The morning after was an unbelievable drag. Every part of Lee's body ached like never before. He felt sluggish and his head pounded like drum. Next to his bed was Might Guy, who noticed his pupil's return to consciousness with an uncharacteristic coolness, staring out the hospital window at the village skyline below.
Before the young genin could say anything, Guy spoke up: "Let me tell you a story, Lee. Something I heard when I was younger, I think you'll find it interesting."
This is that story.
There was once this young martial artist. A true prodigy of the craft, who's one true fault was his knowledge of that fact. He was arrogant beyond belief and wanted nothing more than to prove himself against any obstacle in his way. His father, his sensei, was a man of self-discipline; every action that he did was in the pursuit of a balance. He never ate too much, he never spoke too much, he didn't move much either to be honest. And when he did indulge, he always did so in moderation. Through this lifestyle, he found that he moved slower than most around him, but that never bother him. Quite the opposite in fact, he enjoyed watching everything pass him by, scoping the landscape with a collected eye that never missed a beat. The son wasn't the only one who noticed this quirk in his father's personality. There were many other people in their village who would stand and gawk at the scholarly martial artist, taunting him in an attempt to draw a reaction, any action out of the man. Slow to anger, the boy's father was quite forgiving, and this angered his son like no other. "Why does father always let these young upstarts insult him so? Why does he never raise his hand to them? This is so disgraceful." And when he spoke these misgivings to his father, the man looked to his boy with a sad eye. "Let them live their life the way that they want to son, we'll live our lives our way. If there's one thing that I want to leave you with from all my years of teaching, it's that one should never exert themselves beyond what is absolutely necessary, always move with purpose and follow every purpose with a movement." And it wasn't that the boy didn't understand what his father was saying, it was that he didn't want to acknowledge the truth in his words. He knew what his father meant by those words, it was something like: 'If they don't hurt you, or those around you, then you shouldn't hurt them. Meet aggression with like aggression, but other than that, never overreact, and never overcompensate.' But the son wasn't having any of that, and for years he let ignored his father's words, until one day, he became old enough to find himself a man, and like any man, he found himself surrounded by temptation. Soon, he fell into a life of laziness and excess, he would often skip his morning meditation for more training, searching for more ways to become stronger and more vicious. He would eat as much as his stomach would hold, and then laze around for hours at a time, gambling and chasing after the woman in his village. The worst of it all, however, was his habit of drinking excessively in short periods of time. On weekends and days of rest, he would find that what little restraint he had would fall by the wayside just with a few bottles of sake, and he soon found that he enjoyed that feeling of freedom. He would pick fights with the men in his village who also passed their times in bars and gambling dens, the air hazy with smoke and impropriety. His targets were often men who had insulted his father at one point in time, denouncing their school of martial arts as a 'weak, unimpressive farce'. 'Well I'll show them.' He thought. 'I'll show them all.' And he did. He beat up every single one of them, every single person who ever disrespected either him or his father, even the smallest slight was enough to have the son fly into a fit of rage and utterly destroy his 'opponent'. And because he often found himself drunk when he was fighting, he modified his fighting style to fit this. Instead of a calm, static stance, he wavered on his feet, his body in constant motion, coiled, like a snake that never unwound, but also that also never truly stopped. And for a good long while, the son enjoyed his life. Drinking, training, fighting, fu- chasing women, he was a firecracker with a short fuse, but nothing lasts forever. Eventually, he had garnered enough attention, enough enemies, that they began coming together to devise ways of defeating this menace that had plagued their village for too long. The father, to his credit, always managed to calm his son down whenever he found him in a rage, but for all his scolding, for all his teachings, for all the beatings he gave his son, he was never truly able to beat any sense into him. It was for this reason alone that the thugs of the village got together one day and attacked his father, and their dojo, ransacking the place one night when the son was away.
It was the middle of the night when the son returned home, his tunic askew and drunk beyond all belief. Years of drinking had taught him many things: never to hit on married women when their husbands were right next to them, always be aware of your surroundings when crossing a crowded bar, and a cheap understanding of what his father saw in the world. See, when the son was drunk, he found himself unawares of the world around him, but it was something further than that, he found himself unawares of his own ego as well. He could close his eyes and feel the world pass him by in that drunken stupor. That unsteadiness that was now an integral part of his own personal fighting style would envelop him and he couldn't focus on anything but the world around him, lest he get sick and die. Or that's how he felt anyway. The world became a river that was constantly flowing, constantly in motion, and he was naught but a rock in its way, forcing it to his will through sheer immobility. It was that rock that fell in his stomach when he entered his home to find four men surrounding his bloodied father, laying on the floor. He asked them what they thought they were doing and they answered with all of the things they had kept bottled up for all those years. They hated him for stealing their women, for beating them up, for being better than they were in every shape and form. He was taller than them, stronger than them, faster than them, and all they could do was impotently attack his ego through taunts and the like. But with strength in numbers, they were finally able to do something about the menace that was the son. They would beat his father and steal their dojo's sign, the ultimate loss of face. It was at this point that the son stopped listening, like a snake, he attacked the leader of the group, catching him mid-sentence with a fist to the jaw. With their leader down, the rest of the villagers soon followed suit, brought down by the sheer force of rage that was the son. Unfortunately, they had planned for this contingency, and had men outside, just waiting for the signal to set the dojo on fire. And so they did. All around him, the elegant décor that his father had spent his entire life amassing, the lovely sheets of silk that hung from the ceiling and the beautiful carved mahogany pillars that held up the roof, soon caught ablaze, with no hope of putting out the fire soon. There was only one thing to do, pick up his father and get him the hell out of dodge. However, just as he crossed the threshold of the dojo, a wooden plank was swung at his face. Out of pure instinct born from years of training, the son managed to protect his face from the burning timber. Unfortunately, he did so at the expense of his father, who caught the brunt of the attack with his face. The villager who held the plank in his hand took one look at what he had done and turn to run. Unable to reach him while carrying his father, the son only focused on getting the both of them to safety. Once they were a good distance away from the flame, the son fell to his knees and cried over his unconscious father, face disfigured irreparably.
Time passed and the son swore off drinking forever. His father survived his wounds, but now hobbled with every step he took. He now took his time with every action, not out of choice, but necessity, for every movement brought him pain beyond belief. The son had begged his father for forgiveness as soon as he had regained consciousness, on his knees, bawling his eyes out. The father did nothing but break out into tears, just like his son, telling him: "Of course you have my forgiveness, Saru, of course you do. The one to blame here is me, I never taught you how to live well enough. I am relived beyond belief that it was only I who was hurt in the aftermath." This was worse than any pain that the son, Saru, had felt before in his life. And for months afterwards, he felt sick just thinking of his father. The scars that lined his face were a testament to his inability to grow up, and it gave him the feeling worse than any wound.
It was his perpetual hangover, and his cross to bear.
As Guy finished his story, he turned around to finally face his young pupil, eyes downcast, unable to meet his sensei's.
"So, Lee, what do you think?"
"What did he do afterwards? After the villagers burned his father's dojo down?"
Guy smiled and sat at the foot of the bed, "What do you think he did? Do you believe that he hunted each and every single one of them down, looking for vengeance? Or do you think that he just left it to justice, left it to fate?"
"I… I do not know."
It was only then that Might Guy broke out into his signature shining grin.
"Neither did I, when I first heard it. You'll get it soon enough, when you're older."
He got up and offered Lee his hand.
"Let's go get some ramen, huh? My treat."
Nodding, Lee beamed back at the older man,
"Yes, Guy Sensei!"
So I originally wanted to write a story about substance use and the like, but I ended up with this instead. Oh well, maybe next time.