Chapter 33: "A Date with Destiny... and a Punchable Face"
In which I challenge my childhood bully, question my own ethics, and accidentally endorse a very dumb philosophy.
Night in Amity Park was peaceful. The stars blinked quietly above, the wind whispered through the trees, and most of the city was asleep—except for the three teenagers who were about to have the most exhausting nap of their lives.
Because training in the mental world? Yeah, that was a thing now.
Danny opened his eyes—or, well, his mind's eyes—and found himself standing next to a pond nestled beneath a mountain range that looked like something straight out of a fantasy travel brochure. Crystal-clear water, cherry blossom trees, glowing koi fish the size of Labradors—you know, the usual.
Jazz appeared beside him, rubbing her temples like she had a mental headache from being mentally teleported to a mental mountain. "This is... shockingly nice."
"Right?" Danny grinned. "It's like a spa. A haunted ninja spa."
That's when Naruto appeared on a rock overlooking the pond, looking like the world's most overqualified camp counselor.
"Welcome to training," he said with that over-the-top grin that either meant you were about to have a great time or die screaming.
Behind him, Lee landed with a thud that cracked the ground. His eyes sparkled like the sun. His eyebrows? Strong enough to fight their own battle.
"Let us spar until the stars fall and the mountains weep tears of sweat!"
Jazz blinked. "Please tell me that was metaphorical."
Danny winced. "I'm afraid nothing with Lee is ever metaphorical."
The terms of the training were simple—and horrifying:
Five hours of non-stop sparring.
All physical pain would be felt but healed instantly.
All mental trauma was free of charge.
Oh, and they could use anything they had in the real world. Armor? Sure. Rifles? Why not. Nets? Go nuts. The only thing they couldn't use?
"Excuses," Naruto said, floating upside-down in a meditative pose. "We do not allow those here."
Jazz immediately raised a hand like they were in school. "Five hours? That's... not humane."
"Jazz," Naruto replied patiently, "this isn't Earth biology class. This is ninja boot camp—spirit edition. No soreness. No injuries. Just pure growth and character development."
"I'll be the judge of that," she muttered. "But if your logic holds, I agree this could be beneficial."
Danny whispered, "She says that now. Wait until hour three, when her legs try to unionize."
Round One began.
Lee exploded into motion like a caffeine-powered tornado. Jazz and Danny barely had time to activate their armor before the guy was bouncing between trees like a sugar-hyped squirrel with a black belt.
Danny tried shooting his rifle. Lee caught the blast. With his hands.
Jazz used a ghost net. Lee tripped in it for half a second, apologized to the net for the inconvenience, and then drop-kicked it into the next dimension.
By the end of hour one, they were both wheezing and lying face-down in the dirt.
"I feel like I've been hit by a truck made of muscles," Danny gasped.
"I study psychology," Jazz groaned. "This has to be classified as trauma."
"On your feet!" Lee cried joyfully. "That was amazing! Let's go again!"
Danny swore he saw his life flash before his eyes. It wasn't even a cool montage—just clips of falling off his bike and that one time he choked on a marshmallow.
By hour three, Jazz had stopped protesting and started strategizing. She figured out Lee had patterns—kind of. Not normal ones. More like chaotic good patterns of destruction. Still, she adapted. She even landed a few good hits with her energy blade, which made Lee cry tears of joy and hug her mid-battle.
"Such SPIRIT! SUCH FLAME!" he shouted, spinning her around like a dance partner before flinging her into a tree. "YOU INSPIRE ME!"
Danny took that moment to launch a net and tackle him from the side. Teamwork! Jazz called it "combat psychology." Danny called it "desperate flailing." Both worked.
------------------------------
Let's start with a fact: learning to fight is hard.
Now imagine your body is being remote-controlled by a ghost ninja with a thousand years of combat experience, and your opponent is a blindfolded genius with veins popping out of his eyes.
Yeah. Welcome to Training: Naruto Style™.
While Danny and Jazz were busy getting high-speed yeeted around the mountainside by Lee, Sam and Tucker were... well, experiencing something a bit different.
"Don't worry," Naruto said, grinning like a mischievous sensei-turned-horror-game-voiceover. "You won't feel the pain. Just the memory of the pain."
"...That's not comforting," Tucker muttered, trying to adjust the weird training outfit he now had in this mental world.
Sam narrowed her eyes. "Define memory of pain. Like a flashback? Or like an emotional crisis kind of memory?"
Naruto ignored them, cracked his knuckles, and said, "We're starting with a thousand rounds against Neji. You won't be in control—yet. I'll handle your movements. You just observe. Absorb. Internalize."
Sam blinked. "Wait—THOUSAND?!"
"Shh." Naruto placed two fingers on their foreheads. "Let it happen."
Round One: Sam vs. Neji.
Sam's body launched forward with the grace of a military gymnast. Her brain? Screaming.
"I AM NOT DOING THIS. THIS IS NOT ME."
She landed a roundhouse kick so clean it would've made an action movie jealous, followed by a series of flips, a whip crack, and a well-aimed energy grenade that scorched the ground near Neji's feet.
Neji deflected the blast with a graceful spin, muttered something about "amateurs," and nearly pressure-pointed her unconscious—except Naruto made Sam's body cartwheel away like a ghost-powered circus acrobat.
"This is so weird," Sam whispered from the passenger seat of her own body.
Round Two: Tucker vs. Neji.
Tucker's body immediately slid into a defensive karate stance.
"Yo, I don't even know karate," he squeaked mentally.
"You do now," Naruto replied cheerfully.
A drone flew overhead, machine gun blazing, while Tucker's arms worked independently to lob a smoke bomb, drop to the ground, and trip Neji's foot with a sweep.
Neji vanished in a blur.
Tucker's body backflipped like a ninja gymnast—Tucker's mind was busy panicking like someone trying to win a fighting game by mashing buttons.
"This is like playing Fortnite with my soul," he cried.
They rotated. Over and over. Grenades. Rifles. Whips. Drones. Hand-to-hand. Sam's strikes grew sharper with each round. Tucker learned to pair his drone fire with perfectly timed smokescreens. Naruto wasn't just moving them like puppets—he was training their instincts, threading technique into muscle memory like a ghost ninja coach from the underworld.
Somewhere around Round 486, Sam mentally muttered, "I think I just dodged that on my own."
"Good," Naruto said with approval. "Your mind is syncing with the warrior's rhythm."
"Cool. Next, can we sync with rest?"
"Round 487!"
At Round 1000, they collapsed in the pond, mentally exhausted, spiritually winded, and thoroughly shaken.
Sam's eyes blinked open. "I... think I know how to disassemble a rifle with my elbows now."
Tucker stared at the stars. "I saw Neji in my dreams. He was judging my aim."
Naruto stood on a rock, arms crossed like a proud dad at ninja soccer practice.
"You've both taken your first step," he said. "Next time, you'll be in control. Let's see what kind of heroes you become."
Sam raised a hand weakly. "Do we get snacks after this?"
Naruto vanished with a grin. "You'll get stronger. That's better than snacks."
Tucker flopped back down. "That's a lie, and he knows it."
Back in the real world, both of them woke up groaning.
Sam immediately grabbed her phone.
Sam: "Danny. Naruto hijacked our bodies for a thousand rounds of ninja fighting. I now know how to somersault through an explosion."
Tucker: "Also I'm 78% sure I'm scared of pigeons now. That was a weird simulation glitch."
Danny texted back:
"Welcome to the club."
And that's how two ordinary teens officially upgraded to Level 1 Ghost Hunters: Combat Edition.
----------------------------
So here's the thing they don't tell you about trauma recovery: sometimes it looks like therapy, and sometimes it looks like punching your high school bully in the face.
I'm not saying that's the best solution. But I am saying it's the one I felt extremely qualified for after last night's "Five Hours of Getting Beat Up by Rock Lee" training session. My muscles were sore, my soul was humming, and my ego had officially achieved mild inflation.
Enter: Operation Beat Down Dash.
I was still buzzing with adrenaline when I floated into the kitchen. (Yes, literally floated. Why use legs when you can use ghost powers?)
Jazz was already there, pouring cereal and looking suspiciously well-rested for someone who'd been sparring Lee at midnight like a martial arts anime character. She arched an eyebrow the second she saw me.
"Alright, spill it," she said. "You've got that 'I'm about to do something morally gray but emotionally satisfying' face."
"I don't have that face."
She pointed at me with a spoonful of cereal. "You absolutely do. It's your 'I'm going to punch Dash in the face' face."
"…Okay, maybe I do."
She sighed and sat down, crossing her legs like she was about to psychoanalyze me into a pretzel. "Danny. I'm not saying don't stand up for yourself. But if this is about revenge—"
"It's not!" I said quickly. "Okay, it's a little about revenge. But mostly it's about healing! Catharsis! Reclaiming my dignity via controlled violence!"
Jazz squinted at me. "Did Naruto put you up to this?"
"Actually," I said, pointing to the couch behind her, "he's right there."
Naruto, who had apparently been meditating upside-down on our ceiling fan like some kind of ghostly bat, dropped down gracefully and nodded at Jazz.
"Don't look at me," he said, hands in his pockets. "This was all Danny's idea."
"Thank you!" I said triumphantly, before realizing that made it sound worse.
"However," Naruto added with that knowing-smile-that-probably-comes-with-ancient-wisdom-and-a-hint-of-chaos, "facing your past is a noble step forward. Especially if it's one that's been holding you back."
Jazz frowned. "As long as he's not trying to settle the score in a back alley."
"I'm going to challenge him to a fair fight," I clarified. "In front of people. With rules. No powers unless he uses some. Just good old-fashioned high school grudge-settling."
Jazz looked at me like she was debating whether to tackle me or just pour juice on my head.
"You really think this will help?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Honestly? Yeah. I'm not scared of Dash anymore. But my body still flinches when I see him. It's like a muscle memory of humiliation. I just… want to take that back."
There was a long pause.
Then Jazz reached out and tousled my hair like I was five again. "Okay, but if he gives you a concussion, I'm making you wear the 'I Did a Dumb Thing' helmet for a week."
Fair enough.
---------------------
So here's a weird thing about trauma: sometimes, it makes you stand in the middle of a sidewalk and challenge a dude to a fight while he's still on his bicycle.
Dash Baxter, future gym coach or probable minor league boxer, was pedaling to school like he was leading a parade. Two of his cronies trailed behind him, their backpacks sagging from what I assumed were dumbbells and poor life choices.
He was sweaty. He was determined. He was glowing with the kind of early-morning psychosis that only comes from doing 100 push-ups before breakfast.
And I—ghost armor prototype stored safely in my locker—stepped right in front of him.
"Dash," I said, with all the chill of a teenager who just drank five cups of emotional turbulence, "I'm challenging you to a fight during gym class."
He didn't run me over. I half-expected that. Instead, he braked hard enough to fishtail, threw one foot to the ground, and grinned.
Not a "Haha, I'm gonna destroy you" grin. A genuine, "I've been waiting for this" grin.
"Oh," he said, his eyes lighting up. "You finally get it."
I did not get it.
As he pedaled off with the most smug aura imaginable, I stood there processing what had just happened. Sam and Tucker flanked me, both nodding like I'd just announced I was running for student council president.
"Okay, but you are going to kick his butt, right?" Tucker asked.
"That's the plan," I muttered.
Sam folded her arms. "Good. I want you to knock out enough of his teeth that we can use them as DnD dice."
"That's horrifyingly specific," I said.
"Don't blame me. Blame three years of cafeteria humiliation and having my locker superglued shut."
And yeah, they had a point. Dash wasn't just my bully. He was the school's ecosystem of cruelty. Beating him in a fair fight wouldn't just be payback—it would reshuffle the entire food chain. No more backpack wedgies. No more hallway shoulder slams. We could finally sit wherever we wanted at lunch without the jocks treating it like trespassing.
But still... something didn't sit right.
"He said I finally get it," I murmured, mostly to myself. "Like this was the goal all along."
"You mean his caveman logic about strength and respect?" Sam said. "Yeah, don't think about it too hard. It's like trying to understand the motivations of a hammer."
"But what if he's right?" I asked. "I mean... I'm literally validating his whole messed-up belief system. That bullying makes you stronger."
Tucker shrugged. "Maybe it can make you stronger. Doesn't mean it should."
Sam poked my arm. "And remember—you didn't get stronger because of him. You got stronger in spite of him. Because you had us. Because you had Naruto. Because you fought ghosts and trained your butt off."
I looked at them and smiled. They were right. I hadn't climbed some twisted ladder of abuse and grit. I'd been thrown into chaos and climbed out with friends, guidance, and ghost rifles.