Chapitre 74: CH_3.15 (074)

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———

Tsubura walked into one of the VIP booths that overlooked the arena. He gazed down at the people standing around the caged arena, waiting for the next fight to start. He could look down at them, but they couldn't look up at him because of the one-way windows. Every arena hall had five such booths built into the walls for people who wished to spectate the fights in privacy.

Of course, most of these booths went unused throughout the year as the fights capable of attracting that sort of crowd were few and far between.

He rested on one of the chairs with a groan, feeling a stretch in his lower back that he adjusted as he asked one of the watchers. "That's the kid?"

"Yes, boss."

Tsubura peered down at the fighter in the green leaf mask with a body riddled with scars entering the arena. Scars. He remembered the kid Enomoto had brought him. It had been nearly three months since then, and Tsubura wasn't expecting to hear about the kid until the end of the contract.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

Watchers were his eyes and ears littered around the Ring. They were barmen, cleaning crew, fighters, staff handling betting and scheduling, or even people in the audience wordlessly watching the fights. They kept a finger on the pulse of happening, looking out for the erratic behavior for him.

For a watcher to bring him a case in the taijutsu category and not outright put a strike and penalty against Scars meant they weren't sure if it was going against the rules. Tsubura looked down at the fight and watched as Scars scrambled with another teenager on the arena floor.

"Chakra augmentations," said the watcher.

Tsubura's beady eyes narrowed at the fight below.

Scars stepped back to skirt a hook and bobbed his head to dodge another strike before choosing the perfect timing to retaliate with a hip kick. Scars' opponent had his lower body stability disrupted and tried to put some distance between them, but Scars took a quick fore-step and struck out with a calf kick from his back leg. The attack that should've hobbled the opponent suddenly struck out with such force that the other fighter's legs slapped against each other as the footing was taken out altogether.

Scars didn't spare a second for recovery and immediately pounced on his opponent and started battering him to keep the man grounded and unable to get out of the predicament.

"That was augmented," Tsubura didn't need to be an expert to tell that the calf kick struck with an unnatural force, and yet he didn't see any hand seals or signs that he had pre-cast the augmentation before the fight.

He was well-versed with chakra augmentations; it was his clan's specialty, after all. He knew how rare chakra augmentations were. Chakra naturally nourished the body and raised a shinobi's strength, speed, reflexes, and endurance, among other things— that's what allowed shinobi to survive against weapons of ninjutsu and made taijutsu a viable tool. At the same time, it could also be used actively to temporarily enhance the body's capabilities.

The caveat for it all was the difficulty and rareness of chakra augmentations of the body. They were challenging to master and proficiently use in actual combat as the techniques were complex and usually locked behind clan doors.

And Tsubura knew Scars wasn't a clan kid.

He watched the fight as Scars' opponent kicked him off to get up. Scars didn't rush and stalked around like a predator looking for an opportunity to nab his prey. Tsubura judged the damage done by Scars and found it to be significant but not in the same vein as what one could deal with chakra augmentations.

"What tipped you off?" Tsubura asked the watcher

"Unnatural bursts of strength while striking," told the watcher. "The medical staff tells me that he has been leaving one or two nasty bruises on his opponent every fight; he even left one of the fighters with a cracked shoulder that could have easily been a shattered shoulder if it was touched once."

"Just strength?"

"Nothing but a few heavy strikes every fight. I believe he has been trying to keep it down to not catch eyes."

That could mean many things. It could mean Scars was keeping it down, as the watcher said. It could also mean he wasn't well-versed in using the augmentations and was testing the technique during fights, or it could mean whatever chakra augmentation Scars was using was only limited to strength.

The two fighters brawled in the arena's center, exchanging blows with Scars pushing his opponent back. Scars' opponent was clearly more skillful between the two fighters, but the limping leg had handicapped the ability to showcase the skill to the limit; pairing that with Scars' aggressive approach, there was very little breathing room.

Scars pried his opponent's guard open with a jab before sneaking in a decisive palm strike toward the chest. Tsubura found it strange why Scars hadn't focused his attack on the legs, tearing down what was already broken. It was inefficient.

Nevertheless, the palm strike stamped the chest. Tsubura could see the next few seconds before they happened— Scars was going to target the side with a nasty body shot and then needle an uppercut to the jaw through the flimsy guard, all but finishing the fight.

Instead, he saw Scars move to retreat his palm, and almost bizarrely, the opponent got pulled along with the palm. It wouldn't have been shocking if Scars had gripped body hair to pull the fighter towards him, but there was none on the body, and the palm was flat.

At the moment, Tsubura knew what Scars had been doing.

Scars pulled the opponent closer and landed a vicious sharp hook to the side of the head, snapping the neck to the side. The opponent went down. Scars followed him down to land finishing blows to ensure that there was no continuation.

It seemed three months were enough for the kid to become a Ring fighter.

"Ask someone to bring Scars to my office before he leaves," said Tsubura as he got up from the chair.

It was time to decide Scars' future in the Ring.

———

Takuma kept his senses peeled as he followed the man who told him that the boss, Tsubura, had asked to see him. He had considered himself gotten used to the dingy corridors lit by old yellow bulbs nearing the end of their lives. But the unexpected summons had him glancing over his shoulder… just in case something was afoul

He studied the man who he was following. Takuma knew the man worked in the Ring; he had seen him walk around in areas not accessible by the audience and once seen him sit behind a desk in the scheduling office. It made Takuma cross-of the possibility of this being a play by one of the fighter groups to jump him. He couldn't be entirely sure though. There was regulation in the Ring, yet he had heard rumors of misplay between fighters outside the arena.

Takuma only let his shoulders relax when they arrived in front of Tsubura's office, which he remembered from his one initial visit with Enomoto. The man knocked on the door and peered inside before opening the door halfway and letting Takuma inside. The door closed behind Takuma, leaving him alone in the room with Tsubura, who sat on his oversized pompous throne-like chair behind the gaudy desk.

"Takuma, my boy, come sit down," said Tsubura with an oily smile on his fat face, "or do you prefer Scars now."

"… I prefer Scars," said Takuma. The less someone said his name down here, the better it was for him.

"If that's what you wish for. I myself would be more than happy to use the name I gave you," Tsubura eyed him with a peculiar look in his eyes that Takuma couldn't really place.

"I was told you wanted to see me?" asked Takuma. "May I know what this is about?"

"I saw your fight today. It was enjoyable. I could clearly see how far you have come in the three months you have been here."

Takuma clenched his fist. The Ring's boss watched his fight. He didn't have an iota of good feelings well up inside of him. The fight wasn't against someone exceptional like Bishop, or during a primetime slot, for someone this higher up to come watch his fight.

Only one thought crossed his mind. They had noticed him using the chakra during the fights. It was during basic training when he had subconsciously pushed off to evade an attack using overloading chakra through his feet. Ever since that day, he had pondered about using that overload in combat.

He had tried to experiment with it but had been unsuccessful for months in making any progress. Eventually, he narrowed the problem down to a lack of chakra control, which he had tried to improve by practicing the water-walking exercise. The improvement had been slower than tree-walking as he had to juggle his time between missions, Ring fights, housework, and other training and endeavors. Moreover, the water-walking exercise was much more comprehensive than tree-walking. There was much more nuance to consider when a water surface could be standing water, a gentle stream, harshly flowing rivers, and all sorts of water flowing patterns.

Eventually, he found a way to use the overload in combat. Using combat to gain speed by pushing off the ground was largely inefficient, hard on the knees, and all but impossible to control. But he had found that he could extrude chakra through the tenketsu of his fists and feet, creating an additional force that could do great damage if done properly. If done properly.

The difficulty was staggering. There was no jutsu scroll or research that he could refer to. He had to experiment with it all on his own. His success rate was abysmal, and the amount of chakra he wasted was just terrible. Thankfully, he was fighting in the taijutsu category. His success rate plummeted even further during actual fights when he had to focus on not getting hit while keeping track of opportunities to strike.

It was still very much a work in progress and something he would abandon immediately if the fight got tough. Thankfully, the regular fights allowed him to test things out and gain some valuable insight from them. It helped that as long as he landed one solid hit, the chances of victory boosted like a rocket.

'It's okay,' Takuma said to himself, 'you read the fine print, and you aren't doing anything wrong.'

"I'm happy that you enjoyed the fight, sir," he said to Tsubura.

"It was a good fight, indeed. I was surprised to see the use of chakra augmentation," said Tsubura. "How long have you been using chakra to supplement your strikes, Scars?" He peeked into a manilla folder. "Nineteen wins in thirty-one fights… a whopping sixty-one percent winning rate. That puts you in the upper echelons of the fighters, Scars. How many of these would you say came from that extra boost of chakra? How many ryo and mission points would you attribute to the little trick of yours?"

Takuma held his posture to not give out anything. "I wasn't aware I was doing anything wrong. I don't believe what I have been doing is against the rules," he said.

"Oh, it's not against the rules; who said that?" Tsubura leaned forward. "It simply upsets the balance of the fights, makes the pairings unfair…. We don't see chakra augmentation down here; it's a rarity, after all, and what you have been doing is simply a derivation that every shinobi learns. You're a smart kid, Scars; I appreciate that.

"Which is why I will ask, do you intend to continue using the chakra augmentation because I have to make decisions based on your answer."

Takuma gazed at Tsubura, acting like nothing was wrong. And from what Takuma looked at, there was nothing wrong with it. As Tsubura had said, there was nothing in the rules that forbade him from doing so. He thought about it for a moment, considering what could be the further response from Tsubura.

"I'd like to continue to use it," said Takuma.

"Very well, then we would need to make some changes," said Tsubura. "The opponents that you're currently fighting are at a clear disadvantage if you continue using chakra augmentations… so you have two options: we either increase the quality of the matchups that we pair against you, or you move onto another category… I'm thinking… the weapons category. I will let you choose."

Takuma wanted to protest about the sudden changes but held his tongue. He was given a choice that he needed to make. And to be honest, the choice was obvious.

"I'll move to the weapons category," he said.

His 'chakra augmentation,' as Tsubura had put it, was unreliable. The only reason he was able to practice it in his fights was that his current opponents allowed him enough breathing room to do so. If the quality of opponents increased, he would be on the back foot trying to keep up. At least in the weapon category, he would be allowed to use weapons like his opponents and maybe even continue using the chakra augmentation.

"Excellent, excellent," said Tsubura, "we usually don't allow category change this early in a fighter's career, but you're an exception," he said while stamping a stamp on a paper that looked like a form. "With thirty-one fights, you only have five fights before your payday. I'm sure you're looking forward to it."

Five fights. That was less than two weeks. He was indeed looking forward to it. He had a sixty percent win percentage, which was good, meaning that he would get paid more than the usual rookie.

Takuma stood up, ready to walk out, when Tsubura spoke,

"A friendly advice, Scars. Stop using that chakra augmentation." Takuma turned back to face Tsubura. He continued, "You're not the first to think of using tree-walking like that— by far not the first one and you'll not be the last one. It doesn't work. You must've already felt the restrictions involving the recoil. One shift from your opponent, and you'll get hit back by a nasty recoil, or it won't work at all and potentially expose you to a counter. You can learn to be better at it, but why give time to something with no future when you can learn something else."

Takuma stared at Tsubura. "Thank you for the advice, sir," he said before walking out.

Was he going to stop?

He might not be the first one to think about using the tree-walking concept as chakra augmentation— but he could be the first one to do it successfully.

———

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Chapitre 75: CH_3.16 (075)

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———

The kunai felt strange in his hand. Throwing practice had continued to have a place in his training regiment, but it had been a while since he had held it in a melee grip; to use the kunai as a blade rather than a throwing dagger. Three months of training with bare-handed brawling had left his fingers feeling stiff.

Now that he was transitioning to the weapons category in the Ring, he needed to re-familiarize himself with wielding his weapons for active combat. It was time to scrape the rust off.

"You told me you wanted to talk. I'm unsure if a kunai has a place in conversation."

Thankfully, he had just the way to warm himself up before the Ring fights. If he was going to be slashed, he very much preferred fewer cuts to heal afterward.

"Come on, let's spar; I haven't sparred with you for so long," said Takuma as he skipped on his toes. "Weapons allowed. No jutsu. And for god's sake, don't whip out your explosive tags."

"So long? It's only been two weeks," Nenro sighed as he pulled off his thin cotton sleeveless vest, folded it neatly, and placed it beneath the tree's shade. "It was that one time and you all have deemed me to be some sort of pyromaniac," he walked to the open field to face Takuma.

"It's your fault for whipping out a grade-two explosive tag," said Takuma, holding the kunai in his right, prominent arm. "And I do want to talk to you about something."

"I did come to talk," shrugged Nenro as he took some steps back with one hand in his back pouch.

Takuma closed the distance and swung his kunai in a diagonal overhead slash. Nenro pranced back as Takuma unleashed a quick volley of swings. The arm hidden behind Nenro's back whipped out, and a senbon flew out. Takuma leaned his head to the side and heard the faint rip of wind as the senbon passed him by.

"How did you make friends with so many chunin?" asked Takuma as he countered Nenro's low kick with his own and raised the same leg to Nenro's head.

Nenro barely stopped the swift strike at the last minute and stumbled back. Even while his balance was disrupted, Nenro threw a shuriken to stop Takuma just as he was about to charge in, giving him enough time to regain his balance.

"You're my friend, Takuma," said Nenro, as he armed himself with a kunai in both hands, "if I was being generous, I'd call them my work acquaintances. They're my connections, a relationship built upon both sides being beneficial to each other," he smirked, "but, of course, if they ask me, they're my dear… dear friends."

"How are you beneficial to them?" he asked. Takuma retrieved shuriken in both hands and sent them hunting toward Nenro. He tried to think how he could be useful to a chunin and couldn't come up with anything.

Nenro's arm moved faster for an untrained eye to move, and he deflected the shuriken with dexterous skill. He shrugged, "They like me; they enjoy my company. I know how to make them laugh, flatter them at just the right time, and make them feel I understand. When you know what people want to hear, it's easy to make 'friends,'" he winked.

Takuma was only half-surprised hearing Nenro. His friend had always been one of those people who attracted others, wanting to be friends with Nenro. However, he always thought others would be trying to appeal to Nenro and not the other way around.

Nenro's hand swung from a blind spot, and it was already halfway through when Takuma noticed Nenro had thrown something. He hurriedly raised a kunai to strike a stone away from him. He couldn't take a pause as a shuriken followed closely, and Takuma had to awkwardly bend his torso to evade that shuriken.

Nenro took advantage of the situation and came on to Takuma with a kunai in a two-handed grip over his head.

Instinct flew through him, and Takuma let himself fall to the ground on his hand to free his leg that he used to kick Nenro in the chest, sending him stumbling back a few feet. It was as he knew; weapons added an element of range that he had gotten used to not facing. But it wasn't a problem.

"How do I do the same?" Takuma asked as both he and Nenro got up.

Nenro grunted as he rubbed his chest. "Cultivating connections requires time and effort," he said. "If you're trying to build a connection to someone higher up than you, then they need to see some value in you. Of course, you can always start with simply getting close to them, build something a friendly relationship, and then asking them for something; however, that takes time to build up to a level where they're willing to do you a favor— but if you show them value, they'll be much more agreeable to do something for you."

"What if I don't have time?" Takuma asked as he slammed his shoulder into Nenro.

Nenro took a step back and tried to get in a body shot that Takuma caught. "Make some then. Few things come easily, this is not one of them— you'll have to put in the effort."

Takuma swung an elbow for Nenro's head as he pulled the grabbed hand down. Nenro grabbed the incoming elbow with his other hand in a firm grip. They stared at each other for a moment before both made their moves.

Takuma bent the arm in his grasp while Nenro used the hand holding Takuma's elbow to smash into Takuma's face. The fist made a solid hit. Takuma turned his face back to Nenro, and instinct took over as he kneed Nenro in the groin, followed by a hard headbutt. He stepped back and was about to strike Nenro in the throat when he realized that he had let habit take over.

"Ah, oh my god, I'm so sorry," he said in a hurry.

Nenro groaned hard as his leg stuck together as if glued, trembling faintly. "W-Why would you do that?" he croaked. "We were just sparring."

Both of them were fighting at half-speed and were pulling their punches. Even though weapons were allowed, neither wanted to cut the other. Until the last moment, Takuma had kept all of his trained instinct, the aggression and brutality that was demanded in the Ring, in check. They had accidentally leaked out when Nenro had stuck his head.

"Yeah, really sorry about that… just came out, you know," Takuma said with a wrinkled nose.

"No, I don't know," Nenro finally stood straight, still groaning.

Takuma could only chuckle awkwardly.

———

Takuma breathed out as he closed his eyes and concentrated on the crowd noise coming from outside the tunnel. Takuma's body was covered with a sheen of sweat from the warmup in preparation for the fight.

The weight of the kunai case around his thigh and the weapon pouch tied around his waist hanging behind him that he got so used to that he never felt it anymore, but at the moment, that weight felt pronounced. Scars only wore his mask, black shorts, and black shinobi sandals in the arena, but today, he had boiled leather arm guards and shin protectors.

He focused on the crowd noise, trying to empty out his thoughts. From what Sango had said, fights in the weapons category tended to last shorter than in the taijutsu category. The involvement of sharp weapons chipped away at the fighter's ability to fight faster than blunt fists.

The announcer called for him, and Takuma went running into the arena. The weapon category fights were fought in a different arena than the taijutsu category. The dome that covered the arena was made of a solid metal grid that could handle heavy loads and bashing, but for the weapons category, they had added a second layer of finely threaded metal mesh to stop weapons like senbon from escaping the arena and poking a viewer's eye out.

But the thing that attracted Takuma's gaze was the arena floor. The white base was no more visible as the red blood had dried on the surface to give it a dirty-brown cover. Enough blood had spilled to cover the large arena's floor. Standing there, he could smell the scent of blood, even though he knew it was just his imagination— he had never had so much blood before.

His eyes went to his opponent, Bloodshot, and found the lithe woman staring at him with a short sword in one hand and a kunai in the other. Takuma stared into the woman's black eyes and felt compelled to draw a kunai in each hand. The gleam of the short sword blade made him wonder if it was a correct decision to exit the taijutsu category.

The moment the metal door shut behind the announcer, Bloodshot shot forward like a quick cat.

*Screech!*

Sparks flew as Bloodshot's short sword clashed with Takuma's kunai. She raised her kunai and swung it down at Takuma. Takuma pushed the short sword back and twisted his body to make the kunai miss by a few centimeters. He kicked the woman in the gut and stabbed for her short sword arm. Bloodshot grunted as she staggered back and saw the kunai coming for her flesh.

She moved faster than before, and her kunai arm grazed against the incoming kunai, the two opposing forces sending both arms flying. Bloodshot was already spinning back on her pivoting. Takuma pulled his torso back as the short sword swung for his life.

The tip of the blade grazed Takuma on top of the chest, missing the neck by a few centimeters. A thin cut split the skin as a few droplets of red peeked from inside.

Takuma jumped back and threw the kunai in his left for Bloodshot's chest.

Bloodshot dropped to the floor, her posture like a wild animal on fours, her eyes locked onto Takuma. She shot forward, and Takuma felt his heart lurch from not being able to secure any time or space to gather himself.

Slash, thrust, jab, jab, jump, clash!

Takuma didn't need to be told about Bloodshot's dual-wielding combat style as he experienced the quick barrage of blood-hungry blades. He wasn't allowed to draw a second kunai as every muscle fiber on his body moved in concordance that his blood was to be kept inside his body. His body felt stretched to the limit as the one kunai only allowed him to counter the short sword, Bloodshot's kunai came close to hacking his body far too many times for Takuma's comfort.

He was well aware that he was rapidly moving toward the edge of the arena. He knew he would be cornered the moment he hit the dome, and Bloodshot knew as well what that would mean with the way she was brandishing her blades, not allowing Takuma to travel anywhere but towards the dome wall.

Takuma needed to act quickly, and he decided to summon his only other weapon. He was going to overload his fist with chakra, break something in Bloodshot, and turn the tide to finish the fight quickly. It was his only choice.

'Sorry, this is going to hurt,' he told himself.

Bloodshot slashed her short sword down, and Takuma raised his arm to it. He unsuccessfully stifled a scream as the blade tore through the leather arm guard and dug into his flesh below. His knees buckled a smidge, but he couldn't stop to feel the fear of the metal reaching his bone and immediately charged his fist with chakra and aimed it just below her chest. He didn't want to shatter her ribcage, but a cracked rib was totally within the rules.

The chakra flowed through the tenketsu as the clenched moved forward and struck Bloodshot.

*Baam!*

Takuma felt his shoulder pop out of its socket as the nasty recoil from the overload fist shot through his arm muscles and bones. He had failed, Takuma knew from the spiking pain that he had put too much chakra than required, and now he was getting punished for it.

The punishment didn't end with that.

Bloodshot cried as the chakra fist assaulted her body. She fell to her knees, her hand leaving the short sword to grab her side. Her body quivered as she leaned closer to the floor as though she was about to fall any second. She glared at Takuma with hate in her eyes and shouted through heavy guttural breath as she dug her kunai deep into Takuma's gut until the entire blade was sheathed within his body.

Takuma felt light-headed, and the last thing he felt before darkness overtook him was the heavy taste of metal in his mouth.

———

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