Chapitre 67: CH_3.8 (067)
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The link is also in the synopsis.
———
.
Takuma rolled his neck and bent down to grab his ankles to stretch his spine. He waited for his 'name' to be called. After two weeks of visiting below the surface of the Leaf village, he had gotten somewhat used to the cold and (thankfully) dry tunnels and arena of the place that he bled in front of a crowd of zealous people who wanted to see the conflict in its most primal form.
"The Ring's latest fighter, adorned in the scars of a hundred blood battles, wearing the green leaf over his face," the announcer's voice boomed outside the tunnel, "holding a 4-3 record… SCARS!"
Takuma ran off the tunnel into the wire-mesh passageway connecting into the domed-arena. The steel trap door rose up and Takuma skipped the steps with a jump and hopped on his toes on the white floor of the arena, the best backdrop for red to shine.
Into his third week at the Ring, Takuma didn't know how to feel about his fighter nickname. It's what he was called by the announcers, plastered on the betting sheets, posted on the scoreboards. Regardless of how the announcer put it, none of his scars were gained in battle, all of them were a gift from the previous owner. In most cases, as long as a cut was healed by iryo-jutsu before a certain time limit and the iryo-nin was decently competent, the injury didn't leave behind any scars. Even if the injury wasn't healed within the time limit, there were procedures that could eliminate most scarring— a practice popular and fairly common with shinobi, especially kunoichi.
Takuma never bothered going through the procedure because the scarring on his body never bothered him or obstructed his life in any manner.
Was he ever curious about where the 'boy' got enough scars that even the average shinobi would pause and stare? Of course, he was curious. But between no leads and having a life to live, Takuma didn't have the time and motivation to dig something up that from what he could tell didn't have any effect on his life other than that he wore full-sleeves clothes throughout the year.
In a way, they were coming to his advantage in the Ring by becoming his defining characteristic and helping him sell the Scars branding. It had only been three weeks, but Takuma had spent just enough time to understand that the Ring had high points of similarity to a combat sport organization. If he got famous among the audience (gamblers) he could bargain for a better payout per fight.
And he had to give it to whoever it was who thought it— Scars was a banger identity.
His opponent entered through the opposite end of the arena. Similarly, to him, his opponent wore a cream mask with blue claw highlights. Like most of his opponents, the man in front of him was a fully-grown adult. This one was a 'big guy' to boot with bulging muscles on a tall and wide frame. The man could give Yoshio competition in musculature.
"… with a record of 25-21… THRASHER!"
Thrasher beat his hairy chest and raised his hands as he jumped around the arena to rouse the crowd.
From the Thrasher's record, Takuma could see immediately that the man had some experience in the Ring and that he had actually gotten paid with having more than thirty-six fights on the record. He felt himself salivate thinking about the payout for twenty-five wins.
Takuma didn't let the forty-six percent loss percentage give him any overconfidence. Having a win-loss percentage closer to fifty percent was widely common in the Ring. Fighters fought in such a massive volume anyone who had a winning percentage closer to sixty percent was considered good in the Ring. Thrasher's fifty-four percent win percentage did make him a decent fighter.
'Stat-wise, I'm better than him,' thought Takuma. He was cruising with a cool fifty-seven percent win percent in his seven fights. He quickly shook his head from the useless thoughts.
The announcer finished his hype trail and stepped out of the arena. Thrasher slammed his massive bear hands together as he looked down at Takuma, who could feel a grin behind Thrasher's mask that looked too small on his big head.
The moment the steel trap door made a thud behind the announcer, Thrasher charged at Takuma. Takuma felt the arena beneath him tremble as he skipped back on nimble steps keeping in mind the edge of the arena behind him. Getting cornered was never wise, especially with a big man such as Thrasher as his opponent.
Thrasher let the full force of his meaty arm loose, swinging against Takuma, who ducked under the arm and got behind him. With a swift push against the floor, Takuma leapt high and spun to crunch a solid spinning kick into the side of Thrasher's head, snapping the beefy neck to the side.
The impact left him satisfied as he hopped a step back.
It wasn't enough as the giant hobbled for barely a step before charging towards Takuma with hands fashioned into claws. Not wanting to get caught, Takuma kept light on his feet and made use of the arena floor.
Takuma admittedly didn't have much experience much taller than him. Size difference didn't mean as much it would've if chakra didn't exist, but there were still a few nuances that one had to keep while fighting someone differently sized than you. For example, the concept of 'reach' still mattered and a person's wingspan provided an advantage.
Thrasher had longer arms and legs than him, and while Takuma wasn't one to stereotype, his opponents burly muscles were clearly indicative of a hard hitter. He didn't want to get too close and get conked in the head.
In a rare moment, he found himself as the faster party in a fight and he took full advantage as he skirted around Thrasher and precisely planted body shots. Thrasher's muscles might be tough, but there was only so much they could do before damage reached the soft and squishy organs.
Thrasher was angry, Takuma could feel that, and it made the next breath even more astounding. Takuma took a quick forestep to close in the distance and committed his full body behind a heavy hook to the body only to be blocked by Thrasher who condensed his body behind a closed guard.
Before Takuma could move back, he felt a quick jab dig into his shoulder. The force twisted through his body and knocked Takuma back on staggering feet.
An angry growl sounded behind Thrasher's mask as he raised his arm and hammered it down towards Takuma's face like divine retribution. Takuma used whatever momentum he could from his unsteady stance and parried the strike with a redirecting blow to the side of the incoming arm.
Takuma's attention immediately turned to make space and get his stability back, but before he could do it, Thrasher grabbed his arm in a vice grip and spun him. Takuma felt as if a stretched bungee cord pulled tugged on his body through his arm. In an instant., Thrasher had both his arms in his grip.
Takuma heard a rough voice,
"Got you, boy."
Thrasher raised Takuma's body before slamming him down into the hard floor of the arena. The ground cracked under the force. Takuma felt his entire back hurt to the bone, pain throbbing in waves. Takuma gasped for air as it rushed out of his lungs.
He had been beaten worse before; getting hurt was Takuma's forte. He tensed his muscles to got his body in control as Thrasher raised him for another smash down. He smashed his legs into Thrasher's chest, who simply grunted in response as he continued to raise Takuma's body.
Takuma wasn't done.
In an instant, the two energies melded in his body and chakra shot through the chakra pathway system. For a split-second, his soles stuck to Thrasher's chest before the concept of tree-walking turned into a weapon and Takuma overloaded the chakra output.
There was no sound but both Takuma and Thrasher felt the force surge through their bodies. Within a split-second, they caught eyes behind their masks, and it was a question of who would give first.
Fortunately for Takuma, and unfortunately for Thrasher, having an overwhelming force hammering down his chest could've been absolutely lethal. Thrasher let go of Takuma's arm and both of them were flung away from each other.
Takuma got up on his feet and he staggered several steps to the left as his feet trembled like a newborn faun from the force of the chakra not having a free direction to launch Takuma into, so it ran rampant inside his legs. He had no feelings in his feet and his knees hurt like hell as he tried his best to not fall down.
Even though he was fighting in the "taijutsu-only" category and jutsu wasn't allowed, chakra wasn't banned. There was a reason the arena had a dome covering it. The arena ground wasn't the only surface that the fighters could fight on. The entire arena was valid space.
He had paid money to watch a fight between high-ranking fighters in the "taijutsu-only" category. The fighters utilized the dome by sticking to it and added another dimension to the combat.
Takuma watched as the steel trap door rose and the announcer entered the arena and walked to Thrasher who was rolling on the ground. Unlike Takuma, his opponent hadn't gotten up after the clash.
The announcer knelt beside Thrasher and after a few seconds, the announcer stood up,
"Thrasher is unable to continue," he looked to Takuma, "Scars is the WINNER!"
Takuma raised his arms up and the crowd erupted into cheers. That was all the energy he had. The trap door slid up and he walked out of the arena while the crowd banged on the wire-mesh as he walked by them.
He entered the tunnel and his legs almost gave out but he continued as Yoshio's training showed fruit until he reached a room and then his knees buckled.
"We got one," said a woman and a man helped her to get Takuma onto a bed. "What happened?" she asked Takuma.
"My legs got busted," Takuma groaned as he balled the sheet laid on the bed. He wasn't dying but pain was never fun.
A few minutes later, Takuma's tense muscles eased up as the iryo-jutsu alleviated the pain from the damage he had inflicted on himself.
As he sighed in relief, he muttered to himself,
'5 to 3…'
———
.
Later that night, Takuma hobbled from his kitchen and dumped himself into a chair in his living room. He took out a sheet of paper and began scribbling his experience in the fight against Thrasher.
He had made a mistake in judging Thrasher's personality. He had sensed anger and increasingly rash moments and had decided that if he continued, Thrasher would devolve into a wrecking ball that he could exploit to no end. He had committed more and more to offense, becoming overconfident that if Thrasher throwed anything at him, he could handle it.
But Thrasher had reigned in his anger during battle and if not for Takuma's last second gamble, he would've lost terribly and been hurt horribly. There were people who would become cold while in rage. He didn't think Thrasher was capable of that.
He wouldn't do that again. Emotions were an essential part of combat. Anger and rage could make movement sloppy, cloud judgment, and lead to mortal injuries and death. But he needed to make sure that he wasn't underestimating his enemy.
'Can't do the chakra overload like that again,' he grunted to himself as he got up from his chair. Its effectiveness was proven today, but he didn't want that turned on himself. He needed to figure out how to utilize the overload in a different way.
Takuma took a double-sided tape and added the page to the line that had four other similar pages. Above that line was another line with three more pages with the details regarding his losses.
He stepped back and sighed.
There were going to be seventy-two pages on the wall, and he needed more pages on the winning section than on the losing section.
That was his main goal for the next six months.
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
Chapitre 68: CH_3.9 (068)
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
———
.
'—a shinobi is much more than the chakra he wields—'
Did Takuma fully understand the depth behind the meaning of the words that Maruboshi had said to him nearly a year ago? The answer would be 'No'. His teacher had put him through many different skills that he initially thought would be of no use to him. To this day, there were skills he thought he would never ever use.
However, at the same time, the cycle of D-rank missions had shoved him into many paths of life. He had done more different things in his life than ever before. From farming in the soil to sewing with a needle to construction work under the sun to balancing books in an office to standing at a gate and smiling at people as they walked by— he had done a lot of jobs. And surprisingly, some of Maruboshi's teaching had helped him along, and he had learned much more things along the way that had come to his aid in one way or another.
Looking back at it, he was surprised at how little his previous self knew. The stupid college bozo wouldn't have been able to survive in the world if he was one day kicked to the street to fend for himself.
So, while he didn't fully agree or even understand his teacher's words, Takuma had to agree that having knowledge and skill of various kinds was beneficial in general.
Simultaneously, he was still a shinobi. He believed that if he was to learn different skills, they should be more suited to his job title and not just anything until he could call himself a jack of irrelevant trades. His time was better suited to learning and trying things he deemed more useful.
Which was why he decided to test out something practical and valuable to him in the future… and not all because he thought it was fun and something he always wanted to do.
Across the street from him was the headquarters of the Hidden Leaf's— nay, the Land of Fire's— biggest publishing house— Sume Publications. Takuma didn't have time to read many books in his time here, but he did follow the newspaper, and book reviews were a thing in it, and he had heard much about books from Sume Publications.
Takuma wanted to see how deep he could get into the building without getting caught. He could, of course, transform as one of the employees and walk into the building, but the risk of getting approached and talked to by someone was high. If that happened, his disguise would be outed with his inability to talk back— he could act rude and ignore everyone or pretend as if he was in a hurry, but that wasn't ideal.
Moreover, as useful as Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Jutsu) was, trained shinobi could catch flaws. They had gone over it during basic training, looking for flaws in each other's transformations. And while Sume Publications was a civilian establishment, he didn't want to use that tactic. It was a self-restriction.
He had something else in mind.
Takuma looked down at the simple set of repairman clothes— they were the equivalent of the high-vis vest— and tucked the ladder under his arm and picked up the red toolbox before jumping down from the building's roof.
He walked up to the entrance of the building where two shinobi stood guard. Even though it was a civilian establishment, a couple of genin guards were hired by the business. The building was both the headquarters and a large printing press. In the Leaf village, a shinobi hub, having one or two genin guards, was considered the basic level of security for those who could afford it.
Taking a calm breath, Takuma crossed the road with his head held high. He had the toolbox, ladder, and a clipboard with blank paper— that was all he needed. Even if they were shinobi, they were still humans. He just needed to believe that this was where he belonged. He could do it.
Without slowing down or looking at the guards, he walked past them into the building. Takuma felt their eyes on him, and for a moment, he felt his heart skip a beat, but as he kept walking, they didn't stop him.
His lips twitched upward as he stepped inside the building. It worked! 'Holy shit, I didn't think it would actually work!' he cheered to himself. But as it turned out, a simple suitable disguise and the right attitude were all he needed to get into most places.
Putting away his smile, Takuma continued. To his surprise, even the receptionist didn't stop him as he walked deeper into the building.
Well, better for him.
His destination was on the floor with the editors, specifically fiction editors. His target: Shindo Eru, a senior editor for Semu Publications.
The reason why Takuma had chosen Semu Publications and Shindo Eru was that he knew both. During one of his delivery stints, he had been asked to deliver a package to Semu Publications, and the recipient had been Shindo Eru. He had been in the building once and had seen the man once.
If it wasn't his first exercise of the type and he wasn't participating in the Ring and thus short on time, he would've chosen a fresh target and would've done scouting— but since he still had to do missions, he deemed that experience as scouting.
As long as he entered Shindo Eru's office without raising suspicion, he would consider it a win.
From what Takuma remembered, Shindo Eru's office was on the edge of an office space that was shared between junior editors in an open-cubicle style. Shindo Eru, being a senior editor, was given his own closed office. For Takuma to enter the office, he needed to go through an entire floor of people without raising any eyebrows.
He had delivered the package directly into Shindo Eru's hands in his office— and he could've used the delivery boy's identity again, but that would've only given him a few seconds in the office, and that's only if Shindo Eru was in his office. If the man wasn't in his office, he would've been forced to hand the faux package to someone else.
He could hide somewhere, but that would've restricted his reconnaissance options as an unknown person would've stood out.
But, a repairman?
Takuma opened his ladder under a bulb just outside the office space with a direct line of sight to the office and pretended to work while observing the premise to figure out how he could get into the office and stay for a reasonable amount of time.
An ideal period to try getting into the office would be lunchtime when people go out to eat, but that was a little over an hour away, and he couldn't wait that long without someone figuring out that something was wrong. And, from the looks of it, Shindo Eru wasn't in his office.
Even if he could stay until lunch, he didn't have that kind of time. He had a fight right after lunch; as he was still a new fighter, his fights were not at times one could call primetime. He needed to be out and away to get prepared for his fight.
"Is there something wrong with that?"
As Takuma was peering around, a voice called out to him. He looked down and saw a bespectacled woman with documents cradled in her arms staring up at him.
Even though he was expecting someone to talk to him, it still surprised him. It took him a moment to reply, "Ah, there's nothing wrong; it's just routine maintenance work, miss," he said with a smile.
"Then can you look at help me with the light above my desk, it has been flickering lately," said the lady.
"Sure, where is it? I will head over there after I'm done with here," he said, keeping the pretense. Inside he was annoyed about the hindrance in his mission, but he kept the pleasant mask on the outside.
Contrary to his expectations, the woman pointed inside the office space. Takuma's eyes shined. He smiled and assured the woman that he would be there to help her in a jiffy. He followed the lady with his eyes, and her desk was a pebble's flick worth of distance away from the office. Lady luck was with him today.
He counted two minutes before heading to the lady's desk, and she showed him the bulb that was bothering her. Takuma set up his ladder and began his pretense.
"Hmm, this looks like it has reached the end of its life; we will need to change the bulb and put in a new one, miss," he climbed down from the ladder. "I don't have one that will fit in this socket right now, but how about I exchange this bulb with one from a less inconspicuous place. That way, you won't wait until we order a replacement."
"That would be really helpful, thank you," the woman smiled.
"Then, I will go search for a matching one," Takuma said, pulling the nigh invisible string wrapped around his pinky.
*Thud!*
The woman turned and gasped when she saw that a pile of paper on her desk had fallen down. She turned and saw that Takuma was nowhere to be seen.
"Huh, where did he go?"
. . .
Takuma silently closed the door to Shindo Eru's office behind him. He grinned as he looked inside the empty office. The tricky part was done, now all he had to do was complete the task and take his exit.
The office had a messy desk filled with stacks of paper in envelopes that looked like manuscripts. There was a bookshelf with a lot of books. Takuma could've stolen them, but he didn't want to cause harm to the man (or the people who had sent the manuscripts). This was just an exercise.
Other than the furniture and decorations, there was a large metal almirah. When Takuma pulled on the handle, he found the doors locked.
'This is it; this is a proper place,' he smiled.
Takuma took out his lock-picking kit from his person and got to work. It took a little under two minutes to pick the lock and… click!
He was in.
There were more documents inside, a packed lunch, a jar of candy, a change of clothes, a formal suit, and more. None of the things interested him. He just wanted to test out his lock-picking skills on the 'field.'
And for the final step… Takuma picked up a blank paper and a calligraphy brush from the desk
Takuma grinned as he put ink on the page.
. . .
Getting out was easier. Takuma threw a smooth decoration pebble from Shindo Eru's decorative bowl across the office space and made a large glass jar fall. The crash was loud enough that it caught everyone's attention for a moment, which was sufficient for Takuma to sneakily get out of the office.
He replaced the woman's bulb, packed his stuff, and walked out of Sume Publications with no one knowing any better.
And later that day, lady luck continued to shine on him as he got a sub-three-minute knockout on his opponent.
It made him think if he should go prowling into buildings as a ritual before fights.
It was a good day of quick in-and-outs.
———
.
Shindo Eru looked up at the faintly flickering light bulb in his office with a frown before looking down at the manuscript envelope. He pulled out the manuscript with the title:
[Icha Icha – Part 1]
— Jiraya
As he got ready to read the first manuscript by the one of the three great Sanin, Jiraya, another folded page fell out of the envelope. It was an unruled page, different from the manuscript paper.
He spread it open,
"Huh?"
Written on it in bold writing were the words:
[BIG DADDY WAS HERE]
Shindo Eru frowned before shaking his head.
He could never understand the eccentric minds of shinobi.
.
———
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 
108 Power
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