First Real Combat

After that, Shuichi stopped practicing and tested his Chakra reserves first. Based on the points the system had already added, his current amount of Chakra should have been around three times that of Kakashi and Asuma.

When he began to feel somewhat weak, Shuichi stopped extracting Chakra.

After roughly calculating it, he could use the Transformation Technique at least a dozen times without any problem. Any more than that would probably push him past the critical limit.

After finishing the test, Shuichi took out the late-night snack he had prepared and ate it all, then went to bed early that night.

In the following lessons, the teacher taught everyone the Substitution Technique and the Clone Technique as well.

When Shuichi practiced at home, he discovered that without enough proficiency, it really was difficult to form hand seals quickly.

With less than a month of limited practice, the fastest he could manage was about four seals in one second. In other words, he could perform the Clone Technique within a second, while the Substitution Technique would probably take a little over a second.

One day in the middle of the semester, during afternoon physical training, Sanada Tomohisa brought everyone to the training ground to conduct their first simulated combat session.

Since he did not know the skill level of every child, he let the excited students choose their own opponents that day.

"Teacher, I want to challenge Takeda Shuichi!" The moment Sanada Tomohisa finished speaking, Sarutobi Asuma impatiently shouted out.

Not long after enrolling, Asuma had come to think that Yūhi Kurenai was the prettiest girl in the class.

He had wanted to approach her, but Shuichi was her desk mate, and the two of them seemed quite close. Asuma had not found a good opportunity over the past few months.

He had planned to surpass Shuichi in exam scores before approaching Yūhi Kurenai, but from the first semester onward, for three consecutive semesters, Shuichi had firmly held first place. As for Asuma himself, his grades were often not even as good as Kurenai's.

He had bottled up these feelings for nearly a year. Now that practical sparring classes had finally begun, he could not wait to challenge Shuichi.

He imagined knocking Shuichi to the ground beneath him, immediately drawing Yūhi Kurenai's attention.

Looking at Asuma's excited expression, Shuichi could more or less guess what he was thinking. Aside from marveling at how mature the children of the Naruto World were at such an early age, Shuichi had no intention of going easy on him.

Practical performance is probably one of Konoha's important evaluation criteria too. I'll go all out in every fight. Shuichi had been preparing for real combat for quite some time.

Because he had lived in a peaceful era in his previous life and had rarely gotten into fights, Shuichi had known from the moment he arrived that practical combat experience might be his weakness.

During his free time, he had constantly considered how to fight in the simplest and most efficient way using taijutsu.

The best method he had come up with so far was to learn techniques from boxing, Wing Chun, and modern combat, relying on his powerful physical abilities and reflexes to block his opponent's attacks while counterattacking when their balance was unstable.

"Form the Seal of Confrontation." Seeing both sides step forward, Sanada Tomohisa had them prepare themselves.

Forming the Seal of Confrontation before a match meant telling one's opponent that one would fight with full effort. After the match, they would form the Reconciliation Seal, symbolizing that they were companions. This was something every student had to do.

"Begin!"

At the teacher's command, the match began. Since it was their first fight since enrolling, the students were all excited, forming a large circle around them to watch.

Ishikawa Tatsuki, Kurenai, and their other friends naturally began cheering for Shuichi, while quite a few also cheered for Asuma.

"Go, Shuichi!"

"Go, Asuma!"

Asuma glanced at Shuichi across from him. Shuichi did not make any unusual movements. He merely held his fists near his waist, stood with one foot in front of the other, and leaned his upper body slightly forward to lower his center of gravity.

He did not take the initiative to attack, as though waiting for Asuma to come at him.

Asuma could not hold back for long. He let out a low growl, raised his fists to either side of his body, and charged at Shuichi.

Watching Asuma's movements, Shuichi guessed that he intended to use the momentum of his charge to throw a punch at his upper body. So, when they were still three steps apart, Shuichi took a step forward and sent his right fist toward Asuma's centerline.

When Asuma saw Shuichi suddenly move just as they were about to close in, it felt as though they were about to collide. He dodged to his right, then quickly extended his right hand and struck at Shuichi.

Shuichi had not intended to punch Asuma directly in the center. If he used a fighting style that traded injury for injury, none of these students could outlast him. But he wanted to develop a taijutsu style suited to himself.

As they drew close, Shuichi pulled back his right hand and swiftly opened and raised his left, catching Asuma's incoming fist and pulling it outward to the left in that instant.

That contact shifted Asuma's center of gravity. Before he could readjust, Shuichi's right fist drove upward at tremendous speed, striking Asuma in the stomach.

Not giving Asuma a chance to counterattack, Shuichi used the posture he had learned from Iron Mountain Lean and followed through with his shoulder, slamming into Asuma's chest. Wearing a pained expression, Asuma staggered rapidly backward.

Shuichi forcefully kicked off the ground and rushed forward. In two large strides, he closed in on Asuma, then used his right foot as a pivot, lowered his body, and swept his left leg at Asuma's lower body with the momentum.

While Asuma was still trying to ease the pain, he felt a heavy force strike his leg. Then his whole body toppled sideways.

Shuichi lunged forward, grabbed one of his wrists, twisted it behind his back, and pinned his knee against Asuma's waist as he pressed him to the ground.

"The match is over. Takeda Shuichi wins. Form the Seal of Reconciliation." Seeing that Asuma could no longer get up, Sanada Tomohisa declared the match over. Shuichi released Asuma and stood up, waiting to form the seal.

"Damn it..." Asuma panted as he got to his feet, seemingly angry that he had been defeated so quickly. He could only helplessly form the Reconciliation Seal.

"Wow, Shuichi is incredible! His attacks looked so fast!" The children below broke into lively discussion. After seeing Shuichi's clean and decisive string of attacks, many of them felt uneasy at the thought of possibly facing him in the future.

"Shuichi, you won just like that? It looked like you barely had to put in any effort!" Ishikawa Tatsuki said excitedly when Shuichi came over.

"Shuichi-kun, you really are a genius. Asuma is Lord Hokage's child, right? He was completely no match for you." Yūhi Kurenai smiled happily at him with her hand raised.

Quite a few girls also cast admiring looks at Shuichi. His refined appearance and excellent grades made it easy for him to attract girls' attention at the Ninja Academy.

"Haha, it was nothing. You all need to do your best later too! Just give it everything you have. When we hang out in the future, I'll definitely teach you everything I know." Shuichi felt that one should be high-profile in one's actions, but low-key and sociable in one's conduct.