Survival Exercise, Solo Combat

Iruka stood ten meters away, still clutching the two bells in his hand. His expression was as calm as if he were taking roll call in class.

Takuma took a deep breath, pushed off the ground, and charged straight forward like an arrow released from a bowstring.

Iruka raised an eyebrow slightly. He had originally expected this student to choose a stalling tactic, using the terrain to circle around and try to drag the time out until the end.

Iruka sidestepped the punch and backhanded a palm toward Takuma's shoulder. He controlled the force to just enough to make someone lose their balance—the same technique he had used to deal with the previous two students.

His palm landed solidly. The tactile feedback told him the strike had connected well; under normal circumstances, his opponent should have been sent flying sideways, rolling on the ground a couple of times before coming to a stop.

Takuma didn't budge.

Iruka froze for a split second. In that fraction of a second of hesitation, Takuma's second punch arrived—an upward hook that slammed solidly into Iruka's blocking arm. The force was thirty percent greater than the first punch, leaving Iruka's forearm slightly numb.

The kid was holding back earlier.

Iruka quickly retreated to open up some distance, re-evaluating the opponent before him. Takuma did not pursue, instead standing in place to regulate his breathing. The palm strike he had taken head-on seemed to have had no effect on him; his left shoulder moved freely, and he didn't even show an instinctive urge to rub it.

Iruka knew the force of his own palm strike very well. Even if it didn't break bones, muscle soreness and restricted movement were inevitable. Yet, the student before him acted as if nothing had happened after taking the hit, and was even able to counterattack immediately.

He put away the bells and formed hand seals—Shadow Clone Technique. Two clones appeared simultaneously on his left and right, forming a triangular formation with the original. He had used the same tactic to deal with the previous two groups, but this time he was more cautious: he allocated twenty percent more chakra to the clones because he wasn't sure where this kid's bottom line actually was.

All three Irukas moved at once.

Takuma's pupils constricted. His intuition was screaming a warning—threats from three directions arriving almost simultaneously. There were no feints; these were all real, solid attacks. Iruka had distributed his chakra evenly among every clone, intending to end the battle in one go.

Takuma made a split-second judgment, his body reacting faster than his brain—he abandoned any attempt to dodge and instead actively lunged toward the Iruka directly in front of him. He took a hand-blade strike to his left shoulder, the sharp pain from his bone making him wince, but he used that impact to change his direction, rolling away like a spinning top through the gap between the two clones.

He rolled three times on the ground and scrambled up in a disheveled state. The spot on his left shoulder where the hand-blade had struck was burning, and his joint made a faint clicking sound when he raised his arm, but it was still functional. He shook his left hand, pulled an explosive tag from his ninja pouch, and stuck it directly onto the ground by his feet.

Iruka's pursuit came to an abrupt halt. His original body stopped three steps away from Takuma, staring at the explosive tag on the ground with a subtle expression.

"You're sticking an explosive tag by your own feet?"

"Yep." Takuma grinned, his mouth still smeared with the dust from his roll. "I'm not as fast as you, and I can't beat you in a fight, but if you want to close in and grab me, we're both going up in smoke."

Iruka was silent for two seconds. He was a Chunin; he could use the Body Replacement Technique to dodge an explosion at this distance, but this student certainly couldn't. He was using his own life as a bargaining chip to force him back.

"The blast radius of an explosive tag is three meters," Iruka said. "You're standing at the center of the blast. Even if I get caught in it, your injuries will definitely be worse than mine."

"I know." Takuma's smile didn't waver. "But I can take it."

He said it nonchalantly, as if he were mentioning that the cafeteria food was a bit too salty today. Iruka stared into his eyes and found no trace of bluffing. This kid really intended to do it.

Iruka didn't intend to give him the chance. He formed a seal with one hand, and the ground beneath his feet suddenly turned soft—not an offensive jutsu, just turning the earth into mud. Takuma suddenly lost his footing and stumbled backward. In that one moment of imbalance, Iruka used the Body Flicker Technique to cut in, kicked the explosive tag away, and followed up with a hand-blade strike.

Takuma's left hand, which had been hanging limp, suddenly moved—the arm that had clearly been too injured to lift just moments ago had already regained its mobility in the time it took to exchange those few words.

A kunai stabbed toward the rope holding the bells at Iruka's waist. As long as he cut that rope, the bells would fall, and according to the rules, the capture would be a success.

Iruka's pupils constricted. When the kunai was less than two centimeters from the bells, his body twisted at an angle that almost defied human anatomy—the bell rope grazed the edge of the kunai, getting nicked, but not completely severed.

At the same time, Iruka's elbow slammed into Takuma's chest. He didn't hold back this time; Takuma felt as if he had been hit by a bull, and he went flying backward.

Before he could scramble up, Iruka was already on top of him, his knee pinning Takuma's back, one hand pressing down on the nape of his neck, and the other twisting his left arm behind his back. A grapple lock—all paths of resistance were sealed off simultaneously.

"Combat over." Iruka's voice came from above, his breathing slightly uneven—not from physical exertion, but from the cold sweat the previous moment had induced. "Surrender."

Takuma's face was pressed into the dirt, his mouth full of sand. He struggled twice, only to realize there was truly no way to break free; Iruka's locking technique was professional, pinning down even his leverage points.

"...I give up."

Iruka released him, stood up, glanced down at the bell rope at his waist, and reached out to pull Takuma up from the ground.

"You let me hit your shoulder on purpose."

"Not exactly on purpose." Takuma rubbed his chest, wincing as he moved his twisted left arm. "It was a gamble. If I won, you'd get close, and I'd have a chance to steal the bells. If I lost, I'd get pinned to the ground and beaten."

There were many things Iruka wanted to ask—was this recovery ability innate or trained? What was the limit? Could he recover from a fatal wound? But in the end, he asked nothing. It was a basic rule among ninjas not to pry into each other's trump cards, even between teacher and student.

"Your way of fighting is very dangerous," was all he said in the end.

"I know." Takuma moved his left shoulder; the spot where the hand-blade had struck still ached faintly, but it didn't hinder his movement. "But it's effective."

Iruka was silent for a while, then took out his grade sheet and wrote a few lines. His pen hovered over the "Remarks" column for a few seconds before he finally wrote: Excellent tactical thinking, physical durability and recovery speed far exceed his peers. Suggest focusing on cultivating his unique combat style during taijutsu training.

"Do you have anything else to say?" Iruka closed the grade sheet.

Takuma thought for a moment. "Sensei, can you teach me that elbow strike you used earlier?"

Iruka was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help but laugh. It was rare to see such a mindset, still thinking about learning techniques after being beaten like that.

"Wait until you've mastered the basics."

Takuma chuckled, rubbed his still-aching chest, and walked out of the training ground. He ran straight into the guilty-looking faces of Yamada and Sato.

Yamada kept his head down, his lips moving slightly. "Sorry, we should have listened to your tactics—"

"Enough talk." Takuma interrupted him, reaching out to pat both of them on the shoulder. "Your frontal breakthrough wasn't actually the wrong direction; Iruka-sensei was indeed caught off guard by us. It's just that the gap in speed and power was too large; no matter how good the tactics are, they're useless."

Sato's eyes were a bit red. "Then what do we do next time?"

"What do we do?" Takuma grinned. "Get stronger. Strong enough that even a Chunin can't react to your shuriken and shadow clones. When that happens, a frontal breakthrough will be a real frontal breakthrough, not one with quotation marks."

Yamada and Sato looked at each other and laughed simultaneously. Although they had lost, the atmosphere between the three was much lighter than before.

By the time school ended, the sunset had dyed the training ground a deep orange. Takuma packed his things, ready to head home, when he saw a familiar figure at the school gate.

Tenten was leaning against the gatepost with her ninja tool bag. Seeing him come out, she pulled a bottle from her bag and handed it over.

"Bruise medicine. From our shop—it works better than what the medical team prescribes." Her tone was casual, her gaze sweeping over Takuma. "I heard you got beaten up pretty badly today."

"What do you mean 'beaten up pretty badly'? That's called tactical taking-of-hits."

"Tactical taking-of-hits." Tenten repeated the phrase and burst into laughter. "You're the first person I've ever met who can say that with such a straight face."

"It's true, though." Takuma said seriously. "Look, I cut two-thirds of the rope on Iruka-sensei's bells. I was the only one in the whole class to do that. Can you call that getting beaten up? That's called strategically approaching victory."

"And the missing third?"

"...I was pinned to the ground eating sand."

Tenten laughed so hard she doubled over, taking a long time to recover. "You, you were beaten so badly, how do you still have so much to say?"

"Because my mouth didn't get hit." Takuma tucked the medicine into his ninja pouch. "How much for this? Should I put it on my tab or pay cash?"

"It's a gift."

Takuma paused. Tenten had already turned and walked away, waving at him without looking back, her twin buns bobbing in the sunset. She walked a few steps, then stopped and said without turning her head, "Win next time, or it'll have been a waste of my gift."

"...Got it."