Chapitre 290: CH_8.25 (290)
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———
.
Beautiful. That was what Maruboshi thought when he saw his student's efforts being thwarted over and over again.
The skill shown by Uchiha Mikoto was exquisite; every move looked elegant and effortless, but all of it was planned down to the very minute details. He expected a jonin, especially an Uchiha, to possess such skill, but that didn't take away from the fact that it was a delight to watch.
However, Mikoto wasn't the only one who deserved praise.
Maruboshi was well aware of Takuma's style, so he was proud to see him step out of his comfort zone and try different tactics. His choices were generally terrible. They opened him up to attacks, turned his fighting style into a disjointed mess, actively made him worse, and even frustrated him enough that he switched back at the end—and yet trying out all those changes was the right choice.
Maruboshi could almost see a glimpse into the future, where Takuma's combat style had evolved. Currently, he was in messy flux, but once the pieces fell into place, he would have something strong, stable, and sustainable that he could safely rely upon out in the field.
As he watched the fight, he felt two gazes from separate directions. He pulled his eyes off the fight to look at the peeping but couldn't find anyone in the trees; they had hidden themselves well. He didn't find it strange because the field was public property; neither was it isolated—and the Hidden Leaf was a village filled to the brim with shinobi who had learned to hide themselves for no apparent reason.
The gazes disappeared the moment he swept his own across the field, but he wondered if the hidden onlookers were ANBU operatives observing Takuma before his test. He had no way to confirm that other than catching them, which would be embarrassing and rude if he was wrong and would do nothing if they were indeed ANBU.
———
Uchiha Fugaku swiftly hid himself when he saw Maruboshi Kosuke look right in his direction. The Eternal Genin was already a senior citizen, but it seemed like he still had the senses of a prime hunter. It had been such a long time since Fugaku had seen his wife fight that he didn't want to miss it—but he didn't want to interrupt or intrude, so he watched from the shadows.
The spar was more or less what he expected. Mikoto's offence was ran through counterattacks, which made sense because when it came to the Uchiha's Interceptor Fist—not only was she better at it than him and arguably the best in the clan, but taijutsu was a bigger part of her combat style than his.
The Uchiha Interceptor Fist was the taijutsu developed and used by the Uchiha clan. The core of it was to make corresponding responses or counterattacks that struck at incoming attacks. The style was also heavily based on not letting the opponent get into a flow by disrupting their moves and intensively punishing their openings and bad habits.
To be effective, the user had to be proficient at reading the opponent, and with the Sharingan, which had the power of insight to mimic and understand other's moves, that was an easy feat.
Even though Takuma wasn't even close to being a challenge, he could tell that Mikoto was feeling comfortable. She had effortlessly used the clan's taijutsu to perfectly dismantle her opponent without breaking a sweat while also restricting herself to his level.
Retirement had undoubtedly had its effects, but it felt like she had retained most of her skill—her experience as a jonin was still there, buried under the surface—and she would only need to bring her body up to speed to once again hone her combat instincts.
As Mikoto finished the fight by knockout, Fugaku turned around to leave. Seeing her fight made him consider inviting her to regular spars so they could spend time together like they did before they had their children.
He turned back with the three tomoe spinning in his red pupils as he locked in on the person hidden in the trees. They were well hidden, with only small parts of their body visible, which would have been a problem if not for the Sharingan that saw chakra in colour that outed the person. Fugaku blinked, the traces of chakra disappeared, and he could no longer spot them.
Chakra masking, he guessed. That's no ordinary miscreant…
Fugaku glanced at Mikoto and company once before leaving. Whoever it was, with his wife and Maruobshi Kosuke present, there wasn't much they could do.
———
"What do you think?" Maruboshi asked Mikoto after she knocked Takuma out.
"I'll give him a point for effort," said Mikoto as she dusted the dirt and grass off her outfit before kneeling down to straighten Takuma so he wasn't lying in an off-position. "I could tell he was trying things, but it made him disjointed at best."
"It'll take some time to integrate new things smoothly."
"If he's trying to avoid trading damage, then genjutsu will work wonders."
"How is he at genjutsu?" he asked.
"He has the fundamentals down, but if he really wants to take full advantage of genjutsu, he needs to open his mind to the possibilities," said Mikoto as she stared down at Takuma. "Most shinobi mistake ninjutsu and genjutsu to be similar when they're not. Unlike ninjutsu, technical skill is only part of the puzzle; application is the half where the true potential lies. The mind is a complex system, both a hindrance and an advantage for genjutsu users. It takes a lot to create believable illusions, but there is no limit to what the mind will accept. He needs to realise that genjutsu is more than a string of hand seals that perform a certain function—the day that understanding clicks in his mind will be the day he'll start using genjutsu in his special way."
It was good that Takuma had Mikoto as his genjutsu teacher because Maruboshi didn't have the talent for using genjutsu—as Mikoto said, it took a lot to deceive the mind—and he didn't have it in him to create believable illusions beyond the most basic genjutsu. He recalled the genjutsu Takuma had used on him in their spar earlier that week. It was much more potent than expected and had tightly gripped his mind.
There was no doubt that Takuma had the ability to create very believable genjutsu.
"I will work with him on a genjutsu application when we resume our lessons," she said.
Takuma noisily heaved as he abruptly sat up with his eyes wide open. His body tensed, and he looked ready to jump at the sight of danger as he scanned his surroundings before calming down when he saw both his teachers standing around him.
"That was a shit show," Takuma groaned.
"You did great," said Mikoto, tossing him a water bottle.
"I didn't manage to hit you once."
"That wasn't going to happen either way. As long as I didn't want you to hit me, you wouldn't have touched the clothes on my back."
Takuma looked at Maruboshi, who shrugged. If he didn't want Takuma to hit him, he could guarantee that didn't happen, but that was never the purpose of their spars.
"How did you do that?" Takuma asked Mikoto, staring into her eyes. "Are you wearing coloured contacts?"
Mikoto tried to stop herself, but she burst into laughter, which turned Takuma red with embarrassment.
"You don't need the Sharingan to do what I did today, Takuma," Mikoto chuckled as she wiped a tear from her eyes. "With enough combat experience, the willingness to improve your taijutsu, and the right approach to learning, you too could predict your enemy's moves one day... But you're not wrong; my eyes played a major role in how I fought today."
"How so?" asked Takuma.
"Your water tentacle jutsu. I have fought someone who used it, so I knew that you could change the tentacle's length, so I was ready for you to use that tactic," said Mikoto.
Takuma stared at her for a moment before looking down at the ground. Mikoto wanted to continue, but she saw a signal from Maruboshi to wait. After a few seconds of silence, Takuma spoke up again,
"...You have the Sharingan that allows you to copy your opponent's moves. That must mean you have tons of fights from many types of fighters recorded in your mind. I must have fought like one of those fighters—or a combination of certain aspects from various fighters—so even though you didn't use your eyes against me, you had the knowledge to predict my moves."
"Correct," Mikoto smiled.
Takuma sighed. "The Sharingan sure is impressive."
"It is impressive," said Mikoto with a hint of pride, "but it's not that simple. Our eyes give us the gift of insight, allowing us to parse visual information at a high rate, which is how we can copy whatever we see—and as it may sound, many of my clan folk who have unlocked the eye never go beyond simple monkey copy when there's so much more to it..."
Maruboshi gazed at the woman before him and was surprised to see her talking negatively about her clan members in front of outsiders. It was natural to have such thoughts, but from what he knew, clan shinobi didn't reveal those thoughts to outsiders as they were representative of their clan. The matter of reputation was taken very seriously.
Moreover, the person doing it was Lady Uchiha, who was always expected to defend her clan. He glanced at Takuma; the relationship between Mikoto and his student seemed closer than he thought.
"...When I was still active, I used to look back at my fights and rather than just monkey copy, I used to take my time to understand why my opponent moved the way they did. I was often wrong in my understanding because the Sharingan doesn't give answers, but by investing time and effort, I was rewarded with knowledge about combat beyond even my clan folk, who had been shinobi far longer than me…"
The Uchiha were infamous for their Sharingan—but when people talked about them, it was only about copying ninjutsu hand seals and taijutsu movements to mimic their opponents. He had been alive long enough to know that the Sharingan was capable of more than copying, but what he just heard was frightening, to say the least.
"I was so thrilled by what I had found that I fought every clan member willing to fight me. I made them imitate every opponent they had fought so I could copy them and then take my time to understand and break down their opponents until I had the correct answers to problems I might face in the future."
Maruboshi felt a chill go down his spine as he looked at Mikoto. There was a terrifying intelligence in her eyes that made his instincts scream danger. Mikoto, by herself, would have faced a decent set of enemies she would've copied from. But she had just claimed that she made her clan members imitate their opponents. If he were conservative and guessed ten unique opponents per clan member and fought ten members, she would have copied an additional one hundred opponents.
Even if there were significant overlap, she would still have gained rich experience beyond what most shinobi would ever experience in their entire careers. He knew she was a jonin, but he now felt a monster was standing before him. And she had claimed that all Sharingan-bearing Uchiha could do the same—they didn't do it, but they all had the potential to— was again reminded why the Uchiha clan was one of the founder clans with a deep and dominant history in the Warring States Periods.
It also made him think that Takuma would benefit more if he learned taijutsu from Mikoto instead of genjutsu.
"But knowing the answers isn't enough; you need to be able to use them quickly and correctly. The Uchiha Interceptor Fist is based on the tenets that focus on reading the opponent, finding their weakness, targeting their openings, and disrupting their flow... I applied my knowledge through my taijutsu and became proficient to the point where I no longer needed my eyes to see through my opponents—the eyes elevated everything I did—but even without them, I felt as though scales had fallen from my eyes. I had unlocked a new state of being... I was free, and I was in control."
Takuma looked gripped and utterly immersed. He hung on her every word as though it was a mantra for eternal prosperity with Mikoto's every word were resonating with him.
"You don't need my eyes, Takuma," Mikoto asserted confidently. "Yes, they helped tremendously, but I—not my eyes—am the reason behind my understanding and skill. If you look at your opponent and apply your mind to it, you will see things that most people miss—and that's where you will find what separates ordinary from extraordinary. It will take a lot, and it will not be easy, but I think you can do it... because you were doing it today, weren't you?"
"...Yes," said Takuma.
Maruboshi looked at him, and he seemed lost in his thoughts.
It was the right decision to bring in Mikoto for the spar.
Maruboshi could tell that something was about to change. He could tell that Takuma's mind had finally opened and felt he was going to go through a change much bigger than fixing his sacrificial tendency.
He wondered what Takuma would be like after those changes.
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
Chapitre 291: CH_8.26 (291)
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
As the week drew to a close, the weekend arrived, and Kameko found herself standing outside an izakaya nestled deep within the Entertainment District, away from the bustling main streets. The front door had a notice taped to it that said the place was reserved for the day for Inuzuka Hana's rank promotion celebration.
Her academy class always booked a small establishment for the evening so that they could enjoy the class gatherings by themselves. She entered through the door and was immediately greeted by the staff. The establishment was an open space lined with tatami mats, with low tables and floor cushions for seating. It was perfect for a large group, allowing people to move around and socialise easily.
"Kameko, you're late!"
She had just confirmed with the staff that she was there for the gathering when she heard her name called. Aimi latched onto her and pulled her towards the table where many classmates were already present and enjoying themselves. She looked around and roughly counted over twenty people present, a high number even for a class that always had a strong attendance for their gatherings.
A few people had not maintained contact with the rest of the class, while others were stationed outside or transferred out of the village. It made sense that everyone who possibly could have come was there because it was a special occasion. Kameko swept her eyes across the gathering to find a certain someone but couldn't see him, which was natural as he had never attended any of their class gatherings.
"Hana, congratulations." Kameko walked over to Hana's table, where she was the centre of attention as the host and subject of celebration and sat beside her. As a congratulatory gift, she presented her with a set of durable, high-quality sashes for her forehead protector.
"Thank you, Kameko," Hana smiled brightly. She used to wear her hair at chin length, but in the year Kameko was away, she had grown her hair past her shoulder. Kameko even noticed how the Inuzuka clan's traditional fang tattoos on her cheeks were now darker; she had heard that the tattoos were inked darker when an Inuzuka was promoted as a higher status symbol within the clan.
With the greeting done, Kameko wanted to leave the table and move to a quieter spot. She was excited to catch up with her friends, but she wanted to take it slow and build up from there, and the popular table wasn't the spot to do so.
It had been three and half years since their batch had graduated, and they had started participating in the Chunin Exams last year, having gone through two of them as they were conducted bi-annually—and managed to produce three chunin within the batch.
The first Chunin Exam resulted in two promotions.
Kameko looked across the table at a brunette with cinnamon-brown hair and sharp amber eyes. The first promotion was bagged by their batch's Rookie of the Year, Okubo Momoe, the civilian prodigy who had won the entire exam.
She had always been first at the academy and even maintained her top spot among the batch long after.
Sitting a few seats away from Momoe was Uchiha Izumi, with her long, straight, dark brown hair and a beauty mark under her right eye. She was the second promotion of their batch from the first Chunin Exams and had placed second, only barely losing to Momoe. And then there was Inuzuka Hana, the only one from their batch to be promoted in the second and latest Chunin Exam.
All three chunin at the gathering and their teams were sitting at the same table, and Kameko could tell that her classmates wanted to talk to them, especially the boys, who were all trying to impress them. She wanted no part of that and was about to leave when Hana grasped her arm to make her stay.
"Tell us what it was like out there in the war?" asked Hana.
Momoe, who had been chatting to someone else, turned towards Kameko. "I would also like to hear about it," she said.
Kameko suddenly felt everyone's eyes on her.
She realised she was the only one in their group who had participated in the war. Out of their academy, three people had been deployed to the Land of Hot Waters. One was deployed only a few months ago and was still out there. As for Takuma, he hadn't kept any connection with the class except for two people. She glanced at Fuma Arisu sitting beside Izumi and found her gazing at her with a neutral expression.
They worked together at the Police Force, and even though Takuma's relationship with the Military Police had soured before he left, it didn't extend to Arisu. She wondered if Takuma had told her about his experience; she got the sense he would not talk about it to anyone.
Kameko herself didn't want to talk about a lot of it.
"... The base I was stationed at ran a recapture mission," Kameko said, opting to share the parts she was comfortable with. "There was this gold mine that the enemy had taken over, using the captured workers to mine as usual. The gold which should have gone to the Land of Hot Waters was now going to the enemy... and our mission was to rescue the workers and run the enemy out of the mine. It was going to be a difficult mission because our base only had two jonin while the enemy had three on their side."
The tension in the room rose at the mention of the jonin disparity.
Kameko roughly went through the preparation that went into planning such a big operation. Perhaps it was boring to listen, but having gone through it, she had come to learn the importance of preparation and planning.
"...as the stealth team was pulling the workers out, the enemy rang its sirens... the battle had already begun by the time we got down into the pit. In a few short minutes, the entire pit was covered with more than a hundred shinobi from both sides fighting against each other."
Kameko could recall the mine vividly. The earthy smell, the faint tremor in the wet ground, the cacophony of metal mixed in with all the yelling, and the brush of ambient chakra against her skin—even thinking about it made her heart pump faster.
"That sounds awesome," said one of her classmates. "So you fought beside jonin. What was that like?"
"... Terrifying," Kameko answered honestly. "Everyone kept clear of them, fearing they would be caught in one of their jutsu. That wasn't enough, though, because they affected too broad of an area with their ninjutsu. A Fire Release ninjutsu exploded and caused several substantial landslides, disrupting the battlefield."
The questions came pouring in from how many people died and how many she killed to what were the enemy jonin like. She tried her best to answer the question and ignored the unsavoury, insensitive ones.
Momoe, sitting across the table, caught her eye. She had an inquisitive look as she absentmindedly played with a thin braid in her hair. As though noticing Kameko's gaze, Momoe looked up with a sharp look and said,
"Interesting. What did you think about that combat experience? How did you manage everything that was happening around you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Kameko, not understanding the question.
"As in, when I spar, I don't have to focus on anything but my opponent before me. That changes when you add numbers on both sides; I have to keep track of my teammates and the enemy as I fight my opponent," said Momoe in a pondering tone. "I've never been in a battle with hundreds of people, but I assume that it would be difficult to keep track of your surroundings when there are so many people actively fighting around you—are you being mindful of them... are they being mindful of you? I believe having jonin there further complicates the situation as well."
Kameko had to pause because the questions until now were along the lines of "What was it like?" where she didn't have to think much. So suddenly, facing a more profound question warranted her thinking about the answer before she could reply properly.
"It's too much to keep track of, and I was scared because I hadn't been part of such a battle. Strangely, I wasn't as stressed as I should've been in that situation... and that was because I had a teammate covering my back, and I was doing the same for her." Kameko thought about how she and Rikku were protecting each other in the dangerous pit where lives were cut down every minute. "Instead of putting it all on myself and inevitably getting overwhelmed, I trusted my teammate, and we shared responsibilities."
Momoe looked at Aimi, sitting beside Kameko and Hideaki at the corner of the table, stuffing his face with food.
"I guess that makes sense," she smiled while gazing at her teammates.
"How did the battle end?" Izumi asked.
"It ended when two enemy jonin died, and the remaining one chose to flee. Everything started to collapse as some managed to flee, but most of them were killed," Kameko answered, but as she was looking back to her memories, she realised there was another just as significant turning point. "However, I think the first heavy blow to the enemy was when my team targeted the iryo-nin. Takuma found the mine the iryo-nin were hidden—"
"I did hear that Takuma was on your team. How's that wimp doing these days?"
Kameko was rudely interrupted. Sitting behind her at another table was Inuzuka Hiji, Hana's cousin and their batch's jackass. His annoying voice seemed more grating to her ears than it ever did when they were in the academy.
"No one's going to think you're a mute if you stay quiet, Hiji," Arisu said in a fed-up voice with disgust in her eyes.
"Oh, come on. I'm just asking how an old friend is doing," said Hiji, smirking.
Everyone in the gathering knew that the relationship between Takuma and Hiji was the farthest from friends. Hiji and his group had constantly bullied Takuma in the later years of the academy. In the final year, Takuma stopped following their orders and ceased showing any reaction to their words, which made Hiji and his group lose interest in him.
"Why do you have to be so childish, Hiji? Your attitude is the reason you were passed on for promotions after the exams," Hana sighed disappointedly at her cousin.
Hiji's smirk collapsed into a glare. The two cousins were the same age and often compared to one another. Hana had always been ahead and was used as an example for Hiji to do better. It had only gotten worse now that she had made chunin while he was still a genin.
"You should make amends with him the next time you see him," said Hana.
Hiji scoffed at the idea, which pissed off Kameko. She wouldn't have cared before, but after spending months on the same team with Takuma and having gone through their time in Yu, she felt more than irritation at Hiji's attitude.
"If you can't make amends, then you should at least act civil," Izumi added on the topic. She and Hiji were on the same jonin team, and in many ways, he was compared to Izumi more than Hana because they were on the same team, and she was yet another person ahead of him. "He's not the same person he was before. Takuma was made a senior officer in the Police Force while he was a genin and trusted to lead a new team. That's something to be respected."
"And Takuma has experienced a war, which none of us can claim to have done," said Arisu.
Hiji looked taken aback because he wasn't expecting so much pushback. He noticed people staring at him and how the merry vibe of the gathering had come down, and everyone was treating it like it was his fault.
He scoffed and rolled his eyes, "Whatever, I will respect that wimp when I see what's so impressive about him. We can fight if he wants, and we'ill definitely beat that weakling, won't we, Kuragari!"
Hiji's black ninken, Kuragiri, playing with Hana's Haimaru triplets in the side, stood up and barked excitedly while showing his sharp teeth. Just like the triplets, Kuragiri had grown as well, was bigger and bulkier, and looked more menacing than them.
Kameko wasn't intending to, but she scoffed and did it loud enough that Hiji glared at her.
"What? You don't think he would beat us, do you?"
She had seen and fought both of them and compared the two boys. They were similar in that their combat style was crude and brutal; she instantly felt the difference between them.
Hiji and his ninken were a pain to fight with their trained coordination and the Inuzuka clan's taijutsu and ninjutsu; he was also feral in his approach and went at his opponents with full force because he didn't have another gear, which often made him difficult to handle but it was quite one-dimensional.
Takuma, on the other hand, tried to overwhelm them by causing as much damage as possible to end fights quickly. However, Takuma could and did observe his opponent and adjusted his approach, which made it difficult for him to fight. Then there was his skill with all three disciplines of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu—which not only made him defend to plan against; it also made him much more flexible in how he could go about causing damage. She had also seen him fight in the manor house against the ROOT agents. She could be wrong, but she didn't think Hiji had the combat sense and control Takuma had shown that day.
And that was all on top of the solid proof that Takuma had defeated an experienced chunin with a strong command over a B-rank jutsu.
"If you spar, he'll defeat you," Kameko said calmly to Hiji as everyone listened, "but if you fight, he will kill you..." She didn't know how to put it any other way— Takuma was a fighter in a spar, but he was a killer in a real fight.
Those two were very different shinobi, and the latter was ten times more terrifying than the former.
Hiji laughed so loud that it hurt their ears. He tumbled to the floor while holding his side, and his ninken mimicked his partner by barking joyously. "Takuma? Beating me? He hasn't touched me in our spars once—and you say that he could kill me!" he laughed.
Usually, she would only think of such behaviour as childish and beneath her, but perhaps because she had spent nearly a year with Takuma as her teammate, she felt bothered because they had gone through so much together. She wanted to wipe the smirk off Hiji's face and scare him, so she said something she wouldn't have said otherwise because of how it had affected Takuma.
"... Killing you won't be much of a challenge, seeing that he's already killed a jonin," she said.
Hiji didn't hear her, and on top of his own laughter, he asked, "What did you say?"
However, people sitting near her on the table did hear her. Sitting across from her, Momoe heard her but felt as though she had misheard.
"I'm sorry, Kameko, did you just say that... he killed a jonin."
Kameko turned to her and said, "Yes, he killed a jonin. And in fact, he—"
"Kameko..."
Kameko froze when she heard a familiar voice. She turned around and saw Takuma, along with Taro, standing a few steps away from their table. He had a grave expression on his face, and he only said one word.
"Enough."
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
109 Power
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