Iruka stood ten meters away, still clutching the two bells. His expression was as calm as if he were calling on someone to answer a question in class.
Takuma took a deep breath, pushed off with his feet, and charged straight at him like an arrow loosed from its bowstring.
Iruka raised an eyebrow slightly. He had expected this student to use a stalling tactic, maneuvering around the training ground and trying to run out the clock.
Iruka sidestepped the punch and struck Takuma's shoulder with his palm. He controlled the force so it was just enough to throw someone off balance—the same technique he had used to take down the previous two students.
His palm connected solidly. The impact told him the blow had landed squarely. Under normal circumstances, his opponent should have gone flying sideways and rolled across the ground a couple of times before stopping.
Takuma didn't budge.
Iruka froze for a fraction of a second. In that brief pause, Takuma's second punch was already coming—a rising uppercut that slammed into Iruka's guarding arm. It was thirty percent stronger than the first punch, and it left Iruka's forearm tingling.
The kid had been holding back earlier.
Iruka quickly retreated to put some distance between them, reassessing his opponent. Takuma didn't pursue him, instead staying where he was to steady his breathing. That palm strike he had taken head-on seemed to have done nothing to him. His left shoulder moved freely, and he didn't even rub it instinctively.
Iruka knew exactly how hard he had struck. Even if he hadn't broken anything, muscle soreness and restricted movement were unavoidable. Yet this student had taken a palm strike and acted as if nothing had happened. He'd even counterattacked immediately.
Iruka put away the bells and formed Hand Seals—Shadow Clone Technique. Two clones appeared on either side of him, forming a triangle with his original body. He had used the same move against the previous two groups, but this time he took extra care: he gave the clones twenty percent more chakra than before because he wasn't sure how far this kid could go.
All three Irukas moved at once.
Takuma's pupils narrowed. His instincts screamed a warning: threats were closing in from three directions almost simultaneously. There were no feints; every attack was real. Iruka had distributed his chakra evenly among the clones, intending to end the fight in one go.
Takuma made his decision in an instant. His body reacted faster than his mind—he gave up on dodging and instead charged straight at the Iruka in front of him. He took a chop to the left shoulder, the pain in his bones making him grimace, but he used the impact to change direction, spinning like a top and rolling out from between the two clones.
He rolled across the ground three times, then scrambled to his feet in a sorry state. The spot where the chop had struck his left shoulder burned, and his joint gave a faint click when he raised his arm, but he could still move it. He shook out his left hand, pulled an Explosive Tag from his ninja tool pouch, and stuck it to the ground right beside his feet.
Iruka's pursuit came to an abrupt halt. His original body stopped three steps away from Takuma and stared at the Explosive Tag on the ground, his expression complicated.
"You stuck an Explosive Tag right beside your own feet?"
"Yeah." Takuma grinned, dust from his tumble still clinging to the corner of his mouth. "I can't outrun you, and I can't beat you in a fight. But if you try to grab me up close, we'll both go flying."
Iruka fell silent for two seconds. He was a Chunin and could use the Substitution Technique to escape an Explosive Tag detonating at that distance, but this student certainly couldn't. Takuma was using his own life as a bargaining chip to make him back off.
"An Explosive Tag has a blast radius of three meters," Iruka said. "You're standing at the center of the blast. Even if I'm caught in it too, you'll be hurt worse than I am."
"I know." Takuma's grin didn't falter. "But I can take it."
He said it casually, as if he were commenting that the cafeteria food was a little too salty today. Iruka stared into his eyes and saw no hint of a bluff. The kid really meant to do it.
Iruka wasn't going to give him the chance. He formed a Hand Seal with one hand, and the ground beneath them suddenly softened—not an attack Ninjutsu, just a way to make the ground muddy and loose. Takuma abruptly lost his footing and stumbled backward. As soon as he lost his balance, Iruka used the Body Flicker Technique to close in, kicked away the Explosive Tag, then ducked in and struck with a hand chop.
Takuma's left hand, which had been hanging at his side, suddenly moved. His left arm, which Iruka had just struck hard enough to keep him from raising it, had already regained its mobility while they'd exchanged those few words.
A Kunai stabbed toward the cord holding the bells at Iruka's waist. If Takuma cut the cord and the bells fell to the ground, he would have won according to the rules.
Iruka's pupils narrowed. With the Kunai less than two centimeters from the bells, he twisted his body at an angle that seemed to defy the limits of his joints. The bell cord skimmed the blade's edge and was nicked, but it didn't break completely.
At the same time, Iruka's elbow slammed into Takuma's chest. He didn't hold back this time. Takuma felt as if he'd been hit by a bull and went flying backward.
Before he could get up, Iruka was already on top of him. He planted a knee between Takuma's shoulder blades, pinned the back of his neck with one hand, and twisted his left arm behind his back with the other. The hold locked him down, cutting off every avenue of resistance at once.
"The fight is over." Iruka's voice came from above him, his breathing slightly unsteady—not from the exertion, but from the cold sweat that surprise had brought on after that last move. "Give up."
Takuma's face was pressed into the ground, and he had a mouthful of sand. He struggled twice, then realized he had no chance of escaping. Iruka's hold was professional; even the points where he could apply force were locked down.
"...I give up."
Iruka released him and stood, glancing down at the cord holding the bells before reaching out to pull Takuma to his feet.
"You let me hit your shoulder on purpose."
"Not exactly on purpose." Takuma rubbed his chest and grimaced as he tested his twisted left arm. "I just took a gamble. If I won, you'd get close, and I'd have a chance to steal the bells. If I lost, you'd pin me to the ground and beat me."
Iruka had plenty of questions—was this recovery ability innate or trained? What were its limits? Could he recover from a fatal injury? But in the end, he didn't ask any of them. It was a basic rule among shinobi not to pry into each other's trump cards, even between teacher and student.
"Fighting like that is dangerous," he said at last.
"I know." Takuma rolled his left shoulder. The spot where the hand chop had landed still ached faintly, but it didn't affect his movement. "But it works."
Iruka was silent for a while, then took out the score sheet and wrote a few lines. His pen paused over the "Remarks" section for several seconds before he finally wrote: Excellent tactical thinking. Physical resilience and recovery speed far beyond those of his peers. Recommend focusing on developing his unique fighting style in Taijutsu sparring classes.
"Do you have anything else to say?" Iruka closed the score sheet.
Takuma thought for a moment. "Sensei, could you teach me that elbow strike you just used?"
Iruka froze, then couldn't help laughing. It was rare for someone who'd taken such a beating to still be thinking about learning a new move.
"Maybe once you've mastered the basics."
Takuma chuckled, rubbed his still-aching chest, and left the training ground. He ran into Yamada and Sato, who were looking at him with guilty expressions.
Yamada lowered his head, his lips moving a few times. "Sorry. We should've listened to your strategy—"
"Cut it out." Takuma interrupted him and patted them both on the shoulders, one on either side. "Your frontal assault was actually the right idea. Iruka-sensei really was caught off guard by us. We just couldn't make up for the huge gap in speed and strength. No matter how good the strategy is, it won't help."
Sato's eyes were a little red. "So 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 Clone Technique. Then a frontal assault will really be a frontal assault—with no quotation marks."
Yamada and Sato exchanged a look, then both laughed. They had lost, but the atmosphere between the three of them was much more relaxed than before.
By the time school let out, the sunset had turned the training ground orange-red. Takuma packed his things and got ready to head home. At the school gate, he spotted a familiar figure.
Tenten leaned against a gatepost with her ninja tool pouch on her back. When she saw him come out, she pulled a bottle from her pouch and handed it to him.
"Liniment. It's from our shop, and it works better than what the Medical Corps prescribes." Her tone was casual as her gaze swept over him. "I heard you got beaten up pretty badly today."
"What do you mean, got beaten up pretty badly? It was a tactical beating."
"A tactical beating." Tenten repeated the phrase, then burst out laughing. "You're the first person I've met who can talk about getting beaten up with such confidence."
"That's what it was." Takuma put on a serious face. "Look, I cut through two-thirds of the cord holding Iruka-sensei's bells. I was the only one who managed that. How can you call that getting beaten up? It was a strategic step away from victory."
"What about the last third?"
"...I got pinned to the ground and ate sand."
Tenten laughed until she doubled over. It took her a good while to recover. "You're something else. You got beaten up that badly, and you still have so much to say?"
"Because they didn't hit my mouth." Takuma stuffed the liniment into his ninja tool pouch. "How much is this? Should I put it on my tab or pay cash?"
"It's on the house."
Takuma froze. Tenten had already turned and walked away, waving to him with her back turned. Her double buns bobbed in the sunset. After a few steps, she stopped and said without looking back, "You'd better win next time, or I'll have given this to you for nothing."
"...Got it."
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