CH_8.24 (289)

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Takuma didn't rush in, nor did he pause to relax. Almost getting a hit in was nothing special when Mikoto was playing around with him. Unlike Maruboshi, who purposefully left openings to see if he would notice and correctly exploit them to test his techniques, Mikoto was a typical sparring opponent, and thus, a constant source of threat and pressure.

As he thought about his next move, Mikoto looked down at her sword and scabbard before looking up at Takuma.

"You almost got one in there, Takuma," she said.

"Not at all."

"Hmm, I've gotten rusty." She gazed at him for a moment. "Do you always fight like this? It didn't seem like you were trying to trade damage."

"No, this is not how I usually fight. I was trying to mimic—no, take inspiration—from how Maruboshi-sensei fights," said Takuma, pointing his chin in his old teacher's direction. Seeing that they were conversing, he slightly relaxed and lowered his head with a sigh. "I'm too wrapped in my way of fighting; I can't see how to get out of it... so I thought, what if I tried to try to copy other fighters that I know? Maybe that will expand my mind, and something will stick."

Bishop's style of layering pressure until the opponent broke; Masaaki's opportunistic, quality-over-quantity way of fighting; Maruboshi's stable footwork that he was forced to develop after losing his leg; Nenro's set-up approach with ninjutsu. Because he had built his entire style by observing others in the Ring, he knew every fighter had something they could offer him.

But Takuma had trapped himself in a bubble; perhaps it was because he had learned in the Ring, where everyone fought similarly because they learned from other Ring fighters; he had trapped himself in the bubble. He wanted to see what he could take from shinobi who weren't from the Ring, and break out of his bubble.

"Learning from others, is it?" she said to herself with a smile. "This isn't suitable then..." Mikoto sheathed her sword and threw it behind her; it spun in the air before stabbing the ground with the tip almost perpendicular to the surface.

She raised her arms in a defensive block and opened her legs to form a wide stance. "Come at me, Takuma. Try out what you want to take from others, and let's check if you're any good at taking," she said as she rotated her wrists.

Takuma thought she was switching to something like his spars with Maruboshi.

Mikoto took out a kunai but stayed still at her spot, so Takuma carefully shuffled toward her with four tentacles holding a kunai each. When he entered her personal space, he jolted at her with a quick sweep kick while all four tentacles moved simultaneously.

The sweep was supposed to lock her legs so she couldn't move to dodge the four kunai. Mikoto's wide stance ensured that her back leg was already out of Takuma's reach and the moment his leg left the ground for the sweep, she moved by pulling her front leg back.

But while the sweep missed its mark, the four tentacles stabbed simultaneously at different parts of her body.

While she was pulling back her leg, she bent her knees to lower her height to gain half a second worth of additional travel time before the kunai reached her—which was enough for her to swing her own kunai to parry two tentacles. Mikoto twisted her torso to evade the third while her empty hand smashed into the final tentacle, cutting is in half; the final kunai lost all momentum and bounced harmlessly off her shoulder.

Takuma was dumbfounded by Mikoto's movements and immediately jumped away. Despite her awkward body position, Mikoto was faster and slammed a palm into his lower abdomen, sending him flying. He crashed on his back but immediately rolled up to his feet to get ready for a counter, only to see her walking toward him.

He took a breath and focused on his footwork as she came in closer—his goal was not to get hit. He made the first move and flowed into a quick chain of rolling punches for her face, but she effortlessly dodged all of them with fluid head movement. Before Takuma could reset his hand, Mikoto moved and laid a heavy blow into his kidney. He felt a pain take root in his body as his feet left the ground for a split second. His eyes remained on Mikoto, so his breathing hitched when he saw a spinning heel kick coming for his face.

His reflexes were stretched to the limit as he pulled his body down to duck under the kick the moment his feet touched the ground.

This isn't working. Takuma rolled to the side to evade a punch coming down at his face. The roll made him lose sight of Mikoto, and at that exact moment, she crouched down and took out his legs with a sweep.

I need to do something different, he thought as he used the tentacles and all his limbs to push himself away from her a second before she threw down an axe kick, cratering the ground and spraying him with dirt.

Mikoto's movements were fast and fluid, and there was minimal time for him to retaliate. The window to act was small, and any careless attempts had seen him punished. He needed to slow her down, but how was he going to accomplish that?

Takuma's writhing tentacles came into his view as he hastily got up, and a thought light-bulbed in his mind. Tentacles and snakes were the same shape and Anko often used a variation of the summoning jutsu to summon snakes from her person to bind her opponent, serve as a distraction, or straight-up attack them with venom.

He took a breath and split the four tentacles into eight; now that she was no longer using her sword, he didn't need them to be as strong. They just needed to be strong enough to partially hinder her movement, and he would take care of the rest.

He ran toward her before snapping a kick at her stomach. Mikoto took a step back and received the kick into her downward-facing palms. Half of the tentacles attacked and wrapped themselves around her arms while the other half held down her torso—essentially locking in her pace. She could force herself free from the tentacles because they weren't strong enough to immobilise her completely, but it would take a second more if she were just backing off.

I got her this time. Takuma cocked his arm as chakra flowed to his hand—but just before he could heave his punch, she headbutted him in the forehead. The augmentation fizzled away as he staggered back, his thoughts in turmoil.

Mikoto spun around once like a top, tearing away the tentacles holding him down. Takuma put his arms together to block a back fist aimed at his chest; he felt a sharp pain stab his bones as he blocked the strike but he ignored it and focused on the next attack.

The Anko snake-tentacle experiment wasn't a failure and the headbutt was proof of its potential.

As she threw her right hand to his head, three tentacles moved at the highest speed possible and struck her arm one after another, slowing the punch slightly. Takuma ducked under it but she whipped another punch with her free arm, forcing Takuma to merge four tentacles into two before wrapping and pulling on it.

He blocked the hit, maintaining focus thanks to the tentacles softening the blow slightly.

It's working. He whipped a punch for her throat only for Mikoto to twist her body out of the way. Takuma followed up with a biting kick, but she ducked below it and struck him in the liver. Frustrated, he tried to back away to formulate a new plan, but Mikoto stepped forward, keeping the distance between them.

"You're doing good, Takuma," said Mikoto before prying open his guard with two jabs and laying a chain of half a dozen strikes right into his chest.

The strikes were light because they were sparring, but he would've been in real trouble if they were full strength—even while she was restrained to his level. A thought flashed past his mind as he stumbled back. He could touch her with his tentacles; now, he just had to make it hurt. Not only did he know how to do that, Nenro also had a similar idea, validating Takuma's ad-hoc creation.

D-rank ninjutsu had fewer hand seals, which made it perfect for a lightning-fast spar like this. As Takuma completed the hand seals, a tentacle wrapped around his right arm. Lightning Release: Shock. The jutsu converted his chakra into lightning-nature chakra that flooded the water tentacles.

Eight Tentacles: Shock Mode

A fascinated smile appeared on Mikoto's face as Takuma rushed towards her. She didn't stay her ground like she had till then and moved in sync with him, keeping herself just barely within range of the electrified tentacles as though she wanted him to succeed.

"This is an excellent combination," she said, her eyes tracking the charged tentacles.

The tentacles swung and swiped at Mikoto, trying just to get one touch that would shock her,but she moved around effortlessly while looking at the sparking water with amusement. The joy in her eyes only made him want to get in a hit even more—and he had a tactic that he could use to take her by surprise.

Kameko's Taketori kenjutsu had the ability to extend her sword's reach, surprising her opponents and actively making them think about her sword's true length. Takuma knew no kenjutsu, but he could play with the length of his tentacles just fine.

A tentacle jabbed at Mikoto, and she moved back to evade it as she had done until then. At that exact moment, another tentacle shrunk to half its original length and transferred its water to the others, causing the tentacle jabbing at Mikoto to grow in length, which it hadn't done since the start of the fight.

Despite the failures, he was confident enough in his previous attempts that he would hit her this time—so it stung the most when Mikoto dodged the attack like she knew it was coming.

The charge in the tentacles ran out immediately after the failed attack, and Mikoto dashed in before he could recharge it, hitting him so fast it felt like all four strikes landed simultaneously.

Okay, screw this! Gritting his teeth, he reverted back to his original style and opted to stay close to get at least one solid hit in, even if he had to trade damage to do it.

He backed a punch to her face with an augmentation. Mikoto bobbed her head away before punishing him with a body shot that he absorbed and immediately went for another augmented punch for her liver, but before he could even pull his arm back to set up the punch, she hit his shoulder, stopping the punch before he could even throw it.

Takuma forced on and decided to stomp on her foot to lock it down and stab with an elbow. He went for her foot, but Mikoto shifted it to the side before stomping down on his foot in turn. Takuma knew what was coming and raised his guard, but Mikoto was faster and slipped a punch through the guard.

She then finished with an uppercut to the chin that shocked his entire body.

Despite his doubled vision, Takuma had his tentacles attack her face with water to disrupt her flow but she spun him by the shoulder, switching places with him. He had no idea why she did that and thought it was to confuse him, but then he felt a punch dig into his back; it didn't hurt badly—but it destroyed the tentacle water mass.

How did she know he was going to use the tentacles? Takuma was utterly shocked. It was as though... she knew it was... coming...

At that moment, the entire fight flashed through his mind. Not once had she taken the initiative and had simply attacked him by picking apart the weakness of his moves. She had solely fought through the counterattack. He had thought she could do that because she had made herself slightly faster to challenge him—but as the fight ran through his mind, he realised she wasn't faster than him... she simply moved before him.

She was able to punish all of his moves because she knew what he was going to do before he did it—and thus set up counters for everything he did.

Takuma looked up at her, expecting to see red eyes only to see they were still onyx.

"...Then how?"

"In our first lesson, you said you wanted to be a jonin... so, broaden your horizons; this is the surface of what it means to be one," said Mikoto before promptly knocking him out with a spinning heel kick.

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