Chapitre 41: CH_2.10 (041)
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
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Takuma rested his temple on his palm as he flipped through the thick pages of an old binder in front of him, reading the small font that populated the page.
He knew choosing a jutsu would be difficult, but spending three hours flipping through D-rank jutsu catalogs in the jutsu archives for the last four days hadn't been part of his plan. Ninjutsu divided into five elemental categories, the various jutsu that didn't fit in the elemental categories, and genjutsu— there were so many choices to pick from. While not unlimited, there were double-digit jutsu in each elemental release, the same with genjutsu and the miscellaneous category.
The freedom of choice was paralyzing.
Only if the timing had been different. His initial plan of relying on Maruboshi's rich shinobi experience had fallen on its head when he went to Maruboshi's house only to be told by the neighbor that Maruboshi had left for a mission last week and wasn't scheduled to return for the next couple weeks.
Takuma groaned. If only the mission points had arrived a week earlier, he wouldn't be having this problem. 'I should've prepared for my first jutsu the moment I knew about mission points,' but Takuma didn't have that foresight.
He pushed the binder away and pulled in the pocket notepad to add another jutsu to his shortlist list. Not all D-rank jutsu priced similarly, and with the mission points he had, he could only get those within his price range. Seeing the more expensive D-rank jutsu made him want to hold back on the purchase and maybe try to get more before buying one, but knowing that wasn't a choice, he was grateful that his poverty had restricted his choices— if not, he would be visiting the archives for weeks trying to pick one out.
He flipped through the tiny pages, each featuring a jutsu that interested him. Earth Release, Water Release, ninjutsu that fell under the bukijutsu category, genjutsu, and many others that served defensive or offensive purposes.
Takuma stared at the list for who knew how long before he got up and placed the catalog binders in their place on the shelves. The jutsu archives were separated by grades E- and D-rank jutsu were placed in the same library, while C- and B-rank were stored in other locations. He was curious to know if there was even an A-rank library, as those jutsu were considered in the same category as precious treasures. According to Taro, even jonin had difficulty raking up enough mission points to purchase A-rank jutsu.
That's why it grinded his gears to think there existed a clan that could just copy jutsu by seeing someone performing. He could understand why Orochimaru was so obsessed (read_as: horny) for Uchiha's Sharingan. Choosing his jutsu really put the Sharingan's cheat-like abilities into perspective.
'If I knew something like this would happen, I would've read the Rasengan training chapters until I was dreaming about them,' Takuma regretted not being a massive Naruto fan. If he knew how Rasengan worked, not only could he learn it without forking out mission points, he would have a powerful B-rank jutsu or whatever rank Rasengan was considered— if it was good enough for the protagonist and the Fourth Hokage, it was more than good enough for him.
He moved deeper into the archive until he arrived at the section in the back with a small counter. The counter was embedded into the wall and was made from heavy steel. Takuma looked at the shinobi standing behind the counter through the glass that was lined with a chain-link fence.
"I would like to exchange my mission point for a jutsu," Takuma said.
"... ID," said the shinobi after staring at Takuma for a few silent seconds.
Takuma slid his shinobi registration card through the semi-circular cutout in the glass where it met the steel counter. The shinobi took it and, without looking at it, passed it to someone behind the wall. He tried to lean his head to check but couldn't spot anyone. He assumed it had gone for verification of some kind.
The shinobi and Takuma stared at each other for the next two minutes. Takuma was sure the shinobi was playing the staring game with him because the man hadn't blinked once since the start.
When Takuma's ID returned, the shinobi said, "Which jutsu would you like to exchange for?"
"Raiton: Shokku," Takuma announced his choice.
As the name suggested, Raiton: Shokku (Lightning Release: Shock) was a lightning-type jutsu. It was a simple jutsu that sent out a lightning bolt that caused light shock damage and stunned them for a moment. It was a Pokemon move if Takuma had seen one. But that wasn't the reason he had chosen it. Of course not. The jutsu had a simple enough usage that it could be used in a variety of situations, whereas there were jutsu that would only work when certain conditions were met.
Like the immortal guy in Akatsuki (whose name Takuma couldn't recall even if his life depended upon it) used the strange jutsu that required the target's blood. It was super powerful, but it wouldn't work in the absence of a blood sample.
Takuma preferred if his jutsu had a simple use case that he could spin it in any situation. Thus his choice. Shooting a lightning bolt was as simple as it could get.
There was another stare down as the shinobi behind the counter handed a slip of paper to the person who Takuma couldn't see. This time Takuma didn't try to blink, but he lost midway through. His opponent was too formidable and stoic.
"Check your details and sign the form if you consent for the mission points in your account to be deducted in exchange for receiving Raiton: Shokku," said the man, pushing a form and pen from the hole in the glass. "Please know that the transaction will be finalized once you sign this form. You can't return the jutsu scroll afterward with the excuse that you'd like to exchange it with another one."
"I understand," Takuma gave his verbal confirmation and checked the form before signing it.
The shinobi checked the form before finally pushing a light lime green scroll through the hole. Takuma checked the scroll name and registration number unique to Raiton: Shokku as he was instructed on the first day he came to the archives.
"Thank you," Takuma said as he stared at the scroll in hand.
Was his choice correct? He honestly didn't know. Only time would tell if he would come to regret his decision.
———
.
"Congratulations, Team-5, you were number one last week on the leaderboard," said Yoshio first thing on Monday morning.
"Oh, come on!" Takuma all but yelled at the announcement.
Yoshio's eyes sharpened as he glared at Takuma. "Do you have any problem with my decision, Takuma? I can revert my decision and give the points to another team," he said, raising his steel baton.
"Sir, no, sir!" Takuma said loudly as he felt Ai pinch and twist a point in his back. The girl was a glutton for mission points.
"That's what I thought," Yoshio said. Then told Takuma to do thirty pushups with Ai sitting on his back.
After the pushups, the group went for their daily run around the large running grounds. There Ai elbowed him in the side and hissed, "Are you mad? What would you've done if he took back our points?!"
"Sorry, I already said I'm sorry," he said. "I just feel like an idiot."
"Huh, why?"
Takuma felt like crying. "I went to the jutsu archive yesterday and exchanged my points for one," he said. He would've waited one day if he knew they would be number one in the rankings. He would've had so many more choices if he had waited. "Why did we win so suddenly?!"
"Why're you complaining," Ai elbowed him again.
"The tree-walking practice challenge," Taro chimed in his flat voice. "The next team took two more days. I thought it was obvious we were going to win." Taro's two competitors in tree-walking practice weren't able to get down without falling for two more days.
"Why didn't you tell me?!" Takuma felt like not running anymore and just drop to the ground and go to sleep to escape the frustration he was feeling.
"I don't dream about that you wanted to know... stupid," said Taro.
The conversation ended there. Takuma knew that no one was going to talk about their jutsu. Secrecy and the element of surprise was a powerful tool. They were friends and training teammates, but they fought each other in sparring and everyone wanted to win; thus, keeping the secret gave them an advantage. Even if it only lasted only one fight before people started to strategize against the jutsu.
———
.
After the conditioning start of the day, Yoshio told them to gather around to start the first sparring sessions. Unlike the academy, there was no fighting circle. Yoshio calling the fight and submission was the only way to reach the end of the battle.
"Takuma and Kameko," Yoshio announced.
'Shit,' Takuma clicked his tongue as he got up from where his team sat and made his way to Yoshio. He glanced to the side and saw a girl with a bob cut dressed in a white and lavender skirt-kimono with a sword scabbard attached to her hip.
Taketori Kameko from the Taketori clan was the second one to complete the tree-walking practice challenge after him. She was in his academy classroom, and one of their class's better fighters. Given that she was in the Genin Corp, her jonin sensei had failed her. But from what Takuma had seen, she was definitely not Genin Corp material— she should've been in a jonin-led team.
"You know the rules. Get started," Yoshio said before walking away.
Takuma made the Seal of Confrontation, and he swore Kameko's usually cold and stoic eyes were glaring at him as she mirrored him.
'Shit.' He had noticed that look since the day he had completed the tree-walking practice challenge. It wasn't overt, but anytime their eyes met, Takuma knew she was bothered by him completing the challenge before her.
"Start." The moment Yoshio's word sounded, Takuma jumped back to make some distance between them because he knew that was the best decision from the spars he had seen since Yoshio's unrestricted combat announcements.
*Shing* Kameko put her hand on the sword hilt and unsheathed her katana. The sharp blade shimmered under the sun.
The "better" fighter in the academy had been a Taketori clan member who wasn't allowed to use a sword. Taketori literally meant bamboo cutter and was a shinobi clan specializing in their special swordplay that revolved around—
Kameko stepped forward, and suddenly Takuma felt cornered even as he jumped back as the girl in front of him erased distance faster than he could create.
'Shit!'
Takuma put his kunai in front of him as he saw the shorter girl breach his personal space, and before he could even put on his guard, she swung her sword at him.
*Riiip!*
— revolved around speed.
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
Chapitre 42: CH_2.11 (042)
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
*Riiip!*
Takuma couldn't completely escape the sweeping sword. The tip of the blade edge sliced through the fabric of his vest, splitting the threads when it wanted to split the skin beneath it.
The ground under Takuma's feet exploded as he threw himself back faster than before with desperation as the scent of Kameko's forged steel blade lingered under his nose.
Kameko leaned back and eased her stance, choosing not to immediately pursue Takuma. Instead, her cat-like eyes followed him as he escaped beyond the reach of her blade.
Takuma put his hands on his chest, feeling his chainmail undervest through the tear in his vest with one hand while his other held the kunai in front. He looked down at his hand to see if the swing had drawn blood to find only sweat on his fingers. His ears picked up a sound, and he looked up to see the flash of Kameko's blade cover his vision.
He brought up the kunai, and sparks flew as metal met metal. Takuma took a step back to stabilize himself as he felt the weight of the heavier long blade pushing against his wrist. He looked up at Kameko and he was close enough to see the specks in her yellow eyes—
So he headbutted her in the face.
"Ugh," Kameko disengaged and fell back away from Takuma, who threw the kunai at her that she deflected with the sword. Takuma rushed forward and slashed at her with a kunai, aiming to end the fight early. Kameko shrugged off his first and second strikes with the edge of her blade and sent a jab to Takuma's stomach. He sidestepped as his kunai altered the stab's direction.
Takuma stepped in further, grabbed the wrist of Kameko's sword arm, and bent it. Kameko mirrored the move and they grappled, tripping and falling in the first. There was a scramble, a dropped sword, a gut punch, a curse, a retrieved sword, and a heavy kick, and then both were back up, circling.
Takuma didn't waste any time and rushed in to overwhelm her. A poor choice as a horizontal sweep almost cut Takuma's face off. He fell back and touched his nose to this time find blood on his fingertips. He eyed the blade that granted Kameko an extended range he lacked, and he decided to keep his distance.
Kameko had the opposite plan as she closed in the distance again, keeping her sword parallel to the ground and aimed at Takuma's chest. Takuma did his best footwork to avoid the sword. A slit appeared in his sleeve above his shoulder as he pulled back. Takuma hurled the kunai in his offhand in a shoddy throw and it flew a little above than intended.
Kameko shifted her head to let the kunai pass. For a moment, Takuma had breathing room as he escaped out of sword's range. But then Kameko swung her sword and Takuma saw red.
The sword passed by, missing him by an inch, and yet a spurt of blood gushed out from a long wound that suddenly split open on his chest in the same place where Kameko had ripped his vest. Even if he mistook the blade missing him, the light chainmail under his vest didn't do anything, and as Takuma fell down, he could see the clean continuous line slit from one side to the other.
Kameko eased her stance, and without sparing a glance to her blade, she deposited it into the sheath as she peered down at a trembling Takuma who was looking at his bloodied hands.
"Get up," Yoshio said as he arrived beside the pair.
Takuma writhing on the ground tensed his muscles for what seemed like an excruciatingly long moment before he forced himself to get up with his face twisted into an extreme grimace with sweat pouring out of his body at an alarming rate.
His vision blurred as he raised his bloodied hand to form the Seal of Reconciliation. Kameko had to adjust her part of the seal to grab his shaking hand.
Then without saying a word, Takuma started walking away from the group with no one other than Kameko tailing behind him. She didn't help him even as he struggled to take steps, swaying dangerously from side to side, almost falling down many times.
"Ooh, now that's a nasty one."
Takuma's destination was the shady guy shinobi who worked as the basic training's medic as his qualification as an Iryo-nin (Medical Shinobi).
Shady Guy got up from his foldable chair as Takuma collapsed on a stretcher under the medium-sized tent with three tents and a few boxes with supplies.
"You got lucky, huh girly, snipping him just in the right place to make him lose blood," said the Shady Guy as he pulled off Takuma's vest, chainmail shirt, and cotton undervest, causing him to scream in pain as it disturbed the wound sending a sharp screeching pain through his body.
"I don't get lucky," Kameko muttered with her sharp eyes narrowing.
Shady Guy chuckled as he checked Takuma's wound. He weaved hand seals for an iridescent green glow of Shosen Jutsu (Mystical Palm Jutsu) over his hands that he placed over Takuma's wound, and after some time, the blood stopped leaking out of the exposed internals. Shady Guy stopped his healing jutsu and then proceeded to clean up the wounds. He then cast another Shosen Jutsu to finally close Takuma's wound before dressing the semi-stable recently healed wound that could still catch infection or other complications. He then walked to one of the cold boxes and pulled out a glass vial with a dark brown opaque tint whose contents he made Takuma drink.
"There... all good again," Shady Guy slapped Takuma on one cheek to snap him out of his dizzy haze.
Takuma didn't feel all good in any form. He wasn't used to the feeling of getting an injury, only for it to be healed within the next twenty or so minutes. His head felt heavy and a shiver gripped his body as he got up from the stretcher to return back to his team as mandated by Yoshio. The feeling was horrible.
Every time someone was injured, they were sent to Shady Guy to get healed. If the injury was minor, like a shallow cut on the arm, people could return in a couple minutes as if they had never been injured. If the injuries were major, like a deep cut that hemorrhaged blood to the point of serious blood loss, they would end up like Takuma— there were worse cases as well.
No one was allowed to help the injured party drag themselves to the medical tent if they could do so themselves, even if barely. The person who had inflicted the injury would accompany the person in case they collapsed. Yoshio wanted them to get used to what he called functioning under damage. He wanted them to function unaided after they were gravely injured to secure themselves away from danger and survive until they were patched up— he then wanted them to operate to a competent degree right after getting healed so that they wouldn't become an absolute burden. Of course, Yoshio talked in idealistic terms, as overly serious injuries could outright disable the shinobi from any movement— but any ability to function under life-threatening harm was absolutely valuable in survival.
"I'm leaving," Kameko announced and walked away without waiting for a response.
Takuma didn't feel like replying to her and focused on trudging his way back to the group, where he dumped himself with his team, lying down on the ground with his arm over his forehead.
"You sure suck against fast people," Masaaki commented as he peered down at Takuma directly over his face.
"Shut... I know," Takuma mid-way abandoned his attempt to argue and just accepted the comment. It was true. Faster, quicker opponents were his bane based on his win-loss statistic— ironic, given that his win was against a nimble opponent. But unlike Aimi, his defeats came from opponents who could deal significant damage while being fast like Kameko. He just couldn't keep up with them with his taijutsu. An important factor that he included in his decision when choosing Raiton: Shokku (Lightning Release: Shock) as his first jutsu.
He turned his head towards Taro. "What was that?" he asked.
Taro, the person who knew most about essentially everything in the team, eyed Takuma briefly before drawling out the answer. "Taketori clan practices their special brand of swordplay, something that is classified as a high-ranking kenjutsu. And it's not as simple as swinging a sword in a certain way. There are actual jutsu combined with the swordplay that makes it a high-ranking bukijutsu," he shrugged. "She simply used a jutsu from her clan."
"She didn't weave any hand seals," Takuma mentioned his observation.
This time, it wasn't Taro who answered, but it was Masaaki who spoke up. "It's bukijutsu. Kenjutsu is a type of bukijutsu. A lot of it is based on top of a fuinjutsu base. Maybe there's something in her sword. If not, then there are a few instances that don't require hand seals at all. The Samurai that serve as Daimao's retainers use swordplay that doesn't require hand seals to activate— maybe it's something like that."
Takuma was surprised to hear an opinion from Masaaki. His jovial and goofy teammate was many things, but he was not a person who would express profound knowledge in conversations. His reputation was a strong guy who operated more on polished instinct than learned understanding. Takuma glanced at Nenro and Ai, and while they shrugged, they didn't seem surprised by Masaaki's sudden bout of knowledge. Takuma attributed that to childhood friends knowing much more about Masaaki than he could've learned in a mere month. It took years to truly know a person.
"It's their clan's jutsu, speculation is pointless without further evidence. We can just infer from what we know," Taro said in conclusion.
Takuma didn't know if he agreed with the first part, but he did concur with the second part of the statement. He now knew that Kameko could potentially slice her opponents even if the blade of her sword didn't reach him— essentially extending the reach of her blade. Was it a wind element jutsu? Or something elementless that simply created a cutting surface on top of the sword? Whatever it was, she could extend her range.
The important question that needed to be considered was the upper limit of the extension. Was it a couple inches, or could she seemingly double the length of her blade— maybe even more.
"That headbutt was funny!" Masaaki laughed merrily.
"Ugh, I felt that from here. My nose felt warm when you did that," Ai grimaced as she glanced toward Kameko's team. "She's lucky that you didn't break her nose."
"I tried to do just that," Takuma said with a frustrated sigh, "she ducked her head at the last moment." He had gotten his chest cut open; the least she could do was get her nosy bloody.
"I'm still surprised she used a jutsu against you," Taro said as he watched the ongoing spar.
"What do you mean?" Nenro asked.
"She good. He bad," Taro replied, not even bothering to form a complete sentence.
"I hope you're my next opponent. I'll show you who bad," Takuma commented as his head got clearer. He sat up on the ground and took a swig from his canteen before speaking: "She was probably pissed that I completed the tree-climbing practice challenge before her and took that out on me," he clicked his tongue.
Takuma took another swig from his canteen as he looked at the ongoing spar with his own spar replaying in his mind. His mind automatically went back to every split-second of the fight, and it was then he noticed the small crater hole in the ground, and after a couple seconds of staring, he recalled that he was the one who had made that.
'Hmm?'
.
———
Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.
The link is in the synopsis!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
109 Power
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