets. "Hit each one of these so that your fist is aimed at the target behind them. Stand at that line on the ground. I want to see what kind of instantaneous acceleration you can get in a two foot distance."
Rock Lee	"So you can make a cheeseburger!" is what Lee takes from that, immediately heading over to the paper target and standing exactly two feet in front. "When you know more about what I can do, you can help me train better!" he says, right before he immediately thrusts his fist forward. It's a fast punch, expertly calculated, and it tears a perfect hole into the middle of the paper rather than tearing it apart, as if his muscle control is so great that he managed to focus the force into a single point of a delicate material.
Zwei	"I could definitely do that~" Weiss says. "Organic and inorganic only matters at the cellular level. Once you get down to atoms, both are made of the same things. Replicating meat and dairy proteins is a little more difficult than a mineral or equivalent, but not even close to impossible." To prove her point, Weiss summons up an ordinary side-table, laying out a simple looking tablecloth and plate next to a single wooden stool. "Once we finish up here, I'll treat you to as many cheeseburgers as you want~" Meanwhile, half a dozen different sensors take their data of Lee's punch. Laser rangefinders measure the distance his fist travels in microsecond increments. Thermographs chart the bloodflow to and from his arm muscles. Magnetic resonance imaging calculates the tiniest flexes in his bone structure and soft tissue. The silver backboard records the pressure wave coming off of his fist as it stops, while tensile sensors in the border of the paper transmit split second acceleration forces. "Stick to the same punches for the rest. Don't go trying to karate chop the cinderblocks in half or two-finger poke through the steel sheets."
Rock Lee	"Alright!" Lee moves to the wood, inhaling deepler. Then he thrusts the exact punch as before, but the force is different. There's more force than before, but again his force is very calculated. He doesn't split the wood in half, instead it's more like his fist punctures a hole into the wood, sending splinters flying out everywhere. An analysis of the way he punches will calculate back up his claims of his fighting style being meant for breaking bones, which wouldn't be particularly easy if he couldn't focus the force. "Are cheeseburgers made out of dirt really that healthy?!"
Zwei	"Cheeseburgers aren't healthy to begin with. It's not made of out dirt either. It's made out of protons, neutrons and electrons. The same as everything else." Weiss stands by with her arms crossed as Lee works, not wanting to disturb him. An eyebrow lifts slightly at the increased use of force on the wood; so carefully scaled as to create the exact same damage as on the paper despite the drastically different material. The backboard seems to catch the splinters, causing them to stick where they land and colour the silver a brighter shade of white in a static rippling fashion; measuring the speed of the ejecta. "Do the next ones all in one series. As fast as you can while still maintaining that hit profile."
Rock Lee	Things get a little different once Lee reaches the resin. His punches are adjusted and still delivered in a similar manner, but instead of making holes, they start to split directly down the middle. A completely controlled single fracture. The resin, then the stone, both snapped in half. When he gets to the softer metals, he stops, then takes a breath. "I have to stop here. I would have to open a gate to punch through this, and I am honor bound to never open my gates unless I am defending something important."
Zwei	Click. Click. Click. Each punch is met with a silent tick of a hundred different scanners going off at once, taking careful stock of Lee's steady escalation of power. Zwei is mostly getting excited as he gets to the metals, knowing that breaking those would be impossible for a baseline human, but then is caught off guard by him suddenly refusing. "Really?" Weiss asks. "Those 'gates' are what you used to fight Madara, right? That seems like a weird thing to promise. How are you supposed to learn to use them if you can't practice with them?" She frowns ever so slightly; a calculated gesture. "If you can't show me, can you at least tell me about them?"
Rock Lee	"I can practice with them... this -is- training, isn't it?" Lee decides, as he carefully considers that. "I can explain, this is not classified information. Opening the eight gates is a forbidden technique, because it is very dangerous. But the eight gates themselves are a very fundamental part of the way the human body works!" He turns around to face her, crossing his arms. "The first gate is the Gate of Opening. It removes the natural restraints of the brain and muscles, unlocking 100% of your strength. Normally we can only use 20% to avoid muscle disintegration." he explains, before moving on. "The second is the Gate of Healing. It increases physical strength even further, and revitalizes the body. Then the Gate of Life, which increases blood flow and turns the skin red. The Gate of Pain, which increases speed and power, and could actually tear muscles upon opening. Essentially, unlocking the gates completely removes all restraint. There is the Gate of Limit, Gate of Wonder, and Gate of Death, all of them just further and further increasing the functions of your body. The Gate of Death makes you so powerful that you basically become the most powerful ninja in the world, but then you die once it is over."
Zwei	Now /that's/ interesting. "/Any/ human from your world has these? They just need to train to unlock them?" Weiss pauses for a moment's consideration. "Though I think it'd take most of someone's able-bodied life to unlock them if the amount you've trained is any comparison to go by." Still, it's useful to know. "Are these gates tied to a physical location in your body, or do they correspond more to a type of spiritual release point? Chakra for your world, wasn't it? Or was it ki? I'd be interested in learning more about them, but you're the only person I know of who uses them, and I think finding anyone else from your world as accomplished as you would be difficult." She steps back from the table, circling around until she's between the backboard and Lee. The floating sensor pods automatically spread out into a wider circle, maintaining their overlapping fields of vision. "If you have to be training to use them, then we could spar a little~ Just a friendly one. One or two gates. No need to go nuts!"
Rock Lee	"I will continue to show you, and punch the boards, because this is training and I am learning to become stronger! Guy Sensei would accept this." Lee concedes, standing in front of the softest metal she has set up now. "The Gate of Opening is in the brain, the Gate of Healing is also in the brain, next to opening. The Gate of Life and Pain are in the spinal cord, the Gate of Limit is in the abdomen, the Gate of View is in the stomach, the Gate of Wonder is in the groin, and the Gate of Death is in the heart." "It would be dangerous to spar with the gates open, both for me and for you. But this controlled training, with the boards, is just fine." After he explains this, he takes a deep breath, but nothing seems to visibly happen. Then suddenly he swings a punch, a very quick one, slamming his fist through the softer piece of metal. It shatters, as some softer metals tend to do. Then he holds his hand up, shaking it. It's red from a bit of blood. "Even though I can break them, it is still very painful and dangerous. Perhaps if you gave me all wood, then you could monitor the differences in my attacks more safely?" But, returning to one of her earlier questions, he answers, "Every human in my world has chakra gates, yes! I have also seen them referenced on the internet in many other worlds. Perhaps we simply have a working knowledge of them and chakra, and their science does not? Chakra gates in other worlds also seem to be in the same positions as ours."
Zwei	Though tempted to pull out a clipboard and start writing things down just so Lee knows that it's noting them, Zwei settles for having Weiss nod her head along at each point in the explanation with an emphatic "mmm" or "mhm". She has a handful of the sensors lock on to the specific points in Lee's anatomy at each mention, monitoring them carefully for when he winds up to punch the leaden plate. The sight of it flying to pieces causes her to clap her hands together with an exceptionally pleased expression, but it slides off quickly as soon as she sees the blood on his hand. "Oh! I see. My apologies! I didn't realize it'd still damage your body to hit something harder than it." She slips in between him and the target and rests her hand on the plate, causing a strange shimmer to run through it like the refresh of a screen, turning it into a several inch thick block of oak instead. She goes to each of the metal ones in sequence, changing them to honey locust, yew, bamboo, and ebony in turn. "There! Now just start hitting these as hard as you think is reasonable! Blow them up!"
Rock Lee	If she pays attention, as he's likely closed his gates while waiting for her, she'll note a sudden increase in brain activity. Where in most people, even people from other worlds, the brain really does subconsciously control their level of strength, there's something 'different' about the way his neurons fire after whatever he's done. And the way his body moves, even though it's still largely confident, seems more like he's holding back and -consciously- controlling himself to avoid straining his body. "It is true that everyone is capable of training to open the Eight Gates, the only people that I know who can do it are myself, Guy Sensei, and Kakashi Sensei after he saw me do it when I was young. He is known as the copy ninja, you see." He swings his fist forward and into the oak, causing the thing to basically explode into splinters. Where before he was perfectly controlling the force of his punches, now it's like he has trouble keeping his own arm from flying out of socket, and most of his control goes into keeping his body from damaging itself. When he moves onto the next, he continues talking. "Opening the gates is -very- difficult, as it requires forcing the body beyond limits that it evolved to preserve its own existence. The gates are not meant to be forced open, it is dangerous, that is why it is forbidden to do." "Second gate. the Gate of Healing." This is where she can feel the force flowing from his body, gently blowing the grass back. He holds his hand up to her, showing that the damage has healed. If she's paid attention, she'll notice that for a very brief moment, his cellular regeneration and the activity of his white blood cells went through the roof, then suddenly back down to normal. When he extends his fist this time, it's enough to slam it directly through the wood and get it stuck on his wrist. It wasn't control, it was the sheer force and speed.