CH_2.11 (042)

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*Riiip!*

Takuma couldn't completely escape the sweeping sword. The tip of the blade edge sliced through the fabric of his vest, splitting the threads when it wanted to split the skin beneath it.

The ground under Takuma's feet exploded as he threw himself back faster than before with desperation as the scent of Kameko's forged steel blade lingered under his nose.

Kameko leaned back and eased her stance, choosing not to immediately pursue Takuma. Instead, her cat-like eyes followed him as he escaped beyond the reach of her blade.

Takuma put his hands on his chest, feeling his chainmail undervest through the tear in his vest with one hand while his other held the kunai in front. He looked down at his hand to see if the swing had drawn blood to find only sweat on his fingers. His ears picked up a sound, and he looked up to see the flash of Kameko's blade cover his vision.

He brought up the kunai, and sparks flew as metal met metal. Takuma took a step back to stabilize himself as he felt the weight of the heavier long blade pushing against his wrist. He looked up at Kameko and he was close enough to see the specks in her yellow eyes—

So he headbutted her in the face.

"Ugh," Kameko disengaged and fell back away from Takuma, who threw the kunai at her that she deflected with the sword. Takuma rushed forward and slashed at her with a kunai, aiming to end the fight early. Kameko shrugged off his first and second strikes with the edge of her blade and sent a jab to Takuma's stomach. He sidestepped as his kunai altered the stab's direction.

Takuma stepped in further, grabbed the wrist of Kameko's sword arm, and bent it. Kameko mirrored the move and they grappled, tripping and falling in the first. There was a scramble, a dropped sword, a gut punch, a curse, a retrieved sword, and a heavy kick, and then both were back up, circling.

Takuma didn't waste any time and rushed in to overwhelm her. A poor choice as a horizontal sweep almost cut Takuma's face off. He fell back and touched his nose to this time find blood on his fingertips. He eyed the blade that granted Kameko an extended range he lacked, and he decided to keep his distance.

Kameko had the opposite plan as she closed in the distance again, keeping her sword parallel to the ground and aimed at Takuma's chest. Takuma did his best footwork to avoid the sword. A slit appeared in his sleeve above his shoulder as he pulled back. Takuma hurled the kunai in his offhand in a shoddy throw and it flew a little above than intended.

Kameko shifted her head to let the kunai pass. For a moment, Takuma had breathing room as he escaped out of sword's range. But then Kameko swung her sword and Takuma saw red.

The sword passed by, missing him by an inch, and yet a spurt of blood gushed out from a long wound that suddenly split open on his chest in the same place where Kameko had ripped his vest. Even if he mistook the blade missing him, the light chainmail under his vest didn't do anything, and as Takuma fell down, he could see the clean continuous line slit from one side to the other.

Kameko eased her stance, and without sparing a glance to her blade, she deposited it into the sheath as she peered down at a trembling Takuma who was looking at his bloodied hands.

"Get up," Yoshio said as he arrived beside the pair.

Takuma writhing on the ground tensed his muscles for what seemed like an excruciatingly long moment before he forced himself to get up with his face twisted into an extreme grimace with sweat pouring out of his body at an alarming rate.

His vision blurred as he raised his bloodied hand to form the Seal of Reconciliation. Kameko had to adjust her part of the seal to grab his shaking hand.

Then without saying a word, Takuma started walking away from the group with no one other than Kameko tailing behind him. She didn't help him even as he struggled to take steps, swaying dangerously from side to side, almost falling down many times.

"Ooh, now that's a nasty one."

Takuma's destination was the shady guy shinobi who worked as the basic training's medic as his qualification as an Iryo-nin (Medical Shinobi).

Shady Guy got up from his foldable chair as Takuma collapsed on a stretcher under the medium-sized tent with three tents and a few boxes with supplies.

"You got lucky, huh girly, snipping him just in the right place to make him lose blood," said the Shady Guy as he pulled off Takuma's vest, chainmail shirt, and cotton undervest, causing him to scream in pain as it disturbed the wound sending a sharp screeching pain through his body.

"I don't get lucky," Kameko muttered with her sharp eyes narrowing.

Shady Guy chuckled as he checked Takuma's wound. He weaved hand seals for an iridescent green glow of Shosen Jutsu (Mystical Palm Jutsu) over his hands that he placed over Takuma's wound, and after some time, the blood stopped leaking out of the exposed internals. Shady Guy stopped his healing jutsu and then proceeded to clean up the wounds. He then cast another Shosen Jutsu to finally close Takuma's wound before dressing the semi-stable recently healed wound that could still catch infection or other complications. He then walked to one of the cold boxes and pulled out a glass vial with a dark brown opaque tint whose contents he made Takuma drink.

"There... all good again," Shady Guy slapped Takuma on one cheek to snap him out of his dizzy haze.

Takuma didn't feel all good in any form. He wasn't used to the feeling of getting an injury, only for it to be healed within the next twenty or so minutes. His head felt heavy and a shiver gripped his body as he got up from the stretcher to return back to his team as mandated by Yoshio. The feeling was horrible.

Every time someone was injured, they were sent to Shady Guy to get healed. If the injury was minor, like a shallow cut on the arm, people could return in a couple minutes as if they had never been injured. If the injuries were major, like a deep cut that hemorrhaged blood to the point of serious blood loss, they would end up like Takuma— there were worse cases as well.

No one was allowed to help the injured party drag themselves to the medical tent if they could do so themselves, even if barely. The person who had inflicted the injury would accompany the person in case they collapsed. Yoshio wanted them to get used to what he called functioning under damage. He wanted them to function unaided after they were gravely injured to secure themselves away from danger and survive until they were patched up— he then wanted them to operate to a competent degree right after getting healed so that they wouldn't become an absolute burden. Of course, Yoshio talked in idealistic terms, as overly serious injuries could outright disable the shinobi from any movement— but any ability to function under life-threatening harm was absolutely valuable in survival.

"I'm leaving," Kameko announced and walked away without waiting for a response.

Takuma didn't feel like replying to her and focused on trudging his way back to the group, where he dumped himself with his team, lying down on the ground with his arm over his forehead.

"You sure suck against fast people," Masaaki commented as he peered down at Takuma directly over his face.

"Shut... I know," Takuma mid-way abandoned his attempt to argue and just accepted the comment. It was true. Faster, quicker opponents were his bane based on his win-loss statistic— ironic, given that his win was against a nimble opponent. But unlike Aimi, his defeats came from opponents who could deal significant damage while being fast like Kameko. He just couldn't keep up with them with his taijutsu. An important factor that he included in his decision when choosing Raiton: Shokku (Lightning Release: Shock) as his first jutsu.

He turned his head towards Taro. "What was that?" he asked.

Taro, the person who knew most about essentially everything in the team, eyed Takuma briefly before drawling out the answer. "Taketori clan practices their special brand of swordplay, something that is classified as a high-ranking kenjutsu. And it's not as simple as swinging a sword in a certain way. There are actual jutsu combined with the swordplay that makes it a high-ranking bukijutsu," he shrugged. "She simply used a jutsu from her clan."

"She didn't weave any hand seals," Takuma mentioned his observation.

This time, it wasn't Taro who answered, but it was Masaaki who spoke up. "It's bukijutsu. Kenjutsu is a type of bukijutsu. A lot of it is based on top of a fuinjutsu base. Maybe there's something in her sword. If not, then there are a few instances that don't require hand seals at all. The Samurai that serve as Daimao's retainers use swordplay that doesn't require hand seals to activate— maybe it's something like that."

Takuma was surprised to hear an opinion from Masaaki. His jovial and goofy teammate was many things, but he was not a person who would express profound knowledge in conversations. His reputation was a strong guy who operated more on polished instinct than learned understanding. Takuma glanced at Nenro and Ai, and while they shrugged, they didn't seem surprised by Masaaki's sudden bout of knowledge. Takuma attributed that to childhood friends knowing much more about Masaaki than he could've learned in a mere month. It took years to truly know a person.

"It's their clan's jutsu, speculation is pointless without further evidence. We can just infer from what we know," Taro said in conclusion.

Takuma didn't know if he agreed with the first part, but he did concur with the second part of the statement. He now knew that Kameko could potentially slice her opponents even if the blade of her sword didn't reach him— essentially extending the reach of her blade. Was it a wind element jutsu? Or something elementless that simply created a cutting surface on top of the sword? Whatever it was, she could extend her range.

The important question that needed to be considered was the upper limit of the extension. Was it a couple inches, or could she seemingly double the length of her blade— maybe even more.

"That headbutt was funny!" Masaaki laughed merrily.

"Ugh, I felt that from here. My nose felt warm when you did that," Ai grimaced as she glanced toward Kameko's team. "She's lucky that you didn't break her nose."

"I tried to do just that," Takuma said with a frustrated sigh, "she ducked her head at the last moment." He had gotten his chest cut open; the least she could do was get her nosy bloody.

"I'm still surprised she used a jutsu against you," Taro said as he watched the ongoing spar.

"What do you mean?" Nenro asked.

"She good. He bad," Taro replied, not even bothering to form a complete sentence.

"I hope you're my next opponent. I'll show you who bad," Takuma commented as his head got clearer. He sat up on the ground and took a swig from his canteen before speaking: "She was probably pissed that I completed the tree-climbing practice challenge before her and took that out on me," he clicked his tongue.

Takuma took another swig from his canteen as he looked at the ongoing spar with his own spar replaying in his mind. His mind automatically went back to every split-second of the fight, and it was then he noticed the small crater hole in the ground, and after a couple seconds of staring, he recalled that he was the one who had made that.

'Hmm?'

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