Chapter 9: The Invoice
Ganzu stomped fully into the room, his heavy steel-toed boots actively cracking the old floorboards under his massive weight. He didn't bother with a villain monologue. He just let out a loud, ugly grunt and charged.
His oversized iron gauntlets—each weighing at least fifteen pounds of cheap, solid pig iron—were raised high. He was aiming to smash completely through the wooden counter and whatever was standing behind it.
Tetsuya didn't drop into a martial arts stance. He didn't try to dodge. His scarred face remained perfectly deadpan. He just stood behind the counter and counted the giant's heavy, thudding steps.
Three. Two. One.
When Ganzu was finally within arm's reach, swinging his massive arms downward, Tetsuya pulled a small metal pin from the heavy steel cylinder he'd been hiding under the wood. He casually dropped the smooth metal tube directly onto the countertop between them.
Then, Tetsuya immediately dropped straight down to his knees behind the counter, clamping his callused hands tightly over his ears and squeezing his eyes shut.
Ganzu paused his swing for a fraction of a second, his tiny, violent brain struggling to understand what the little metal tube was.
Then, the tube erupted.
The flash hit first—a brutal, blinding pop of pure white light that instantly washed out the dark workshop and burned the back of their retinas.
The bang followed a millisecond later. It wasn't just a loud noise; it was a harsh, kinetic slap of air pressure that shook the entire room. The glass in the windows spider-webbed instantly, and the loose tools on the walls rattled violently. The sharp, stinging smell of burnt magnesium and cheap gunpowder flooded the space, filling the air with thick, choking white smoke.
Ganzu dropped his heavy arms, stumbling backward blindly. His massive iron-clad hands frantically clutched at his face.
"My eyes! I can't see anything!" Ganzu yelled, his tough-guy street persona completely gone in the face of sudden, absolute blindness.
Behind the counter, Tetsuya slowly pushed himself up from the dirty floor. His own ears were ringing with a sharp, annoying whine, and heavy white spots danced across his vision. But he had expected it. He had braced for the shockwave. The effect on him was annoying, but compared to what the giant was experiencing, it was a walk in the park.
The three-hundred-pound thug was stumbling in wide, drunk circles. The pressure wave had temporarily wrecked his inner ear, completely destroying his balance. He swung his heavy gauntlets blindly into the thick smoke in a pure panic.
CRASH. A wooden rack holding a dozen half-finished shuriken toppled over, spilling metal all across the dirt floor.
SMASH. A small display table completely splintered under a wild, sweeping backhand from the giant.
Tetsuya stood safely behind the counter, watching the destruction. He wasn't scared; he was incredibly pissed off. Every single time Ganzu broke a piece of furniture, Tetsuya mentally added the exact replacement cost to the bill forming in his head.
He reached under the counter again, this time pulling out his medium-weight smithing hammer. Not the delicate little tapping tool he used for the Rhythm Forge, but the solid, heavy-headed iron hammer used for beating stubborn scrap metal into submission. The worn wooden handle fit perfectly into his grip.
"Come out here, you little rat!" Ganzu bellowed, spinning around and nearly tripping over his own massive feet, totally unable to locate Tetsuya through the smoke.
Tetsuya didn't say a word. Talking to a blind, raging idiot was a waste of breath. Instead, he simply activated his Analysis Eye.
The System immediately overlaid Ganzu's thrashing, oversized form with scrolling blue measurements. Tetsuya completely ignored the man's massive muscles and focused entirely on the heavy iron gauntlets. They were crude, ugly weapons, designed strictly for intimidating civilians rather than actual, technical combat.
The System instantly highlighted several mechanical weak points in glowing red.
Tetsuya zeroed in on the most obvious one: the heavy hinge joint situated right at the elbow of Ganzu's right gauntlet. It was a notoriously terrible design. The System showed a deep, severe rust buildup where years of the thug's own sweat had corroded the cheap iron. The structural integrity analysis floating in Tetsuya's vision showed a massive 78% degradation at that exact stress point.
Tetsuya stepped out from behind the counter. He didn't run. He didn't try to out-punch the giant. That was anime protagonist logic, and Tetsuya was just a tired, middle-aged mechanic trapped in a scrawny teenager's body. He just waited for the exact right microsecond to apply heavy leverage.
Ganzu heard the crunch of broken glass under Tetsuya's boots. The giant swung wildly in that direction, a massive haymaker that could have decapitated a horse.
Tetsuya simply took a half-step backward, letting the massive, iron-clad fist whoosh harmlessly past his nose. The immense, stupid momentum of the heavy gauntlet carried Ganzu's arm completely forward, throwing the blinded giant off balance and leaving his right arm fully overextended in the air.
That was the opening.
Tetsuya stepped inside Ganzu's guard, close enough to smell the sour stench of the thug's sweat. He didn't aim for Ganzu's head or chest. He raised his heavy smithing hammer and brought it down hard, using the exact same muscle memory he used to fold heavy steel on the anvil. No fancy martial arts, just pure, blue-collar kinetic force.
He smashed the hammer directly into the rusted hinge joint on the right gauntlet.
The sound was unmistakable: a sharp, violent metallic CRACK, immediately followed by the ugly squeal of thick iron bending in a direction it was fundamentally never designed to move.
The rusted hinge instantly collapsed inward under the force of the hammer. The thick iron plating pinched violently together, crushing completely flat. It instantly locked the heavy gauntlet tight around Ganzu's thick forearm, while simultaneously twisting his elbow at a completely unnatural, highly gruesome angle inside the metal tube.
Ganzu's angry shouting instantly shifted into a high-pitched scream of pure agony.
The immense weight of his own weapon was now working against him. The twisted, collapsed metal was digging deep into his flesh and trapping his arm in a permanent vice grip. The giant dropped heavily to his knees in the dirt, his right arm now totally trapped and twisted inside his own broken armor.
"What... what the hell did you do to me?!" Ganzu gasped, tears of pain streaming down his scarred face. He blinked rapidly, his vision finally beginning to clear in blurry patches. "What kind of jutsu is this?!"
"Physics, you idiot," Tetsuya replied flatly, resting the heavy hammer on his shoulder. "Not jutsu. Just basic, foundational engineering. You didn't oil your joints."
Tetsuya walked slowly around the kneeling giant, his dark eyes assessing the severe damage to his shop. The destruction was extensive, and it irritated him way more than the actual assassination attempt.
He calmly picked up a small, soot-stained notepad and a stubby pencil from beneath the rubble of his shattered glass counter. He began writing, the pencil scratching loudly against the cheap paper.
"What... what are you doing?" Ganzu wheezed, cradling his trapped arm.
"Solid treated oak door: 2,300 Ryo," Tetsuya muttered out loud, writing the numbers down, not even bothering to look at the thug. "Glass display case: 1,500 Ryo. Fifteen standard kunai ruined by your reckless thrashing: 22,500 Ryo."
Tetsuya paused his writing, slowly lowering the notepad to give Ganzu a dark, totally empty look.
"And my lost sleep? That's priceless."
Tetsuya walked over to his blast furnace, which was still radiating intense heat from his earlier work with Neji's bracers. He reached in and pulled out a long, heavy iron fire poker. The tip was glowing a bright, angry cherry-red.
He walked back to Ganzu, holding the searing hot metal just inches from the thug's sweating face.
Ganzu tried to shuffle backward on his knees, but his trapped arm and disoriented balance kept him pinned to the floor.
"You owe me exactly 26,300 Ryo for this ridiculous mess," Tetsuya said, his voice cold and flat. "How are you paying for this?"
"I—I don't have that kind of money, man! I swear!" Ganzu stammered, his eyes locked desperately on the glowing red tip of the poker.
"Then who does?" Tetsuya moved the hot iron a millimeter closer. The heat was unbearable. "Who sent you to my shop to break my hands?"
"Ryu! Master Ryu from the Emporium!" Ganzu blurted out instantly, selling his rich boss out without a second of hesitation. Sweat poured down his face, sizzling faintly as it got close to the hot iron. "He paid me ten grand cash to break your hands! He said you were cutting into his bottom line!"
"Ten thousand Ryo?" Tetsuya repeated, actually sounding deeply insulted. "That's all my craftsmanship is worth to that fat bastard? The cost of a second-rate, clumsy street thug?"
Tetsuya scoffed. He moved the hot poker away from Ganzu's face and knelt down in the dirt. With his free hand, he ruthlessly patted down the thug's pockets until he felt a thick paper envelope. He pulled it out and quickly thumbed through the crisp bills inside. It was exactly 10,000 Ryo.
"I'll take this as a non-refundable down payment," Tetsuya said smoothly, tucking the envelope into his heavy apron pocket.
He returned to his notepad, scribbled something quickly, tore off the page, and shoved it aggressively directly into Ganzu's dirty shirt pocket.
"What's this?" Ganzu asked, trembling.
"An invoice. For the remaining 16,300 Ryo," Tetsuya stated, standing up and tossing the hot poker aside.
He grabbed Ganzu by the collar of his shirt. With a surprising burst of leverage, Tetsuya hauled the massive thug to his feet and shoved him hard toward the broken doorway.
"You go back and tell Ryu his cheap street tactics failed," Tetsuya ordered, his raspy voice echoing in the quiet street outside. "And you tell him he officially owes me the rest of that cash for property damage. If he doesn't pay up, I won't just break his thugs. I'm coming for his entire market share. Now get off my property."
With one final kick to the backside, Tetsuya sent Ganzu stumbling out onto the dark dirt street. The giant thug scrambled away into the night, whining in pain, still trying to pull his trapped arm out of his twisted iron gauntlet.
Tetsuya watched him disappear into the shadows, then slowly turned around to survey the smoking ruins of his shop entrance. He let out a deep, exhausted sigh.
More time lost. More overhead expenses.
He grabbed a broom from the corner and began sweeping up the larger pieces of splintered wood. There was zero point in standing around complaining. In the slums, the work didn't do itself.
Ten minutes later, the heavy sound of synchronized footsteps approaching rapidly caught his attention. He didn't stop sweeping. He just glanced up, looking incredibly annoyed.
Four members of the Konoha Military Police Force walked through the broken doorframe. They wore the standard MP armbands on their shoulders—regular beat cops assigned to the civilian sector. They had their hands resting on their weapons, looking tense and ready for a fight.
"We received multiple civilian reports of an explosion and heavy fighting in this sector," the lead officer barked, looking around the smoky room. "Is everyone alright? What happened here?"
The officers looked fully prepared to walk into a bloody crime scene. Instead, they found a scarred teenager methodically sweeping glass with a cheap broom, looking exactly like a grumpy janitor working the night shift.
"A clumsy customer tripped on his way out," Tetsuya replied flatly, sweeping a pile of glass into a dustpan. "It's handled, officers."
The MP cops exchanged deeply confused glances. One of them pointed a finger at the brick wall, where a massive, gauntlet-shaped dent was clearly visible in the masonry. "Kid, that doesn't look like someone tripped."
Tetsuya paused his sweeping and leaned his weight heavily on the wooden broom handle.
"Listen to me, officer," Tetsuya said, dropping the pretense entirely. "Do you have any idea how much bureaucratic paperwork I'd have to fill out if I officially reported an actual break-in attempt? You guys would lock down my shop as a crime scene for three days. The insurance forms and Guild incident reports alone would take me a week to file. I have a business to run. I can't afford to be shut down."
The lead officer frowned, lowering his weapon slightly. "Sir, if there was an attempted assault—"
"There was a minor misunderstanding about a product warranty," Tetsuya cut him off smoothly, his tone absolutely final. "The customer expressed his extreme dissatisfaction. I offered a partial refund. He left. End of story."
Another officer knelt down and picked up the warped, burnt metal casing of Tetsuya's homemade flashbang from the rubble. "And this? This looks like an illegal explosive casing."
"Defective smoke bomb. Rare manufacturing error," Tetsuya lied without missing a single beat. "I'll be speaking harshly with my supplier about their quality control."
Tetsuya casually walked over, snatched the burnt casing right out of the officer's hand, and tossed it into a metal waste bin.
"Now," Tetsuya continued, picking his broom back up. "Unless you gentlemen are here to help me sweep this glass, or you want to buy some kunai, I have a massive mess to clean up. Have a good night."
The police officers could easily tell they were being hustled. But without a formal civilian complaint, a dead body, or an actual willing victim, there wasn't much they could legally do. They finished a quick inspection of the room, asked a few more probing questions that Tetsuya expertly deflected with practiced indifference, and finally left with stern promises to "keep an eye on the shop."
When the very last officer finally left, Tetsuya dragged a heavy iron anvil in front of the broken doorway to act as a makeshift barricade.
He sagged heavily against the cracked wooden counter. The combat adrenaline was finally wearing off, leaving his scrawny body trembling. His ears still rang, and his right arm ached terribly from the heavy hammer strike. His civilian body was absolutely not conditioned for this kind of stress.
He looked around at the destruction, his brain automatically doing the math.
A soft, digital chime interrupted his miserable thoughts.
[NEW QUEST: HOSTILE TAKEOVER]
[Target: Ryu's Weapon Emporium]
[Objective: Bankrupt Ryu's Weapon Emporium]
[Reward: Exclusive Supply Contract (Konoha Military Police). Blueprints (Tier 3) Unlocked.]
Tetsuya stared at the glowing blue notification. Bankrupting the biggest, wealthiest merchant in the entire village sounded absolutely exhausting. It meant more sleepless nights and more fat idiots trying to break his furniture.
He reached into his apron and pulled out the thick envelope containing the 10,000 Ryo he'd forcefully taxed from Ganzu. He looked at the cash, then looked at his shattered door.
"Net profit: 7,700 Ryo," Tetsuya muttered to the empty room.
Slowly, his scarred lips pulled back into a deeply cynical, predatory smile.
"You know what?" Tetsuya whispered, pocketing the cash. "If this fat bastard keeps sending walking ATMs to my front door... putting him out of business is going to be the easiest money of my life."
The next morning, Tetsuya stood outside his workshop, sipping a mug of terrible, bitter black coffee. He was surveying the damage in the harsh light of day.
It looked even worse than it had in the dark. The front entrance was a splintered mess, held together by a few stubborn rusty nails and some heavy ninja wire he'd strung across the gap to keep stray dogs out.
A hastily written piece of cardboard hung crookedly on the wire:
DOOR BROKEN. STILL OPEN. KNOCK ON THE WALL.
He took another sip of his coffee, wincing slightly as his bruised fingers protested around the hot ceramic mug. He caught his reflection in a broken shard of glass. He looked terrible—heavy dark circles under his sunken eyes, his black hair wild from a completely sleepless night spent sweeping glass and planning his revenge.
A young Genin messenger approached cautiously down the dirt street, eyeing the completely destroyed entrance with wide-eyed concern.
"Um, excuse me? Tetsuya-san?" The boy nervously held out a small, elegant scroll tied with a crisp blue ribbon. "I have a message for you. From the upscale district."
Tetsuya accepted the scroll with a tired nod, expertly flipping the boy a small 50-Ryo coin. The messenger caught it, his eyes lighting up, and scampered away quickly.
Breaking the wax seal, Tetsuya unrolled the message. It was written on incredibly thick, expensive paper that probably cost more than his entire weekly food budget.
"Your quality work has been noticed and verified. The Hyuga clan is highly pleased with Neji's technical assessment of your equipment. Additional bulk commissions for the Branch Family armory are forthcoming. Keep your forge hot. —H"
Tetsuya immediately turned the expensive paper over, genuinely wondering if he could wash the fancy ink off with some solvent and resell the thick parchment to a stationary store for a quick profit.
Deciding it wasn't worth the chemical effort, Tetsuya rolled the scroll back up and tucked it safely into his apron pocket. He took another sip of coffee, his mind already rapidly calculating material needs and profit margins.
He had the backing of the Hyuga clan now. That changed the entire board.
Across the village, in a lavishly decorated office located directly above Ryu's Weapon Emporium, a heavyset man wearing incredibly expensive green silk robes slammed his fat, ring-covered fist onto a polished mahogany desk.
"Are you making a joke out of me?!" Ryu hissed, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper as he glared at the terrified clerk standing before him. "Ganzu is my top enforcer. That blacksmith is a filthy, half-starved peasant living in a shed. How does a peasant cripple my best man?!"
The clerk—a lean, highly nervous man who clearly hated his job right now—kept his head bowed low. "Master Ryu, Ganzu returned to the clinic early this morning. His right arm... sir, it's really bad. The iron gauntlet is completely crushed inward. The medical-nin say he'll need complex surgery just to cut the metal off his skin, and he might never regain full use of his hand. The bones in his elbow are pulverized."
Ryu's fat face reddened, the veins in his neck bulging. "And the blacksmith?! Did Ganzu at least smash his forge?!"
"The kid already reopened for business at dawn, sir. And..." The clerk hesitated, swallowing hard.
"And what?!" Ryu growled.
"There's a massive rumor spreading through the Jonin standby lounges this morning. Word is that the kid has received formal, documented patronage from the Hyuga clan. A courier was seen delivering a scroll bearing their official clan seal to his shop an hour ago. People are lining up down the block to buy his stock."
Ryu fell completely silent. His arrogant expression darkened as he absorbed this massive complication. The Hyuga clan owned half the real estate in the village. Their political and economic reach was untouchable. If they were officially backing the kid, Ryu absolutely couldn't just hire another thug to burn the shop down without risking a full-blown clan war.
"Sir," the nervous clerk ventured, slowly reaching into his vest. "Ganzu also asked me to deliver this to you. He said the kid stuffed it in his pocket."
He placed a folded, soot-stained piece of cheap paper on the polished desk before quickly withdrawing his hand.
Ryu snatched the paper up and unfolded it. His scowl deepened into a look of pure outrage as he read the messy handwriting:
INVOICE
To: Ryu's Emporium
For: Property Damage & Lost Inventory
Amount Due: 16,300 Ryo
Payment Terms: Immediate
Note: Next time, don't be cheap. Hire better thugs.
Ryu crushed the paper in his fat fist, his chest heaving with rage.
"Get me the ledgers!" Ryu snarled, throwing the crumpled paper at the clerk. "And find me someone who can tell me everything about this Tetsuya kid. His background, his suppliers, his weaknesses. I want to know what he eats for breakfast. Everything!"
As the terrified clerk scrambled out of the room, Ryu stood up and stared out his large, clean window. He looked toward the distant, poorer corner of the Eastern District, where a thin, steady plume of black smoke rose from a forge just coming to life for the day's work.
"This isn't over, you arrogant little street rat," Ryu promised the empty room, his voice shaking. "I'll bury you."